Successive And Progressive Future Histories

(i) Poul Anderson's first future history, the Psychotechnic History, was modeled directly on Robert Heinlein's Future History. Thus, a Time Chart listed near future conflicts followed by further future interstellar travel, then some stories were written to fit into the Chart.

(ii) His second future history, the History of Technic Civilization, grew organically but came to express a qualified cyclical theory of history. Thus, in any civilization, either a wrong decision leads to recognizable stages of decline followed by breakdown or the society remains in free growth. Technic Civilization broke down but hopefully the later and larger civilization represented by the Commonalty will remain in free growth.

(iii) In his last, Harvest of Stars, future history, technology advances to a level that seems to preclude any further decline or breakdown:

in the Solar System, a declining human population is entirely supported by self-evolving AI's;
in other systems, technology enables human colonists to -

- record their personalities as conscious AI's;
reincarnate the recorded personalities in newly grown organic bodies;
effortlessly produce any necessary artifacts without needing to distribute them through a market;
transform lifeless planets into habitable environments, each presided over by an AI nature deity based on a former human personality.

This sounds like:

abundantly overflowing social wealth that no longer needs to be hoarded, guarded or fought over;
ultimate free growth.