Capitalism / Corporations / Industry / Consumerism

[Myasishchev]

Raw materials = poop, skin, hair, corpses. Everything we eat is that if you take it far enough backwards anyway. Replicators just cut out the middleman.

Thus, there is not likely to be much of a carbon economy in Trek.

 

[Bonzo the Fifth]

The thing about a post-scarcity economy isn't that EVERYTHING is provided either by the Federation government or by replicators. Just the essentials. Food, shelter, power, infrastructure and basic necessities like computers and such would seem to be givens to Federation citizens and perfectly in line with the idea of a replicator economy. They provide a reasonably comfortable baseline for just about anyone from our perspective, and all without having to really do anything. Since this doesn't really put the Federation or local planetary government out much, if at all, then it's a win-win for both citizens and government and any debates over how socialist or communist or democratic a system it is becomes moot because there isn't anyone being exploited or taken advantage of, thus removing all moral judgments from the equation...

When Federation citizens want other things besides necessities, like alien chocolates or rare technologies, ores, etc. and the government isn't already obtaining those for you, then something like traditional economic forces apply. Presumably, this is where things like the Federation credit come from, which I suspect is something akin to a wage that one earns for doing particular services for the Federation or local planetary government, such as scientific research, military/Starfleet service, mining, or other manual labor which can then be used to obtain luxury items not automatically provided for by the Federation dole.

It's really not that terribly different from late 19th century economics where people lived in company towns and houses where the basics were provided by the company to everyone working for them. It's just, in the case of the 24th century, replicators and other related technologies have allowed for a much higher and more luxurious level of largess by the Federation that doesn't require its citizenry to live at a subsistence level.

In a way, it could be said that the Federation is, in a way, a manifestation of our worst economic nightmares of state control, government owned and provided services, and communistic economics, but done in such a way that they actually WORK by taking the scarcity factor out of the equation, and by largely keeping good people at the top running things so as to prevent it from becoming a nightmare scenario. The most important difference, though, from this and our own ideas of what those nightmare economies are, though, is that in the Federation, people aren't strongarmed into doing anything. The government enables us to do that which we're most suited for or desirous of instead of forcing us into boxes or cogs from which we can't escape.

Obviously, it's more complicated than that, and could probably be explained better and in more accurate terms by those more versed in economic theory than I am, but I think it sort of gets to the point being reached for here.

 

[gturner]

Replicators won't spell the end of capitalism any more than illegal downloads and free music videos on Youtube have ended the music industry. It raises things up a notch because it lowers the cost of delivery and creates new demand.

The bizarre thing about Star Trek is that their portrayal of a "post-want" society was laughably ironic. Even Star Ship captains didn't seem to have any possesions other than a pillow and a blanket. Nobody on the crew even seemed to have more than one or two objects that had personal meaning to them, and the whole situation was like they had all just escaped from a fire with nothing left but the three small items they could grab on the way out.

I'm pretty sure that any of us here owns more books than the entire crew of any version of the Enterprise, so yeah, in theory they could replicate anything they wanted, but on the show they didn't seem to want anything. They weren't socialist or post-consumerism. They were mentally handicapped.

 

[Pavonis]

The thing about a post-scarcity economy isn't that EVERYTHING is provided either by the Federation government or by replicators. Just the essentials. Food, shelter, power, infrastructure and basic necessities like computers and such would seem to be givens to Federation citizens and perfectly in line with the idea of a replicator economy. They provide a reasonably comfortable baseline for just about anyone from our perspective, and all without having to really do anything. Since this doesn't really put the Federation or local planetary government out much, if at all, then it's a win-win for both citizens and government and any debates over how socialist or communist or democratic a system it is becomes moot because there isn't anyone being exploited or taken advantage of, thus removing all moral judgments from the equation...

I think it's a mistake to assume either that the replicators or their products are provided to the citizens by the government. I don't think that's been established in canon; if it has ever been referenced or implied in an episode, I'm not aware of it. Rather, I think it's simplest to assume, given what little we know, that replicators are owned by private citizens. Thus the means of production rest in the hands of individuals, not the government or corporations. Granted, that's not stated in canon either, but it seems reasonable, given that there's no reason to think private property has been abolished.

When Federation citizens want other things besides necessities, like alien chocolates or rare technologies, ores, etc. and the government isn't already obtaining those for you, then something like traditional economic forces apply.

Why? If a citizen wants other things, that aren't already in the replicator, then I assume the desired object can be deconstructed and copied via the replicator. Certainly the replicators on DS9 were capable of scanning and replicating, even enlarging, the unknown alien gaming device, without needing to know how it worked or what exactly it did, as seen in the episode "Rivals". Given that capability, why would replicating an alien chocolate be any more difficult than replicating regular terrestrial chocolate? Both are nothing more than molecular recipes for the replicator to assemble.

In a way, it could be said that the Federation is, in a way, a manifestation of our worst economic nightmares of state control, government owned and provided services, and communistic economics,...

But, again, there's no indication that the government controls the replicators, so no reason to think that the economic system is communistic. Squiggy is right, the economics of the future are some yet-to-be-developed system made possible by fantastically powerful technologies.

The bizarre thing about Star Trek is that their portrayal of a "post-want" society was laughably ironic. Even Star Ship captains didn't seem to have any possesions other than a pillow and a blanket. Nobody on the crew even seemed to have more than one or two objects that had personal meaning to them, and the whole situation was like they had all just escaped from a fire with nothing left but the three small items they could grab on the way out.

I'm pretty sure that any of us here owns more books than the entire crew of any version of the Enterprise, so yeah, in theory they could replicate anything they wanted, but on the show they didn't seem to want anything. They weren't socialist or post-consumerism. They were mentally handicapped.

Ah, but if you can have anything you want from the replicator at any time you need or want it, why bother keeping a physical item around all the time? Perhaps the Starfleet crew carry around most of their possessions as files in their personal databases. Only particularly sentimental items would be kept around physically.

Most people today carry around large libraries of music on their MP3 players. To someone from even ten years ago, it would appear that they have no music whatsoever, since we no longer have stacks of records, or eight-tracks, or CDs physically in our possession. Yet our music libraries are probably orders of magnitude larger now! Books are headed the same direction, with e-readers becoming more common. Besides, the Starfleet characters we follow likely have many multiples of the Library of Congress worth of stories and books in their computers. Why own a book when you can call it up on your reading pad from a central database in a fraction of a second?

 

[gturner]

The bizarre thing about Star Trek is that their portrayal of a "post-want" society was laughably ironic. Even Star Ship captains didn't seem to have any possesions other than a pillow and a blanket. Nobody on the crew even seemed to have more than one or two objects that had personal meaning to them, and the whole situation was like they had all just escaped from a fire with nothing left but the three small items they could grab on the way out.

I'm pretty sure that any of us here owns more books than the entire crew of any version of the Enterprise, so yeah, in theory they could replicate anything they wanted, but on the show they didn't seem to want anything. They weren't socialist or post-consumerism. They were mentally handicapped.

Ah, but if you can have anything you want from the replicator at any time you need or want it, why bother keeping a physical item around all the time? Perhaps the Starfleet crew carry around most of their possessions as files in their personal databases. Only particularly sentimental items would be kept around physically.

Most people today carry around large libraries of music on their MP3 players. To someone from even ten years ago, it would appear that they have no music whatsoever, since we no longer have stacks of records, or eight-tracks, or CDs physically in our possession. Yet our music libraries are probably orders of magnitude larger now! Books are headed the same direction, with e-readers becoming more common. Besides, the Starfleet characters we follow likely have many multiples of the Library of Congress worth of stories and books in their computers. Why own a book when you can call it up on your reading pad from a central database in a fraction of a second?

[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8qcccZy03s[/yt]

But even today you can get anything you want from Walmart, so why do people still fill their houses with possessions in physical form? You can fill a shopping cart faster than you can twiddle all the settings on a replicator to find out what it is you want to replicate.

Regarding music, don't confuse the recording technology with the sounds that hit your eardrum. People used to keep LP's, 8-tracks, cassettes, and CD's because at the time there wasn't a more compact way to store more stuff, specifically music, in a smaller space in greater density (more recordings carried on your person.)

Music or words are less than tangible things, floating through the air, impacting on our senses. But most of the thousands of other things we own have a physical size and shape that embodies their functional existence, such as: weapons, models, hand tools, the things you're building with hand tools, measurement devices, furniture, toys, potted plants, aquariums, sporting equipment, clothes, a medicine cabinet full of ointments, creams, and medicines. You can buy all these items at Walmart, in a bewildering assortment, yet everyone insists on personally possessing these items near to hand.

The disconnect is that Star Trek was written in the Johnny Raygun style of science fiction, where people only had two or three possessions: An empty ship, a ray gun, and sometimes a walkie-talkie. No one possessed a pocket knife for cleaning dirt out of their fingernails, a wallet with a valid ID, a device that could reliably determine someone's ID (amazingly, in a universe of trillions, everyone just happens to recognize each other) or even a tenth of the items a woman would keep in her purse. They spend years living in little sleeping quarters that look as barren as a room in a low-budget motel, and years later, their quarters still looks like an empty room in a low-budget motel.

Real humans don't behave like that.

 

[BolianAuthor]

You still need the raw materials to make the replicator itself... and the thing that makes the thing that makes the replicator, and so on.

 

[gturner]

You also need the raw atoms the replicator is going to use, which requires mining and lot's processing to get each element to the 99.999999999% purity level, which would be absolutely required for a replicator to be able to reproduce advanced electronic devices.

Of course some might argue that the replicator converts energy directly into matter, but I wouldn't want to live in that future. Any halfway decent hacker could tweak the replicator so the matter fails to condense properly or arrives in an unstable form, in which case a gallon of unsweetened iced tea would become an 80 megaton nuclear explosion, killing tens of millions of people. Given how hackers hack, this would be a daily occurance until the sentient population is reduced to near zero, which would probably take a few weeks, tops.

 

[Kaijima]

The MP3 collection / E-Book analogy really is valid. While it's true that possessions such as clothing, tools, and knick-knacks are by necessity more substantial than pure information archives, look at it this way:

Star Trek (or other post-scarcity humans, such as Iain M. Banks' Culture humanoids) humans are people who have grown up from birth in an environment where they don't have to fear or struggle for necessities. I'd conjecture they have a relaxed attitude where it is known with confidence that anything they need for a particular task or for play can be gotten from multiple sources with no reasonable restriction and little delay unless the item is very large or truly complex.

Such people would still accumulate "possessions" but they'd largely be items originally acquired from dispensaries on an as-needed basis that gained sentimental value. Example: you go camping, have an adventure with a backpack you requested, kept it on hand, and made some personalized modifications to it to fit your needs. You kept that item but returned other misc junk such as cups or utensils to a place where they could be recycled.

Having a house full of... stuff... might come to seem wasteful to most people as it'd just be junk to dust and clean and put away. Combined with better child rearing and more emphasis on personal responsibility, you might end up with a society where people valued taking care of their personal space and making sure it wasn't a burden on themselves and others. Especially because there would be more interesting things to do with one's time than worry about keeping your piles of junk safe. So why have the junk in the first place?

There would still be oddities and people who collected "stuff" for the sake of it; that's the part where human nature kicked in. But truthfully, it doesn't take a Star Trek economy for some of these values to already become popular; it's merely cynicism and lethargy that makes one sneer at the idea. There are already people today, even in the "capitalist capital" of the West, who have gotten tired of the rat race of collecting things and are coming to prefer a minimalist lifestyle. One thing to consider is that the Star Trek society may not have come about due to it being enforced on people or made a requirement but merely as a fashion and social trend once the technology was available to readily support it and make it /easy/ to dispense with the classical and stereotypical western/industrialized/capitalist way of life.

 

[Kaijima]

You still need the raw materials to make the replicator itself... and the thing that makes the thing that makes the replicator, and so on.

I think problems like these are ones that would be handled by heavy automation and the perfection of technologies where robots make more robots. Star Trek never had to show much of the infrastructure of its economy on-screen so never dealt with most of these questions.

In a sensible post-scarcity society, I would imagine robot probes would be dispatched capable of mining local resources to build more robots to begin processing materials, using local energy such as solar to slowly make their way. With good enough tech these devices could be self-repairing and reliable.

 

[T'Girl]

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,

In terms of capitalism, the intellectual owners of the replicator would very much not "hung onto it," but instead would seek to distribute it as widely as possible. And if you were to be marketing the use of the replicator, as opposed to the device it self, then it might be like cellphones in a way. The device itself is low cost (or free) and the replicators intellectual owners sell the operating service.

Personally I believe it would be more like you buy your replicator like you would a computer and it would come with a certain amount of basic programs or apps. If someone comes up with a interesting new food recipe, you can download the app into your replicator. If you're online and see a new fashion, you can buy it with your debit (remember there's no physical money) and the "read only" one time pattern would be sent to your replicator.

Your replicator would come with program code that would prevent it from simply scanning a trademarked item and reproducing it.

If you don't own a replicator, what you order can be sent to community replicator, something like a FedEx kinko's or a mail boxes place. If you want something large like a piece of furniture, your home replicator couldn't produce it, the replicator itself is likely the size of two or three refrigerators , but the slot is too small. A local business would produce what you picked out and then deliver it to you..

TOS made the most references to things like mining and trade

The Cardassians had replicators, they equipped DS9 with them and they still stripped the living hell out of Bajor. The 24th century Trill had mining companies, private mining companies.

Wouldn't hydrogen molecules (abundant in the cosmos) work just fine?

It take a phenomenal amount of energy to build complex molecules from hydrogen, the only place we know where this happens is inside of a star. More likely the replicator uses materials that are already close to what it will eventual produce. Part of you home replicator would be multiple containers of basic materials

[The Federation] They provide a reasonably comfortable baseline for just about anyone

Since I want the future to have a incredible amount of freedom, to me that means an incredibly tiny government. I think the only time the Federation (or United Earth or whatever) would provide food, shelter, power or basic necessities would be if someone was temporarily living in a community "shelter-like" situation.

... the Federation credit ... which I suspect is something akin to a wage that one earns for doing particular services for the Federation or local planetary government

Okay, that's just scary.

 

[gturner]

Such people would still accumulate "possessions" but they'd largely be items originally acquired from dispensaries on an as-needed basis that gained sentimental value. Example: you go camping, have an adventure with a backpack you requested, kept it on hand, and made some personalized modifications to it to fit your needs. You kept that item but returned other misc junk such as cups or utensils to a place where they could be recycled.

Having a house full of... stuff... might come to seem wasteful to most people as it'd just be junk to dust and clean and put away.

A house with seemingly less stuff could certainly happen, and has happened in the past. The Victorian fashion was a very cluttered house, with almost no bare surfaces. To modern sensibilities they seem very 'busy'. Yet our houses now, on average, are much much bigger per person, so we pack them with stuff that a Victorian could only dream about and they still look relatively barren.

There would still be oddities and people who collected "stuff" for the sake of it; that's the part where human nature kicked in. But truthfully, it doesn't take a Star Trek economy for some of these values to already become popular; it's merely cynicism and lethargy that makes one sneer at the idea.

Ahem. Is it cynicism and lethargy that makes me want:

4 cats, including a genetically modified sand cat
3 Asian clawed otters
8 giraffes
1 pygmy hippopatamus
2 horses
8 rabbits
2 pandas
2 dik diks
2 civilian helicopters, one large, one small
1 North American P-51 Mustang
1 Vought F4U Corsair
1 Grumman F8F Bearcat
1 Grumman F7F Tigercat
1 Grumman F9F Panther with a modernized engine
1 North American F-86 Sabre
1 Grumman F-14 Tomcat
2 F-18 Hornets (one C model and one E model)
1 aircraft carrier to fly the carrier based aircraft
1 Cobra gunship
1 Apache gunship
1 Blackhawk transport helicopter
18 Federation shuttlecraft with a variety of cute names (they get destroyed all the time, so you need lots of spares)
2 powerboats
4 sailboats
2 swimming pools
2 aquariums of 500,000 gallons or more
2 small submarines, one for shallow reef work and one for deep ocean work
Jay Leno's entire car collection.

And that's just getting started. When stuff becomes absolutely free, at least half the people here would exceed my list!

Ask not what you would do with an F9F Panther on your own aircraft carrier. Ask how you got along without one!

 

[Pavonis]

But even today you can get anything you want from Walmart, so why do people still fill their houses with possessions in physical form? You can fill a shopping cart faster than you can twiddle all the settings on a replicator to find out what it is you want to replicate.

I don't understand your point. While you can get a wide variety of goods at Wal-Mart, you still have to exchange currency for them, because we're still operating in a scarcity-based economy. Furthermore, the goods were already in physical form, not files on a computer system connected to a replicator.

With a replicator, or a cornucopia machine as Charles Stross called similar technology in Singularity Sky, or a matter compiler in the Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson, can eliminate scarcity and put the means of production in the hands of individuals. A technology that can make anything, even (or especially) more of itself, will have dramatic impact on economics.

Regarding music, don't confuse the recording technology with the sounds that hit your eardrum. People used to keep LP's, 8-tracks, cassettes, and CD's because at the time there wasn't a more compact way to store more stuff, specifically music, in a smaller space in greater density (more recordings carried on your person.)

The disconnect is that Star Trek was written in the Johnny Raygun style of science fiction, where people only had two or three possessions: An empty ship, a ray gun, and sometimes a walkie-talkie. No one possessed a pocket knife for cleaning dirt out of their fingernails, a wallet with a valid ID, a device that could reliably determine someone's ID (amazingly, in a universe of trillions, everyone just happens to recognize each other) or even a tenth of the items a woman would keep in her purse. They spend years living in little sleeping quarters that look as barren as a room in a low-budget motel, and years later, their quarters still looks like an empty room in a low-budget motel.

Real humans don't behave like that.

I take it that your point is that music and books aren't the particular form of property you were thinking of, then? You're surprised that many characters depicted in Trek had very little in the way of personal possessions (seemingly only items of sentimental value), and that you find this unrealistic? Yet I would say that the Starfleet personnel that dominate the characters of Trek aren't an ideal baseline to extrapolate to the typical lifestyle of a Federation civilian citizen. Maybe there are great numbers of people in the Federation, even just on Earth, with a sampling of all the antiques you listed. Maybe there are great number people living on personal aircraft carriers, sailing around the Pacific Ocean in the 24th century, or who have a veritable menagerie of animals in their huge backyards. We don't know.

Still, I think you're exaggerating the Spartan nature of the Trek characters' quarters. Picard had a number of decorative items in his quarters, and his ready room. Sisko brought a number of items he had stored on Earth to the station in the episode The Search, and Dr. Crusher had a box of items from her husband brought out of storage while the Enterprise was at McKinley station in Family, indicating that Starfleet personnel, at least, have more possessions than they can cart along from posting to posting easily. Starfleeters probably live a more austere life than typical UFP citizens.

 

[gturner]

But even today you can get anything you want from Walmart, so why do people still fill their houses with possessions in physical form? You can fill a shopping cart faster than you can twiddle all the settings on a replicator to find out what it is you want to replicate.

I don't understand your point. While you can get a wide variety of goods at Wal-Mart, you still have to exchange currency for them, because we're still operating in a scarcity-based economy. Furthermore, the goods were already in physical form, not files on a computer system connected to a replicator.

With a replicator, or a cornucopia machine as Charles Stross called similar technology in Singularity Sky, or a matter compiler in the Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson, can eliminate scarcity and put the means of production in the hands of individuals. A technology that can make anything, even (or especially) more of itself, will have dramatic impact on economics.

But suppose you didn't have to exchange a currency for the items at Walmart? What would you do? What would every Walmart customer do? Take the whole friggin' store. Fill up your house you say? Naw, because warehouses are free, too!

If ever there was anyone who isn't living in a scarcity based economy, it is people in the West. The richer we get, the further we get from any scarcity, the more capitalist we become, accumulating more and more possessions. The houses get bigger, the garages get bigger, the swimming pools get bigger, and everyone keeps iPods, iPhones, and iPads on them at all times, the way their forefathers clinged to a knife, an axe, and a gourd.

Communist theorists spent a century saying that an end to scarcity would change mankind's inner nature, creating the New Communist Man, the advanced Aryan, the new Kibutzim, etc. The early communists like Engels scratched their heads because their model of human behavior said America should've been the first to abandon capitalism and advance to the next stage. As became obvious, their model was wack.

Here are some flaws in Star Trek's utopia.

1) The invention of the replicator.

The first major effect of widespread replicator technology was rampant drug addiction which spread almost as fast as a hack called "Heroin 1.0" circulated around the net. An estimated 10 million addicts died since none sought treatment, as nobody actually needed to hold a job or shop for food anymore. In a society that never even figured out how to treat Holodeck addiction, no solution was found. Forever after, about half the human population just stayed stoned all day.

The second major effect was the collapse of the Golden Gate Bridge (in Star Trek we see a replica made of fiber-reinforced plastic). Since nobody needed money, nobody would work suck-ass jobs like bridge painting in high winds. The world's infrastructure crumbled. Nobody cared because they never left the apartments that supplied them with heroin.

The third major effect was the collapse of Star Fleet, because although everyone thought it would be cool to say things like "Fire phasers!", 95% of the jobs on a spaceship seemed to involve scrubbing something - for years - and then updating reports to confirm that the something was in fact scrubbed. Given that such menial jobs also carried an extreme risk of violent death, everyone figured they were much better off sitting in their apartment doing heroin.

The fourth major effect was a period of violent expansion, still ongoing, because the Federation of Planets was constantly in need of people who weren't yet addicted to replicated heroin and who were still willing to paint bridges and scrub things. Sometimes aliens suspected the trap, which is why the Enterprise fired off a higher yield of nuclear weapons in an average episode than all the capitalist countries combined - throughout human history.

The fifth major effect was the Earth famine of 2318, in which over twelve billion humans starved to death when the planet's integrated power system was infiltrated by a replicating computer virus of unkown origins. The replicators were down for two months and the only people who had food in physical form, and thus survived, were the heroin addicts, crack heads, and pot smokers who would constantly order up chips and candy bars but then not eat them, leaving them littering the floors of their hell-strewn apartments.

It's a long, sad history, and one they never revealed on the show.

 

[Pavonis]

But suppose you didn't have to exchange a currency for the items at Walmart? What would you do? What would every Walmart customer do? Take the whole friggin' store. Fill up your house you say? Naw, because warehouses are free, too!

Maybe you would do that, maybe a large number of people would do that, but not everyone would do that. If it's always there, always stocked, and always free, why take everything in one go? You make it sound more like looting than shopping.

If ever there was anyone who isn't living in a scarcity based economy, it is people in the West. The richer we get, the further we get from any scarcity, the more capitalist we become, accumulating more and more possessions. The houses get bigger, the garages get bigger, the swimming pools get bigger, and everyone keeps iPods, iPhones, and iPads on them at all times, the way their forefathers clinged to a knife, an axe, and a gourd.

Communist theorists spent a century saying that an end to scarcity would change mankind's inner nature, creating the New Communist Man, the advanced Aryan, the new Kibutzim, etc. The early communists like Engels scratched their heads because their model of human behavior said America should've been the first to abandon capitalism and advance to the next stage. As became obvious, their model was wack.

I don't think a particularly radical shift in human nature is required for a society that has replicator technology. Frankly, I think most people just keep most of their things in digital storage most of the time, rather than keeping actual items on hand in physical space. If hunter-gatherers could store their axes and gourds in cyberspace and retrieve them at need easily, wouldn't they?

Here are some flaws in Star Trek's utopia.

1) The invention of the replicator.

The first major effect of widespread replicator technology was rampant drug addiction which spread almost as fast as a hack called "Heroin 1.0" circulated around the net. An estimated 10 million addicts died since none sought treatment, as nobody actually needed to hold a job or shop for food anymore. In a society that never even figured out how to treat Holodeck addiction, no solution was found. Forever after, about half the human population just stayed stoned all day.

As I've said in other posts in other threads discussing Trekenomics, I personally imagine that most of the population does very little, if anything at all. Rather I think most citizens in a Trek-like economic scenario would vegetate, play games, or just watch TV (or the combination and equivalent of TV and games - the holodeck) most of the time.

For people with more ambition, they could write plays, or novels, or create art all day. Whether it would sell in our day and age would be irrelevant, since it wouldn't need to provide financial support.

The most ambitious people would still rise to leadership positions (since politics isn't dead, and communal decision-making is still required), and the smart ambitious people would still end up in scientific research (since they don't have everything figured out yet).

The second major effect was the collapse of the Golden Gate Bridge (in Star Trek we see a replica made of fiber-reinforced plastic). Since nobody needed money, nobody would work suck-ass jobs like bridge painting in high winds. The world's infrastructure crumbled. Nobody cared because they never left the apartments that supplied them with heroin.

Again, an absolute like nobody doesn't seem likely. Surely someone would be willing to paint and otherwise help maintain the Golden Gate Bridge, out of nostalgia or interest in 20th century history. More likely though is the automation of such menial tasks, or the possibility of a technological fix that would prevent decay and make the bridge maintenance less intensive (perhaps a thin coating of diamond?) And, as an aside, are you seriously denigrating the work of the maintenance crews of the GGB? Just because you wouldn't do it doesn't mean it's a "suck-ass" job. As with everything, "suck-ass" is in the eye of the beholder. I'm sure there are many, many people in this world who wouldn't consider doing your job (whatever it may be) for any amount of money.

The third major effect was the collapse of Star Fleet, because although everyone thought it would be cool to say things like "Fire phasers!", 95% of the jobs on a spaceship seemed to involve scrubbing something - for years - and then updating reports to confirm that the something was in fact scrubbed. Given that such menial jobs also carried an extreme risk of violent death, everyone figured they were much better off sitting in their apartment doing heroin.

Again, everyone?

It's likely that the personnel of Starfleet represent a tiny fraction of the population of the UFP; they may truly be the "best of the best of the best". Starfleet wouldn't have to accept slackers to fill the ranks when most of the menial duties could be tasked to machines.

The fourth major effect was a period of violent expansion, still ongoing, because the Federation of Planets was constantly in need of people who weren't yet addicted to replicated heroin and who were still willing to paint bridges and scrub things. Sometimes aliens suspected the trap, which is why the Enterprise fired off a higher yield of nuclear weapons in an average episode than all the capitalist countries combined - throughout human history.

The fifth major effect was the Earth famine of 2318, in which over twelve billion humans starved to death when the planet's integrated power system was infiltrated by a replicating computer virus of unkown origins. The replicators were down for two months and the only people who had food in physical form, and thus survived, were the heroin addicts, crack heads, and pot smokers who would constantly order up chips and candy bars but then not eat them, leaving them littering the floors of their hell-strewn apartments.

It's a long, sad history, and one they never revealed on the show.

 

[T'Girl]

I personally imagine that most of the population does very little, if anything at all. Rather I think most citizens in a Trek-like economic scenario would vegetate, play games, or just watch TV

This is one of the prime reasons I think the government and society in general would want to make the deliberate conscious decision to retain money and a economy that requires it to be earned through employment..

More likely though is the automation of such menial tasks

It's an odd fact about the 24th century, but still a fact, in case you haven't noticed they have no robots, no mobile automation, Data is a one off and Captain Picard regarded the exo-com's as something highly unusual. This is part of what leads me to believe that they actual DO have a paid work force. They don't have robot because they have people to do these jobs.

Starfleet wouldn't have to accept slackers to fill the ranks when most of the menial duties could be tasked to machines.

Same as above, there are about four hundred hours of Star Trek set in the 24th century (episodes and movies), no robots. Given that much time we would have seen them in the background of at least some scenes.

I don't understand your point. While you can get a wide variety of goods at Wal-Mart, you still have to exchange currency for them, because we're still operating in a scarcity-based economy.

I think his point was that, in reality, we're not currently living in a scarcity economy, not in the west.

Something that you and others have left out of your position, your argument -- and this might seem very obvious to you -- but why do you make the assumption that a post-scarcity economy would require no money?

 

[RobertScorpio]

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

think....Sweden.

Rob

 

[Pavonis]

This is one of the prime reasons I think the government and society in general would want to make the deliberate conscious decision to retain money and a economy that requires it to be earned through employment..

Well, maybe, but I don't see how an artificially-enforced economy would be stable for very long. Sounds a lot like communism, if you ask me. Just because some people at the top think it's a good idea, or a necessary one, doesn't mean it'll work for a long time.

The free rider problem may not exist for the 24th century UFP economy, because the costs could be so low that nearly everyone can be a free rider without any negative effects on the production of public goods.

It's an odd fact about the 24th century, but still a fact, in case you haven't noticed they have no robots, no mobile automation, Data is a one off and Captain Picard regarded the exo-com's as something highly unusual. This is part of what leads me to believe that they actual DO have a paid work force. They don't have robot because they have people to do these jobs.

I've noticed that there are no visible robots depicted in Trek. It's not a problem, though, really, because why would they ever have an episode about the machines that work in the background on menial tasks? They wouldn't have to be artificially intelligent; in fact, that would be a disadvantage, since you don't need or want a robot with Data's intelligence (or even B4's) to wrap cable, or paint bridges.

As for the exo-comps, they were described as common industrial robots, modified with decision-making algorithms and learning capability, but not intended to develop independent thought. Surely there are many dumb robots like the exo-comps' ancestors working in the background of UFP society. We just didn't see them often.

The solution to the "no robots" paradox in Trek, though, is nanites. Microscopic robots could surround the characters of Trek, working in the background all the time, and they wouldn't be visible. Certainly nanites were common enough for Wesley Crusher, a gifted high school student, to work on them as a science project.

I think his point was that, in reality, we're not currently living in a scarcity economy, not in the west.

Oh, there's no question that we have an abundance of goods and services in the West. But are we in true post-scarcity situation? I don't think so.

Something that you and others have left out of your position, your argument -- and this might seem very obvious to you -- but why do you make the assumption that a post-scarcity economy would require no money?

Well, what's money for?

I exchange money for goods and services that I cannot provide for myself, since I lack the time, energy, and skill to, for instance, grow my own food; I earn money by providing service to others that they cannot do for themselves. Economics is a cycle of interdependency.

But what if food and clothes were provided by a replicator, a replicator owned and controlled by me? I needn't spend money on those necessities. My expenses would be lower, so I'd have a lot more money in pocket, making me relatively richer without increasing my salary. If this were the case for everyone else, too, then inflation would rise, making currency worth less. If this situation were to spiral, at some point currency would be worthless, making the tracking of money exchanges not worth the effort. The replicator eliminates a great deal of the dependency of humans on other humans for support and survival.

For my own part, though, I don't necessarily think a post-scarcity economy would have to be moneyless. It's possible that even in a post-scarcity economy, some form of market economics with currency-based exchanges would still occur. For instance, any activity that required human oversight would require someone's time be occupied by that activity. Time would still be a scarce resource in a post-scarcity economy, such that a unit of currency could be based on it. In that case, how much your time is worth would depend on numerous factors, including your skill set and how much free time you have available already. Unambitious slackers with copious free time wouldn't be able to charge much for their time, since they have time in abundance and no particular need or drive to do anything but vegetate. Ambitious and intelligent people would have less free time, and more valuable skill sets, so that the time they spend overseeing activities or helping others would require some kind of time-credit compensation.

Whether something like that scenario exists in Trek is unclear, since the familiar Starfleet characters aren't living or working in the civilian world, and extrapolating from daily life on a starship to the life of the average citizen is a perilous endeavor.

Still, I think that if the characters say "We don't use money" and that "the economics of the future are somewhat different", then I don't see why we shouldn't accept that. If the Federation still uses currency and scarcity-driven exchanges, then they're not "somewhat different", they're not different at all.

 

[T'Girl]

Well, maybe, but I don't see how an artificially-enforced economy would be stable for very long.

Well our current value-exchange merchant economy is a artificial construct, one that humans have developed over the course of thousands of years. Making the decision to transition to a no charge economy would be a societal choice, not something that "just happen." Top leaders wouldn't so much decide to keep the old system, as the populace deciding not to adopt the new one. A version of the existing system would remain by default, not intent.

As for the exo-comps, they were described as common industrial robots

But only on Tyrus Seven, neither LaFoorge nor Data had ever seen anything like one before, after being briefed on one LaForge referred to it as "experimental." (The Quality of Life)

But what if food and clothes were provided by a replicator, a replicator owned and controlled by me?

If you own a replicator, that implies private property (which is good).

For a second let's assume that the replicator itself was simply provided to you. Now Voyager made clear that replicators consume a fair amount of energy, this energy also would be provided to you. I believe the replicator requires base materials to work with, but even if it just hydrogen this too will have to be collected and be provided to you. In DS9, Quark's replicator would break down from time to time, the servicing of yours would be provided to you too. You put forward that the average Human in the replicator economy would do little or nothing productively.

So who provides all these things to you? The "government?" A government has made the deliberate decision to provide you with a device that will have the end result of you not being productive in society.

What could possible motivate a government to do this?

These replicators (multiple billions of them) require large amounts of power, power plants or collectors have to be built, run and serviced,. Remember no one can be payed to do this. And while it might be interesting to tinker around with a antimatter reactor every once and a while (can't fire anyone for not showing up), how interesting is it to fix the return plumbing that connects your toilet to the back of your replicator? Modern plumbers make real good money, future plumbers will do it to enlighten themselves.

Forget capitalism, if the future possesses a merchant economy (which I advocate), the government will "provide" none of this. After you work a tough day in sales down at the hovercar dealership, you will reach into your back pocket and buy a replicator, you'll buy power, supplies, service and programs. Yes, the replicator will be able to make almost anything for you ... at a per item price, nothing will be "provided" for you. The lack of scarcity in Human society is something which was bought and paid for, if you stop working (working constantly) the scarcity will return very quickly.

A lack of scarcity can be created, but it will be a artificial construct of the Human race (and others). The post-scarcity environment will be a on going temporary condition. It will continue only so long as it is maintained.

 

[Pavonis]

Well, maybe, but I don't see how an artificially-enforced economy would be stable for very long.

Well our current value-exchange merchant economy is a artificial construct, one that humans have developed over the course of thousands of years. Making the decision to transition to a no charge economy would be a societal choice, not something that "just happen." Top leaders wouldn't so much decide to keep the old system, as the populace deciding not to adopt the new one. A version of the existing system would remain by default, not intent.

I agree with you on that point. Economics is mostly just large-scale psychology.

As for the exo-comps, they were described as common industrial robots

But only on Tyrus Seven, neither LaForge nor Data had ever seen anything like one before, after being briefed on one LaForge referred to it as "experimental." (The Quality of Life)

Yes, the exo-comps that Dr. Farallon developed were new and experimental, but surely not the baseline units from which they were developed. I assume, perhaps incorrectly, that Tyrus VIIa was a Federation member planet, so that the exo-comp baseline robots wouldn't be unique to that planet. Of course, I could be wrong. If Tyrus VIIa wasn't a Federation member, why was Picard evaluating the technology?

If you own a replicator, that implies private property (which is good).

For a second let's assume that the replicator itself was simply provided to you. Now Voyager made clear that replicators consume a fair amount of energy, this energy also would be provided to you. I believe the replicator requires base materials to work with, but even if it just hydrogen this too will have to be collected and be provided to you. In DS9, Quark's replicator would break down from time to time, the servicing of yours would be provided to you too. You put forward that the average Human in the replicator economy would do little or nothing productively.

I don't understand the Voyager view of replicators. Surely the replicators are the most efficient and effective replicators that could ever be developed. In that case, the replicators should be relied on extensively for recycling. Why Voyager needed to reduce the usage of replicators to save power when the warp drive must have used many orders of magnitude more power just doesn't seem verisimilitudinous to me.

Anyway...

So who provides all these things to you? The "government?" A government has made the deliberate decision to provide you with a device that will have the end result of you not being productive in society.

What could possible motivate a government to do this?

If society deems it, then government would do it, wouldn't it? I mean, this is the idealistic world of Trek, not necessarily realistic.

These replicators (multiple billions of them) require large amounts of power, power plants or collectors have to be built, run and serviced,. Remember no one can be payed to do this. And while it might be interesting to tinker around with a antimatter reactor every once and a while (can't fire anyone for not showing up), how interesting is it to fix the return plumbing that connects your toilet to the back of your replicator? Modern plumbers make real good money, future plumbers will do it to enlighten themselves.

Modern plumbers do earn large salaries, but is that the only reason that people become plumbers? If financial gain is the only motivator, then why isn't everyone a plumber?

Let's face it, I think we both need a better handle on human psychology to unravel the fictional economics of Star Trek. I can't understand exactly what motivates and drives 24th century humans in Trek, but I'm willing to accept that they may be different, even significantly different, from 21st century humans.

Another fact - in reality, most people don't land their dream jobs or work in the career fields most suited to their innate talents. Instead they work at jobs to earn money. But if people could do what ever they wanted with their time, rather than merely earn money, I think they'd follow their dream jobs. Maybe I'm an idealist, but I don't actually think most people would be lazy slacker stoners. Frankly, I think if they could afford to, most people would rather their hobbies be their jobs. In the 24th century depicted in Trek, people could do just that.

Forget capitalism, if the future possesses a merchant economy (which I advocate), the government will "provide" none of this. After you work a tough day in sales down at the hovercar dealership, you will reach into your back pocket and buy a replicator, you'll buy power, supplies, service and programs. Yes, the replicator will be able to make almost anything for you ... at a per item price, nothing will be "provided" for you. The lack of scarcity in Human society is something which was bought and paid for, if you stop working (working constantly) the scarcity will return very quickly.

A lack of scarcity can be created, but it will be a artificial construct of the Human race (and others). The post-scarcity environment will be a on going temporary condition. It will continue only so long as it is maintained.

Please don't make the mistake of assuming that I'm campaigning or advocating the system I'm describing. I'm just trying to interpret the canon descriptions of Trek economics that have been provided by the episodes and movies. Whether I think it's realistic or ideal isn't the issue. It's just whether it best fits the few canon facts we have. Maybe I'm overdoing the extrapolation, but in my opinion, what I've described at least hangs together well and explains many background details that otherwise wouldn't necessarily fit together .

 

[gturner]

I don't understand the Voyager view of replicators. Surely the replicators are the most efficient and effective replicators that could ever be developed. In that case, the replicators should be relied on extensively for recycling. Why Voyager needed to reduce the usage of replicators to save power when the warp drive must have used many orders of magnitude more power just doesn't seem verisimilitudinous to me.

Well, the way replicators really work is that the ship's engine packs one of almost every kind of chemically active atom on the periodic chart into almost the same space, repeated an almost infinite number of times in a very densely packed matrix. The result is matter slightly less dense than a neutron star, with each future atomic position in a standard matrx occupied by a tight cluster of a hyrdrogen, a lithium, boron, carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, fluorine, sodium, etc., about 50 dfferent elements in total.

When you tell the replicator to make you something, it simply beams away the 98% of atoms that would be wrong for the final position. Those atoms fly out into empty space, never to materialize, since shorn of the critical 2% of elements missing, the dense structure would make a loud and violent bang.

The remaining atoms are tweaked into their final positions, their electron shells interact, and presto, you have an omelet on a plate.

It's really quite simple, but an inefficient use of atoms and a power hog.