Marx and the Post-Scarcity Economy

After finishing Wolff's book Why Read Marx Today, I find myself questioning some of the conclusions made in the book. Specifically, Wolff (and many others today) claims that communism failed. While it is true that the communist experiments of Eastern Europe fell and Chinese communism is in the process of moving to capitalism, I feel none of these really embody what Marx was speaking of when he talks of communism. Especially, if as Wolff says, he felt that a certain level of abundance was required, I'm not sure we could say any of the 20th century communist experiments attained this level of abundance. What was lacking is what is called in science-fiction/futurism the Post-Scarcity Economy.

What is the Post-Scarcity Economy? Go find an episode of Star Trek (any series, but The Next Generation might be the best example). How do the people on the ship deal with property? Mostly, they don't. In the many of the modern series (TNG, Deep Space Nine, Voyager), technology they call replicators effectively bridge the matter-energy barrier, allowing things to be created out of thin air. Since Star Trek already assumes abundant (meaning, easily available in virtually any quantity) energy, being able to create matter out of energy effectively removes any barrier to owning goods (or food, or clothing, etc.).

But that was the far future, right? Maybe not. Today, there is the MakerBot. There is an internet video linking the MakerBot to the emergent Post-Scarcity Economy, it can be found here. Yes, it's full of internet humor and cultural references, but the point is still there. If 3D printers (and the elements required run it) become as ubiquitous as home computers and printers are now, goods effectively become abundant.

What does this have to do with Marx? Could it be that Marx was more prescient than he knew, but was just off by a few centuries? Star Trek after all presents a world where money is virtually unused, save possibly between cultures. The Federation seems effectively to be a communistic culture per Marx: people do their jobs because they want to, goods are virtually free, and there is little want. (There are episodes pushing the boundaries of this, but I am focusing primarily on the Federation at its best.)

What would Marx do with a MakerBot? Is this the level of abundance that he was looking for? We already see some of the failure of capitalism in non-physical goods (music, videos, books, information) with the internet. Despite the vast amounts of money that traditional media companies have thrown at piracy, it still occurs. Further, there is a growing body of artists, programmers, authors, etc. who have embraced new methods of distribution and sales, many of which are done from a post (information) scarcity position, after all, there is no cost to making another pdf copy of a book, another mp3 of music, etc. If supply never bounds supply, how does supply/demand work? Does it work at all? Is this the collapse of capitalism that Marx foretold?