That's brill, nice work!
Is the Federation communist?
- Thread starter qmithani
- Start date
That's brill, nice work!
darkwing_duck1
Vice Admiral
I gotta call BS on this.
Capitalism and "ownership" are LIMITS on our individuality and freedom, because the system that sustains them requires us to give up BOTH in order to obtain basic sustenance.
The 21st century worker is as much a slave as an 19th century negro, only now we are slaves of Corporations and "Captialists" who control the resources we need to live.
What is the episode in TNG where they come across three frozen people from the past. I think the people were from a time not so far off from our current time frame. Anyway, that episode has several lines about the economic situations of the past compared to TNG time. There was one point where the "capitalist" was told that people do not work for profit any longer and when he asked what they do work for, he was told they work to improve themselves.
Sorry I cannot remember the name of the episode, it has literally been close to six or seven years since I have seen it. Can someone help me out?
Sorry I cannot remember the name of the episode, it has literally been close to six or seven years since I have seen it. Can someone help me out?
Except we can quit, move from place to place, speak freely, copulate freely, own property, own businesses, vote...
Hyperbole never helped anyone.
darkwing_duck1
Vice Admiral
"The Neutral Zone". Season 1 finale, which also reintroduced the Romulans. The "capitalist"'s name was Ralph Opphenhouse.
if we can afford to
if we can afford to
only so long as people don't listen to you
negro slaves did that
only if you can afford to (again)
for the candidate of the party's choice, and both parties are controlled by the corporations.
That's the one. I guess I can't play the Trek Trivia game anymore. My skills are slipping.
I agree.
Actually, in the political sense, the UFP seems highly Laissez-Faire Capitalist.
Despite questions of whether or not the Federation has money, per se, recall, that Adam Smith, the father of the free-market system, described it as being based on production, i.e., contribution to society, with the promise of reward (profit).
Whether that reward is "money" or not, production and reward (which are both catergorized as "self-interest").
In a Laissez-Faire society, there are strict limitations on Government authority, limiting it to National Security, Internal Security, A Legal System of Justuice, and (to a certain extent) Public Goods (Infrastructure and Safety Departments).
The UFP fits this pattern nicely.
It's capitalist--politically, at least.
Capitalism is an economic system, not a political one.
True.
The Federation is an example of a post-scarcity society. The replicator (or indeed any other form of matter fabrication) would mean the end of limited resources as we have now, so ideas which involve hoarding things such as capitalism would be ended, or modified towards social enterprise.
Also, when thinking about the economics of the entire Star Trek universe you're just dealing with what they've given you in shows etc. - they've never explicitly spelt it out. However, if you look at the open source movement you'll see that people are creating computer systems purely for the idea that it's an interesting thing to do in its own right. There's also open source hardware as well, namely the OpenSPARC processor architecture from Sun. If you assume the Federation is based on technology created under this kind of license, rather than a restrictive software and hardware licensing principle, then possibly it is feasible.
Basically, if you want to build a computer or something like that in the 22nd Century (and beyond), you just go and download the specs from the internet or whatever they have then and set your matter fabricators to work. It's certainly something us in the open source movement aspire towards. The Federation is just the ultimate end game of open source!
Also, when thinking about the economics of the entire Star Trek universe you're just dealing with what they've given you in shows etc. - they've never explicitly spelt it out. However, if you look at the open source movement you'll see that people are creating computer systems purely for the idea that it's an interesting thing to do in its own right. There's also open source hardware as well, namely the OpenSPARC processor architecture from Sun. If you assume the Federation is based on technology created under this kind of license, rather than a restrictive software and hardware licensing principle, then possibly it is feasible.
Basically, if you want to build a computer or something like that in the 22nd Century (and beyond), you just go and download the specs from the internet or whatever they have then and set your matter fabricators to work. It's certainly something us in the open source movement aspire towards. The Federation is just the ultimate end game of open source!
Economically the Federation (well, Earth, since that's really what we're talking about) is a "communist" in the same sense that that the United States is a feudal serfdom. It works kind of by analogy, but not really.
It's similar to communism in the sense that Earth appears to have a centrally planned economy with the means of production as well as the balance of society's resources being in some way coordinated and distributed by a larger organization, to each according to his needs, from each according to his ability.
That's about where the analogy ends, since the means of production do not seem to be controlled by the workers or any organization that claims to represent them. United Earth doesn't seem to care who owns or controls what as long as you don't break any laws and don't consume more than your fair share, and everyone on the planet seems to be happy with that.
Now, considering the Federation is not some kind of contiguous monolithic superstate, I have no idea what other planets do or how they handle their economies, and it's inconceivable that a central government on Earth would have the wisdom or even the ability to coordinate the economies of hundreds of worlds and colonies across eight thousand cubic lightyears. The only thing we can know for sure is that the Vulcan economy is probably extremely logical, but little else could be known of any other Federation members without knowing more about their cultures and backgrounds.
It's similar to communism in the sense that Earth appears to have a centrally planned economy with the means of production as well as the balance of society's resources being in some way coordinated and distributed by a larger organization, to each according to his needs, from each according to his ability.
That's about where the analogy ends, since the means of production do not seem to be controlled by the workers or any organization that claims to represent them. United Earth doesn't seem to care who owns or controls what as long as you don't break any laws and don't consume more than your fair share, and everyone on the planet seems to be happy with that.
Now, considering the Federation is not some kind of contiguous monolithic superstate, I have no idea what other planets do or how they handle their economies, and it's inconceivable that a central government on Earth would have the wisdom or even the ability to coordinate the economies of hundreds of worlds and colonies across eight thousand cubic lightyears. The only thing we can know for sure is that the Vulcan economy is probably extremely logical, but little else could be known of any other Federation members without knowing more about their cultures and backgrounds.
I agree.
Actually, in the political sense, the UFP seems highly Laissez-Faire Capitalist.
Despite questions of whether or not the Federation has money, per se, recall, that Adam Smith, the father of the free-market system, described it as being based on production, i.e., contribution to society, with the promise of reward (profit).
Whether that reward is "money" or not, production and reward (which are both catergorized as "self-interest").
In a Laissez-Faire society, there are strict limitations on Government authority, limiting it to National Security, Internal Security, A Legal System of Justuice, and (to a certain extent) Public Goods (Infrastructure and Safety Departments).
The UFP fits this pattern nicely.
It's capitalist--politically, at least.
Dude, yo don't have to quote Rush Limbaughs insanity, you can just make shit up yourself. Adam Smith what? Father of the free-market!?! ...
I've always seen the Federation as not Communist or Marxist, but as an advanced version of social democracy.
Except they are not post-scarcity, because they appear both 1)unable to create new planetary real estate and 2)unwilling to live in fabricated space housing.
Like Lex Luthor says, it's the one thing they're not making more of.
Like Lex Luthor says, it's the one thing they're not making more of.
darkwing_duck1
Vice Admiral
And colonies exist because there is demand for a scarce resource, specifically land on an M-class planet.
Of course, I'll point out again: the mere logistics of creating interests in land without a medium of exchange requires a command economy.
There's probably less of this on those colonies with half a dozen people on them, though there is no way Federation law permits them to actually "own" the land they've surveyed or developed, as subsequent colonists have no means of trade for interests in land of their own outside of the aforementioned, discounted possibility of serfdom.
Of course, I'll point out again: the mere logistics of creating interests in land without a medium of exchange requires a command economy.
There's probably less of this on those colonies with half a dozen people on them, though there is no way Federation law permits them to actually "own" the land they've surveyed or developed, as subsequent colonists have no means of trade for interests in land of their own outside of the aforementioned, discounted possibility of serfdom.
darkwing_duck1
Vice Admiral
The problem is ACCESS to the resource, not the resource itself. New habitable land IS plentiful, given Federation spaceflight capability. Just up ship and go to a new planet.
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