The core of this struggle is and will continu being consolidating societal wealth. As in – high tech progress has a strong socialist bias. In the above scenarios the US clings to its libertarian (and social darwinist) delusions, the EU becomes decadent, DECADENT I SAY, and Japan, well japan does weird stuff westerners really don’t get but explain with diffuse allusions to animism.

That said, the Japanese scenario seems to rely too much on magic-wand style AI technology. I suspect that the European model is probably the one that we’ll end up with. A citizens basic income to cope with structurally high unemployment and most of the grunt work done by highly-automated machinery.

I think I’d prefer to live within the Europe in this hypothetical future.

As for where I’d want to live, I’d take the RE model. It seems to address the biggest problems with the current system, including its tendency towards gigantic, unsustainable, growth-for-growth’s-sake, business-only or business-government monopolies–while still allowing for personal reward that will drive innovation.

But I suspect the US (or parts of what used to be the US) will end up with a hybrid of all three models, or at least the JIT socialism and RE models. Predictive algorithms and point-of-use manufacturing, combined with a patchwork of small, entrepreneurial entities, could make a very, very interesting economic model.