How Star Trek's Future Works Part 1: Money, Work and Property

[progressive hunter]

one of the big questions we all hear about star trek is how does their economy work if money is obsolete??

are people forced to work?
are they limited on luxuries based on their jobs or can anyone get a yacht or big fishing boat and spend a month fishing??

just ran across these videos and thought I might share them and hear other views

 

[progressive hunter]

 

[Harry Dresden]

hey get credits.....no cash....

 

[progressive hunter]

hey get credits.....no cash....

how many??
is it based on your job??

who gets the boats or does everybody get a boat??

 

[Harry Dresden]

how many??
is it based on your job??

who gets the boats or does everybody get a boat??

how ever much your job wants to pay you....

 

[progressive hunter]

how ever much your job wants to pay you....

interesting!!!

 

[JoeB131]

one of the big questions we all hear about star trek is how does their economy work if money is obsolete??

are people forced to work?
are they limited on luxuries based on their jobs or can anyone get a yacht or big fishing boat and spend a month fishing??

just ran across these videos and thought I might share them and hear other views

The first video talks about "replicators" a lot, but Replicators were not introduced until The Next Generation.

It was implied that they didn't have that technology in the Original Series, although they did have food processors. Other episodes indicated that the Enterprise had substantial supplies in storage—i.e., enough to complete its five-year mission. So it strikes me that wealth distribution did not require replicators in TOS.

IT was also implied that there had to be some kind of currency or trade that went on. The characters of Cyrano Jones and Harry Mudd made a living as free traders. I couldn't see that being done with some kind of currency being available.

The question I always had was, what did the people who weren't in Star Fleet do for a living? Because it seems that once you've eliminated boring manual labor, you still need to find gainful employment for this perfected humanity.

The Ferengi (And I could do dozens of posts about them) used Gold Pressed Latinum. It was clear that some business concerns ran various mining operations that seem to indicate that not all the drudge jobs were eliminated.

Replicators actually make MORE Sense if they are used on starships and space stations, but everyone else is still eating real food grown on farms. Or at least the vegetables, because they don't slaughter animals anymore.

 

[JoeB131]

I always assumed that the Trek Universe, with unlimited natural resources, would have something like a universal basic income and universal health care.

That said, some points.

Let's take the Maquis from the 24th century. Basically, a huge contrivance to set up a plot point for Star Trek Voyager that never went anywhere.

These colonists were fighting a war against the Cardassians because the idealistic Federation abandoned their worlds in a treaty. But it never really made a lot of sense. They weren't native to these planets, they were settlers (most humans but some aliens as well)

Also, just to tick off my Right Wing Friends... did they have gun control in the Federation? IT would seem to be a good idea of how devastating even a hand-held phaser was. But way too many people seemed to have them.

There was an episode of Deep Space Nine where Gul Dukat set up a cult on a space station, and I made the joke, "Someone needs to call in the Bureau of Synthahol, Saltsticks and Phasers!"