Hi Robin

What is significantly different between poor people and slaves? The poor have little means of travel, they must work for others often doing stuff they hate doing, just to get enough to survive. In many historical societies slaves often had better conditions and housing than many of the poor today.

How would you get security in such a system? How would anyone of wealth feel safe amongst those at the bottom of the distribution curve?

The sense of injustice is strong in humans - one of those secondary stabilising strategies that empower cooperation.

It is actually relatively easy to automate all the jobs that no-one wants to do, so that people only do what they want to do. In such a world, there is no need of money or markets.

There are actually of lot of geeks like me who love to automate processes (including the process of automation).

Market based thinking was a powerful tool in times of genuine scarcity. Now that we have the power to deliver universal abundance, market based thinking is the single greatest impediment to the delivery of universal security and universal abundance.