Since the topic is fiction - to me the best description of human condition in a post scarcity society is found in Iain Banks' Culture series where artificial mi

Since the topic is fiction - to me the best description of human condition in a post scarcity society is found in Iain Banks' Culture series where artificial minds form the ruling political cliques and manage most practical things. And succeeds in keeping things psychologically believable for the main human characters through several very entertainining books. People are kept along mostly because it's thought proper to give people the opportunity for self expression. I.e. careers are chosen out of internal needs or for the percieved prestige the activity entails, not out any material need as everything up to a point is available (the financial limits of an individual are never explicitly described though). Or - as several characters do - just becausw something is considered hard and dangerous and they want to push themselves. Despite the inane ramblings about homo economicus one encounters now and again, this latter instinct is actually a quite strong driving force in dictating human action(not everyones of course). One of the biggest non-antagonist rude actions in the series is when an AI underlies the pointlesness of human effort by performing a complex feat in front of the character that she has chosen as her life task - which everyone considers extremely rude. There are spaceships and explosions but to me the psychologically believable description of near human characters in a post scarcity society is the most interesting facet of his work.