Not all resources will be non-scarce, though, so this kind of one-size-fits-all thinking is misleading.
Nor are all alternatives to capitalism socialism. Socialism is also known to have very severe problems in application, particularly how to incentivize socialist managers to behave like capitalist ones in most circumstances, driving innovation and maximizing productivity. Socialist managers have somewhat different contstraints on them from capitalist managers, and nominally different long-term goals, but they are more similar than you might think.
The thing is: we know how to make capitalism work in a range of varieties, from the Scandanavian social democracies to the mess that's Texas. We have never seen a successful system of public ownership of the means of production (which is what socialism is, and nothing else). It has been tried in a variety of places and times, and it has always run up against fundamental problems of managerial incentives and political corruption at levels that make most capitalist political economies look pretty good (which is saying something!)
So looking for non-socialist means of distributing wealth in a society that is unequally post-scarce is a good idea. Today wealth is distributed almost exclusively through paid work, but that is a relatively recent invention. I'm not suggesting a return to feudalism or anything like it, but think we should be willing to consider variations in social order that are at least that large-scale, because the difference between what is coming and industrial capitalism is going to be at least as big as the difference between industrial capitalism and the semi-feudal societies that preceded it in many places.
There are post-scarcity examples in human history (see gift economies and potlach societies - common among native americans and in the pacific islands) where social pressure caused any accumulation of wealth to be shared with the entire society (this is a bit similar to Andrew Carnegie's dictum that to die rich is to die disgraced, now leading to the billionaire's pledge). Of course, this only worked because the societies were individual tribes/villages and fit within Dunbar's number, where every individual knew every other individual in the society.
If post-scarcity is brought about by automation, then there will be no need for most people to work, and socialism won't be the appropriate economic model (since people will not be directly involved in production). At this point we'll probably need to return to a gift-like economy.
Sweden is a capitalist country with a strong social safety net. It's not remotely socialist, at best a social democracy. In no way could you say that, in Sweden, 'to each according to his needs, from each according to his abilities'.
The majority of production in Sweden is not state owned.
You can't really remove the scarcity; if machines make mass-produced stuff non-scarce, the rest (including intangibles) will become more important. In Star Trek, everyone could probably have their own luxury car, but there was still only one captain for each whole ship.
> It is an imperfect way of organising the needs of people, but it is superior to everything else that has been tried, by an order of magnitude.
This is extremely important to remember. The fear of the unknown should not stop us from trying new economic systems that may be superior to capitalism.
You shouldn't advocate for socialism, even in jest. It is a terrible system which has caused more suffering than all the despots in history together.
Forward thinking will only happen when everyone walks away for the wreckage of socialism and realises it is a dead fork in the road that must be rejected utterly.
