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>> 217 Epilogue Optimized Legal Infrastructure and the End of Scarcity The economist Paul Romer theorized in 1993 that, given the number of elements in the universe, the possibilities for innovation by putting things together in new ways may be finite but are definitely enormous.1 The key to exploiting this fundamental reality is to create as many innovators as possible —that is, to create institutions through law to support the creation of more ideas.2 In particular, Romer suggests that investment in children will be the key driver to explosive growth.3 John Maynard Keynes wrote in 1930 that the fundamental problem with the global economy in 1930 arose from too much productive capacity requiring ever-decreasing amounts of labor. He called this “technological unemployment,” and it gave way to “the enormous anomaly of unemployment in a world full of wants.”4 Yet he could foresee an end to capital scarcity and an era of abundance.5 Recently, the advent of additive manufacturing holds the possibility of creating mass quantities of objects at very low cost, as easy as hitting the Print button on a computer.6 Technology promises to ultimately vindicate the post-scarcity prophesies of Keynes and Romer. From an economic 218 > 219 economy would be more free of the costs and risks of substantial financial disruptions. Given the costs of the subprime debacle, this too is likely a multi-trillion-dollar issue. These issues are just a few ways that law can enhance innovation and therefore growth. An optimized rule of law would unlock tremendous economic growth and pave the way to any kind of post-scarcity world. Such a world begins with maximum human empowerment. Indeed, it is difficult to imagine any other way to achieve the highest possible economic growth. People and ideas certainly play a central role in economic growth. Allowing all people to compete to achieve their highest and best use should axiomatically form the core function of an economic rule of law. Privilege and disempowerment corrode human incentives to compete . Privilege also threatens law. Those holding concentrated economic resources will naturally seek to entrench their power through subverted law and regulation. This will operate to create uneven playing fields. Thus, law should inveigh against excessive privilege and disempowerment. Law should similarly inveigh against elite power to subvert legal and regulatory infrastructure . Achieving optimal human capital development, optimal market development, and optimal legal and regulatory infrastructure law operates to maximize economic growth. It also creates the shortest path to a postscarcity world. Even a cursory scan around the world reveals massive economic potential locked into idle or near-idle resources. American banks, in fear of their own insolvency, hoard $1.5 trillion in excess reserves.10 America’s corporations, in fear of another credit collapse, hoard another $2 trillion.11 Emerging nations hold more than $10 trillion in currency reserves.12 These reserves operate to fund excess consumption and dangerous debt levels in the entire developed world.13 On the human side, 2.6 billion souls subsist on less than two dollars per day. The awesome scale of wasted resources across the world proves the costs of allowing elites to lawlessly run riot across the global economy. A new cultural abhorrence of wasted economic potential must take root. People should abhor the mass disempowerment of people because it necessarily means that all humans suffer economically from wasted and underutilized economic resources. Optimized legal infrastructure with optimized incentives for all would minimize economic waste. Ultimately, a suboptimal economic rule of law takes a huge, almost unimaginable economic toll on everyone, relative to a world with a sound economic rule of law. This page intentionally left blank ...

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