Positional goods scarcity exists in the Culture for e.g. a live concert featuring a famous composer. But there is no scarcity of anything desired for functional

Positional goods scarcity exists in the Culture for e.g. a live concert featuring a famous composer. But there is no scarcity of anything desired for functional reasons. Nobody ever has to involuntarily go without clothing, companionship, food, shelter, medical services, beverages, life-saving or recreational drugs, games, recorded media, communications, information, or life. (People can be "backed up" as recorded information and molecularly re-manufactured later even if they were vaporized in an explosion.) The Culture is the much better society that the imaginary technology of Star Trek could enable if Trek's tech were unchained from stupidity and bioconservatism. (I'm sure you know all this; I'm just elaborating for those who haven't sampled the delights of Banks' novels.)