federation economy.. plausible / beliveable?

Discussion in 'General Trek Discussion' started by nexuzz, Nov 10, 2007.

  1. Timo

    Timo Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    Hey, being average is encouraged in the welfare utopia of the Nordic countries, too - being rich is a crime punishable by 70% income tax. That alone doesn't much discourage initiative or hamper national product; incentives and disincentives must always be seen in greater context, as they seldom seem to play an independent role.

    Also, very seldom is a nation toppled by misguided economics, even if a government or two at its helm may fall. The Soviet Union is still there, minus some of its European holdings; its economy is as wobbly as ever, and indeed went through half a dozen permutations during the actual Soviet era already, without playing anywhere as big a role as simple brute force control of the nation's masses did.

    Nations can run on fumes for exceedingly long times, as per the Cuba example. (But of course they don't run long if the military loosens its grip at such a time.)

    Timo Saloniemi
     
  2. bismarck_1892

    bismarck_1892 Captain Captain

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    I would not put it that way. The West spent more on weapons and the USSR tried to compete. However, if their was no war, hot or cold, the Soviet Union would still be around. Indeed, it was surprising to most people that it ended the way it did. In other words, you are judging a system by its military capability (many people would agree that its not the best way the look at a country).

    Also, you are taking the Soviet economy out of historic context. The Soviets turned the USSR into a industrial state after the revolution (at a tremendous cost to human life, however). Then the Soviet Union was completely demolished in WWII. It had to rebuild its economy from scratch and without western (US) money or trade. Entire cities were rebuilt. An entire generation of Soviet people was decemated in the war. Its amazing what the Soviets accomplished after loosing more then 20 million people.
     
  3. Timo

    Timo Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    I'd say it's an excellent way to look at the success of a country. With a good enough military, the country can persist regardless of the successes or failures of things like economics, religion, R&D or diplomacy. The opposite is seldom true: even if you have the economy to keep you afloat, and especially if you do, your longevity is in severe danger if your military is lacking.

    Admittedly our vantage point in Trek is biased, but it very much seems that the UFP, too, is largely kept afloat through the efforts of its military. Why, Starfleet even negotiates crucial trade agreements for the government! (Why Kirk didn't have a civilian diplomat or industrial bigwig with him in "Friday's Child" is a complete mystery to me. Such a character would have been good for the drama, too.)

    In general, it would be something of an exaggeration to say that capitalism has triumphed. After all, all of its variants have ended in financial disaster of one kind or another in the respective nations practicing it, to be replaced by a more refined variant. Certain early utopian aspects of communism were admittedly much bolder changes from the norm than these upheavals of the "capitalist system" - but OTOH, the move to the moneyless TNG society would in turn appear to be a lesser change.

    Timo Saloniemi
     
  4. Balthier the Great

    Balthier the Great Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

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    Personally, I tend to look at things like health, education, and employment. With a sick, uneducated society, the millitary can't stay on top. Other things like savings and trade deficits matter as well -- I don't care how much Kirk can pimp his ride, if the country is spending more than it's earning, it's going downhill. Same with the citizens -- if the citizens are spending more than they make on a regular basis, a downturn could cause a lot of bankruptcies, which isn't good.

    Just because the millitary is powerful now doesn't say much about its future. A millitary can't stay powerful unless the government is capable of supplying and paying it. Millitaries have been known to turn on the government if things get bad enough.



    [/QUOTE]In general, it would be something of an exaggeration to say that capitalism has triumphed. After all, all of its variants have ended in financial disaster of one kind or another in the respective nations practicing it, to be replaced by a more refined variant. Certain early utopian aspects of communism were admittedly much bolder changes from the norm than these upheavals of the "capitalist system" - but OTOH, the move to the moneyless TNG society would in turn appear to be a lesser change.

    [/QUOTE]

    I think the Capitalist system is hard to keep running mostly when there isn't a strong middle class.

    Timo Saloniemi

    [/QUOTE]
     
  5. AlanC9

    AlanC9 Commodore Commodore

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    Pretty good post, James_K, but one quibble:

    How does a government provide free land? OK, you can get your 40 acres and a replicator on colonial planets, but Earth land (or any other developed world) would always be relatively scarce.

    As I've said elsewhere, the single most implausible thing in all of Trek is Harry Kim's San Francisco apartment.
     
  6. zenophite

    zenophite Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    or the sisko family restaurant.
     
  7. misskim86

    misskim86 Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    It's probably possible but it's probably impossible for us in 2007 to comprehend
     
  8. AlanC9

    AlanC9 Commodore Commodore

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    Not necessarily. I can see municipal authorities requiring things like restaurants to have preferred claims on space, to maintain the character of the city.
     
  9. richpit

    richpit Commander Red Shirt

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    Folks, seriously. The "Trek economy" was / is simply a Utopian (read: "Socialist" or "Communist") vision of the future by Roddenberry, who clearly was painfully liberal and a 1960's hippie. It can't work without an all-ruling government forcing citizens to perform the jobs they don't want for little or no monetary compensation.

    I love "Star Trek" for a lot of reasons, but it's blatantly Socialist "Federation" government and "perfect" 24th century humans are not on the list.
     
  10. intrinsical

    intrinsical Commodore Commodore

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    For all we know, everyone on Earth live in Holodecks.
     
  11. Sci

    Sci Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    They stole a TARDIS and used Time Lord technology to build houses that were bigger on the inside than the out. ;)
     
  12. Timo

    Timo Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    Seriously, though, if Earth's population has been limited in the future, say, to half a billion, there's more land for everybody than can possibly be used. Insert a bit of technology, and each square meter of it becomes prime real estate. Not exactly a scarce resource.

    And the argument that one scarce resource leads to the necessity of an overall monetary economy is false anyway. Moneyless economies exist today as subsets of the greater whole; in Trek, the entire consumer market could have become such a subset, while the capitalist machinery trundles on the far background, automated and efficient and hundreds of orders of magnitude larger than the consumer market.

    Timo Saloniemi
     
  13. Sci

    Sci Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    Limited by what? Government regulations? Yeah, *that's* an optimistic futre...
     
  14. Timo

    Timo Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    Personally, I do find that an optimistic and welcome vision for future, even if the reduction in population is achieved through mass executions or gourmet cannibalism. Any scenario where population is not limited is automatically a dystopia, leading as it does to increasing material misery. Even in the best possible case, with all the perks of treknology applied to the fullest, we'd end up like the Gideonites.

    Timo Saloniemi
     
  15. Sci

    Sci Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    I wonder about your definition of an optimistic future, then, because what you're suggesting is that a fundamental human right -- the right to reproduce, to start one's own family -- be curtailed. That tends to be anathetical to the spirit of freedom and self-determination upon which constitutional liberal democracy is supposed to be based.

    A better scenerio would be to argue that education is widespread and effective enough that by the 22nd Century, people choose to have fewer children and, thus, the population has decreased significantly.
     
  16. Timo

    Timo Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    I humbly beg to differ about there being a difference between our approaches. You seem to speak as if things like "freedom" or "right" can be considered absolute, when such things in fact almost by definition cancel themselves out when applied to a society. Surely you of all people would understand that freedom awarded one member of the society is a freedom denied another - most blatantly in a zero-sum game such as population growth vs. planetary resources.

    Your propagandist approach is fundamentally no different from the one where black helicopters descend to pick up infants to be fed to dogs. It is always a matter of the needs of the society being placed ahead of the needs of the individual, via assorted sanctions (of which education can be argued to be one of the more effective ones, coming in close second after direct material rewards and third after direct threat of force). The end result is the exact same: taking away the right to reproduce according to the biological urges that aim at population growth. Whether via brainwashing or black helicopters, it is preposterous to argue that "freedom" is being served when society imposes its will to ensure its survival.

    "Constitutional liberal democracy" may be one way to attain a well-running society, but whether the Trek society is one of those remains a matter of debate. Whether our Trek heroes find value and worth in constitutions, liberties and democracy is another intriguing question. But certainly it is possible to assume that effective population control is being practiced on Earth, given that few families witnessed have more than two children, birth control is spoken of in positive terms, and there is governmental oversight of the populance in somewhat more "sinister" respects already, such as the anti-criminal screenings spoken of in "Justice"...

    Timo Saloniemi
     
  17. Sci

    Sci Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    I firmly disagree. Liberty is not a zero-sum game.

    I'm confused. How is providing people with education to make choices, and then stepping back and allowing them to make whatever reproductive choices they want, the same as actively using force to deny them their reproductive choices?

    We hear numerous references to civil liberties and civil rights being derived from the Federation Constitution ("The Drumhead"'s reference to the Seventh Guarantee protecting people from self-incrimination, "The Perfect Mate" refering to everyone aboard a Federation ship being protected by the Federation Constitution) or Federation Charter ("Accession" refering to caste-based discrimination as being barred under the Charter). We hear in "The Best of Both Worlds" that Federation society is built upon the principles of freedom and self-determination (which the Borg dismiss as "ireelevent"). We hear of the President of the United Federation of Planets being elected in "Homefront"/"Paradise Lost."

    Sounds like a constitutional liberal democracy to me.

    You are no doubt referring to this line:

    That's an incredibly ambiguous statement that could mean anything from, "We subject everyone to intrusive telepathic scans once every six months from ages 2 to death and ergo forcibly restructure the brain so as to ensure docile behavior" to, "We are capable of recognizing early symptoms of anti-social behavior and have effective therapies that provide people with the insights, empathy, and information that they can use to make better choices for themselves, though, unfortunately, some people still choose to commit crimes since we, of course, do not, could not, and would never choose to remove the capacity for personal freedom and choice."
     
  18. Deks

    Deks Vice Admiral Admiral

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    You are forgetting that concepts like 'family, 'marriage' and 'need for children' is a mere propaganda.
    In a free society which is considered to be atheist, such concepts hold no merit (and the 'need for children' has been blown out of proportions to say the least when not everyone even want the little buggers ... I certainly don't for one thing, and I don't hold it against those who do, but having kids for the sake of expectations and 'continuing the family name' is mere stupidity).

    People as a whole in Trek future are more educated and mature.
    Also ... overpopulation would not be a problem in Trek future.
    For one thing, they have the technology/resources to feed/provide homes and clothing for everyone.

    Not everyone would want to live in 'popular' locations like the beach for example.
    With Trek technology, they can basically turn any 'inhospitable' environment into a hospitable and palatable one.

    There are numerous places on Earth to this day and age that are not populated at all, or are populated in very sparse amounts.
    Todays overpopulation problems revolve mostly around the bad health system/food/clothing/shelter/poor education ... etc.
    In Trek, such problems don't exist.
    I would imagine that Earth can hold billions of more humans (however I do consider the 6+ billion at the moment to be a bit too much) but the issue lies in our own technological inadequacy (or it probably has to do more with money) to help ourselves on a global scale.
     
  19. Sci

    Sci Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    I'm an atheist, and I consider family and marriage to be a deeply important, wonderful social structure -- albeit one that no one should be forced to enter into if they don't want to.

    (And I don't agree that the Federation is atheist. I think the Federation is SECULAR, and that it allows for a great deal of religious diversity -- everything from atheism to Vulcan cthia to Bajoran Prophetism to Ferengi Great Riverism/Divine Exchequer worship to Human Zoroastrianism.)
     
  20. DarthTom

    DarthTom Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    You'd then have to take a whole bunch of dialog not literally, namely the endless diatribes by Picard on how humans now work to 'better humanity.'

    :rolleyes:

    We have only one piece of canon that references some sort of Federation trading system, in the pilot episode where Crusher references 'federation credits.' 4 series later, 100's of episodes later and not a mention again of such a system.