Currency in Star Trek?

[Clare]

Okay so everybody knows there is no currency in the 23rd and 24th century according to Star Trek and that the idea is humans on Earth focus on improving themselves rather than earning money, but it still doesn't explain how people aqquire things. I mean do they just use replicators for everything? Surely there has to be some sort of economy. And what about Ferengis who are obsessed with money when it supposedly doesn't exist anymore?

 

[Timo]

There continues to be some sort of currency in all the Trek centuries and shows - our heroes frequently use it for trading with foreign cultures. Usually, it's called "credits".

Since they don't use it for trading amongst themselves, it's probably analogous to the glass beads some earlier adventurers would have used for buying their way through primitive cultures. Doesn't mean there wouldn't be some sort of an internal UFP credit, too, though. At least our heroes make mention of buying things from non-aliens (that is, from fellow Feds): Scotty buys a boat, Kirk sells a log cabin, Janeway buys a souvenir from a Vulcan, etc.

So we have two potentially separate monetary systems above. The whole question of what drives the UFP economy may well be a third, again completely separate issue. Possibly the credits our heroes fling about have absolutely nothing to do with UFP economy, just like Monopoly funny money is unrelated to the US economy.

There are very ambiguous references to the possibility of salaries existing in TOS. None are mentioned in the later shows. It does appear that money is not the way the UFP society motivates its members to work, then, quite regardless of whether money exists. Tom Paris once claimed money "went the way of the dinosaur"; are we perhaps to think that it "evolved into birds"? Sounds likelier than the concept disappearing altogether...

On the question of whether there "has to be an economy", one has to ask "which economy?". It may be that there no longer exists a consumer economy - the citizens of the UFP may no longer be coupled to the UFP economy in any manner, instead getting everything for free and giving everything for free. There's plenty of precedent for that here on current and past Earth: all sorts of "sub-societies" exist where money doesn't enter the picture. In the UFP, the entire consumer market might be such a "sub-society", and the "over-society" might be completely automated and user-inaccessible, with machines trading with machines in order to run the actual industries that keep the UFP afloat and supplied with material goods.

Certainly the concept of free lunch should be obvious here: when a three-course dinner costs virtually nothing to make and serve, then charging that virtually nothing would not be worth the while - it would be more expensive for the provider than charging nothing!

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Michael]

Okay so everybody knows there is no currency in the 23rd [...] century according to Star Trek ...

Err, nope. There must be some form of monetary system in the 23rd century.

KIRK: Fine. I'm authorised to pay an equitable price.
("Mudd's Women")

KIRK (TO SPOCK): The Federation has invested a great deal of money in our training.
("Errand of Mercy")

KIRK: Trying to get yourself killed. Do you know how much Starfleet has invested in you?
SPOCK: One hundred twenty two thousand two hundred ...
("The Apple")

KIRK: Mister Chekov, I think you've earned your pay for the week.
("Who Mourns for Adonais?")

KIRK: Scotty, you've just earned your pay for the week.
("The Doomsday Machine")

UHURA: All right, what are you selling them for?
BARMAN: Well, let me see, little lady. Six credits.
("The Trouble with Tribbles")

McCOY: [...] Look, price you name, money I got.
(Star Trek III – The Search for Spock)

SCOTT: That suits me. I've just bought a boat.
(Star Trek VI – The Undiscovered Country)

 

[Gul Re'jal]

And what about Ferengis who are obsessed with money when it supposedly doesn't exist anymore?

The Ferengi are not part of the Federation, so the "no money" economy doesn't apply to them. They use latinum. Bajorans use currency called "lita". Cardassians' currency is "lek".

The money exists, it's just the Federation pretends it doesn't But it must to some degree, otherwise there would be no Federation clients in Quark's bar for they would have no means to pay for their drinks and food.

 

[sonak]

This has been an inconsistent point in Trek, because as pointed out above, TOS made MANY references to currency. Was TVH the start of the "no money in Star Trek" rule? And yeah, it's hard to see how it would work when trading with non-UFP societies.

 

[Clare]

Right, I suppose the conclusion is that nobody really knows as there are references especially in TOS to money yet it has also been said not to exist. Sorry I didn't do my research very well before starting this post, I forgot that Ferengis weren't part of the federation!!

 

[KJbushway]

Yes those are good points, but remember back to the first contact movie, when lily was saying about how much money it costs her to build a titanium bridge for the phoenix, and then Picard said that in the 24th century humans have done away completely with money. Credits could simply mean that they put a little star by your name in your permanent record and that when you get up to a certain amount they give you something. And the whole chekov you've earned your pay, that sept for the chekov part is a common phrase is some parts that just simply means you've earned your pay because you have worked extra hard.

I think that if humans only really worked on having a good life and bettering themselves, that would kinda take away the need for monetary happiness that we all go through when we get paychecks.

 

[Destructor]

Here we go again!

 

[T'Girl]

During The Trouble with Tribbles, Uhura and Chekov are on the K7 station to do some shopping, prior to Cyrano Jones simply giving a tribble to Uhura she was prepared to buy one, how? I mean yeah credits, but what was the actual transfer going to consist of? What changes hands, physically? The uniforms have no pockets for currency or a financial device like a modern debit card. (Unless Uhura tucks it in her under garments).

When Uhura initially was going to buy the tribble from the barman, what was she going to use?

 

[Phily B]

I think they get non-transferable credits on Earth, and other Federation planets. Sisko mentions he used up all his transporter credits going home every night for example, so I can see them having replicator credits for luxury goods for example. I can see newer members to the Federation still having an internal currency, and the Federation itself stockpiling money/goods to use in trading - but not use it internally.

 

[Anwar]

They have money for buying things outside the Federation, we see Crusher buying some clothe/silk in the very first episode of TNG. It's just that on Earth and other places they have replicators, which realistically would drastically affect the economy.

I admit the "no money" thing is a hard obstacle to overcome as a writer and as a person it's hard to swallow. But they actually bothered to realize how dramatically life would be affected by the replicator and put SOME effort and creativity into it.

 

[Cepstrum]

FWIW, Ron Moore said he and the writers couldn't make sense of it. But it was mandated that money/currency doesn't exist, so they tried to avoid it as much as possible.

That's just his opinion, though.

 

[Gaith]

As Lex Luthor says, real estate is always a concern. Who gets to acquire a house in San Francisco without money?

In-universe, I guess we have to assume Picard was exaggerating a bit when he said there wasn't money, as money is no longer required for survival or a decent living, only for physical perks such as property. Ergo, money/capitalism no longer exists in the sense that Lily would readily recognize, just as cricket and baseball are related but very different sports.

Out-universe, well-intentioned but overboard writing edicts from TPTB.

 

[Clare]

hmm, this is starting to make more sense now.Lots of the points mentioned I either didn't know or had forgotten.Thanks everyone =]

 

[Anwar]

Like I said, the replicator really messes up our idea of what an economy is. The idea of having no money as we know it isn't all that unbelievable when you can make near everything and power is the main concern.

Can I explain it? No. But that they actually decided to do something other than "Let's just have the 24th Century be exactly 100% like the 20th!" is better than most future tech shows.

 

[Cepstrum]

With respect to real estate: sure, it's a problem, for not everyone can live in a nice place in, say, San Francisco, as was noted. But there are two things that alter that a little:

1. There seem to be an abundance of nice M-class planets ready for easy colonization in UFP space

2. While you might not get to actually live in SF, with holodecks and other devices (such as the viewer Ransom wore) you can get pretty close to the real thing.

 

[Gaith]

A synthesized San Francisco, "pretty close to the real thing"?! An insult! YOU *will* exercise Punishment Protocol 9 Alpha!

 

[Mr. Scott]

The Federation is something of a benevolent Communism. This Communism actually works because technology has taken care of everyone's needs, food, clothing, housing, etc. The problem is that if everyone's needs were taken care of, then no one would work. Technology would break down, which would necessitate an engineer to fix the problem. This engineer is going to want some kind of renumeration for his services.

One plot hole is Grandpa Joseph Sisko running the restaurant. If there is no money, what is the use of running a restaurant? Joe Sisko was elderly and alone. Some could argue that he did it for no other reason than to please others. But, that goes against human nature. Unless Joe was getting renumeration from someone else for another service that he needs.

There is a lot of bartering going on in the Universe, with one planet having something that another planet needs, with Latinum being the "Gold Standard".

 

[Timo]

The problem is that if everyone's needs were taken care of, then no one would work.

Except that plenty of people today work for no pay, or in jobs where they have to pay for the privilege of working. Typically, these are people whose needs are adequately but not exuberantly taken care of, and they work in the shittiest jobs imaginable (say, rubbing oil off dying birds).

The only real question is, does the UFP have enough of these volunteers to take care of the entire population? We don't know what the dependency ratio in the Trek 24th century will be. Today, it's about forty to fifty percent in those advanced western nations where high tech combines with high demand for comfort, and where charity work is very common (and where one simply counts everybody of working age as working, and everybody of non-working age as being a dependent). But in Trek, it could be more like 99.99999%, with a tiny fraction of the population taking care of the rest. With sufficient technology, you'd only need one farmer and one repairman and one logistics coordinator to feed a million people, etc.

For the necessary but unenticing jobs, you could easily draft volunteers who'd get bored after two days, at which point you'd draft new volunteers. Such jobs wouldn't require training, after all, and advanced information and communications technology would make the drafting trivially easy and extremely efficient. For those jobs that require advanced training, you'd just as easily find highly motivated hobbyists who'd eagerly dedicate their lives to, say, performing surgery for free.

Once you have the workforce, you can move the goods without having to care about moving the money. That is, some sort of "money" is obviously moving whenever goods are - books are being kept and so forth - but the people doing the work don't need to see any of that money, ever. What'd they do with it, if there are no shops that would accept it, no people willing to do anything they don't already want to do no matter how much money you push in their direction?

Economies like that are commonplace here on Earth. They are of fairly small scale, and work within a larger capitalist economy - but only because larger economies involve things beyond labor, things calling for bookkeeping. There's no inherent need to involve money in the organizing of labor.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[KJbushway]

The problem is that if everyone's needs were taken care of, then no one would work.

Except that plenty of people today work for no pay, or in jobs where they have to pay for the privilege of working. Typically, these are people whose needs are adequately but not exuberantly taken care of, and they work in the shittiest jobs imaginable (say, rubbing oil off dying birds).

The only real question is, does the UFP have enough of these volunteers to take care of the entire population? We don't know what the dependency ratio in the Trek 24th century will be. Today, it's about forty to fifty percent in those advanced western nations where high tech combines with high demand for comfort, and where charity work is very common (and where one simply counts everybody of working age as working, and everybody of non-working age as being a dependent). But in Trek, it could be more like 99.99999%, with a tiny fraction of the population taking care of the rest. With sufficient technology, you'd only need one farmer and one repairman and one logistics coordinator to feed a million people, etc.

For the necessary but unenticing jobs, you could easily draft volunteers who'd get bored after two days, at which point you'd draft new volunteers. Such jobs wouldn't require training, after all, and advanced information and communications technology would make the drafting trivially easy and extremely efficient. For those jobs that require advanced training, you'd just as easily find highly motivated hobbyists who'd eagerly dedicate their lives to, say, performing surgery for free.

Once you have the workforce, you can move the goods without having to care about moving the money. That is, some sort of "money" is obviously moving whenever goods are - books are being kept and so forth - but the people doing the work don't need to see any of that money, ever. What'd they do with it, if there are no shops that would accept it, no people willing to do anything they don't already want to do no matter how much money you push in their direction?

Economies like that are commonplace here on Earth. They are of fairly small scale, and work within a larger capitalist economy - but only because larger economies involve things beyond labor, things calling for bookkeeping. There's no inherent need to involve money in the organizing of labor.

Timo Saloniemi

Yep he beat me to it. I agree with him. Plenty of people work for free, take Sea Shepherd for instance that is a purely volunteer organization, that can put a person in danger.

Also you could just a easily give extra accommodations, etc. For those who do work. I bet you if you just give someone(who doesn't work or want to) a small house and food, no form of entertainment, no holodeck, and no replicator, they would get and find a job even if its cleaning the streets.