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Originally Posted by nekokami
Iain M. Banks' "Culture" stories are post-scarcity, and these large-scale decisions still do take cooperative efforts. For example, in The Player of Games (one of my all-time favorites), one of the characters is sulking a bit because she wants to create volcanoes on a new plate in the "orbital" (a ring, bigger than a planet, but not as big as Ringworld), but the Minds (AI that are smarter than people) who are planning the next plate don't seem to her to be giving her ideas enough consideration.
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Iain M. Banks "Culture" novels are next major series I plan to dive into. I've been held back thus far because half of them seem to be out of print.
Noted on _The Player of Games_, and I look forward to reading it.
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James P. Hogan's Voyage from Yesteryear also involves a post-scarcity economy, which seems to be based on respect for competence rather than value of goods. I liked the book, but thought the description of the culture was a bit simplistic.
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I've read some of Hogan, but I don't think I've read that one. Cultural depictions are always problematic, and few SF writers do it really well. Among those I like are Jack Vance's works. He's endlessly creative at coming up with odd human societies.
On that line, have you read the late Janet Kagan's _Hellspark_?
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Dennis