Capitalism / Corporations / Industry / Consumerism

[All Seeing Eye]

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INTRO
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The way we live today is in Trek considered IMO obsolete and not how Humanity is living. The Federation itself seems to be more socialist than Capitalist although you do have some races like the Ferengi who thrive on capitalism and is their nature.

When we look at most Trek bad guys the enemy seems to be specific Empires/Governments that somehow have access to all resources, territories, technology and shipyards.

If you compare it to today it's not like that, if you want the resources to build a ship you purchase it from the company that mines it, another company builds it and it's the company that wanted the thing in the first place that uses it.
Even now it's companies that are heading into space, NASA etc are busy sending probes out but it's companies like Virgin that are building space planes to send people into space. If there's any resources to be mined in space it's going to be a company/corporation that will more than likely go there and mine it and sell their minerals to the highest bidder.

Some companies that begin in one market seem to expand and encompass other markets. Virgin started with planes then expanded onto trains etc.

So now onto my point. If we're going to a have a new Star Trek bad guy then instead of it being a particular empire/government let it be Companies/corporations of a certain species.

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MY IDEA
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Beyond Cardassian space is a species called the Lakappa (or choose whatever name you see fit).
Unlike most other species in Trek the Lakappa are a purely capitalist people. The democratically elected Lakappa Government makes the laws and rules etc but that's all they do, the true powers are the big businesses and corporations many of which are bigger than some others and top the leader board in terms of expansion and profit.

The motto of the Lakappa government is that all territory belongs to the Lakappa and it's down to the companies to expand and/or conquer new territories. When new territory is conquered the company in question files an acquisition of territory form with the Lakappa government in order to be granted ownership.

The Lakappa government does have a military but that military is only designed to patrol government controlled territories and ensure the companies and corporations follow the law. The Lakappa government has access to all the latest and most advanced technologies developed and are sold the technology and resources at a 75% discount allowing the Lakappa government to have superiority over all corporations.

There are mining corporations, ship building corporations and weapons system companies and plenty more. All of which trade with each other etc like any normal capitalist society does.

The primary mining corporation is Galaxacorp. Federation first contact with the Lakappa is via Galaxacorp. Galaxacorp is expanding it's mining operations and enters Cardassian space to acquire new territory.

As the top dog of the Lakappas capitalist empire they have the money and power to purchase the most advanced technology and weapons systems developed. The benefits of the Lakappa capitalist society is that multiple weapons development companies all compete and therefore a multitude of advanced and different styles of weaponry get developed and put on the market.
Unlike most other Alpha Quadrant races that have basic types of weapons such as torpedos and phasers/disrupters the Lakappa have weapons systems never before seen by the Federation.

The Lakappa species trade only within their own Empire and it is forbidden to trade with other species especially when it comes to weapons systems.

Galaxacorp as stated above is the first corporation to be seen by the Federation but it's not long before other Lakappa corporations begin expanding into Alpha Quadrant territories.

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CONCLUSION
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As the Lakappa corporations and companies expand into territories controlled by the Federation and Klingons etc conflict obviously ensues.
Lakappa Corporations of course also compete with eachother so it's not unlikely to see Lakappa corporations duking it out in order to secure territories and resources.

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FINALLY
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This is my preliminary ideas. I'm sure some will like it and some will hate it. If anyone here has any questions about this or has any suggestions please feel free to post.

Thank you

 

[Kemaiku]

Take about twenty Aspirin and have a good drink.

 

[All Seeing Eye]

Take about twenty Aspirin and have a good drink.

Excuse me?

 

[T'Girl]

Basically robber barons then? Or better still the East India Company.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

Sounds like the Dominion, which may not have been capitalist in philosophy, but kept subject worlds happy by clearing out a safe space for them to conduct their business. Maybe you should just brush off the Dominion and bump up the capitalistic aspects of their empire. When you have people who generate wealth and expand and generate more wealth, you end up with a virtuous cycle that can be very difficult to stop.

OTOH, Federation citizens live very comfy lives, apparently without needing to lift a finger. Presumably their technology is what permits this. Why can't everyone else also adopt this technology so that they no longer have any motives to expand? For the Ferengi, capitalism is cultural, which is why they keep it, but for everyone else, it's just a means to an end. If there's an easier means, why not go for that?

 

[All Seeing Eye]

Sounds like the Dominion, which may not have been capitalist in philosophy, but kept subject worlds happy by clearing out a safe space for them to conduct their business. Maybe you should just brush off the Dominion and bump up the capitalistic aspects of their empire. When you have people who generate wealth and expand and generate more wealth, you end up with a virtuous cycle that can be very difficult to stop.

OTOH, Federation citizens live very comfy lives, apparently without needing to lift a finger. Presumably their technology is what permits this. Why can't everyone else also adopt this technology so that they no longer have any motives to expand? For the Ferengi, capitalism is cultural, which is why they keep it, but for everyone else, it's just a means to an end. If there's an easier means, why not go for that?

Humans right now are capitalist, do you expect our species to change from capitalism and consumerism as technology develops? To be frank I see the complete opposite. Whoever invents and develops a certain technology will get the rewards for it, the consumer wont get it for free and as time goes on the competition will get worse.

 

[T'Girl]

. . . for everyone else, it's just a means to an end. If there's an easier means, why not go for that?

Sometimes money is just how you keep score, the game is seeing how well you succeed in a difficult environment, how much better you do over those in your peer group. If life is easy everyone wins (then nobody). If life is hard, that when you prove yourself.

Now these "Lakappa," (and it might be more interesting if it was a large group of species), for them it is all about the game, sit down across from one of them and they'll brag about just how many times they lost it all and came back from nothing. Crushing the competition and absorbing their competitors.

 

[Ensign Johnson]

Is Earth supposed to be communist in Star Trek? Because that's what it sounds like to me and I think it's even more unbelievable than warp speed or holodecks.

 

[Anwar]

They're more socialist than Communist.

 

[T'Girl]

Given that no Human society has ever been able to make communism work for more than a few decades, no most likely not communist. Star Trek's economic system is open to a lot of interpretation, while obviously not laissez faire, there are sign of capitalism, both in Sisko's father's and Picard's brother's businesses.

 

[Hythlodeus]

as far as we know, judging from what we have seen so far, it's probably a social democracy

 

[Squiggy]

Since the means of production are controlled by seemingly anyone with a replicator, it's a yet-to-be-named-ism.

 

[Shatnertage]

Repilicatorism?

 

[Temis the Vorta]

Humans right now are capitalist, do you expect our species to change from capitalism and consumerism as technology develops?

No, not in real life. I'm also skeptical that humans will ever develop FTL technology. Space exploration is more likely to be conducted by unmanned vessels, with humans using absolutely realistic holo-technology to experience alien worlds as if they were there (without needing protective gear, either), so why go to all the discomfort and risk of actual space travel?

But do I demand that Star Trek change the way it depicts space travel? Nope. They have their technological assumptions and I'm happy to accept them.

And I think it was the replicator that killed capitalism on Star Trek by giving everyone unlimited goodies and killing off both the profit motive and the motive to work at any job that you wouldn't do for free. It's a plausible story. Good enough for me.

 

[T'Girl]

It depend on who actual invented the replicator in the first place and in the 24h century do they still have "intellectual property," if the people who invented the replicator own the concept then capitalism is alive and well. Let's say you design (I don't know) a new fashion item and all the young girls on Earth want to wear it this summer, every time a replicator anywhere on the system makes one, you get a royalty. Value, in some form, enters your account. There would still be proprietary foods and drinks, personal I like Diet Pepsi, more so than other colas, so when I go to my replicator and get something to drink, value from my account is sent to Pepsico or their 24th century successor.

And what about the warp drive, every time Starfleet builds a new starship, you don't think the estate of one Zephram Cochrane get a enormous pile of gold-pressed latinum?

People, they're called patents.

 

[Pavonis]

Patents don't last forever, though.

Capitalism has been demonstrated to be the most efficient system for determining how to distribute scarce goods. That's all fine and dandy as long as something is scarce.

What happens when nothing is scarce, though? What would (will?) a post-scarcity economy look like?

 

[T'Girl]

In the Star Trek universe they're still digging minerals out of planets light years away from where the metals are going to be used, they still have cargo ships traveling between worlds, one of the "selling" points of joining the Federation is the prospect of trade.

Sound like they have a fair amount of scarcity.

 

[Pavonis]

Assuming that replicators do not operate strictly on matter-energy conversion to create goods, then a source of raw materials would be required for the replicator to assemble into products. In that case, mining would still be necessary, to feed the replicators something, without the economy necessarily resting on a foundation of scarcity-driven exchange.

 

[stj]

The human nature critique of Federation economics and culture is unbelievably lame. It's very depressing how people keep embarrassing themselves. Given replicator technology and seemingly unlimited power, there isn't going to be the same economic system as today, period. You might as well say God told us to live in today's capitalist system and be done with pretending to make a rational argument.

The thing is, where does the antimatter come from? I think I once made up a backstory where Axanar was where the Izarians made an artificial black hole to create practically unlimited quantities of antimatter and the Federation originated as a way to protect and fairly share the product (with Captain Garth of the otherwise remarkably isolationist Izarians playing a key role.) But that's fan fic, possibly somebody else's. (The idea seems kind of clever, always a good sign I'm "borrowing.")

Star Trek has never been "hard" science fiction enough to critique replicator technology as such.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

It depend on who actual invented the replicator in the first place and in the 24h century do they still have "intellectual property," if the people who invented the replicator own the concept then capitalism is alive and well.

Let's assume that the inventor of the replicator didn't take out a patent on it and allowed it to be freely distributed. That could create sweeping changes leading to the death of capitalism as we know it.

If a corporation invented the replicator and then hung onto it, the social consequences might also be very interesting, creating a stark division between haves and have-nots, as only some members of society get unlimited goodies. That might also form the basis of an interesting story but it's obviously not Star Trek.

There would still be proprietary foods and drinks, personal I like Diet Pepsi, more so than other colas, so when I go to my replicator and get something to drink, value from my account is sent to Pepsico or their 24th century successor.

If Pepsico manages to patent the molecules that go into creating Pepsi, sure. I wouldn't put it past em to try. And maybe they succeeded, but all they accomplished was to destroy the demand for their product in favor of a public-domain cola that was very similar but not identical.

Cuz after all...nobody drinks Pepsi in the Star Trek universe that I've ever seen. All the capitalist brand names have vanished except maybe for Nokia or whatever was in Trek XI.

In the Star Trek universe they're still digging minerals out of planets light years away from where the metals are going to be used, they still have cargo ships traveling between worlds, one of the "selling" points of joining the Federation is the prospect of trade.

TOS made the most references to things like mining and trade and getting paychecks. Interestingly, the replicator was invented sometime between TOS and TNG. I think capitalism was alive and reasonably well in the 23rd C but gone by the 24th.

a source of raw materials would be required for the replicator to assemble into products

Wouldn't hydrogen molecules (abundant in the cosmos) work just fine? Or any type of matter at all. Any molecule can be broken down to atoms and re-assembled into any other molecule, which forms the building blocks for anything you can image. It might take some work to get the matter into industrial replicators, but couldn't that process be automated?