The effect of income equality on societies...

[Reasonable]

Kasz216 said:

Also, I can think of a society that operates without money.

However FOR it to operate without money it would require either

A) People to stop wanting pretty much anything not related to needs.

B) Scarcity for non need objects to be eliminated by things like Star Trek Replicators.

In otherwords... your still working under the same system as outlined, without money. You are simply either decreasing demand or increasing supply to do it.

 

a) seems unlikely but assuming some form of Universal Constructor becomes possible then so does b) I guess.  Without any formal need for anyone to be dependant on anyone or anything else for anything they wanted current monetary systems would seem to be redundant.

EDIT: actually scratch that a little bit : if - big IF I guess - you assume fully capable Universal Constructors I'd imagine that original ideas/designs would become a source (perhaps the only source) of potential difference between individuals.  Would that require some form of barter/monetary system?  Assuming no change in basic human behaviour I guess it could.