Part 5/11:
The author emphasizes that abundance is not about equal distribution or immediate happiness. It is about the essential baseline: no one in the developed world starves or succumbs to preventable diseases. In this context, scarcity is often relative, not absolute. People crave more—bigger TVs, faster cars, smarter gadgets—yet, in basic needs, humanity reaches a threshold of sufficiency that can be considered abundant.
The Limits of Material Progress
The key argument is that material progress and technological automation do not inherently address the fundamental problems of human nature. Even if robots produce all necessary goods, the deeper issues—conflict, competition, violence, identity, culture—persist because they are rooted in human psychology and societal structures.