TOS -- mo money, mo money, mo money.

[Destructor]

The “moneyless” Federation society is an artifact of Trek TNG and later, and is based on one of Gene Roddenberry's more half-assed ideas. And this horse has not merely been beaten to death; it's a rotting, putrid, bloated corpse of a topic, festering and crawling with maggots.

I disagree, I think it's actually one of the more forward-thinking concepts put forward in Trek, and it's a lot more sensible concept than you'd think- in fact it's pretty much the only logical conclusion to a world in which energy is interchangeable with matter.

 

[T'Girl]

In ST:TVH...

Kirk: No, we don't use money in the 23rd century; we use a crediting system based on Federation credits. *Hands his Federation credit card to the waiter*

Robert

Waiter: "Ah humm."

Kirk: "In the future we don't tip."

Waiter: (bastard)

 

[Gary7]

I think there's two ways to look at this: the way I'd like it to be and the way Roddenberry thought it should be.

The way I'd like it to be is: of course they don't use currency. What we think of as currency has changed dramatically in just the 20th century and will no doubt change again. I can imagine a future in which I rarely, if ever, carry physical currency. In fact, with my ATM card, having cash on my person is fairly rare.

Very good point... although I'd probably say it as "they don't use hard currency." The physical manifestation of money. It's all electronic.

Yeah, I agree with Scotpens that Gene made a huge mistake in this whole idea of Federation people in the future not using money. It's ridiculous, especially with having to deal with all kinds of beings across the universe. If you do any kind of commerce, you're going to need an exchange medium... money. So Gene was a little off the mark. It should have been the lack of "hard currency". And then when dealing with other beings, they'd just to an electronic transfer via some kind of monetary exchange system.

 

[Potemkin_Prod]

GR literally thought everyone should do things for free, for the betterment of all mankind, etc. IIRC, Sisko's Restaurant doesn't have patrons actually paying for their meals; he cooks for the love of cooking and entertaining people. It's a totally short-sighted concept, because that means those vegetables are going to be picked by hand by someone who loves sweating and toiling in the hot summer sun of the Deep South.

 

[iguana_tonante]

Yeah, because automatic picking machines are so difficult to build when you have starships.

 

[Lieut. Arex]

Mechanical pickers are hell on the ears. Can't use 'em.

 

[Potemkin_Prod]

Mechanical pickers cannot be used on certain delicate fruits and vegetables. Some will always have to be picked by hand.

 

[iguana_tonante]

Well, beside the fact that I don't think it's so inconceivable that people could find raising their own crop appealing, I suppose you know that because you are an expert on 24th century agricultural technology. Then use transporters. Or force beams. Or something, you know, from science-fiction.

Sometimes I think that people are far too grounded with trivialities. So warp speed is ok, but a money-less society or automatic fruit picking is impossible. Go figure.

 

[scotpens]

Robots in the future will have the coordination and sensitive touch needed to pick produce that still has to be harvested by hand today.

And they won't complain about long hours or crappy working conditions.

 

[Sector 7]

^This reminds me of Peter Griffin's line: "everyone moves up a notch".

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

They may have evolved beyond the *need* for wealth, but not beyond the *existence* of it.

The Federation uses 'credits'. We've all seen it. Several episodes - INCLUDING TNG ("Firstborn"). And of course in TNG's pilot ep, Beverly buys a piece of fabric and says, and I quote, to put it on her ACCOUNT.

 

[Potemkin_Prod]

Well, beside the fact that I don't think it's so inconceivable that people could find raising their own crop appealing, I suppose you know that because you are an expert on 24th century agricultural technology. Then use transporters. Or force beams. Or something, you know, from science-fiction. Sometimes I think that people are far too grounded with trivialities. So warp speed is ok, but a money-less society or automatic fruit picking is impossible. Go figure.

I wouldn't consider a money-less society as "triviality" and as someone who grows 15% of the food my family eats, I have doubts about technology ever being able to perfectly harvest every single crop imaginable.

Robots in the future will have the coordination and sensitive touch needed to pick produce that still has to be harvested by hand today. And they won't complain about long hours or crappy working conditions.

They also apparently don't have the coordination or sensitive touch to pick produce. How many robots do you see serving aboard Federation starships? And those clunky pig-bots from TNG just aren't that impressive either. Data has the capability of performing all these tasks, and he's considered a miracle of technology.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

And before anybody tries to convince us that the existence of replicators makes money obsolete (forgetting, of course, that something without substance, such as a Federation credit, would logically be unaffected by the prevalence of replicators), it's also important to point out that there are Earth citizens - such as Picard's family - who refuse to use replicators; Robert Picard wouldn't allow them in his home. How do you think they got by? By selling the family wine, of course.

 

[iguana_tonante]

I wouldn't consider a money-less society as "triviality"

Your choice. When I watch Star Trek, thinking about how much money does it cost to go from Vulcan to Romulus is the last thing I do.

and as someone who grows 15% of the food my family eats, I have doubts about technology ever being able to perfectly harvest every single crop imaginable.

And as an astrophysicist, I have doubts we could ever be able to bend the space-time continuum to achieve warp speed as depicted in Trek, yet I am able to suspend my disbelief and enjoy the show. And really: warp drive, transporters, aliens, time travels, and what actually interests you is money and fruit picking?

How do you think they got by? By selling the family wine, of course.

I don't want to get involved in yet another discussion about money in the Federation. We have seen arguments both pro and contra. Personally, I favour a hybrid system, where most products are virtually free due to the almost unlimited energy supply, and commodities that are inherently limited (like real estate, etc.) are assigned by consensus of the community to people that most "deserve" it as an reward for their work, as represented by "credits" or "credentials". Not fundamentally different from an actual monetary system, but with emphasis on working on the betterment of humanity and a strong social taboo against the accumulation of material wealth. What people crave is not money, but social status: being a renowned winemaker, a dashing captain, a brilliant scientist. Today, we use money to "keep scores" of social status, but that's not necessarily so. But that's just my pick.

 

[Potemkin_Prod]

and as someone who grows 15% of the food my family eats, I have doubts about technology ever being able to perfectly harvest every single crop imaginable.

And as an astrophysicist, I have doubts we could ever be able to bend the space-time continuum to achieve warp speed as depicted in Trek, yet I am able to suspend my disbelief and enjoy the show. And really: warp drive, transporters, aliens, time travels, and the things that bug you are money and picking fruits?

Doesn't bother me at all. I happen to be taking part in an interesting discussion.

How do you think they got by? By selling the family wine, of course.

I don't want to get involved in yet another discussion about money in the Federation.

Then why did you bother responding to the thread except to pee on those involved in the discussion?

 

[iguana_tonante]

Because I found it funny that your argument against a money-less society was based, from all things, on your assumption that automatic machines couldn't pick vegetables. I've heard a lot of arguments about the Federation's economy, but that was quite original for sure.

 

[Destructor]

I'm not sure whether I should cut-and-paste my theories on the moneyless society from previous threads or just reiterate them endlessly?

 

[T'Girl]

Robots in the future will have the coordination and sensitive touch needed to pick produce that still has to be harvested by hand today.

Data has the capability of performing all these tasks, and he's considered a miracle of technology.

Given that Robert Picard refused have a replicator in his house, it's not all that hard to imagine that he won't allow machines to harvest his grapes. When harvest does swing around Picard probably employs a work crew to hand pick his grapes.

Now, I'm not saying machines couldn't.

 

[Potemkin_Prod]

Agreed, one man can't harvest an orchard of grapes. So he's got to pony up some money to pay someone.

(and thanks for getting it)

 

[Timo]

Why pay? People today do it for free. Or pay for the privilege of doing it.

(Echoes of my honeymoon here - Champagne really knows how to market the local specialities...)

I think the general issue being discussed here is the important one: jobs that today take a lot of manpower will tomorrow take less. And not just specific jobs: the big issue is that a smaller percentage of the population will be needed overall to keep the entire population fed and clothed and happy. Today, nearly all of the "working age" citizens are expected to work, even though many work in ultimately superfluous professions, solely because they need money and the society wants them off the streets. Tomorrow, it might be that only about 2 % of the workforce is employed, yet this perfectly well suffices for getting the grapes picked.

Timo Saloniemi