[skeledrew]

> no one seems to believe the next step is a Star Trek-like post-scarcity economy

Why wouldn't it be exactly like that (without the space travel, replicators and other extremely advanced tech)? There would no longer be income, so income equality can no longer be a thing.

Any inequality caused by ownership of the means of production would disappear because there would be no value in "owning" (ie maintaining exclusive access to) anything beyond personal items. With everything automated, there would quite literally no longer be scarcity of anything that people need to survive and live a decent life.