Hell, why The Federation Uses No money

[Rush Limborg]

Here's my $0.02...no pun intended.

When Picard, and later, Jake, claimed that 24th-century humans don't need money, because "we work to better ouselves and the rest of humanity", they neglected to mention the incentive for this kind of economics.

Let's face it: People work because they need to. Even doing jobs that you like requires struggle--and, frankly, if your needs are taken care of anyway, why struggle?

In any kind of society, there must exist an incentive to work--otherwise, people would sit on their butts all day, as bums.

There are two general kinds of incentives: the fear of punishment, and the promise of rewards.

Frankly, when you offer any kind of reward (cash, food, favors, etc.), in exchange for any kind of production (work, goods, favors, etc.), you are engaging in trade. And that is the general definition of the word "money": anything used in trade. This can vary, from cash, to beads, to gold, to food, to favors. Even "the satisfaction of being creative" is a kind of money--you are, in effect, paying yourself for ding something you love.

Therefore, The Bird didn't really know what he was talking about when he claimed that "In The 24th Century, We Don't Use Money". He who seeks to completely purge money from society...leaves only one kind of incentive for production.

Punishment.

And that...is very disturbing.



"But Rush--The Bird didn't mean that--he meant no currency."

Frankly, what's the alternative? Barter? There's a reason bartering was abandoned--you need a simple, objective system, based on something that you usually would not otherwise need, or necessarily want. This is why so many cultures used a "bead standard", as it were, or, in the case of the island of Yap, stone wheels (!).

Take those obective standards--currency--away, and trade becomes relative. This means that prices have to be determined on a case-by-case basis. Needless to say, confusion inevitably results. "Relative economics" quickly disolves into chaos.



As Ayn Rand wrote: "When money ceases to be the tool by which men deal with one another, then men become the tools of men. Blood, whips and guns --or dollars. Take your choice--there is no other--and your time is running out...."

 

[Gagarin]

There are people on this planet right now that would not understand what "economic incentive" is, and yet you believe that it would be necessary to motivate people centuries in the future?

Fascinating...

Who are these people?

Oh, please. Look at your list. Do you think the people who risk their asses in space are doing it for the money. There are jobs that need money to motivate people to do them, but that isn't one of them.

Are you talking about now or talking about in Star Trek?
Even in Star Trek, risking your life in space isn't only for Starfleet.
What are some of the jobs now that don't need money to motivate them?

For that matter, it's not at all clear that most high-level business people are really in it for money past a certain point. Is Steve Jobs still in it for the money?

It's easy to say someone is not in it for the money when they have magnitudes more than they need for sustenance, and many more magnitudes more than what average comfortable life is.

But you see, Steve does enjoy a level of comfort, presteige, a life style, and so much more that is dependant on his economic situation. Steve also enjoys creativity, business, and power. Creativity and exploration - in business or in space - is a product of economic power, so there's a reason to protect all of that. Nothing Steve does now would continue to happen if he wasn't getting paid and gave away most of his money. Power is also an economic incentive.

More generally, many, many people are not interested in money past a certain threshold level of physical comfort. Whole sectors of the economy are based on finding people who would rather work in that industry than make the money that their talent would otherwise earn them.

Where, who? Have these sectors of the economy ever invented something like the light bulb, personal computers, new medicines, or the mass produced car? Those sectors you speak of are luxuries. There must be an incentive to work, an incentive to innovate. The Data's creater Soong(sp?) who created Data didn't want to sell Data, but it seems like he DID do a whole lot of other work that rewarded him - with some kind of material, privledge, or currency, because I assure you Data and Lore were not free.

This is even more common in precapitalist societies, where people value more leisure over more goods.

Where is that?

Money is also an easy way to get services, like leisure.

 

[Sector 7]

Where, who? Have these sectors of the economy ever invented something like the light bulb, personal computers, new medicines, or the mass produced car? Those sectors you speak of are luxuries. There must be an incentive to work, an incentive to innovate. The Data's creater Soong(sp?) who created Data didn't want to sell Data, but it seems like he DID do a whole lot of other work that rewarded him - with some kind of material, privledge, or currency, because I assure you Data and Lore were not free.

Ummm... like Bill Gates? He spends much of his time giving away his money. He made his money by making personal computers practical and usable (eh, more or less...lol).

 

[Gagarin]

Where, who? Have these sectors of the economy ever invented something like the light bulb, personal computers, new medicines, or the mass produced car? Those sectors you speak of are luxuries. There must be an incentive to work, an incentive to innovate. The Data's creater Soong(sp?) who created Data didn't want to sell Data, but it seems like he DID do a whole lot of other work that rewarded him - with some kind of material, privledge, or currency, because I assure you Data and Lore were not free.

Ummm... like Bill Gates? He spends much of his time giving away his money. He made his money by making personal computers practical and usable (eh, more or less...lol).

YES. He made cash hand over fist by being cunning, ruthless, and out and out the best leader in the software and computer industry, because he saw a future and a business where few others saw a future for business or industry. In his own words "we'll fucking destroy you" if you get in his way.

Now he spends time giving away his money --- but this is AFTER many years of being motivated by "economic incentives".
Without the prospect of business and making profit, there wouldn't have been a reason for Bill Gates to do what he did. He would have kept going to college and worked for someone else. Proving my own point.

 

[Sector 7]

Where, who? Have these sectors of the economy ever invented something like the light bulb, personal computers, new medicines, or the mass produced car? Those sectors you speak of are luxuries. There must be an incentive to work, an incentive to innovate. The Data's creater Soong(sp?) who created Data didn't want to sell Data, but it seems like he DID do a whole lot of other work that rewarded him - with some kind of material, privledge, or currency, because I assure you Data and Lore were not free.

Ummm... like Bill Gates? He spends much of his time giving away his money. He made his money by making personal computers practical and usable (eh, more or less...lol).

YES. He made cash hand over fist by being cunning, ruthless, and out and out the best leader in the software and computer industry, because he saw a future and a business where few others saw a future for business or industry. In his own words "we'll fucking destroy you" if you get in his way.

Now he spends time giving away his money --- but this is AFTER many years of being motivated by "economic incentives".
Without the prospect of business and making profit, there wouldn't have been a reason for Bill Gates to do what he did. He would have kept going to college and worked for someone else. Proving my own point.

It does NOT prove your point, as he was motivated to change the the way people compute -and consequently the world. This is the same motivation for many depicted on Star Trek, but I'm sure you will find a way to bend that to your own liking, too. I thought this would be a discussion, but I see now it is not. This is just another platform for I'M RIGHT AND EVERYONE WHO DISAGREES IS WRONG bullshit, so I'm outta here.

 

[Gagarin]

It does NOT prove your point, as he was motivated to change the the way people compute -and consequently the world. This is the same motivation for many depicted on Star Trek, but I'm sure you will find a way to bend that to your own liking, too.

He didn't do it for free, did he? And he made sure he was positioned to profit greatly from those changes in computing - to the point of strategically moving his company to block some externally created changes for many years. And I'm a fan of Microsoft. He did it for economic incentive - to be the biggest, best, most profit generating company, just as much as anything about computing.

I thought this would be a discussion, but I see now it is not. This is just another platform for I'M RIGHT AND EVERYONE WHO DISAGREES IS WRONG bullshit, so I'm outta here.

Isn't that what you're doing?
I keep asking "show me examples" and "what people?" and all anyone gave was Bill Gates, who for many years was the wealthiest man in the world and for many years was critisized for being an agent blocking innovation because of his company's near monopoly. I don't really care about that, but you have to say 'hmm, maybe this doesn't sound like Captain Picard..."

 

[Strider]

I'M RIGHT AND EVERYONE WHO DISAGREES IS WRONG bullshit, so I'm outta here.

Hahaha

 

[kissthestar]

They must be on the barter system. They often mention the existence of traders: Vulcan traders in "Errand of Mercy" and human, such as Cyrano Jones, in "The Trouble with Tribbles."

 

[timmy84]

Whenever I see this debate, almost everyone forgets to mention that these are not 21st century humans. They are suppose to represent humanity after a massive social revolution.

In Trek, this happens after WW3 and Vulcan first contact. The combination of both events showed humanity that there is more then Earth and their conflicts. Money still exists, but threw resource management, basic needs are met for the entire population.

When we hit the 24th century, humanity no longer needs money. Its been evolved out of their society. In DS9 Jake works for free for the Federation News Service (personally, I didn't like that fact that the UFP has their own "Ministry of Propaganda" and would have preferred him working for a more independent sounding news organization, but that's a different topic). People on DS9 had the option to eat for free in their own quarters. Even eat for free in a social setting in the replimat. But DS9 was a Bajoran space station administered by Starfleet. So it was also goverened by Bajoran economics.

Now the Federation as a whole do they have money? I'm still of the belief it doesn't. Any line post-TNG reference only implies that people may choose to pursue wealth as a life goal, and they may not be completly screwed doing this in the Federation, but I think this money may not be Federation currency.

Non-Federation worlds have money. Klingon, Bajoran, and I think Cardassian money have all been referenced. But the money we hear the most of are Ferengi. Which really, isn't the same type we use today. Today, money has value based on some complicated international banking system giving meaningless paper value because the people who makes that paper owns someone elses paper who owns their own paper (for reference, the US Dollar is going down in value because countries are selling their Dollars for other currencies. One of the reasons at least). Ferengi money is pretty much you holding a piece of gold. Its money from 500 years ago. They pretty much have the least advanced economy of everyone in the 24th century.

And to abrubtly end this since I've lost my train of thought, the Federation has the most advanced.

 

[Sean Aaron]

Who are these people?

I'm thinking of primal communalistic societies; incentive there is to remain part of the group, not to "make money."

Oh, please. Look at your list. Do you think the people who risk their asses in space are doing it for the money. There are jobs that need money to motivate people to do them, but that isn't one of them.

For that matter, it's not at all clear that most high-level business people are really in it for money past a certain point. Is Steve Jobs still in it for the money?

More generally, many, many people are not interested in money past a certain threshold level of physical comfort. Whole sectors of the economy are based on finding people who would rather work in that industry than make the money that their talent would otherwise earn them. This is even more common in precapitalist societies, where people value more leisure over more goods.

Other good examples as well. Many scientists aren't in it for the money, but the quest for knowledge or prestige in their profession -- of course if you think of prestige as currency, then gee, you win the internets!

Let's face it: People work because they need to. Even doing jobs that you like requires struggle--and, frankly, if your needs are taken care of anyway, why struggle?

That's crap. I need money to live as a fact of living in the present global captialist civilisation, but I have done jobs that I enjoyed enough that if that wasn't the case I would have done anyway to the best of my ability because I enjoyed them. It may be a foreign concept to you, but that doesn't mean it is to everyone else.

And life doesn't have to be a struggle; I think you've been reading the works of too many social Darwinists...

 

[Timo]

There is always also the question of whether a society requires more than the work output of its most fanatical volunteers in order to survive. We don't know how many freeloaders a given society could support, and we certainly don't know how many a fictional and ill-defined one could bear. It might well be that a ratio of one volunteer per ten million freeloaders is plenty enough, if the volunteer is provided with the prerequisite technology and resources. (Certainly that much is already true of the internet.)

Also, volunteer work typically takes the form of not-the-day-job, making things like ditch-digging or nursing for free surprisingly popular. The dirtiest jobs in the Federation might well be the ones for which volunteers form three-block queues. And if they don't stick around for long, replacements are quickly found and trained.

It's trivially easy to construct a society where there is no cash, and almost as easy to postulate an even more fully automated one where the consumer has no access to his own money, and thus can assume that it does not exist. If the more complex issue of work motivation can be separated from the money thing, then, it would be easy to see the complete disappearance of money as a concept in interperson interactions. Just add a bit of historical disdain for money and capitalism, then, and a post-disaster society like the Trek one could choose not to have consumer money, regardless of cost and difficulty.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Rush Limborg]

That's crap. I need money to live as a fact of living in the present global captialist civilisation, but I have done jobs that I enjoyed enough that if that wasn't the case I would have done anyway to the best of my ability because I enjoyed them. It may be a foreign concept to you, but that doesn't mean it is to everyone else.

And life doesn't have to be a struggle; I think you've been reading the works of too many social Darwinists...

Temper, temper!

Now, I myself have been a volunteer, time and time again. I like it--but I wouldn't want to actually work for nothing.

Yes, I believe that to do a job you enjoy, and love--such is the cornerstone of success. But let's be honest. We need some incentive as an encouragement...because despite what you say, all life is a struggle of some sort.

Even if it's a job you love with all your heart, there will always be challenges to overcome.

The fact that others will reward you for your troubles helps. A lot. And that is the central purpose of money--to reward you for your production, and for overcoming the obstacles therof.

 

[Timo]

However, tying that reward to your ability to purchase a loaf of bread is rather arbitrary, and in many ways downright insulting. Thus, reward mechanisms that are not monetary in nature might well supercede the monetary ones, once the loaf-of-bread issue ceases to be an issue.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Sean Aaron]

However, tying that reward to your ability to purchase a loaf of bread is rather arbitrary, and in many ways downright insulting. Thus, reward mechanisms that are not monetary in nature might well supercede the monetary ones, once the loaf-of-bread issue ceases to be an issue.

Timo Saloniemi

It's true that money isn't enough even today. Try never praising staff and see if just giving them money results in the same level of work...there are always rewards beyond the almighty dollar and people need motivation to do work beyond a simple paycheck.

The idea that the paycheck would become less relevant isn't too radical, methinks...

 

[Rush Limborg]

Like I said, "money" is, quite simply, anything you use to obtain goods and/or services from someone else.

"Favors" can reasonable be considered money.

However, a society cannot have an economy based on favors, because there is a HUGE risk of such an economy dissolving into economic relativism (read: chaos).


By the way...note that in Voyager, Tom noted that Earth didn't abandon currency-based economics until the mid-22nd Century. Of course, the Vulcans had been helping Earth recover from WWIII since 2063. So...that makes for about 100 years of some kind of currency-based economy.

Frnkly, a world govenment makes for one economy. One currency based economy, for 100 years. Only abolished when the entire Earth is prosperous enough so as not to "need" actual, honest-to-goodness paper cash.

BUT--the Federation STILL needed an objective standard for trade. Hence, the electronic credit.

 

[Sci]

Has anyone who's ever actually studied economics ever tried to figure this whole thing out?

 

[MNM]

Has anyone who's ever actually studied economics ever tried to figure this whole thing out?

People who study economics cant figure out how to keep the real world financial system working, I doubt they'll ever get their head round Star Trek's system....

 

[Rush Limborg]

People who study economics cant figure out how to keep the real world financial system working,

Hey, that ain't the economists' fault--it's the IRS, and their ilk, for makin' it so darn COMPLICATED!