Ferengi government, economy and ideology--really capitalist?

[Myasishchev]

The conventional wisdom is that the Ferengi were originally inteded as grotesque caricatures of capitalism. Although with great characters like Quark, Nog, and Rom (your mileage may vary, but I liked him), we got to know Ferengi as individuals, the general conception of Ferengi as profit-seeking Yankee traders was largely maintained.

Yet how close to hitting their mark were TNG-era or DS9-era Ferengi writers?

TNG-era
The predatory daimons were not industrialists, at best they were merchants, and in fact it is strongly suggested that they're basically, despite Roddenberry's dictum that the word not be used, pirates. Aside from the Ferengi's behavior, human merchants at least have never armed their vessels to the point that they were capable of taking on the capital ships of neighboring naval powers in a fair fight.

There is some indication in these early Ferengi episodes that this is in fact the "Ferengi way," in that monoculturalist mode that Star Trek is so fond of, that is in the same way that the "Klingon way" is to get drunk on blood wine and do honorable battle or whatever.

The point is, the economic activity for which the Ferengi are supposed to be a commentary on is never really shown, at least until "The Price," where Daimon Goss 1)completely abandons any pretense of lawful evil, 2)is personally repellant as a negotiator, and 3)apparently represents no business interest, but the Ferengi state itself.

And, of course, in "The Last Outpost", we are told that these "capitalists" artificially limit the marketplace to males, depriving half of their population of the opportunity of taking place in formal economic activity, and thus reducing the wealth of society by roughly one half. They do this for moral and cultural reasons, despite the anathema it poses to a free market ideology.

DS9-era
In the DS9 era, all but the facade of the Ferengi having a free market economy is thrown out the window. We learn a number of things:

1)the Ferengi Alliance's head magistrate is the Grand Nagus, whose powers are ill-defined, but significant, in some cases approaching the dictatorial, capable of intruding deeply into the economic and social spheres, often for his own advantage;
2)the Ferengi Trade Association is a governmental body with wide-ranging powers over free economic association;
3)an insane culture of corruption exists on Ferenginar;
4)the Ferengi Alliance provides very limited services to the people it governs.

Negatively, we never hear of a single Ferengi business enterprise that produces tangible goods. Ironically, the closest thing to an actual businessman is the perpetually out-of-luck Quark, who does run a real, profit-making service enterprise. It's conceivable that Gaila produced his own weapons, but the implication is that he simply trafficked them. Also, I suppose you can count the Ferengi assassin from "The Magnificent Ferengi"--although the service he provides is murder, it is a service, and he is not just a broker for the assassins who actually provide the service. Rom originally and the nameless waiter dudes are essentially wage-laborers, although he might be a limited partner in Quark's bar.

Indeed, every other major Ferengi character we see is a public servant (term applied loosely, but technically true). Brunt is basically a taxman, although taxes appear to be couched in terms the Ferengi find more comfortable, that of fees and bribes. Zek is essentially just a king. Rom winds up being a public servant, as well, in the form of a Bajoran Militia engineer.

So, we know the Ferengi government and (principally) government officials take in bribes and fees, but in return provide almost no services. The government seems to exist simply to exist, insofar as there are no courts that we know of, and such as might exist appear to adjudicate simply to legitimize whoever can provide the biggest bribe. Interestingly, I recall no mention of Ferengi lawyers (although lawsuits might have been)--I don't want to emphasize this point too much, because I'm not sure about this.

A Ferengi state military may or may not exist, although we can be sure that the Nagus must control some, perhaps much, of the Alliance's military force. It is difficult to say whether the daimons are government employees or private actors, or both. Education does not exist. Health care and social services are also nonexistent.

As far as we can tell, so is industry and innovation. "Investment opportunities" as mentioned are limited to crazy ponzi schemes and quasi-legal brokings of things not made by the broker.

Another thing: the monetary system of the Ferengi Alliance appears designed to impede the efficient extension of credit.

Given all this, it is impossible to say that the Ferengi system is remotely capitalist, or remotely free market. It appears nearly feudal. At best, it is like a caricature of China, but even the nominally communist government has a far greater adherence to actual capitalist principles than the corrupt, influence-ridden, purely parasitic Ferengi Alliance regime...

Thoughts, criticisms, STFUs?

Note: I don't

 

[Rush Limborg]

^Agreed. Ferengi society is, at best, an embodiment of the old negative stereotypes associated with capitalism since Marx--but it's nothing close to true, honest-to-goodness, lasseiz-faire free-market capitalism.

Rom noted in "Bar Association" that ALL Ferengi business contracts are the same--and they're ALL rather hard on employees. Now, in a truly capitalist market, employers would compete to make the most employee-attractive contracts possible to draw the most workers, from which they can pick the best.

And yes, Nava had to gain permission from then-Nagus Quark to start a synthehol business.

This is just the typical misconception of capitalism being "the evil rich employers, exploiting the workforce and gouging the customers, blah-blah-blah"--which, in a TRUE free market, would just result in said "greedy businessmen" going bankrupt out of losing customers AND workers.


That being said, I kinda like The Rules of Aquisition. Some of them are dumb (like "Never make fun of a Ferengi's mother" )--but most of them are dang good rules to follow in business--such as "Never spend more for an aquisition than you have to", or "Hear all, trust nothing".

Just my $0.02--no pun intended.

 

[Unicron]

I think in some respects the Ferengi were also meant to be like robber barons - they had the good ships, the nice weapons, the connections etc., and they had those advantages precisely because they lacked the Federation's scruples. It's not necessarily a bad concept, but it wasn't executed very well on TNG. Some of DS9's eps seemed to suggest this idea though. Galen told Quark to join him in the weapons business because it was good money, for example.

 

[Myasishchev]

^Well, that is one industry I guess I can assume they do have--starship building.

Hard to say whether it's state-run, as in the commie Federation, or private-run.

 

[FormerLurker]

The one thing I noticed about Ferengi as individuals is that, rather than merchants bent on acquiring wealth, they are more pack-rats, bent on acquiring stuff. Remember, at the beginning of 'Little Green Men,' Quark was boasting about his cousin owning a moon. Not that he was wealthy enough to buy one, but that he had actually done so.

 

[CoveTom]

In TNG, the Ferengi are much more nebulous, because their purpose changed quite drastically. They were originally intended to be the Federation's major new enemy, since Gene Roddenberry did not want to be re-using TOS foils such as the Romulans, and the Klingons were now allies anyway. So the original Ferengi were much more military-oriented, much more ruthless, and played up to be an actual threat to the Federation.

Unfortunately, they failed miserably as such and were laughed at more than really taken seriously as villains. So the decision was made to turn them into more comic relief, which they became. That stayed pretty true throughout TNG.

It wasn't until DS9 that the Ferengi and their commerce-driven lifestyle was firmly established. Oh, sure, TNG had some elements of it, but it wasn't really their driving characteristic.

On DS9, in my opinion, the writers designed the Ferengi to represent what they perceive as the evils of capitalism. In other words, the Ferengi were designed not so much to represent what modern capitalist societies like the United States are, but what they could become if greed and corruption ran unchecked. Some of that is legitimate, and some is, I think, basically a false idea of what capitalism actually represents, but I believe that was their intent.

 

[Anwar]

I think they should've had the Cardassians be the major antagonistic race in TNG from the start, though this would have just been repetitive in DS9.

 

[Pemmer Harge]

Ferengi are greedy, but their society is perhaps more of a parody of "libertarian" "utopias" than a depiction of capitalism. The Ferengi seemed to be mostly small businessmen, whereas modern capitalism is dominated by large companies with lots of people in subordinate roles that your typical Ferengi might be unwilling to accept. Are the Ferengi more capitalist than the other Trek races that don't have post-scarcity societies? Probably not. There are various different forms of capitalism.

 

[barnaclelapse]

Very nicely done article, sir. I have to say that you definitely nailed every point that I would personally ever want to make on the subject.

Well done indeed.

 

[Myasishchev]

^Thanks.

I wonder what I was going to say at the end "Note: I don't..." I think it was that "note: I don't mean this to say that a critique of capitalism in Star Trek wouldn't be valuable, just that I haven't seen one yet."

Pemmer, I can see what you're getting at, but there is little classically libertarian about Ferengi society (institutional sexism, government interference with the market, etc.). I'll admit that their adherence to a latinum standard shows about how far a civilized nation would get by pinning its currency to precious metals though.

 

[Anwar]

Here's my take on the Ferengi:

I would have made the Ferengi more sophisticated businessmen types in their first appearance who employ more brutish mercenary races for thefts and raids on other races instead of the snarly little trolls. The appearance can stay though. The Ferengi would use their economic prominence and prowess to protect themselves by monopolizing resource trading in certain business sectors that the Feds can't openly antagonize them otherwise the Ferengi screw up galactic trading and economies for the rest of Known Space (other than themselves since they'd have surplus amounts of credits and resources in unmarked accounts and caches for emergency recessions). An enemy that can't be beaten by an actual weapon since their power is beyond military control.

 

[Cuhl]

FYI, Nagus is apparently derived from "negus," a word from a Semitic language called Ge'ez that means "king —used as a title of the sovereign of Ethiopia."

 

[Mirror_Barclay]

Here's my take on the Ferengi:

I would have made the Ferengi more sophisticated businessmen types in their first appearance who employ more brutish mercenary races for thefts and raids on other races instead of the snarly little trolls. The appearance can stay though. The Ferengi would use their economic prominence and prowess to protect themselves by monopolizing resource trading in certain business sectors that the Feds can't openly antagonize them otherwise the Ferengi screw up galactic trading and economies for the rest of Known Space (other than themselves since they'd have surplus amounts of credits and resources in unmarked accounts and caches for emergency recessions). An enemy that can't be beaten by an actual weapon since their power is beyond military control.

Reminds me in some ways of the Puppeteers. But, since they're perhaps the most interesting alien race ever invented, that's not a bad thing! I think it would have been neat to see TNG follow this route.

Generally, I'd have liked to see Ferengi do more to try to become better off financially. Renting out chairs for a couple bucks for someone to sit on in your office is funny, but if they were real capitalists they'd invent the loss-leader.

 

[Myasishchev]

FYI, Nagus is apparently derived from "negus," a word from a Semitic language called Ge'ez that means "king —used as a title of the sovereign of Ethiopia."

Yup.

 

[StoicLion]

All -

Very interesting descriptions of the Ferengi, I am very impressed. I have to agree that the way in which the Ferengi were depicted in TNG and DS9 are a far cry away from actual capitalists. That has always bothered me. But I do think the species went beyond comic relief as the series went on. Quark reminding Sisko that humanity did far worse to itself than the Ferengi ever did is still one of my favorite scenes.

 

[Myasishchev]

Here's my take on the Ferengi:

I would have made the Ferengi more sophisticated businessmen types in their first appearance who employ more brutish mercenary races for thefts and raids on other races instead of the snarly little trolls. The appearance can stay though. The Ferengi would use their economic prominence and prowess to protect themselves by monopolizing resource trading in certain business sectors that the Feds can't openly antagonize them otherwise the Ferengi screw up galactic trading and economies for the rest of Known Space (other than themselves since they'd have surplus amounts of credits and resources in unmarked accounts and caches for emergency recessions). An enemy that can't be beaten by an actual weapon since their power is beyond military control.

I think this more sober approach would have made the Ferengi a bit less of a failure as antagonists, Anwar. The great thing about it would be that it would add a real ideological dimension to the conflict between the UFP and the FA, inasmuch as until the (relatively recent) advent of the UFP, rule by the FA, despite being exploitative, would still be vastly preferable to the potentially genocidal empires of the Klingons, Romulans, and Cardassians, and there would be interests vested in the subject worlds that wouldn't want to split from the FA for the possibly greener pastures of the UFP.

 

[EmperorTiberius]

Some interesting points, but why do you link social services, schools, and health care to capitalism? Ferengi don't have those run by the state, and it's perfectly in line with hard core capitalism. It's all private. They must have some kind of courts since they have lawsuits.
Their investments where they are brokering deals fit in well with the traders theme. They're not industrialists.

 

[Myasishchev]

Some interesting points, but why do you link social services, schools, and health care to capitalism? Ferengi don't have those run by the state, and it's perfectly in line with hard core capitalism. It's all private. They must have some kind of courts since they have lawsuits.

Surely, social services are inconsistent with classical liberalism, but the point I'm making is that there appears to be an octopus of a government that seeks mainly to perpetuate itself and enrich is officials. That, imo, is even less capitalistic than using the state to do things that the private sector is not efficient at.

Their investments where they are brokering deals fit in well with the traders theme. They're not industrialists.

A lot of Ferengi investments are not even theoretically wealth-producing, though, any more than betting on black at the roulette table is.

 

[CoveTom]

Ferengi are greedy, but their society is perhaps more of a parody of "libertarian" "utopias" than a depiction of capitalism.

Libertarian? A society in which at least half the population have virtually no individual rights what-so-ever and where those who are permitted to own businesses do so at the whim of a single leader with almost total power? That doesn't sound very libertarian to me.

 

[HairOfTheDog]

The Ferrengi are more opportunists than capitalists. I can't see how their ultimate goal of merely obtaining wealth could ever been seen as a threat to the Federation in Roddenberry's eyes. I guess he saw that too as they quickly turned into plot devices and comedy relief.