A duplicator world is much more strongly positive sum than our current one. If I have any kind of nice material good, I can let you benefit from it at no cost to me. I would also expect the shear shock to collapse many bureaucracies. A society where say 50% of people make something, in the sense of someone who likes gardening and makes some fresh veg, or someone who likes making cloths. These people will not work very hard, and everyone else won’t work at all. (These people are doing it for much the same reason people have hobbies today. Putting a duplicator, a strawberry and a sign saying “help yourself” on the porch takes next to no effort, and is a friendly thing to do. ) The economy will thrive mostly on a take a copy, pass it on model. Over time, a more complex economy will reappear, and the name of the currency will be customization. If you want a painting of your self, or a coat tailored to your unique taste in fashion, you have to pay serious money for it. Large complex companies could be sustained that made say, motorcars. There would be a team of people who knew how every part went together, and had the tools to do complex custom jobs. If you just want a car that works, it costs you nothing or next to nothing. If you want a black and yellow striped car with extra large wheels, they are going to charge you for that, and they have the advantage in expertise that means they can do a better job with less effort than a garage mechanic. This would support an economy that has some sort of R&D chain. Some sort of copyright law might or might not exist, but there will be enough people prepared to let you copy their stuff for free that this will be a limit on some luxury or specific goods. Like modern software, not all of it is open source, but unless you have some unusual and specific requirement, you can probably do it with open source software.
A duplicator world is much more strongly positive sum than our current one. If I have any kind of nice material good, I can let you benefit from it at no cost to me. I would also expect the shear shock to collapse many bureaucracies. A society where say 50% of people make something, in the sense of someone who likes gardening and makes some fresh veg, or someone who likes making cloths. These people will not work very hard, and everyone else won’t work at all. (These people are doing it for much the same reason people have hobbies today. Putting a duplicator, a strawberry and a sign saying “help yourself” on the porch takes next to no effort, and is a friendly thing to do. ) The economy will thrive mostly on a take a copy, pass it on model. Over time, a more complex economy will reappear, and the name of the currency will be customization. If you want a painting of your self, or a coat tailored to your unique taste in fashion, you have to pay serious money for it. Large complex companies could be sustained that made say, motorcars. There would be a team of people who knew how every part went together, and had the tools to do complex custom jobs. If you just want a car that works, it costs you nothing or next to nothing. If you want a black and yellow striped car with extra large wheels, they are going to charge you for that, and they have the advantage in expertise that means they can do a better job with less effort than a garage mechanic. This would support an economy that has some sort of R&D chain. Some sort of copyright law might or might not exist, but there will be enough people prepared to let you copy their stuff for free that this will be a limit on some luxury or specific goods. Like modern software, not all of it is open source, but unless you have some unusual and specific requirement, you can probably do it with open source software.