Economic Effects of a Matter Duplicator (c) 1999 Jim Henry III (first publication, but this was written much earlier...) What if one of the most basic conditions of the market, namely, the limited quantity of all material things, no longer held good? Barring the discovery of an substance like Identium in the Venus Equilateral stories, it would no longer be possible to have any kind of money to facilitate exchanges, for neither gold nor specially printed paper nor anything else material would be finite in quantity, much less scarce enough to carry trade. What WOULD be still scarce, still something to be exchanged? Skilled labor; energy; secrets, and unique objects which have yet to be duplicated. Information, which can be duplicated by almost any technology, is more valuable (in exchange) if few people have it, and often more useful as well. For example, a story is no whit less enjoyable to read if a million copies of it are in print than if only five thousand were printed, and that thirty years ago; but in the latter case it will command a greater price. If the story is freely available on the Net, however, the latter situation will probably never come about; and if a matter duplicator were invented, what is true of public domain files on the Net would be true of any interesting material object, from famous paintings to curious fossils to prettily cut diamonds. The skilled labor of a man's brain and hands, however, would still be valuable in exchange. But what would be given in exchange for it? Not money, for being a material thing it would no longer have any value-in-exchange. It would have to be bartered, but for what? A unique object? But how do you KNOW it has never been duplicated? -- the fellow offering it may have made a duplicate for himself before he offers it to you. (In _Venus Equilateral_, an Identium seal was attached to things to show that they haven't been duplicated; but let us assume that Identium does not exist.) The only thing to exchange is your own skilled labor, or your claim to the labor of others. Why do men work? To earn money (so as to buy both necessities and luxuries), because they enjoy it, or to win admiration. With the matter duplicator, the first motive is gone, but the other two remain. For a convincing portrait of a society where the latter two motives are the only remaining ones, see "Identity" in _Venus Equilateral_, or _Voyage from Yesteryear_ by James P. Hogan. Thus, it seems that with material things, the things needed to keep body and soul together, no longer scarce, there is no longer any need to keep a careful account of who owes how much to whom. On the other hand, let us suppose that the matter duplicator can duplicate most things, but that there are some things it can't duplicate. In "Pandora's Millions," the scientists who had invented the matter duplicator discover a substance which explodes when scanned by the matter duplicator's beam, and Identium becomes the medium of exchange, a protection for unique objects to prevent them from being duplicated, and the paper on which contracts were written. Or suppose that the matter duplicator cannot duplicate living creatures. There are several reasons this might be so; one, a living creature is liable to move slightly, even if it is asleep, during the time it is being scanned, so that the scanner gets a distorted record which, being materialized, is dead, or soon will be. Or suppose that the matter duplicator does not make a quite perfect record, and that these tiny errors are fatal to any rematerialized organism. In this case, living creatures might become the medium of exchange. Zookeepers and veterinarians would be the new bankers. Creatures which are difficult to keep in captivity would be the larger denominations, and common, prolific creatures such as dogs, cats, rabbits, guppies, etc. would be the small change. It would be difficult to establish exchange ratios, however, for individual animals differ much, as in age, health, and the like. It would be difficult to exchange by means of checks or commercial paper, simply because those can be duplicated; so if men wish to trade without actual creatures changing hands, they may have to go to the zookeeper-banker directly, by phone, by electronic mail, or in person, to tell him that Sam's bull elephant is now Jack's. Or perhaps Sam can kennel his elephant under a password; he tells Jack the password, and Jack calls the zookeeper through a secure link, gives the password, and changes it to a new one of his own choosing. This done, Jack removes Sam's appendix, or paints his portrait, or whatever service Sam is buying. This system, though cumbersome, would perhaps be less so than exchanging services directly. On the other hand, if animals can't be duplicated because they squirm too much, or simply keep breathing and circulating blood, there are other implications: hot substances, whose molecules are vibrating more rapidly, would be less reliably duplicated, and things with moving parts must be stopped while being recorded. Or, if microscopic errors prevent living creatures from being duplicated alive, these microscopic errors could well affect anything which has small, delicate parts: mechanical watches would tend to become slightly less accurate, and digital watches or computers could well be ruined entirely. (The latter flaw may not be removable; it may be inherent in the uncertainty principle, and the scanning beam itself may introduce slight changes into anything it scans, on the principle that the observer affects the observed object. But the errors which are inevitable because of the uncertainty principle may be too small to matter in some cases if, for instance, a pound of duplicated gold is contaminated by only five or six molecules of other elements.) ------- Bibliography ------- The Venus Equilateral stories by George O. Smith, especially the later ones: "Special Delivery," "Pandora's Millions," "Mad Holiday," "The External Triangle," and "Identity". _The Complete Venus Equilateral_, George O. Smith