Even in the final hypothetical world, there are still enormous gains to be had from specialisation. Gains from specialisation arise because while a person may be imagined to have zero task-switching cost, most tasks still have non-zero person-switching cost in that hypothetical world. Specialisation necessitates trade, so that each person can get what they need but do not make from the people who make those things to trade for what they need. (One could talk about trade being unnecessary in a “perfectly planned” economy, but that would be going off in a direction not relevant to the original question. The quotes are because...no, still not relevant.)
For example: My iPhone cost about £1000, which I earn in a certain number of days. Even in the final hypothetical world, I cannot see how I could make an iPhone in that many days. (First, build a fab plant...) Could ten thousand bricklayers each add one brick to a house for the same total effort as a small team adding ten thousand? Could 137672 clones of Andrew Wiles each spend (9 years * 8 hours/day / 137672) =10 minutes on Fermat’s Last Theorem and collectively prove it? Could Elon Musk’s projects exist without an Elon Musk, even in these hypothetical worlds? I believe not, short of raising the hypotheses so far as to make all of humanity into a single collective intelligence.
When there is only one person, does that at last obviate trade? Perhaps not even then. Algorithms based on bidding and trading have already been used in factory scheduling, and could be part of how such a collective intelligence worked.
Even in the final hypothetical world, there are still enormous gains to be had from specialisation. Gains from specialisation arise because while a person may be imagined to have zero task-switching cost, most tasks still have non-zero person-switching cost in that hypothetical world. Specialisation necessitates trade, so that each person can get what they need but do not make from the people who make those things to trade for what they need. (One could talk about trade being unnecessary in a “perfectly planned” economy, but that would be going off in a direction not relevant to the original question. The quotes are because...no, still not relevant.)
For example: My iPhone cost about £1000, which I earn in a certain number of days. Even in the final hypothetical world, I cannot see how I could make an iPhone in that many days. (First, build a fab plant...) Could ten thousand bricklayers each add one brick to a house for the same total effort as a small team adding ten thousand? Could 137672 clones of Andrew Wiles each spend (9 years * 8 hours/day / 137672) =10 minutes on Fermat’s Last Theorem and collectively prove it? Could Elon Musk’s projects exist without an Elon Musk, even in these hypothetical worlds? I believe not, short of raising the hypotheses so far as to make all of humanity into a single collective intelligence.
When there is only one person, does that at last obviate trade? Perhaps not even then. Algorithms based on bidding and trading have already been used in factory scheduling, and could be part of how such a collective intelligence worked.