Communism - now there's science fiction.
Is the Federation communist?
- Thread starter qmithani
- Start date
john titor
Captain
I'd say they've evolved beyond ideological doctrine, so they're neither communist/capitalist or whatever.
3D Master
Rear Admiral
Wrong. A little shack in the back of your garden will be a zero-point-energy, or subspace energy power plant, that will have literally no limit. Every insignificantly small area of space-time contains an unlimited amount of energy.
There's nothing you can't do, and there'd be no limit to the amount of times you could do it.
Then why are their starships powered by antimatter? Seems a little overcomplicated when they have magic energy boxes at home.
One might argue that in utopia, the military gets the crappiest tech...
...Or that Starfleet, just like most militaries, is fiercely conservative and mortally afraid of untested technology.
But I'd still think that ZPE would be something Starfleet would immediately embrace no matter what, whereas something like holodecks might see civilian applications for several decades before it went starshipboard.
So no free energy for the average UFP citizen.
Timo Saloniemi
...Or that Starfleet, just like most militaries, is fiercely conservative and mortally afraid of untested technology.
But I'd still think that ZPE would be something Starfleet would immediately embrace no matter what, whereas something like holodecks might see civilian applications for several decades before it went starshipboard.
So no free energy for the average UFP citizen.
Timo Saloniemi
If the UFP is Communist, how & why would Joseph Sisko, Captain Benjamin's pop, OWN a profitable New Orleans restaurant
There's also the Picards and their family vineyard...
Merely necessary resources are abundant enough and inexpensive enough to be practically non-issues. Nothing to do with infinite supply.
3D Master
Rear Admiral
Their starships aren't powered by anti-matter. They're warp-drives are powered by anti-matter. And each warp-coil is such a subspace energy production unit and space-time warp machine in one; powering those by anti-matter allows for a far greater subspace energy production, than a stand-alone subspace energy power unit.
Remember, The Naked Now, where the Enterprise was nearly out of anti-matter fuel, but once they were out of the gravity sink, the fuel problem was gone; they had already regenerated their anti-matter supply in no time using the energy generated by the warp coils.
Anti-matter is essentially just a catalyst. The real power production are the warp and subspace-coils. You could annihilate an entire planet's worth of anti-matter with a planet's worth of matter, and you still wouldn't have anywhere near the energy required to warp space and time.
Subspace energy production, though, that can generate the energy needed.
It also neatly explains why warp coils can be powered by impulse / fusion power, but you can't go as fast - thus eliminating the seeming inconsistency with Romulans Bird of Prey going at FTL speeds while Scotty says it only has impulse power in Balance of Terror.
Other explanations, more in line with the backstage sources, are also possible for those latter points, though.
In TNG "The Naked Now", there's no fuel or energy shortage, just some personnel issues... Which result in the engine controls going offline at a critical moment. In TOS "The Naked Time", it's pretty much the same, as the engine is shut down and requires a certain amount of time for restarting. So I don't see where that "nearly out of antimatter fuel" argument is coming from.
Timo Saloniemi
In TNG "The Naked Now", there's no fuel or energy shortage, just some personnel issues... Which result in the engine controls going offline at a critical moment. In TOS "The Naked Time", it's pretty much the same, as the engine is shut down and requires a certain amount of time for restarting. So I don't see where that "nearly out of antimatter fuel" argument is coming from.
Timo Saloniemi
It's pretty clear that many in this thread are just too profoundly disturbed by the thought that the Federation might be a communist society. Because compared to other existing political ideas, it certainly is the closest match.
I'm far from a believer in communism, but the idea has been horribly tainted by the attempted implementations in recent history. I very much doubt that when Karl Marx did his thinking that he considered brutal oppression, gulags, and long lines for simple things as bread to be core principles of ideal communism.
Is the Federation like the Soviet Union was, Cuba, North Korea, China? Clearly not...
But with plentiful resources, an ideal form of communism would certainly look a *lot* like the Federation.
Go head and call it a-political if it makes you feel better - But the Federation certainly is almost as far away from capitalism as one can get.
I'm far from a believer in communism, but the idea has been horribly tainted by the attempted implementations in recent history. I very much doubt that when Karl Marx did his thinking that he considered brutal oppression, gulags, and long lines for simple things as bread to be core principles of ideal communism.
Is the Federation like the Soviet Union was, Cuba, North Korea, China? Clearly not...
But with plentiful resources, an ideal form of communism would certainly look a *lot* like the Federation.
Go head and call it a-political if it makes you feel better - But the Federation certainly is almost as far away from capitalism as one can get.
Not disturbed, no. It's all fiction, after all. But how much evidence is there, really?
Bully for him. Communism inevitably leads to those things. The ideal is very far away from the reality.
To use a Trek analogy: Look at "Patterns of Force". John Gill only intended to imitate the efficient Nazi bureaucracy, but look where that got him. There can be no benevolent Nazism *or* Communism.
Hey I'm not disagreeing with that at all. Human nature is not compatible with such a philosophy in the long term. I'm not saying Marx was a realist.
But then again, the Federation society as presented in TNG onwards does not strike me as realistic either - for similar reasons.
I won't go into this in very much depth, but I imagine the Federation working like the Alliance from Firefly. In its civilian world, it's a capitalist society. How would the worlds work without money? That's why I appreciate the Ferengi. But the Federation is also a benevolent tyrant, and very strict on its rules amongst its people.
In fact, I wish we could see more of the civilian and political side of the Federation, instead of Starfleet.
I wrote a paper on how I thought Gene Roddenberry was a communist sympathiser many years before anyone had asked this question it seems
I agree with this!
But then again, the Federation society as presented in TNG onwards does not strike me as realistic either - for similar reasons.
The DS9 writers agree with you, there. They went to great lengths to show that the Federation wasn't gleaming all over.
But then again, the Federation society as presented in TNG onwards does not strike me as realistic either - for similar reasons.
The DS9 writers agree with you, there. They went to great lengths to show that the Federation wasn't gleaming all over.
I beg to differ.
TNG in the early seasons showed what civilized humans could look like.
I personally liked the premise.
They were NOT perfect though ...
If you consider the elimination of mindless shouting, losing temper at every insignificant stupidity and cursing at every possible turn as 'perfect' ... lol ... if anything, it's a sign of a civilized society that learned to deal with things differently (as actual adults compared to 'childlike behavior' exhibited by many adults today).
You have people in this day and age who behave like early TNG humans did.
I hardly call that unrealistic, and if anything, what DS9 did ... well, it only recreated contemporary people in the future and dumb down the technological aspect significantly to allow the drama to 'flourish' ... which is why I considered DS9 to be not on the same level as previous Trek shows (however, still entertaining enough to watch).
To dumb down one aspect so the other one could have more 'room' is utterly idiotic.
A good writer would find a way to adapt the drama so it suits the technological aspect of Trek universe, and not resort to horribly reduce the intelligence of characters who use the said tech (btw ... Ds9 was not the only Trek show that did this ... TNG, Voy, Ent and TOS did this as well).
So what if the Federation seems as if it's communist?
As if capitalism is ultimately better (recession and the greedy people who want to make themselves 'rich').
So essentially, it is claimed that a Trek like 'utopia' (as some people would like to call it) is incompatible with human nature?
I beg to differ.
It's all in the perception.
Contemporary humans behave to a great extent as children.
Money is one of the primary aspects that is limiting our own technological progress for one thing ... not to mention the mindset that wars and conflict spur technological development very fast.
That's just a bunch of garbage.
Yes the motivation to create new technologies may be higher during conflicts and war time, but it could be just as high in peacetime if there is proper incentive.
Lack of money for example contributes to less research and lower incentive.
As if this planet doesn't have enough resources to satisfy everyone ...
It does ... problem is that people (governments) hog resources to themselves, don't share and contribute.
The governments apparently don't want to move to new sources of fuel and power because that would mean spending a lot of (again) 'money' and of course it probably wouldn't allow the greedy idiots to be as 'rich' as they are now.
Progress of humanity is not exactly what these people want.
The government only does what is best for it, and giving to the general population bits and pieces of what they want (and the general population seems to be stupid enough to take it and be content with it).
The world of Star Trek is very socialistic - and idealistic as well. It accepts some concepts while rejecting others. Like Marx's ideas, also very unrealistic.
It's also a world i'd hate to live in. Capitalism and ownership are concepts fundamental to our individuality and freedom.
It's also a world i'd hate to live in. Capitalism and ownership are concepts fundamental to our individuality and freedom.
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