In the narrative of Accelerando, agalmia (or the agalmic economy) is a post-scarcity economic philosophy and practice that serves as a bridge between traditional capitalism and the post-human world of the singularity. It is primarily driven by the protagonist, Manfred Macx, and centers on the idea that in an information-rich future, resource allocation based on scarcity is obsolete 1, 2.

The following sections discuss the part agalmia plays in the text:

The Philosophy of Post-Scarcity

Agalmia is defined by the rejection of scarcity-based models and zero-sum games 3. Manfred believes that within a decade of the story's start, resource allocation will cease to be a problem because "the cosmos is flat" and bandwidth can be borrowed from the "first universal bank of entropy" 1. Instead of charging for his ideas, Manfred operates as a "pronoiac meme-broker" or "venture altruist," coming up with workable business plans and giving them away for free to anyone who can use them to build wealth 4, 5.

Reputation as Currency

In an agalmic economy, money is viewed as a "symptom of poverty" 4. Instead of cash, the primary currency is reputation, kudos, and "brownie points" 4, 6, 7.

• The Free Intellect Foundation: Manfred patents his inventions only to sign the rights over to the Free Intellect Foundation (and later the Free Infrastructure Foundation), ensuring they contribute to "obligation-free infrastructure" 8-10.
• Virtual Immunity from Cash: Because Manfred makes so many people rich through his generosity, they provide him with everything he needs—hotel suites, unlimited travel rights, and advanced computing gear—at no cost 4, 8, 11.
• Public Metrics: His success is tracked on reputation servers, where his score for integrity and effectiveness often exceeds those of major corporations like IBM 12.

Conflict with Scarcity-Based Systems

Agalmia serves as a major point of narrative tension between Manfred and his ex-wife, Pamela, an IRS auditor.

• The IRS Perspective: Pamela views Manfred’s agalmic lifestyle as "racketeering" and a "puerile attempt to dodge responsibility" to the state and his family 4, 13, 14. She argues that his refusal to charge for his work harms the tax base needed to support the retiring "silicon rust belt" generation 13.
• The Alchemical Marriage: Pamela eventually uses Manfred's own agalmic principles against him, claiming she is taking her "property rights" over him and his genome before he can give everything away to "a bunch of lobsters or uploaded kittens" 6.

Evolution into the Singularity

As the story progresses, agalmia evolves from a personal philosophy into a functional infrastructure for post-humanity:

• Automated Companies: Manfred creates a vast network of over sixteen thousand companies (such as agalmic.holdings.root...) that are automated cellular automata, executing scripts to balance resources and protect intellectual property from "copyright gangsters" 15-17.
• Xenocommerce: By the time Amber reaches the interstellar router, agalmic principles are applied to communication with alien species. The crew must figure out a "transferable currency" to pay for their needs in a network where "quantized originality" and "bandwidth" are the limited resources 18-20.
• The Golden Rule: Manfred ultimately identifies himself as a player in the agalmic economy who "thrives or fails by the Golden Rule," a principle he uses to secure civil rights for the first uploaded minds, the lobsters 2, 21.