As it was noted before, whenever a character briefly discusses money use, and is pressed for more details, that character always back off.
And the fans are left wondering what exactly is going on here.
It does make sense that in a post scarcity society, (where all goods and needs are easily supplied) money is no longer needed, and people will work to build character and to be busy.
But seriously, in the 24th century, do people really work as butlers and maids, deal with difficult people, being talked down to and at the end of the day expect no compensation at all?
Case in point- Mr Homn, that alien character that served as Lwaxana's Troi's butler.
"If you're my mother's valet, then please valet!!"
"Put that down, Homn." "Come along, Homn."
I think most Trek (especially human) characters would be annoyed or offended being talked to that way.
--- if someone asked Picard, Janeway, Sisko, Kira if they wanted a job as a butler, what does anyone think their reaction would be?
I just don't think they would be smiling and eager at the idea.
But if this is a post scarcity society where people chose to work at the jobs they're doing--and the concept of elitism does not exist in human society-- why be offended at the idea.
Lots of unanswered questions.
yep, THIS is actually the serious criticism of Trek's "utopian future," NOT the silly "why can't I steal my neighbor's apartment?" one.
Why would anyone do the kind of jobs we've occasionally seen, like cleaning out replicators or menial service jobs?
you might see why folks would do crappy jobs in Starfleet as a way of moving up to what they eventually WANT to do, but there's no reason for someone to take a menial civilian job in a future like Trek's, where all your needs are provided for.
The argument used by many "utopians" now would be that technology would make it so that there were no jobs like that, they'd be automated or something like that.
Right. Most people today don't fetch pales of water from the local creek, dig their own outhouses, make their own candles, cut their own hair, slaughter their own animals, etc, etc. Life is easier in that regard, but work and the drive to work
at something worthwhile remains.
There won't be "
maids" in the future. Maybe ensigns have clean the replicator buffer because you have to know how things work in order to repair them when they break or to innovate better models. What's the alternative? Aren't there scifi stories of machines lasting so long that degenerate societies begin to worship them as magic? I imagine it's the same for civilian jobs.
But also, Trek has the cheesy sci-fi habit of trying to make things "relatable" to the viewer in ways that don't make sense upon scrutiny. It may be anachronistic having to "manually scrub a replicator buffer" in the way it is when they have people handing pads to each other to deliver reports...e-mail doesn't exist in the future??
Another example that gets me is how each pad usually only has only one window open so you have the main character's desk littered with half a dozen of them to show "how hard at work" they are...I have nine tabs open on my screen as I type this.
I wouldn't be surprised to see a survey that showed most Americans don't like their jobs similarly to that I wouldn't be to see one that showed most black people in the U.S. were illiterate in 1850.
Most people work because - ultimately - it's what adults do. It's physically and mentally healthy. Yes, most people wouldn't mind the requisite riches associated with an idle life, but they'd also rather stave off an early dementia by having something to do with themselves.