Is Star Trek a Communist Utopia?
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"The acquisition of wealth is no longer the driving force in our lives." The Grand Nagus is spinning in his grave.
Hook him up to something, sell it for profit!
@Bruno56 that because he was knighted by the queen if the queen or parliament wise it then that person then get that title there is also the title of Dame
there also a list of voted people by the general public that can be added to the list of knighthoods and damehoods
Everyone in this comment section is still flailing around in thier heads and spitting out regurgitated garbage. Think outside the box.....that means question your subconscious programming you've received since birth related to the era in the human timeline your born into. When you step outside the box, you'll discover a vast universe of knowledge too be discovered. We humans are mere babies in the evolution of the Universe, still sucking on our soothers, metaphorically speaking.
Sounds nice on paper... 🙄
The Grand Nagus is not from Earth, nor is he part of the Federation. The Ferengi are totally capitalist
I think that Nog summed it up nicely when Jake Sisko asked him to borrow some money. Nog asked why he didn't-+ have any of his own and he answered "In Starfleet, we don't need money". and Nog retorted; "If you don't need money, you certainly don't need mine!".
Lol
LOLz
I love that line😆
Nog was a great character.
I remember a TNG writer saying that they were afraid to even talk about Earth because Roddenberry had drilled into them that it was to be "Utopia", so they had no idea how to approach that in the early seasons
Ronald D. Moore, one of the writers, commented that Gene made it very clear that money or “credits” didn’t exist, and Ronald thought, in his words, that was a bunch of hooey, but it was one of the rules in regards of the story.
@@khfan4life365 yeah, I also remember him mandating humanism over religion. I still think this was his way of avoiding controversy, and avoiding Christmas specials. No doubt Gene had seen what the Wookie Empire had done to Star Wars for Christmas.
thank god DS9 came along and remade this utopian bullshit. i mean, i still think some more leftism and a gouvememt that cares for their people would be great
The simplest (and perhaps most unsatisfying) explanation is that the writers didn't think it through.
They weren't allowed to expand on anything until DS9 season 4. Even people writing non-canon novels weren't supposed to elaborate on Earth and Federation society.
The Federation has a Communist economy. It is obvious. In communist economy THERE IS A PRIVATE PROPERTY. You can have home, personal goods and much more. But you can't own general means of productions (factory, shipyards, agricultural land). And it is not allowed to hire employees. Another comrades can work WITH you, but not for you. So, you can own a restaurant, but work only for idea with your comrades. And in communist economy there is a individuality and personality, it is given much more time than now, because you can not think about food and taxes, but only about your self-education.
@KC I am guided by "Scientific Communism". In west countries there is misconception about private property in communism economy. In communism society you are not allowed to have capital (factroy and etc). It's ridiculous that the Communists assume your toothbrush belongs to everyone. That's not true. It is only yours toothbrush and other personal items for personal consumption.
About employees... in Soviet Union there is opinion, that communism is possible only when all basic needs are met. There is food, there is houses, there is all neccessary for living. In this case you WANT to work. But you don't HAVE TO work.
Communist ideology was constantly evolving. Many smart peoples were working on it. Unfortunately people in the West from the cradle hate communism and Communists, cause your government and your teachers told you to do this. Look at the modern capitalism. There is no identity. There is no freedom anymore. Only THE STATE and the lie.
@@RuJewi I'm seeing it more as united fascism because your rights, and freedom are still a commodity.
@KC nope, he's right private property is not personal property
I always thought status was the main motivator in star trek.
It was said more than once that the betterment of mankind was the primary motivation, at least of those in Star Fleet, and I would imagine that would be true for everyone. In a world where you can have whatever you want whenever you want it, why would status or money ever matter.
@@pzqln61 I mean status can be about pride and being respected more then material gain
@@pzqln61 The things Dave pointed out about skilled labor being needed means that the idealistic statement Picard made won't work. Idealism is not as widespread as idealists seem to think it is. Lots of folks want to get, but don't want to work. Lots and lots. So, as Dave notes, who will do all the specialized work needing to be done? Since it gets done on Star Trek, they aren't "post affluence," because they need stuff they don't have that people have to do skilled work to make. Stuff like Warships, exploration ships, and lots and lots of tech on all of their planets. For post affluence now, Star Trek tech is enough. But "Enough" is subjective - they would need android servants to do all the work that no people wanted to do for it to be post affluence for them. And people would be able to quit any time, so they'd need spare bots in storage for all the human workers, for surprise job walk-offs. The confusion is due to the fact that its fiction, written to be entertaining, and to create a hopeful atmosphere. Realistic debating about contradictions between the situations in the shows and movies come from sticking with Rodenberrys' stated goals. Having hundreds of humans and aliens working on the ships out of idealism and doing all the myriad jobs in society out of idealism, and just luckily enough folks want to work hard, in all the Federation planets, and on their ships, just like "working men and women" in good companies, and like in our military (where we get pay, pensions, and pretty-good lifetime health care) just ain't sensible to expect.
In a "purely communistic" society, status still grants you more stipends, better stipends.
I.e. nicer living arrangements, increased food rations
that's the orville xdddd
As DS9 was my favorite Trek, I always wondered how the Federation officers and crew stationed there got the money with which to frequent the restaurants and shops on the promenade, or play games at Quark's. Were they paid by the Bajoran government? Did the Federation maintain some kind of bar tab for the lot of them?
The "no money" vision is a neat one, but always left far too many unanswered questions when they'd attempt to put the characters back in everyday situations that were more relatable to the audience.
And now for some purely lazy writing:
"Suits me, I just *bought* a boat." -Scotty, Star Trek VI
"It's my house. At least it used to be. I *sold* it years ago." -Kirk, Star Trek Generations
I assume Starfleet issues their officers stationed in areas like DS9 (places technically outside Federation space) a salary of Latinum. Normally, they probably wouldn't do something like that but DS9 is a special case. Alternatively, maybe officers have a ration system like on Voyager and they've worked out a system where Quark and the other vendors exchange replicator "credits" as an ad hoc currency?
As far as the Undiscovered Country quotes go, those are from characters that had gone to the past and had to relearn what money is. So it was probably just a figure of speech.
"I replicated a boat" isn't as funny as "I bought a boat."
I think there was probably a wage accommodation for quarks. Though if your basic needs are met you really don’t need to acquire wealth. So really the only place to spend is quarks
Also turn of phrases are used regularly. Jake said he sold a book when he published his book but it was an expression probably a holdover from a pre post scarcity economics world. Kind of like I say I taped something if I recorded something. Or phrases like “don’t throw the baby out with the bath water which is from the Middle Ages
Starfleet officers also take vacations and things to planets. Presumably they still get some kind of pay for time in. I suspect it's not that the federation doesn't have a currency, it's just that the ethos has changed. Alternatively they can just keep a tab open for federation citizens and businesses can get the federation to pay out, and the federation just limits how much any given citizen can do, based upon their role, while making sure everyone regardless of jobs gets at least some.
Vet here from a family of vets. Something I've noticed in terms of philanthropy. Some people need financial motivation to make the world a better place, other people see money as a tool, and once your own needs are taken care of, the goal is the betterment of the world around you, not personal gain.
In all of Star Trek, when someone needed something, it was often people got it, be a favor or personal. The well being of the individual was without question, always tended to.
I think you are right, and also doing your job well means advancing in career and probably having better treatment, like better bigger house or maybe personal transportation like a vessel or transporters.
Natasel not paid, when you advance in career you simpy get access to something better, like in our society you get a bigger office if you get a better job, but you don't pay for it.
Natasel never said that it isn't, but communism doesn't necessarily mean something bad.
Natasel oh because Venezuela and ex ussr have matter replicators... Didn't know that... And they are in the future... They have no hunger and no illnesses...
I think we're talking of two slightly different things.
That's because Enterprise-D is de facto a space town, and goes by rules of small towns. Familiy of families, a tribe essentially. This system stops working when group becomes large enough that not everyone know each other. Then you need economy and law to regulate it.
I would suggest its a late stage Market Socialist economy.
Poverty is eradicated, all essential goods and services abundant and publicly owned. Luxuries and status however to be purchased, the incentive would still be there.
Basically, you could live a normal happy life doing whatever you wanted, BUT, if you want to get the finer things then you have to work for them.
It would remove work for survival, not work for benefit.
"It would remove work for survival, not work for benefit."
Precisely. There are only so many luxury villas on Risa, after all.
+Liberty experiments on the matter have shown thats almost everyone does work. Its not in human nature to just sit around. Now not everyone will do something productive for society, but that does not really matter in ST as they are basically post-scarcity.
This reminds me of the concept of universal basic income. I guess that's the tie to our present.
I think that it also could be that luxuries that can't be replicated such as vacation time in finer environments such as Risa are a mixture of being rationed and first come, first serve basis.
Due to holodecks, it is possible that most people don't care if they are on the actual planet or in a holosuite, so long as they can't tell the difference.
That said, your suggestion does make sense, because when you have probably trillions of citizens who want to vacation on the same planet, unless they are willing to wait on a long list, some form of meritocracy system does make sense.
Then again, maybe so long as you can have a Rolls Royce replicated, and then broken down and reconstituted into a Lamborghini if you have this hot date and you just want to show off, and you can eat steak whenever you feel like it, maybe most people will be chill with waiting or not care enough to bother. There are already ideas to lengthen our lifespans. It's likely that the Federation has perfected these ideas, and that you can wait hundreds of years if you wanted to. Or that there are many other paradise worlds to choose from anyways.
All of this said, I find your idea to be the most likely. And either way, I think that a lot of things that we would consider "the finer things" would be considered rather ordinary possessions.
+Jon Dirkes thats because universal basic income is a socialist idea/policy Its kinda a relabel especially for the US to get around the name.
I openly laughed when you said "What military would settle for having its assets built by mediocre specialists". The answer is all of them, lowest bidder ftw 😂
That's very true.
Being ex-military I can attest to that!
Drone1337 your profile pic looks familiar
Poor comparison; as none of the militaries of the present have starships, anti-matter reactors, nor other absurdly complex - and dangerous if manufactured or ussd incorrectly - tech' such as seen in Trek.
That; and space is sn enviroment few formal military op's have even occured in yet, because it's too complex & expensive ATM.
In another century or so; we'll have a point of comparison.
@@jimtaylor294 pretty sure nuclear subs are also made by the lowest bidder. Complicated and dangerous tech, check. Active in an incredibly hostile environment, check.
Given enough income a lot people then try to do what they love. This is why many retired people take classes, volunteer, travel, do old or new hobbies and spend more time with friends and family.
Okay, doing what you love....what happens if you wake up one day and just don't feel like opening your kitchen and doing the cooking for a bunch of people. Do they go hungry because you're not feeling it that day? What happens if you don't feel like cooking for a few days? Everyone goes "it's okay man, we've all been there at one time or another."
@larvern yes, thats exactly what happens. Just like today if you own a resturant you have the right to close it at any time you want.
People might stop coming to your resturant though.
WinMath is onto something with his presentation. In a sophisticated consumer society, retired persons with a surplus of resources after food, fuel and shelter are covered do tend to follow their bliss by doing hobbies, clubs and recreational activities. This seems to be the fantasy model of Star Trek's Earth in TNG.
However some retirees do nothing but stay at home and absorb passive entertainments (like the Talosians). Also what comfortable retiree do you know that spends their retirement years making toilet paper? Real economies must bribe workers to create things that are needed but not necessarily wanted.
However in the Star Trek world the basics are provided for everybody. If you don’t open your restaurant one day no one is going to starve because they can get their food from a replicator. Sisko’s dad didn’t run a restaurant because he got paid. He ran it because he loved to cook, and loved to see how happy it made people to eat good homemade food. Probably there were some days where he didn’t feel good and said “I can’t work today, sorry folks.”
@Natasel re-education then.
Star Trek was terribly vague and inconsistent regarding the economic system of the Federation. One might argue that Earth's economic system is different from that of the Federation, but it really doesn't matter. Most of the time, the "we don't use money" is just a convenient plot device to add conflict in time travel to Earth storylines, or those dealing with species which do use some form of currency. It's best not to overthink it, I suppose.
A good strategy, 1 that will allow me to keep enjoying my TNG's ☺!
Its probably not truly money free but people don't need money. At least not average people. People can use money for unique or scarce or foreign goods and services but most people will go their whole lives without needing money and there is no sense of competition among humans. Its not terribly realistic but its supposed to be a utopian socialist future.
They could not imagine how a future with no money can possible so they came up with this utopia crap because just alien life they have no imagination as to possibilities of how truly aliens can really be so everyone is just humans all in disquise. Well much harder then comming up with technology that may be impossible is even more impossible is a social system that no gets paid and all work and get killed on the job for free.
🤔
Vague.. because they was slaves. to be a citizen and gain any social credit, or do anything really worthwhile, you pretty much joined up with starfleet. Starship troopers is probably a more comparable example. They high major alottments of wealth in Starship troopers as well, but especially for those who served and was part of the state. Communist yes, as long as you supported the one party, the communist party, or in this case, the federation.
In a post scarcity society - being skilled, respect and opportunities would be a currency in its self.
You scrub plasma conduits / build ships while at the same time you're being trained as an engineer giving you opportunities to travel the galaxy, move to other planets etc.
Though this same thing has bugged me, how do humans buy food at quarks etc.
Exactly. People would do work because it was an opportunity for adventure.
Already the case. Think of open source software.
the problem is that if skilled/respect/opportunities are the ONLY motivator, then the ideology of the selectors would determine who gets to succeed, which would create a sort of "shadow" totalitarianism.
@@REDDAWNprojectreminds me of some of Bakunin's "invisible dictatorship" ideas.
@@JDT8h oh shit didn't even think of that.
I think a post-scarcity society would look more like WALL-E than Star Trek.
In capitalism, sure.
There's a film theory episode where he explains they were able to survive through cannibalism.
More like Idiocracy.
Sure because excess never opened opportunity to fuel passion and development.
Maybe there's a reason Star Trek's writers didn't elaborate fully on the """economic system""".
Because they didn't have a clue as to how economics actually work
or because star trek is not about financial plot ? very boring subject, so you wanna that ?
Star Trek will not had 30 seasons with financial plots.
Probably the same reason people don't breed unicorns or hire leprechauns to ride racehorses.
I think they didn’t elaborate to keep the idea open for humanity to figure out. Acting like we know everything in terms of governance and economics is arrogant and foolish.
Because wanting something to work a certain way doesn't mean that it does. Socialism sucks.
I think you nailed it on the head. I think Voyager points to something that everyone missed in TOS, Enterprise, and TNG. TRADE. The fact that Janeway and everyone on Voyager knew the concept of bartering. You don't really barter in Socialist or Communist societies. Generally you live with what you are given. You might trade or barter here and there but it couldn't be something extravagent due to scarcity. In Star Trek however they point to Enterprise where they needed Deuterium and helped those miners stave off the Klingons to get it. Meaning they traded skills for deuterium. So we know the Earth at that time was still working with trading and money still. When you get to TOS you hear Kirk threaten to fire Scotty more than once as a motivator. The big tell though is when they need trade with certain species and worlds to acquire Dilithium. The fact these captains and diplomats understand they need to incentivize trading with the federation. Not only that but what happens when personell or travelers reach non-federation outposts like DS9. How do they pay the civilian shops? There has to be some kind of paycheck or salary involved. Also keep in mind that they are administrating the station for the Bajorans who have rented out the shops, so the shops pay rent. How would a communist system understand how any of that works if you're living in a society that builds housing without the intent of asking for anything in return other than their labor? Star Trek is far from communist it's just folks see the communist concepts in it and THINK it's communist and ignore where the communism doesnt work, which is most of the time in the show.
Of course they never gave you the details of how economics work in Star Trek... The writers never figured it out themselves!
because at that point it already existet in the real world. look up concepts of universal basic income...
also known as staying at home, playing video games and not working
Jogos Tradicionais eventually a lot of the workforce will be replaced automation in the future. The economy depends on that workforce. So our economy will have to change eventually.
@@bongard1000 will be relocated
@@jogostradicionais553 relocated to what when robots can perform 99% of all tasks - and why is hedonism such a bad idea? Star Trek’s economy makes it clear that if you WANT to work and be fulfilled by work, that’s great, it’s all about self improvement. If you DONT want to work, that’s fine!
Star Trek is notorious for its wishy-washy "we have no money" bit. It's been criticized many times because they will talk about how there is no money to outsiders then complain about prices. My favorite example, in the episode where Kess leaves Voyager, Janeway tells her that she was with Tuvok on Vulcan when he bought his mediation lamp and that the Vulcan merchant doubled the price when he saw their Starfleet insignia. This alone tells us two things for certain that "should" be false:
1) This is a trade between members of the Federation. No one in this scenario is an outsider who might demand cash/latinum. If the Federation doesn't use money, this Vulcan should have just given them the lamp. Why would he request money and why would they have any?
2) The merchant doubled the price BECAUSE they were Starfleet - meaning this merchant knew that Starfleet officers have MORE money. If the Feds were truly money-free, he should assume they were broke as everything because Feds don't use money.
Another thing brought up by this incident is the presence of scarcity. Can't Tuvok replicate a meditation lamp? Ah, but you say, perhaps Vulcans refuse to replicate such religious artifacts - they must be made by hand by a Vulcan guru. OK, if that is true, then that means there are a limited number of such lamps available. Since there is scarcity but also demand for the lamps, these Vulcans must have a method of determining who gets the lamps. What's funny is that in a moneyless society this could be done - Vulcan gurus could hold contests of mediation and logic and the winners get lamps, but instead we see an exchange of funds for goods and services. Money.
The answer to all of this is simple - the writers done messed up. Some wrote in a money-less society while others realized how ridiculous that would be and wrote stories that had money in them. It's basically a gaping plot hole.
In my own head-canon when the Feds say they don't use money what they mean is that they don't use specie, like gold-pressed latinum. They probably use a credit system based on merit. It's not money in the sense we use - if you do a good job, you get credits you can trade to other Federation people to gain services they have for sale. Since there is no REAL scarcity of needs, this poses no danger. If a Fed wants to buy outside the Federation, they run into trouble because they have no REAL money - outsiders don't take silly Fed credits. The end.
Kinda like how Republic credits were considered worthless outside of the republic in star wars because it was just credit, and had no real value to non republic citizens.
Tessa Jalloh Except that was stupid beyond belief...a planet run by criminals is going to have a black market in republic credits, and another thing criminals are known for is loansharking and the Hutt would have no problems collecting a debt from the Jedi
@@tessajalloh3914 maybe it more like the current system in china, depending on a person's behavior he gets points to the good or bad.
The higher the score the more a person can go and obtain.
Jason, I agree.
Regarding "specie", that's kind of the system we have now. US dollars are no longer backed by gold, so they're really nothing more than pieces of paper printed by the gov't. So, we're all really just working for "credits".
The Facebook page "Trekers against Trump" banned me from participation because of this very same subject
Yea, that'll do it...sounds like a group of people more into hating someone rather than talking about real issues. Personally I think Trump is a dick but I'd never ban someone for bringing up relevant points.
Communists banning someone? Imagine my shock
Lol!! Really Steve Powell u made my day... My boyfriend & I made our own bumper stickers : "TREKKERS 4 TRUMP!" Now the thing to see is if I get banned from this chat... 😈 I hope not, let's put this 24th century tolerance to the test! (but 4 what it's worth, I wouldn't have banned u ☺)
@Heyward Shepherd I love his it's not me meme, if you haven't seen it check it out
nypost.com/2019/12/21/donald-trumps-theyre-after-you-tweet-says-it-all-goodwin/
@Heyward Shepherd said "Yeah he dicked us into the best economy in 40 years." This comment didn't age well.
Ok so you're born into a post-scarcity resource based economy. Anything you could possibly need is a button press away, no demands are made of you, and the only real scarcity is social in nature. What do you do now? I, a hypothetical federation citizen, want to do more than watch holodeck porn all day, that would make people think I was useless. Maybe I wanna see the galaxy, I want a little danger, a little structure, and a little organized respect, and I just so happen to have a knack for scrubbing plasma conduits. Well, if you ask me, if that's my ticket in to working on a bona fide high tech star ship, then I'm gonna sacrifice (pay) some of my freedom to purchase that spot. If I work hard I will see returns for investment (promotion) and eventually come home with thousands of stories everyone I grew up with are dying to hear, having accomplished what my peers could only dream of.
It's not *just* for the benefit of humanity imho, there are powerful social pressures there too.
Honestly, you really nail on the head
Meanwhile 60-70% of the population decides they're quite fine with substance abuse and video games. As such they are effectively useless living off the backs of everyone else.
But these people won't settle for the low tasks of building a ship, or cleaning the conduits.. And it doesn't speak to why Sisko's dad ran a restaurant.... why go to the effort of cooking for strangers? I mean it might be fun every now and then, but I'd not bust tail to do it day in and day out just to have people like me....
@@TedSchoenling - Another instance: Picard's brother made wine. Did he just give away bottles of it for free? It doesn't make sense.
strange that they don't have robots to scrub the conduits.
My favorite of the Star Trek series is Deep Space 9
Deep Space 9 has criticism towards the Federations lack of money, especially because it's on a space station with aliens that aren't part of the federation and still use currency. A type of universal currency in gold plated latinum.
There is an episode where Jake Sisko wants to bet in an auction but talks about his lack of money because the Federation evolved beyond the use of money. He wants to use Nog's money. Nog asks why he thinks it's so evolved to not use money and Jake has no answer to that. Nog then says "Well, if you're so evolved to not use money - then you can't have my money".
The episode at the end showed that every on the station was happier after Nog went around using his "evil capitalist tendencies" to buy and trade items around in order to get Jake the baseball card.
DS9 really took the "we've evolved beyond money" bullshit to task.
Agreed that DS9 is the best ST series. I just finished watching it again after several years, and it still holds up very well. The Visitor still wrecks me every time
DS9 fixed the Roddenberry bigotry that was the Feringi in the pilot of TNG and for the next few years, while GR was still involved. He wanted to make an ugly apelike species that were capitalists, not mercantilists like evolved Earth. Thus exposing capitalists as snarling monsters. DS9 made the Feringi just your uncle or father in law that ran a successful business and his entire philosophy was tied up in market life. Similar to Jerry Ledbetter in "The Good Life" and Edward Montgomery in "Dharma and Greg".
He was, of course, really supposed to be Rick from "Casa Blanca". DS9 had to move in that direction to avoid fines from the writers guild for plagiarizing the pitch script from Babylon 5. They were just different enough, year to year, to avoid the fines.
@@STho205 That negative sentiment towards capitalism was still present in DS9. Quark had a lot of lines throughout the series that made me roll my eyes as I watched it again recently. Basically, the profit motive was portrayed as being inherently exploitative, dishonest, and occasionally criminal, towards both employees and customers. Some of it was played for comic effect, but it is obvious that's what the writers believed.
@@plain_simple_garak you must remember that a writer, like an actor is a born liar. It is, in fact, their trade and art. Humorously pointed out in Galaxy Quest ("certainly you saw Gilligan's Island"..."oh those poor people"). You can't assume life philosophies from written works or performances, unless, like GR, they actually went on the chat circuit to expose them (while taking pay, BTW).
MOSTLY COMIC RELIEF, yet the Feringi and the Tailor are really the only memorable ongoing character dialogs from the whole series. Their pragmatism became the reality of the show.
I mostly remember Dax, but not for her spoken lines.
Or my fav scotty line "That's okay with me I just bought a Boat" still makes me laugh
Could just be a phrase. We still say we “taped “ something when we don’t use videotape anymore. Jake also said he “sold” his book
Well basically I think its what picard said. Everyone trys to better themselves. Instead of being an engineer for the money, they do it because they love to do it. The possibility of that I think depends on your belief in humanity, to be able to evolve psychologically.
Basically our brain finally caught up to our scientific advancements in evolution
I think people would get bored if they didn't have to work. Saying that, there would have to be some social pressure for people to be useful otherwise a few wouldn't bother.
baybarsedturner2 Well sure I guess a lot of people would become bored, but I'm not sure if that would be a problem. If you have the matter replicator, you can look after your basic needs by yourself, so social welfare disappears. Live and let live.
Ambition must have it's reward otherwise ambition dies and so dies the civilization.
I could accept transporters and replicators as possible long before I accepted this.
Rhodes1966 But in societies dominated by aristocratic groups rich people embarked on ambitious projects not because they needed the money but because they were looking for respect, honor, or simply because it was something they were interested in. It doesn't have to be monetary reward. Even today, premier league football players demand astronomical salaries not because of what the money can buy them, but because it symbolises worth and status. The money is a substitute for something else. Why do you think David Beckham is desperate for a knighthood?
If you've ever been unemployed for long, if you have felt your uselessness, living off of society as a parasite, you KNOW why people would do those 'menial' jobs, even though they wouldn't starve to death if they did not. Despite getting free food and shelter, we are nothing without some work to do.
I agree people say being unemployed is easy. It is not, you quickly become bored of doing nothing and having nothing to work towards, you take any job going just for the sake of something to do.
Was unemployed for nearly a year and was supported by my then girlfriend, now wife. We were never financially hurting but when you sit around doing nothing and making nothing of yourself, especially as a man with all our inborn wiring and instincts, it just drives you either into depression (i can't get depressed it seems) or makes you questions your worth in the world when you have added nothing to it.
Ramschat This! So much, this! Nothing is worse than not working. Maybe this RUclipsr has not done menial work. I met some of the best people doing 'honest' jobs. There is a feeling of accomplishment and direct benefit of others when doing those things. Not everyone wants to be the leader. Some are plain content to do something as long as they are a part of something bigger than themselves, and they are not being screwed over for the benefit of some rich douchebag whose only contribution is his or her parent's blood money, stolen from the workers who made it in the first place. All wealth is nothing more than the abstraction of the value of a person's labor value. If wealth is distributed unevenly, it is being stolen from one person to someone else. It is that simple. No one person is worth more than another. Everyone contributes to the Federation. Next time you visit NASA, ask the janitor what he does. The answer that person gives may surprise you.
I have done this, and worked menial or low skilled jobs provided by the state in exchange for benefits, and being given the means to survive allowed me to then sort myself out and go to university, earning myself a degree that ensures I pay more tax than I ever took in benefits. Conservatives don't seem to understand this metric of instilling belief in yourself and the need for a safety net or some kind of collective social contribution.
Fuck socialism and communism
Whenever someone says it is I just say *THE FERENGI LITERALLY EXIST*
Mediocre engineers and star-ship designers might explain the terrible Occupation Health and Safety issues which seem to be the cause of so many episode plots.
Starship that requires constant maintenance to run? It's like all the fun of owning an eastern bloc manufactured car!
A red shirt being a bad thing in the first series lol.
@Natasel Their red shirts are Nazis.
The counter-argument there could be that they are so libertarian that they do not believe in invasive things like OSHA.
Nice OSHA gloss, now it's a question of whether there are ambulance chasing litigators
For some time now I've maintained that if we were going to be visited by people from any of the polities in the Star Trek universe I'd want it to be the Ferengi.
Look at it this way. When they arrive someone asks them for the scientific and technical details of a warp capable ship. How would each respond?
The Cardasians would make us shift rocks in a space station.
The Romulans would turn us into a Soviet satellite state.
The Klingons would eat us.
The Federation would get all paternalistic and deny it until we were just like them.
The Ferengi would ask "Wad'dya got?".
Well those are two interesting comments.
Ferrule Bezel the Ferengi have a terrible reputation. They'll string you along for money. They bought their warp technology from the green, but I doubt that they'll sell warp tech to a primitive society that doesn't have it. They'll probably set up some sort of ferry system where you have to pay out the nose.
Liquid Mark----NO, NO you'r WRONG about the ferry system; the Ferengi would use the DETROIT MODEL
---sell earth a MAINTENANCE PIG ship for 100 Billion (the Investment HOOK); THEN charge US
10Million for EACH of it's CHEAPEST parts, 30Million an HOUR for their EXPERT maintenance;
with about 40Billion for any of it's 5 major components!!!!!!!!----Oh, OH, don't FORGET The 10Billion dollar
SURCHARGE for ANY off-earth parts or maintenance!!!!!!!!
All payments to be made in GOLD & weapons-grade plutonium, THANK YOU!!!!
you mean Mike Ryan's decedents
Then the Ferengi would sell you a broken model and force you to buy repairs. Then they would install a hydrogen bomb into the Warp engine and blackmail you for additional money so that they would defuse it. What they then would do only God knows...
The Ferengi are brutal, unregulated capitalism baked into one species.
The federation uses a credit system. It's mentioned in several episodes. It's like a credit chip. You earn them through your labors, but they aren't used to buy the basics. The federation gives you food, shelter, and medical care, the basics. But if you want more than that, you work at what you're good at and earn credits to buy extra stuff.
Sisko's father has a restaurant, where he sells his prepared food for credits.
It's a basic money system with only one denomination.
Not always though. It is also talked about basic necessities being covered by the federation
Maybe working menial jobs is rewarded by some kind of kudos system. You work hard at a shitty job for a while to raise your social status and prove you're capable, competent and reliable. This then affords you opportunities for more rewarding positions?
Still doesn't explain why someone would open a restaurant. But maybe a restaurant affords someone the ability to express themselves artistically through the food they create?
Yeah but most of the command crew began as command crew. Star fleet at least is clearly mariatogersie based
+Stratocaster893 it is possible that the world outside of Starfleet is much different and is still capitalist. We don't really know the amount of resources required to keep a replicator up and running (it may be much more expensive than simply growing food, making it in your restaurant and selling it for some form of currency). As I said in another post, much of Star Trek is set in a basically military setting where the rules and rewards are much different than the society at large. Capt Piccard's speech shown in the videio may not be the most accurate depiction of the real life of Federation citizens outside of Starfleet as he's been in Starfleet most of his life and is likely a zealot for the Starfleet and Federation leadership. Most Soviet U-Boat captains didn't really know anything about economics, but they knew how to regurgitate the party propaganda.
Yeah, that's totally possible
Another thought is that most of the people in the Star Trek universe are soul-less husks since they are basically killed the first time they use a transporter and a synthetic copy of them replaces them. So maybe they can be happy in a collectivist utopia because there is no "human soul yearning to be free".
Who would want to be a security guard when you could instead...do anything else?
Different aptitudes I presume. Perfect for someone with an interest in security but without much ambition or interest in responsibility. I've met plenty of people like that.
>Why would anyone wanna join the army/security?
>idk maybe for honour and valour that the duty provides ig.
Who said you can do anything else? Are you trained for neuro-surgery? No, you flunked out of med school? Then you can't be a neuro-surgeon.
@@Anskurshaikh Yep, after a very bad break up with a toxic, abusive woman who I dated for a few years, I wanted a change in my life. I wanted to do something good and special for my country/ society, something honorable. So I enlisted in the US Navy, I’ve been serving for over 12 years now and I’m proud of what I’ve done for my Navy
The US has a skilled labor shortage now. And we do pay them very well.
Welders, electricians, and plumbers, make double and triple what office drones make, and that's with no collage debt hanging over them.
Source?
Actually when you look at DS 9, you will see that the federation has its form of money and as seen in some scenes at quarks, Star Fleet officers do get wages that they can spend on gambling, drinking or purchasing holo fun and "hookers" at quarks. Dr. Bashir seems to not know what else than those things his wage would be good for, but he does get money he spends on holo suites.
Also we see quark (and others) deal with smuggled goods and weapons for money with the Marqui and even federation.
So there are things pointing at people in the federation still getting wages, there is just less stuff you can spend your money on and it seems there is no more speculation on some stockmarket.
Also in TNG you see Dr. Crusher shopping with money on some federation planet on her vacation and since she spends more than she has, Picard has to pay the rest of the bill.
It's likely that Starfleet Officers _can_ earn currency to spend in other cultures and societies that still have a money-based economy.
@@Mega-Brick
That much is clear. The Federation DOES have a currency system of some sort (Starfleet officers can convert some sort of personal credit into hard currency), but it isn't necessary to live in the Federation because resources are incredibly abundant. Likely buying and selling are mostly restricted to luxury goods and services, and as a whole the Federation uses a Resource Based Economy between full member worlds where resource bartering (likely overseen by a resource management group) is as common as monetary transactions, which would mostly be maintained and used when dealing with non-Federation businesses and organizations.
For people's day to day lives, Federation standard basic housing, provisions, healthcare, and education are all provided basically for "free" as a result of non-scarcity of resources. Luxury homes, possessions, activities, and other things would have a certain cost beyond basic welfare, and earned by contributing to society in some fashion, even if it is just volunteer work in some useful area. One could still earn some kind of credit for at least minor luxuries. Greater luxuries would require greater contributions to society, possibly meaning a career of some sort, or at least steady work. The credit system wouldn't necessarily need to be kept as actual money, just as some means to recognize and reward efforts contributing to society and act as credits even if only electronically managed. On the other hand, someone would survive quite well doing absolutely nothing if they so chose, although they might choose to do something out of sheer boredom.
Yes, I found it odd that he didn't reference DS9 at all. Some of it is explained, especially within Quark's bar. But still, I always wondered about this myself. One of the oversights of Gene Roddenberry.
@@thebluelight4498 Roddenberry was married to the ideas of idealism and humanism, which isn't a bad thing, but it made Earth unapproachable as far as story. I don't think we even get Earth stories until DS9?
No, Star Fleet officers are not paid. My guess is Star Fleet maintains a petty cash fund that allows unlimited access to Star Fleet members. That would explain how O'Brien and Bashir seem to have unlimited access to Quarks holosuites. They simply take what they need from the Star Fleet Purser.
In the pilot of TNG, Crusher buys some bolts of cloth from a non-Federation vendor, and says something like "put it on my account" or something... so they do have some method of paying non-Federation members.
Let's all say it together: Science FICTION
A resource based economy is not the same as capitalism and it's not the same as communism. It is the progression from democratic socialism into a purely energy based economy. Basically all of your needs for life are met for everyone, no one gets charged for food water homes medicine education etc. It's all free to everyone. The only currency that exists is called energy credits. These credits can be used to buy things outside of the standard things needed. So while food and water is free, buying a sexy outfit is not. While communication is free, having your own personal communication system is not, while transportation is free - having your own personal vehicle is not.
Male pattern baldness was cured by the 24th Century, the problem is it's not covered by the single player Federation Healthcare system and since The Federation doesn't have "real" currency, you can't go to a non-federation world to buy treatment.
that sounds pretty authoritarian.. "We decide what it is you need and how much" stupid
Main problem with concept of post-scarcity civilization, is that it cannot be achieved, because as progress toward it, goalposts move as well. No matter how much handout goverment guarantees, there will be people demaning more. What is achievable though, is brainwashing people into believing "enough" is exactly as much as goverment tells them is enough, so they don't demand more than is already given to them.
conditioned brain.
hop we classify the information into a category.
here authoritarian.
the next category, it's going to be communist
then the one after Nazism.
plutocrats tyrants have invented concepts for them so that their slave can never seek to understand beyond appearances.
the existence of a living being consumes energy & resources.
it is necessary to establish a system that controls consumption.
to avoid abuse and wastage by individuals or groups of individuals with biased behavior. illogical.
in plutocratic society, it is not a question of this control, it is a question of maintaining the law of the strongest.
a minority are kings and princes who can abuse and enjoy their numerous similar maintained in economically inferior states to be able to be used.
resource consumption is anarchic.
the one who holds a lot of resources, in fact a private consideration, so they take the food in the hands of those who are inferior to him.
because, biased brain, the little minde want to be prestigious
he wants to be venerated and to taste new feelings from acclaimed by the crowd.
it's the concept of celebrity. many are those who want to be famous. Why ?
to feel good in their little pathetic existence in itself.
an imperfect creature and sick in his brain full of imbalance who want become a god
an honest living being is responsible then is limited.
when the being is unable to restrain himself, others must impose limits on him.
it's authoritarian yes in a good way.
authoritarianism, when it's those who had bad behavior who give themselves appearances to amplify and continue to do evil. it's just not the same.
You have a good grasp on why having a currency based economical system is important for allocating time and resources. The concept of a "post scarcity" like world is a "shoulder shrugger" for me. It all depends how our species will react to such a phenomenon.
If/when this comes true I don't see anything good coming from it if there isn't an overarching and uniting ideological force to keep our more primitive natures in check. That is what the pessimist in me is saying anyway.
I made the mistake of referring to Roddenberry's "new Soviet man" take on mankind on a DS-9 fan page. I was vilified and booted.
I think that Star Trek, being several shows and movies, has inherent inconsistencies as not all the writers comb over the vast wealth of material for consistency. In one instance they talk of being motivated by the drive of virtue, then in another instance we hear of credits and buying.
Scotty buying a boat, buying and trading with other aliens, ect...
The economics of Trek probably come across as vague and not-thought-out because it is vague and not-thought-out. It's kind of like the universal translator, you just sort of have to turn your brain off and except it. DS9 (my favorite Trek) tried to add a little more complexity to the inner workings of trade and currency, but I guess the economics have never really been the point of the series.
Actually you can get language translator applications for your mobile phone easily enough. I use one on my Andriod 7 /Huawei. They talk into it, you press translate, it decifers. Or you can type the words.
In 1st episode of Next Gen, doesn't the doctor buy a bolt of fabric at Farside and charge it to her account?
But the world they are on is applying for Federation membership so isn't yet part so probably deal with another galactic currency (Ferengi Latinum, Cardassian Lek, etc)
One thing to consider is the whole "no money" thing might be a smokescreen of sorts. Consider "salt." At one time it was so valuable it was the payment for a Roman soldier. Wars were fought over it; won and lost over it. Today sea salt is a cute fad and salt is easily created for our personal consumption. So in the future all the small stuff is practically free. The big stuff? It can't be bought ... period. In the old series, Harcourt Fenton Mud, the only one in the series not in a government owned vessel had to use "counterfeit currency" to procure that vessel. So the value of things seems to collapse into two states, zero and infinity. If you are from earth and you want to explore space, kissing up to the Federation is your only option. Supply and demand still exists, but in this case it is the limited supply of captain positions, or chief engineers. We can see a glance of this in the Wrath of Khan movie with the attitudes of the scientists towards the federation bureaucracy (there are a lot of other problems with their attitude but it does show the "government control" which does lean towards the "communist utopia" model).
Well in Star treks time, those two factions dont really exist. The old animosities are gone. You have to remember, ST history begins after a world war 3, that we havent technically had yet.
History Factoid: Salt was never "so valuable that it was the payment for a Roman soldier." Roman soldiers received a salt ration alongside their regular pay and rations and land grants, because salt is quite useful, both for cooking (obviously) and food preservation. Salt is incredibly easy to gather for a seaside empire (like Rome) because all you have to do is walk down to the beach and, literally, scoop it off the ground at low tide. It still had a definite value, because it was used very heavily, but it's never been scarce enough to have a *high* value.
Are you familiar with "Tulipmania" from the 17th century Netherlands. Once tulips were valued so highly that they were traded as money. They aren't difficult to gather, nor are they useful to survival. Heck you can literally grow the things.
Easy to gather, No real useful qualities beyond atheistic, and they will wither and die over time, yet still they were still incredibly valued.
Point being, sometimes things that should not be so valuable, still are.
To answer your question: Yes you are missing something, you don't seem to understand the consequences of a post-scarcity society.
Walk through what the result of post-scarcity means. It doesn't mean that there won't be people who wake up in the morning to go work that broom, it means that they decided to work that broom, it's their choice, it's something they wanted to do perhaps after a long life in engineering. Same with the plasma tubes, oh you want to be a hotshot engineer on the latest enterprise? Well you start by learning to clean those plasma tubes.
If you showed wikipedia to someone from the 1950s they'd think "Gosh, mister, you mean the people of the 21st century would end up with basically free PhDs?" To which you'd have to reply "No, they use the internet to look at funny pictures of cats, yell insults at strangers and masturbate to porn."
Also pretty sure they would say "Dear god, why is Marxist propaganda allowed to float like that?"
PewPew Research Who knows! Maybe everyone takes duty shifts mopping the floors, even the captain? Look at the example of Boothby. Some of us just want to do good, simple work without being demeaned to live in poverty to do so. If I could live comfortably washing dishes, I probably would. It was one of my favorite shifts in the restaurant industry. All I ask is a sustainable future for my children, a house to live in, a possibility of decent continuing education, food, shelter, and clothing and I'm set. Some personal property, not land or capital, would be nice but unnecessary. Most working class people feel exactly the same.
Well we know because Roddenberry told us.
Yes and I don't know why you think that the rest of your comment somehow differs from what I'm saying, it's exactly what I'm saying. Post-scarcity means that your kids is secured hence you can go work that dishwasher if that is what you would like to do, it's your choice.
There certainly is scarcity within the federation. The whole post-scarcity thing is rodenberrys bullshit.
Um, you build a GIANT replicator. And you say "starship" and it makes one for you...
_"I said, what does God need with a Starship?"_
"You, doubt, me?!"
Jim, what are you doing?!
I'm asking a question.
You don't ask the Almighty for his ID!
To "better ones self" means there are "lessers" - must be the red shirts.
👍🏻 ♥ ♥ Lmao!! Thank u... 4 making me spit out my ☕
Star Trek economics and politics are intertwined. They are an aggregate of all economic and political platforms to varying degrees. (Mostly as it suits the writer's personal views, and the developing story line.)
I feel they mostly vacillate to degrees from passive, Socialistic-Communism to Anarcho-Communism, again to varying degrees.
If you took the barbarism of selective breeding, genocide, and bellicosity out of Plato's "The Republic" add a few starships and Marxism... You got Star Trek.
Just without the taking babies and raising them to become guardians and philosopher kings maybe (on the Plato part)
@@chrissonofpear1384 ... Maybe I'm misunderstanding you...
So, in Plato's The Republic, you are ok with the "secret camps" and someone in the hierarchy determining who lives and dies... And which "babies should not see the light of day." by government forced abortions, and the fake lotteries?
Please clarify. Thanks
The thing with Star Trek communism is that Gene Roddenberry first looked at it and thought communism would be great as a utopia if everyone actually agreed to the idea, but during the show it became obvious that many conflicts and basic realities are removed if you remove the idea of things like free trade, hence why markets and the ferangi existed, and why there were things like the sale of tribbles.
Basically long story short the reason Star Trek had a weird kind of half assed communism is because Gene Roddenberry basically looked at communism and thought “hey that’s be awesome” then didn’t put anymore thought into it for some time.
There is one solution that came about other than just the ferangi and a few specific scenes with markets and all, the fix for the majority of things is as simple as star fleet being different from the federation in that starfleet itself runs basically without markets or anything, but when you think about it in the military you’re not buying your rifle or anything like that either, so it’s somewhat similar.
Communism or socialism is great until someone else's money runs out...that's the biggest problem. Bus driver gets paid the same as a doctor so why would I kill myself to be a doctor, eventually you have to force your best and brightest to do what the state wants...then it gets really fucking depressing.
90 million people died because of communism. What's so great about that?
The ferangi weren't a fix for the federation's communism... because the federation didn't really trade with them.
@@Lisa-tz2th said "you cannot have Communism with scarcity". So, are you saying that the USSR was post-scarcity, or that the USSR wasn't communist?
@@CaptApril123 that’s been the perennial problem with such systems since forever. It was even openly acknowledged in the eastern block, and complained about, since even the lowly workers recognised how stupid it was that (for example) the people who actually build the roads get paid more than the civil engineers who trained and had the skills to design something that would work well.
I always wondered who decided what “betterment of oneself” was. Not everyone thinks the same, even in a utopia. One person’s definition of betterment of humanity might not be the same as someone else’s.
Even the concept of "betterment" is pretty wishy washy and arbitrary and not something everyone is necessarily going to care about.
I always felt it was clear in TOS that money still existed--there's reference to Federation credits, for example. For that matter, even though Starfleet doesn't use money, per se, they must have paid the crew of DS9 something, as they were able to do things at Quark's that he charged gold-pressed latinum for, such as food, drink, or using the holosuites (and Dax gambled with Quark, etc.) Jake specifically did not have money in one episode and wanted to borrow some from Nog, so it would seem that Starfleet MUST have paid the crew something in GPL. Restaurants also seem to bear this out--how could Sisko Sr. have found someone to do things like take out the garbage and clean and shuck shellfish if he didn't offer something? For that matter, where did he get the real meat and vegetables it shows him bringing into his kitchen in one or two episodes? My feeling is that the writers were imposing their VISION of a Communist utopia and glossed over the details and inconsistencies. Their portrayal of humans seems to be that in the future humans won't need incentives to work for the betterment of themselves and others, which is of course nonsense.
the people of the federation have undergone social evolution to the point that people (for the most part) do not think the same as you or I. Joseph Sisko operates a restaurant because he likes to cook for people the reward is seeing the enjoy his food it wood simply not enter his head to be payed for his labor as for generations no one on earth has been also Picards brother operates a vineyard so people have real wine to drink instead synthaohol rather than because he is payed to.
It should also be said that not all federation citizens are this way as in the case of the weapons dealer in DS9 or the people involved with the Orion syndicate.
As for professions that require a high skill level like engineers doctors ect the simple size of the federations population (hundreds of worlds) means that there are always enough people with the right skill level to fill the positions just look at the bridge crew of any ship in star trek they all have advanced degrees in many fields (Warp theory is a required course at star fleet academy) by today's standards they are all geniuses but when you have several hundred billion people to pick from you will be able to find someone skill full and genuinely passionate about said work to the point they will happily do it for the betterment of all.
Jim D you need to realise that tgis would never work.,people are always inherently greedy.
Gerald Mardiska I'm a software engineer. I've never done it for the money; it started out as just a hobby. Getting paid to do it is nice, but once I started making enough to pay the bills, the only thing more money ever did for me was help buffer my savings account and let me donate more to charities. Sure I could buy more toys and other material goods, but I wouldn't be able to enjoy them all; there's only a limited amount of time available.
+Natasel What the fuck does not wanting to buy material goods and rather donate to charities have to do with being shit with money?
+Natasel What an adorable response that says absolutely nothing about what it is I actually said. I stated quite clearly that it is in our NATURE as a SOCIAL SPECIES to feel compassion for others that are suffering or less fortunate. I'm not talking being virtuous or any vacuous nonsense you ascribed to me... I am stating that as a social species we have an ingrained instinctual empathy built into us through hundreds of thousands of years of evolution. It's how we were able to domesticate wild animals, and so on. Compassion is but one of those aspects of empathy that we express on a regular basis as a species. Those who cannot show empathy or who're incapable of it have a portion of their physical brain not working or not working properly.
Me not giving someone a computer that I have claimed ownership over has nothing to do with what I said and it has nothing to do with someone being shit with money. If they give to charity organizations that consistently lose his money or waste it, then year, that's a waste of money. If he doesn't look into any of the charities he donates too and just does so too good causes, yeah that's a waste of money. But just giving your extra money that you don't need to charity organizations that you feel are worthwhile donations is not a waste of money.
You may think human being's are like the Ferengi, but we are not. We can't live on a polluted planet, we can't live with everyone being out for their own and only their own interests and we cannot thrive in a society where the ruthless, the dishonest and the cutthroat make it to the top by shoving everyone else out of the way in the most dishonest and violent way imaginable.
Okay, clearly you're not interested in discussing a fairly nuanced topic, you're just here too relentlessly throw what I say back into my face to get me frustrated. You're not a very inventive troll if all you're doing is rolling around in filth and trying to get me to join you.
No, I don't think you missed anything. Once energy is abundant and everyone can have replicators that can create pretty much anything, humans don't need to do nearly as much work to survive a basic, comfortable life. Especially when there are thousands of empty or mostly empty planets all over the place so you need not pay for land, and every piece of your home can be fabricated by your personal replicator. Ditto for vehicles. As you say, this leaves a few details unspecified in detail, but there is no need to be more specific to make the StarTrek universe make sense. *PLUS* the federation doesn't run around forcing everyone in the universe to adopt the nominal average behavior on earth, so if you don't like the way things work on earth, you can take your personal matter-antimatter energy machine and replicator elsewhere and live whatever life you want. That's the liberty aspect you mentioned, which is more-or-less unavoidable in a place as large as a galaxy. No federation or government like entity can watch every nook and cranny in the universe, and there's little incentive to do that too, since the "government" also has unlimited energy, unlimited production ability with their replicators, and human labor isn't very important.
If there is no money, no reason to work to survive, then you can conclude that whatever labor someone does commit to is based on their free will.
The dude who owns the restaurant probably loves to cook and wants to share that with others, and since the whole society can indulge in free inquiry and choose what they commit their labor to, you'll find that individuals just want to indulge in their own creation, and feel purpose from their actions.
and if his labor is unpaid, well any other business he might enjoy outside of his work will also be free. He wouldn't need that money in the first place, he'll seek out another independent artist and consume their product, as they consume his.
I’m glad you brought this up, i always thought it was really inconsistent, especially when you think about the freighters and what everyone is gambling over at quark’s bar, if you want an actual good example of communist space utopia, then check out the Culture Series by Iain Banks, definitely a more critical and realistic take on the idea of a society without money/hierarchy/race
The thing is, communism could never make this a reality in the first place. Only after those technologies would have been established, communism could emerge.
but the urss reached space first? right?
No they are republic. Each member of the Federation seems to have voting rights. Never once seen a Communist party make decisions for everyone.
Capitalism will never make this a reality in the first place either. Novelty orbiting Teslas notwithstanding.
@@taraxanoid The Ferengi Alliance would disagree.
A pure communist government would self destruct in 30 minutes. Pure communism is a dystopian fantasy that will never fully exist in any meaningful way. Pure communism is a hoax, a myth, and a dystopian fantasy.
I would not want to be part of that society that takes away my self reliance.
Dave, you hit on something that I too have always wondered. I've even had socialist friends point to Star Trek as the gold standard of how to order society. Unfortunately, as long as man's wants are infinite and resources are finite, it will remain an unattainable Utopian dream. Thanks for the video!
man's wants aren't infinite, it is only the system that makes people be greedy.
don't wanna necro posts but like, doesn't your phrase also mean utopian capitalism is unattainable? cos every one will be killing each other for finite resources cos they have infinite wants? sounds like having infinite wants is not the point of living cos like, it renders any version of society and human living unsustainable and self-destructive my guy. only capitalism tells everyone to have infinite wants while communism says to NOT have infinite wants because that is selfish and unethical. which it is.
I love ice cream. A lot. I definitely do not want infinite ice cream. (Wants are not infinite)
We can’t achieve true post-scarcity, but we may achieve practical post-scarcity. We are finite beings that operate within a finite amount of time. The maximum amount of things we could ever physically request is finite. It could get to a point where our resources are so abundant that we cannot physically deplete it. Those resources would be virtually free.
@@cowlinator I think unlimited wants in the sense that everyone wants something else. And they they want the other thing no, no that one ok maybe that one. The point I'm making is you can't satiate human desire because it's boundless and ever changing.
Why would Quark have stayed on DS9 if there was no money to be made? Also, if replication tech was perfect, why could he not replicate all the Latinimum (sp?) that he could ever want? There has to be some form of economy. If there was nkt, the Frengi (sp?) would want absolutely nothing to do with the Federation.
Matt R.
1) The Federation does not use money, but do however provide a stipend to their members/personnel. This financial credit is held in an electronic bank and is used to provide a means by which the crew (et all) can barter with cultures that do use a currency.
2) All non federation members are restricted with regards to replicator functions.
3) Replicators that are allowed to produce currency are limited to those controlled by ship/station managment and require hierarchical.
All of these points are covered within the verse (TNG/DS9/VOY).
This is Quark and Rom though. If it was possible, they would hack into that in minutes...or have plans to. As for the rest, I cannot dispute as I do not know. But those two, well, Quark's greed, knows no bounds....so if something like that was possible, he would be trying. That is my take...and why I brought it up.
Replicators are transmutator-maschines and are fueld with special stuff - in a voy episode they had to get some of the stuff idk which one exactly. So there are materials in the space that have more value than others. Controlling the distribution of them (even if they are infinite, but local restricted) is key to power. Power bears a form of gouvernance and hirarchie. So no there is no base for equality which is a main goal of communism. If anything star trek is on the survace communistic in the sense of equality. But ohter than that not so much.
I agree that they (Quark/Rom/Any Ferengi) would have continued to try until they succeeded. But the writers felt it was a better story for them to continue with other focuses rather than just get then arrested for hacking the replicators (which did actually happen to Quark once... if memory serves, Odo gave him 30 days for it)
Matt R Quark want on earth or in the federation. Quark is ferengi and they run a weird version of the market.
You forgot that prestige is something that could incentivize someone (besides getting paid). Wouldn't you like to be known as the top engineer in Star Fleet? Imagine what that would mean. You would get to work on the most interesting projects and design the most kick-ass engines.
Trek is a unicorn utopia with the best of capitalism & communism and no drawbacks of either. The edict of The Federation is to spread geocentric morality throughout the galaxy.
Gynocentric morality
@@VotePaineJefferson Since STD, yes.
@@tiggergolah STD, what a fitting acronym.
@@VotePaineJefferson That would make them "spatially-transmitted diseases", then? ^^
@@metalvisionsongcontest7055 u are close, it's :"SHATNER-Transmitted Diseases"! 😁
"Why would any military organization settle for average or mediocre workers". Well six years later we are doing exactly that, though not strictly just the military. There are businesses out there that have stated that they care more about hiring based on inclusion rather than hiring the best people for the job.
Is it so strange to imagine that, when you can get everything you want out of a machine, that money is not that important anymore, that people just want to work because they want to do something useful.
Yep becausr its unrealistic
YEAH SSOOOOOSOSOSOSOOS CRRRRAAZZZZZY
What’s so weird? If you can have anything you want you would be bored and want to do something to make yourself more well known… that works as motivation, right? I would. But maybe I’m giving humanity too much crediy
Star Trek is not about explaining how, only showing what could be. We don't know how FTL works (according to known physics it is impossible), but they use FTL in the show. The economy is the same, they show that we could develop a super economy, but how is up to us to make if possible.
Actually according to know physics the star trek form of ftl is possible. Because its a warp drive. It does not move the ship, it moves space. Its basically wormhole drives. And that is theoretically possible. Space is not limited by the speed of light.
« There can be no understanding between the hand and the brain unless the heart acts as mediator. »
- Metropolis
The best capital is our heart.
"The Borg are actually a better representation of Comunism: no individuality, everything is planed by a central power (the queen, or the collective) , no liberty at all.
Federation is more like a post-capitalism, a libertarian state with a lot of technology. They have free trade, respect for individuality, but their principles is not religious based." - Anon
Roddenberry himself was an unapologetic socialist, and spoke before his death of how Star Trek reflected his views.
Also, note the Ferrengi. They made their debut as the 'bad guys'. Voracious capitalists with a variety of loathsome habits, including not allowing their females to wear clothes. Could there have been a more obvious shout that they believed the pursuit of personal gain was evil at its source?
The fact that there are logic holes in the delivery aren't the fault of the Federation's economic system, but the fault that the system they were attempting to portray just cannot work. So they portrayed the western system but without the icky money, as though nothing else would change.
Not all human incentives are financial. There are social incentives which include prestige with service to a societal ideal. These incentives grant high achievers with social capital. No one gets paid for an Oscar, a field’s medal, a Nobel prize, an Olympic medal, etc.
Just remember that Communism is economic, not actually political. It's MADE political because of the scarsity issue, money, and the need to keep tight control over those who live within the system. Modern Communism basically has to keep everyone at the lowest common denominator in order to maintain equality. In Star Trek, the scarcity issue is all but gone, and therefore everyone can be at the highest common denominator. Thus you can HAVE a Communist economic structure, AND a Democratic/Republican political structure at the same time. The real question would be IF such a pure communist economy would be enough incentive to get people to do what they would otherwise do in a Market economy.
This is exactly right! I must add that the basic premise of the TNG Era is that humanity experienced a deep cultural transformation: wealth is no longer a symbol of status, because there is no relative scarcity. But there are selfish motivators other than financial advantage: a starfleet officer doesn't work hard to become captain because she or he expects to earn more money, but because a starship captain is far more powerful and prestigious than most people.
Execept the part about scarcity being wrong is not only bullshit, it was also slowly retconned over the years as rodenberry moved away. Its handwavium of the worst sort. Its stablished that there are materials that the replicator can't make, so you already got scarcity right there. Dilithium must be mined, labour is always a limiting factor, land ownership too, or else how do you stablish that picard family has a vineyard(those are limited). Sisko says on ds9 that he blew all of his transport credits on the academy by visiting his family for dinner every night. Sounds like scarcity no?
Modern Communism/socialism/what-have-you-enemy-du-jour isn't about equality so much as it is about abolishing the private ownership of the means of production. POMP, as I'll refer to it, is bad for a multitude of reasons, but chiefly because it upholds an oligarchic structure to the economy and not a meritocratic one as it should be. Also, we are in the present day encountering a post-labor-scarcity world. So yes scarcity of labor is no longer an issue but this development will move us toward a world that is the opposite of the Federation unless we move away from POMP which encourages the hoarding of resources instead of their optimal use.
big companies would never let that kind of revolutionary thinking even get off the ground: It would be the death of them
Eventually it might still happen Enderman_of-Doom, "Strange worlds" above pointed out a few important facts.
Communism is still about money and resources, and suffers the same illusion that the capitalistic world suffers from - that of endless growth.
But the world might come to an interesting crossroads in the not so far future, the writers of the older Star Trek series lived in an age of optimism for the future.
Our one is certainly less bright.
But if we do get our act together, we might very well set us on the path on a post-scarity society.
I live in one that have a some of those characteristics already, though we're got way to go yet - but medical and dental care cost very little, even advanced checkups like with NMR - I got one this autumn after a mishap at work. Education is free, I gotten a good one and work with research for one University, not because it pays so much - but because it stimulate my intellect. Riding a ferry, two or tree here cost nothing - a visiting researcher from China did not get it and were very surprised when we used all ferries without paying any fee.
Some will start to yell communism and socialism at this point - I don't mind.
What is worse that so many don't understand that most persons actually do wish to do good, be active and interact with others, and do their duty even if it's only for the status.
There always be those who do not contribute, but those should not be punished for being inept! But in the capitalist world they are. :(
Here we get drinking water and electricity is also provided without any cost.
Taxes are among the highest you've heard of, yet our happiness rating is still on the top 5 in the world.
I met a man in Asia, tend to remember he were from Singapore. Who had a very bad time believing this.
He even got sarcastic asking if we get Petrol for free as well.
What he didn't and couldn't understand is that energy production do not have to be done with coal or oil - in fact it's insane to make electricity from fossil fuels when we already have very good alternatives at hand. Oil still is needed for lets say transportation or as so much go electric now - lubrication and manufacturing of medicines!
Freely available energy will change the entire economic concept about who use it and for what.
When corporations no longer can charge for a basic utility or need, it will eventually erode those 'big corporations', and remove the power they have over decision making on this planet - and later also beyond.
Star Trek Economics .Ther isnt any .It always was a head scratcher for me and the show and films never fully explained or explored this concept.
Yes..ultimately it's just sci-fi writers.. but that's the start of questions and talking points in the real world. Rodenberry (and other writers) wanted to get us thinking and talking with this stuff. It's up to us to figure things out.
From what I understood, any human could either stay on Earth or in Federation space and reaped the benefits of our utopia, including working solely for the enjoyment of said work (ie running a restaurant) OR they could chase down latinum in the vast amounts of space that accepted the currency (which seemed to be most of the Alpha Quadrant)
I like Star Trek, but I think it gives human nature too much credit. If replicators could replicate what we needed, a lot of people would become lazy as hell. I don't know how many times I got in the morning and didn't feel like going into work, and if I didn't have to put food on my table and gas in my car, I prolly wouldn't have.
because your education sucks ?
you live a slave existence without realizing it, it is normal that you perceive the work only in a bad way.
a slave is one whom one holds by coercion.
as he just said, he only works to keep himself alive, to eat and drink. he does not conceive of existence differently.
he has no social passion. to contribute to social activity does not tell him anything.
for him life is painful, work kills him, he is subject to that. he covets the sweet dream of being rich to bask live a lazy life.
to accomplish a task he must be paid by money.
give a hand to his neighbor to be in good relationship with him, it does not interest him. he wants just money.
this is un individual of the false humanity. under bad definition
you are a slave, who works so that the rich who owns you can continue to be rich.you do not work for society, but for a notable, a bourgeois, above all else.
slavers abusing their slaves make them work up to physical and mental fatigue. milking robot
human life is made bitter people hate each other, to make them forget to unite to improve the society where they live.
so you do not want to get up in the morning, you want to stay in bed.
the one who is happy gets up with a good heart and welcomes the new day with a smile to carry out his task for a serene and active life with his peers.
but he who is unhappy is a slave and a slave who does not know his condition as a slave. he only wants to stay in his sleep, because those who tyrannize him mistreat him, abuse him, and tire his body and mind.
so he wants just to sleep to keep dreaming.since his life is so dirty, that he does not desire it, he does not like it.
Star Trek only represented the top people in the world... those who would better themselves and be good enough to run a star ship and have the will for space exploration. For all we know lazy people still exist but we don't see them because they are back on Earth laying in bed, not furthering the plot.
Good point.@Blu
I'm guessing none of you knuckle heads have ever heard of the utopian mouse experiment. An abundance of resources with no need to work caused an entire mouse population to devolve into absolute chaos. All the male mice became excessively feminine, the females turned hyper aggressive and stopped trying to reproduce, then they literally turned to killing and eating each other.
i would sat it more of a left libertarian utopia or a socialist utopia. i think there is a currency in the future like credits but it probably work on a UBI systems and people work up from there. in episodes you see federation spending credits at quarks bar, and trade with other races like the ferengi. though that seems to take place in bartering of resources somtimes
Gold-pressed latinum seems to be a Ferengi thing. No doubt that Universal Basic Income and cryptocurrency are key components of Federation economics as well as old-fashioned bartering.
It's interesting looking back on this kind of discussion nowadays, realizing that if Matter Replicators ever became a thing, people and corporations would 200% rant & strike against it to claim that it's "stealing jobs" regardless of whatever technological progression it may provide 😂
The economics work because they are scripted to work. While Star Trek holds up earth and humanity as the examples of this, it seems that they and perhaps the Vulcans are in the minority on this. Take the Ferengi, who have more Rules of Acquisition than they do bones in their bodies, and we can see this is limited. Granted, the Ferengi are not part of the Federation, but it can be seen that the ideas of Capitalism and free trade are alive somewhere in the galaxy.
I think a lot of these 23rd and 24th Century ideas only serve as a backdrop as what the writers believe is a possible future for humanity. But we have to suspend reality and belief to enjoy their stories, as reality completely testifies otherwise to humanity's ability to do so. We cannot overcome our natures or rise above ourselves any more than we, as an individual, can step on our own hands and lift ourselves up. Humanity will always be at odds with itself. We must acknowledge this and work at mitigating our first base instincts. We can only suppress our raw natures, through discipline, not remove, or evolve beyond.
We should all know that in reality a captain commanding a starship (were there such a thing) would get blown out of existence and end the lives of every crew member on his/her ship the moment they lowered their shields when facing a hostile enemy after monologing into the bridge main viewer. The very fact that we see emotional tension among human crewmembers throughout all of the versions of the series, shows human nature is very much alive and kicking.
Despite what economic system you advocate, competition and ambition are still core human values and they will always be integral to both technical and social development. Star Trek always skirted these issues, giving results but never explanations ie. First Contact speech. The viewers are simply asked to believe the future is paradise and that humans and myriad other species have transcended their basic impulses to succeed and live in a great galactic state of appeasement and cooperation. In a nutshell, I have never bought into this. It simply undermines that which is man's driving force for development which is stated in my opening sentence. Simply put, if there are no struggles, we can not overcome them and become stronger. The Federation is therefore doomed to apathy and complacency.
Chekov earned his pay on episode: Who mourns for Adonais
Not sure if the economics of Star Trek are viable per say, but most of it we see through the Federation; which seems to be a military focused meritocracy; they seem to promote those who can prove themselves to positions of power and authority while also having strict codes of discipline and conduct regarding how to approach certain situations.
If you think about it, with the Federation being a somewhat military organization (they definitely seem similar to say the US Navy for instance), and most of the resources of said organization being unlimited, but with the presence of property owners in the background (outside the Federation) the Star Trek universe could actually be Fascist, not Communist.
Think about it, how often are people within the Federation allowed to defy the Federation? What happens when people take up arms against them? Are any of the crew members allowed to abandon their posts of defy orders?
Just an idea to think about.
Yeah ok firstly I think you're confusing The Federation with Starfleet. You used the US Navy as an example so I'll stick to that, in the Star Trek Universe Starfleet is exploration and military group (although it's clearly stated in Star Trek that it's not a military organisation) of The Federation, so Starfleet is the US Navy and the Federation is the USA. So Starfleet being a government organisation responsible for law enforcement, defence and exploration would be somewhat military focused in regards to how it elevates and structures it's personnel. We know so little about Federation society from cannon sources that we can only make assumptions, but since The Federation is clearly shown as a democracy comprised of multiple alien races all given the same rights under Federation law I think it's pretty safe to say they aren't a Fascist group.
"Think about it, how often are people within the Federation allowed to defy the Federation? What happens when people take up arms against them? Are any of the crew members allowed to abandon their posts of defy orders?"
Name me a military were abandoning your post, mutiny or disobeying a legal order is not a punishable offence?
On Earth (and I guess on other UFP planets) people can obviously do what they want. We also see human traders etc. The federation is a republic (they have a senate and a president). Starfleet is a military organizartion so yes you are going to get into trouble for defying orders. But it seams like it usually just means getting thrown out or demoted unless serious harm was done.
Here's my understanding of it...
Imagine a world of very cheap abundant energy created by fusion power. Imagine a world where replicators can create any object, good or material at prices a few hundredths of a nickle and usually much less. Suddenly everything becomes free, that car is worth zero American dollars because replicators can make a billion cars within a couple a days, all powered by fusion and antimatter reactors.
So a business now hast to worry about one thing: selling stuff. Price is of no concern, supply availability has become a meaningless concept. Wages are no longer necessary because everything is free. Materialism and consumerism as we know it barely exists, a person's reason for existing is not defined by excessive buying of things and objects. The reason for existing is moral, the religious would say spiritual; a person betters themselves physically and mentally to not only benefit themselves but to benefit others.
Service to others is the real measure of wealth, a happy, fulfilling life is its own reward and is something priceless. It's not that greed and materialism no longer exist, they are now pale shadows of themselves and no longer exert such a strong influence on humanity.
The meritocracy within business is how popular its produce is, quality and perception help to expand sales and thus the business. This same meritocracy can be seen in all walks of life in the Federation: Starfleet officers go through rigorous training and only the best are selected. Chefs -- like Joseph Sisko -- run businesses because they are the best at what they do and attract customers. Scientists must produce the best theories and the most practical of experiments to be allowed access to important equipment and/or secure locations. Musicians have audiences because the musicians can not only play but play with taste...
From what I've got from Star Trek, in the Federation there is no economic threat from failure*; only personal disappointment and regret. While the sky is the limit for those with talent. So I guess talent is the Federation's internal currency for determining the value of a person and the means of measuring their contributions to society.
///
About those energy credits...
They're currency for trading with interplanetary states outside of the Federation. Klingons, Cardassians, Romulans, Bajorans, Ferengi... These five states all use money and will not accept barter for interplanetary trade. So the energy credit was devised in the Federation. So what is an energy credit?
Imagine all the energy which the Federation produces, the total output. This output is the measure of the Federation's economy, the energy credit's value is, put simply, tied to the value of this output. An energy credit, or just credit, represents a tiny, tiny amount of this output.
The energy credit is a bill whose tender is a unit of energy; it's a claim to buy a unit of energy at some future point. Just like dollar bills used to be a legal claim/receipt for ownership of a small amount of gold. Their value was thus twofold: the dollar could be exchanged for gold or someone else could take receipt of that dollar in exchange for goods. In either cases AGREED VALUE is preserved in all exchanges.
Since energy is not actually traded in the transaction, there must be a material whose potential chemical energy is equal to the value of the energy credit.
Then it gets all complicated because there are millions of materials which can be used. The point is say the Klingons buy a lot of grain, they receive energy credits. The Klingons have two choices: they trade those credits back to the Federation in exchange for materials which have an equivalent total energy value. Say uranium for example... OR the Klingons hold onto the credits and add them to their currency reserves, perhaps to be spent some time in the future.
In either case AGREED VALUE is preserved in all exchanges. That's why energy credits have value because they can be traded for something material which DOES have tangible value.
It's also why on DS9 the Starfleet officers carried energy credits to buy stuff. Since DS9 was a Bajoran station and the Bajorans used latinum, then energy credits were acceptable legal tender. So acceptable that even Quark would accept them.
///
So to sum up, internally the Federation doesn't use money. Externally it does use money -- in the form of energy credits -- for the purposes of trade. Hence the weird Federation-has-no-money-but-there-are-energy-credits thing...
In fact, I wouldn't at all be surprised if the Federation, Klingons, Ferengi, Cardassians, Romulans and other species all had interplanetary forex exchanges to facilitate currency swaps and ensure protection of their respective currencies.
skatemetrix exactly my thought
_Part_ of this issue- and I'm not not disagreeing with what you said in the video- is that Gene Roddenberry was deliberately vague and unspecific about some things when he made _TOS._
Some of the more popular ones (like matter transporters) were things that just popped up for the convenience of the original show's meager budget, not because Roddenberry had a specific vision for it.
His famous policy of "no fins, no flames, no smoke" was a specific direction to original production designer Matt Jefferies because he didn't want the _Yorktown-_ eventually switched to _Enterprise-_ to be yet-another cigar-shaped modern rocket or _Flash Gordon-esque_ teardrop shape with hey! fins, flames or smoke. (Roddenberry genuinely had no idea what his series' spaceship of the future would look like. Being a struggling common TV writer, he had no specific direction for Jefferies to go in when he was hired, which is why the concepts of what would eventually become the _Enterprise_ were so outlandish compared to what we know her as now.) Cylindrical and bell-shaped engines will be a part of future rocket science for a long time to come, and the _Enterprise_ did end up with a flying saucer popularized by the then-relevant U.F.O. craze, but another side advantage of this visuals-only policy was that the SFX department didn't have to take the time to add in or remove such effects from every single spaceship shot.
To reduce comparisons between Starfleet and an outright military system, the uniforms were as deliberately bland and vague with as little ornamentation and insignia. (Infamously, having females be thinly clad was actually a result of the shoestring budget, _not_ a specific vision of the show.) Although even back in 1966, the explanation was all insignia and decoration was added by the individual Starfleet user each time because the wearable material itself was cleaned with a VERY different technique from just throwing it in a spin tumbler with some water and soap like we still do to this day; indeed matter replicators in _TNG_ would outright eliminate that issue altogether.
As to the -United Earth Space Probe Agency's- United Federation of Planets' lack of physical and/or electronic currency, that was another deliberately-vague choice made early on by Roddenberry because he didn't want hero characters associated with the trappings nor "trap" of modern society. The line, "The acquisition of wealth is no longer the driving force in our lives...", spoken by Captain Picard in _Star Trek: First Contact_ is almost word-for-word what Roddenberry was trying to say, even though that line was written/spoken many years after he died. If you watch the earlier _TNG_ Season 1 finale "The Neutral Zone", there is an early-21st Century economist in that episode who brings up the topic, but he is quickly curtailed, educated and advised by both Riker and later Picard. (And let's also keep in mind, folks, that _TOS_ was made right smack in the middle of the communist scare of the Cold War! So, _even if_ Roddenberry secretly was communist in his ideals- which I am NOT accusing nor suspecting in the slightest, folks!- he would never dare have let any whisper of that seep into _TOS_ because it would never have been approved by NBC for airing.) As humans have learned, communism is an interesting idea in theory, but it is laughably vulnerable to things like propaganda, economic and social assertiveness, and outright dictatorships. Additionally, a communist society doesn't _really_ jell with what Roddenberry was trying to impress upon us in 1966 anyways, because hey! they already don't use money in the 23rd Century.
Whether Roddenberry was interviewed on what his idea for the Federation's economy was, I do not know at this time. But it is unquestionably clear to me that, despite the headache it has given TV and movie writers for decades, Federation citizens are living in a literal utopia where money literally doesn't matter, and humanity is instead driven by something positive that we in the 21st Century cannot imagine nor develop under our current economic systems. The development of both matter replicators and matter transporters would do away with a ridiculous amount of _suferage and need_ in our civilization, but at the exact same time it would literally break us to the point where national boundaries would fall by the wayside and upset the vast majority of power brokers- economic, social, utility, military- in our world today.
I'm not sure how trekenomic would work either. Still I can tell you from experience that the persuit of wealth, sex, social status, or power never really motivated me all that much. I had jobs that paid really well before but if I hated it, it never would be worth it. The only thing that ever motivated me was my own curiosity and passion that's about it.
It's actually a barter system. Instead of money, it's back to exchange of knowledge, skills, expertise and social kudos. Federation members better themselves in order to win opportunities to experience whatever floats their boat within the system.
Here's some thoughts: Harry Mudd wanted to trade the 3 women to the RICH dylitheum miners. Kirk told another group of miners they would be RICH once the brood of "hortas" began tunneling. Obviously, the "credits" you mentioned from the tribble episode are an interstellar "euro".
Somewhere out there is someone who really loves scrubbing plasma relays. Take Scotty for instance. Even when he's bitching about the Enterprise being a bucket of bolts and always falling apart, Dr. McCoy says he's "never seen him happier." Some people enjoy the menial labor tasks. And for the jobs that really no one wants - like say Dilithium mining - we do have non-sentient robots
believe it or not, some people do like that one too. they just won't get anywhere near as much flak for it in a world without money.
alien girls, maybe? or robots? whoever wants to? I honestly don't give a damn.
The United Federation of Planets gives out land for work. While money is not used, workers earn points that can be applied to certain plots of land. Land far off in the outer reaches of the Federation would require few points to acquire, while land on more popular planets or planets that already have very good ecosystems would take far more points. This point system can also be used for trade... for example, say an extremely skilled engineer who has invented many technologies has all the land he wants, but would like a book written about him... he would exchange his points to a skilled writer in exchange for a book written about him... how does one live forever? In the history books.... and so on and so forth... anyway... I was just thinking that the more difficult and/or dangerous jobs would earn you more points faster.... so if you take the most risky jobs... you could earn the most points in a short amount of time... but you also take the chance of dying before you get the points you want for the land you want.
Me But what would be the point of owning land? to modern and past humans, land has value because you can grow stuff on it, or build stuff on it. what use would there be to grow stuff when food is plentiful? and what use is there to grow on your land when skyscrapers could be built effectively infinitely?
Öhm .. it's more "romantic" to live in the suburbs than in that skyscraper. That's why people moved into the suburbs in the first place. - But yes: it sounds a bit line Roman Empire.
Here's the thing for me: we're already moving in that direction. Think about it. Who makes most things in factories? Who picks fruit and vegetables, and handles most agricultural tasks? Who takes your order at restaurants? Who manages your company's computers? Who delivers your packages?
More and more, those jobs are either being done by robots, or are being done by less people with the aid of more complicated machinery.
Take fruit picking as an example. It used to be a labor intensive job requiring dozens of workers. Now, harvesters are designed to handle that job. So you need one or two people for a harvester that can reap a lot more produce than what a dozen people could do on their own. The same thing is happening across the board. Machines are doing more and more in the manufacturing of goods. Computers are replacing cashiers at restaurants and stores. Help desks are being moved from local to enterprise. Packages are being delivered by drone.
What does this mean? This means that low-skilled jobs are going away and being replaced by either robots or higher-skilled positions. A dozen people who's job description is "pick fruit and put in basket" are being replaced by a single person who has to operate a complicated vehicle. Local IT staff are downsized and enterprise staff replace them, but jobs are lost along the way as the enterprise runs more efficient.
The end result is you have a ton of unskilled workers out of jobs, and you don't have jobs to replace those with. I grew up fairly right-wing, and I grew up believing people should work for a living. But since I've been working, there are a lot of people I think I would rather pay to have them stay home.
It's fiction; it doesn't have to make sense. Whatever happens happens because that's what the writers wanted to happen at that moment, whether it's realistic for it to happen or not. That said, there is very little material across all the series and movies about civilian life as opposed to military. Our trying to figure out the Federation's economic system from Star Trek would be like aliens trying to figure out the United States economic system by watching a bunch of documentaries about US Navy submarines.
From what I have read, until Star Trek 4, the Federation used Credits as money. Then in the 80s Gene Roddenbery went through a utopian phase and forced this idea into Star Trek canon without any thought about how it would work. In the season 2 episode of Star Trek TOS we get this line of dialogue between Kirk and Spock: "Trying to get yourself killed... Do you know how much Starfleet has invested in you?"
"One hundred twenty-two thousand, two-hundred..."
"Never mind!"
Gany Kaliya no. No money system mentioned many times in original series.
It's a capitalist skeleton with everything else being owned by few companies, Star Fleet being the biggest one. That makes the most sense to me.
Not using money to get things within Star Fleet begins to make more sense that way as well as non-Star Fleet persons still running a restaurant and so on.
So, a failed form of benevolent fascism?
@@travisfoster6473 No there are still corporations only Star Fleet monopolized Earth Space travel. You still have your mom and pops though.
The question is do non-star fleet Earth dwellers use currency or some kind of barter system when trading with Star Fleet. I think the answer is yes... dilithium for example.
It's not that hard to understand. Everyone who worked for a NGO or something - and I mean for free, just for the cause - knows how reward systems and a hierarchy can work without financial benefits.
When I was little I was intrigued by the idea of the star trek moneyless future, but the me of today finds it to be one of those "looks good on paper but would not be sustainable in practice" kind of things. So while if kept in fiction sure it will work, but in reality theres a lot of factors that Gene Roddenberry most likely never considered. After all he was just writing his fiction to look like theres a decent future. Probably didn't plan the whole thing.
actually, it WOULD work. when their's nothing you NEED to do, the first thing you'll do is what you WANT to do. without money being a motivating factor anymore (because you don't need to pay for anything), society would naturally find itself divided into two kinds of people: the kind who want to go out and do interesting/cool/fun things, and the kind who sit around yelling at the tv all day. since these groups wouldn't have any major point of conflict, the first one will run vineyards, fly starships, settle worlds, etc. and the second would be left to rot since there's no need to support them, as they can support themselves.
One remembers that humanity in Star Trek had to go through a _Third World War _*_&_*_ alien first-contact_ before they got their act together and started laying the groundwork of a post-scarcity society.
Michio Kaku calls it perfect capitalism; perfect supply, perfect demand.
I think that the Star Trek economy, is more close to the Resource-based economy, that Jacques Fresco write about it.
There is no money on Earth. They never said that there is no money throughout the Federation.
Yes it is, but they have 2 things:
1. 300 years of human social evolution
2. Replicators, free everything out of thin air.
#1 is the key with 300 years of evolution....
they have gold-pressed latinum so there is money
+Tony The Federation does not forbid a market, but there is no UFP currency and most citizens don´t seem to use it. Its more of a intergalactic trade good accepted by most cultures as a currency since it can´t be replicated.
So no there is no money in the UFP. UFP citizens are just not forbidden from getting currency from other societies.
Gold Pressed Latinum is not human currency its ferengi currency
+Anthony everyone uses it when we see money used. So its not just ferengi currency.
You forgot to mention the replicator can make silver, gold, and platinum among other valuable materials. Im guessing latinum is non-replicatable
Knowledge and pride are the currency.... and access to restricted blue-prints.
"The economics of the future are somewhat different." The movies were so bad. Can you imagine someone from medieval times time travelling to our present day and asking about the talking box in your hand? And then you reply: "The communication devices of the future are somewhat different." Even talking to someone from the past, you wouldn't call the present the "future" unless you were a hack writer not thinking from the perspective of the character.
True!
They were in the past at the time, this would be the opposite of your example
Replicators and transporters could provide for everyone's *basic* needs and small luxuries - food, booze, clothing, shelter, etc. But if you had grander desires or dreams, or you were under social pressure from family or peers, you would probably aspire to more...
Great vid. Replicator tech would be suppressed by Big Oil.
My Idea of the Star Trek economy:
1. you want to start a restaurant
2. Matter replicators take care of almost every material needed except property on which to build said restaurant.
3. The energy needed to maintain and take care of Replicators is provided for by people working and contributing to society in a real, living tax in the form of societal contribution, i.e. community service.
4. The federation credit system keeps track of a persons contribution like a literal financial credit rating, this starts in elementary school where children start building a good credit by being good citizens, studying harder and whatnot, as children get older they get better credit by working hard and taking on more responsibilities.
5. Lazy people or people who don't want to work are still taken care of but are only given the basic necessities that they need to survive and live minimally comfortably, they can't just be starfleet captains or mayors or something like that.
6. You are a citizen with mildly good credit, you go to the property owner and propose he sell you the property, selling you the property will increase his credit rating by contributing to economic development, he will get better credit based on how well the restaurant performs, starting with an increase depending on how good of a rating you already have.
8. Why can't the current owner just build the restaurant himself? He will actually get more credit from selling the property than he will from keeping it since he can't use it as efficiently, odds are he isn't a restauranteer himself, or he simply doesn't need to open a new restaurant, making a new identical restaurant like a chain will give him possibly less credit than selling it for someone to make a new one, depending on the situation.
7. Your ability to buy the restaurant will depend largely on how well you can convince him that you buying and owning the property will increase his credit.
8. The owner agrees and you build your restaurant using materials from the replicators
9. The restaurant works by credit as well, people come in and eat, this doesn't take away from their credit, however those who overeat may find it harder to accumulate a better rating, its up to your discretion as the restaurant owner when they've had enough, however wasting energy for replicators on greedy people will decrease your rating.
10. Lazy people will be able to go to restaurants, but eating without working decreases there rating, this reduces the options they have for work, housing, entertainment, etc, it will also increase the waiting time for non-threatening medical treatments beyond simple analgesics.
11. The rating system isn't universal you'll have much different ratings depending on what you do, going to a restaurant vs going to a mall. Instead of giving cash you simply give your identity to the restaurant owner if he asks for it, he punches in a code, and your calculated rating for going to that restaurant is shown.
U 4got to take into account Odo - he comes along with various fines bcuz your restaurant fails to comply with the various red tape of The MAN, STAR FLEET! 😁
@@Celesteparadise True, but perhaps a fine just means a reduction in ratings.