Did Gene Roddenberry make a mistake in Star Trek?

[James Wright]

I'm not here to ask about the economics of the Federation, I just have a simple question.
Did Gene Roddenberry make a mistake when he said there was no need for money in trek?
Look at all the examples of people buying and selling things.

James

 

[Vger23]

 

[BK613]

Did Gene Roddenberry make a mistake when he said there was no need for money in trek?

Di he ever actually say that? And was it before The Voyage Home?

 

[James Wright]

OK! Did every being in the Federation have a trust fund, or are incomes equal no matter the job?
In other words no millionaires or billionaires.

 

[Tim Thomason]

OK! Did every being in the Federation have a trust fund, or are incomes equal no matter the job?
In other words no millionaires or billionaires.

We don't know.

 

[MacLeod]

We know very little about how the economics of the Federation works, perhaps everyone has their basic needs covered food, shelter covered but perhaps you gain extras based on job.

 

[Lord Garth]

I'm not here to ask about the economics of the Federation, I just have a simple question.
Did Gene Roddenberry make a mistake when he said there was no need for money in trek?
Look at all the examples of people buying and selling things.

James

I spent most of my 20s and 30s thinking it would nice if we didn't need money for everything... but that's a whole other story that has nothing to do with Star Trek.

 

[scotpens]

I took Kirk's line "they still use money" in The Voyage Home to mean physical money -- coins and bills. The whole "money doesn't exist anymore" thing started with TNG, didn't it? Can that idea be traced directly to Gene Roddenberry?

 

[dupersuper]

I'm not here to ask about the economics of the Federation, I just have a simple question.
Did Gene Roddenberry make a mistake when he said there was no need for money in trek?

Nope.

 

[Qonundrum]

I'm not here to ask about the economics of the Federation, I just have a simple question.
Did Gene Roddenberry make a mistake when he said there was no need for money in trek?
Look at all the examples of people buying and selling things.

James

In what way? I'm presuming you're referring to the show itself. TOS was very inconsistent in this regard, unless Kirk and co were speaking in centuries' old antique metaphor such as in "The Doomsday Machine" when he complimented Scotty. Was that the intent of the makers at the time or another example of the trope used in "Living Witness" where people x years/decades/centuries later look back and guess on a whim.

TOS mostly ignored the issue; the first concrete example I recall is "The Voyage Home" from 1986 - never mind Gene was pushed back from the movies after the issues in TMP so his involvement in them was minimal at best because nobody wanted to do the movie of Kirk and crew going back in time to prevent Kennedy's assassination, which he pitched several times as I recall reading. But if 1960s TOS did state outright they didn't do money, please let me know the episode.

 

[Tim Thomason]

Did he ever actually say that? And was it before The Voyage Home?

By the time I joined TNG, Gene had decreed that money most emphatically did NOT exist in the Federation, nor did 'credits' and that was that. Personally, I've always felt this was a bunch of hooey, but it was one of the rules and that's that.

Star Trek IV features the first concrete suggestion (and direct quote) that money doesn't exist in the 23rd century, which seems to conflict with sources before and after it. That may have been Roddenberry's wish, as he was a "consultant" on STIV and had been moving to the philosophies he soon espoused in the TNG writer's bible. While Bennett and Meyer did their own thing with IV and the other movie era Movies, they may have allowed a little more creative input from Roddenberry on this film in particular.

 

[BillJ]

I'm not here to ask about the economics of the Federation, I just have a simple question.
Did Gene Roddenberry make a mistake when he said there was no need for money in trek?
Look at all the examples of people buying and selling things.

James

If you want them to have money, then they do. If you don’t, well then they don’t. There is more than ample evidence to support either conclusion. Me? The Federation no longer deals in hard currency, but still has a credit system that serves the purpose of money.

 

[1001001]

 

[BK613]

Star Trek IV features the first concrete suggestion (and direct quote) that money doesn't exist in the 23rd century, which seems to conflict with sources before and after it. That may have been Roddenberry's wish, as he was a "consultant" on STIV and had been moving to the philosophies he soon espoused in the TNG writer's bible. While Bennett and Meyer did their own thing with IV and the other movie era Movies, they may have allowed a little more creative input from Roddenberry on this film in particular.

Yes, I've read that RDM quote before. But that is second hand info. I am interested in whether there are any primary sources from convention appearances, interviews, etc. where GR espoused the concept in his own words.

 

[F. King Daniel]

I think he put in something that sounded futuristic and would get people talking, without a single thought to how it would work or even if it was consistent with the Trek he'd established until that point.

 

[BK613]

Or The Voyage Home just added the "no money" thing for its humorous fish-out-of-water aspect and TNG later ran with it.

 

[Tuskin38]

I just suggest people read this when the economy comes up in conversation

https://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/inconsistencies/economy.htm

 

[Henoch]

The Federation Credit is like the Bitcoin today. When first issued as a monetary replacement between member worlds, citizens bought in at a very low price. Once interstellar expansion and trading continued, the Federation Credit quickly multiplied by 100,000x making all citizens of the Federation millionaires/billionaire in value. With terraforming and efficient transportation, every corner of the Earth (and other member planets) was parceled and sold to their citizens creating family homes/land (no large corporations). Earth became a paradise. If you wanted more, go buy a planet in the boonies. After that, how you lived was up to each their own.

 

[M'rk son of Mogh]

With the invention of the replicator, what would most people even need money for, especially physical currency?
I think storywise, current humans just have trouble figuring out how anything would work so they tend to default to something we recognize currently with latinum and so forth.

 

[Tim Thomason]

It'd be interesting if "no money" actually originated with Roddenberry, or was just a futuristic idea of Harve Bennett and/or Nicholas Meyer (the writers of Star Trek IV) that Roddenberry ran with when he was developing TNG at the same time.