If you look at a textbook definition of democracy, it doesn't exactly match what existing in the "real world." Does that mean that there a no countries that can accurately be referred to a democracies? Of course not, there are multiple democracies around the world today.
Has there ever been a country that perfectly matches a textbook description of a communist state? No, never. But the old soviet union was in fact a communist state. Just as democracy comes in slightly different forms and favors, so true with communism, for example marxism is one of the forms of communism.
Communism (the way it manifests itself in the real world) is totalitarianism.
Um..no. The textbook definition of democracy is: "A system of government in which power is vested in the people, who rule either directly or through freely elected representatives. Note: Democratic institutions, such as parliaments, may exist in a monarchy." Unless you're contending we don't really have democracy, and that at this point it's just a formality, I can agree with that, but on paper, our representative democratic systems are exactly as defined. So since the definition of "Communism" is a stateless totally democratic society where goods and services are freely available enabling a freely associated group of individuals, of which none of its proponents ever claimed to reach, you cannot call "Communism" anything but this. Since it has never been reached, you cannot say what it "really" is. You can make the argument that "socialism" is this, though I'd say you're wrong, you'd have some ground to stand on this.
But "actually existing socialism" and "actually existing capitalism" in the last 100 years have typically reverted or turned to totalitarianism, and we're seeing it right now (after all, America was founded on slavery and genocide, and has a spying apparatus and prison system that would make Stalin blush), this whole "oppression" game is not very useful in analyzing political systems, in and out of itself.
Marxism is not a form of communism, it's a system of analysis. Saying it's a form of a socio-political framework makes no sense. Marx believed "Communism" would arise from socialism, but socialism and communism predate Marx and Marxism, and Marxism has nothing to do with either, it's an analysis mainly of capitalism. Socialists and "Communists" have justified their politics based on Marxism, so again, you're totally confused on the terms.
The Federation uses money when certain writers want it to, and doesn't use it when the writers don't want it to. That's the only rule here.
That's true, but the canon states there is no money.
http://en.memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/United_Federation_of_Planets#Economy
By the founding of the Federation in the 22nd century capitalism was no longer the economic system of
Earth, being replaced by the
New World Economy. According to Tom Paris, it was around this time that "money went the way of the dinosaur." (
VOY: "
Dark Frontier")
Under the
New World Economy material needs and money no longer existed and
humanity had grown out of its infancy. People were no longer obsessed with the accumulation of things, effectively eliminating hunger and want and the need for possessions. The challenge and driving force then were to self-improvement, self-enrichment, and the betterment of all humanity. (
Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home,
TNG: "
The Neutral Zone", "
The Price", "
Time's Arrow, Part II",
Star Trek: First Contact)
So yes it's contradicted itself on that, but as far as the core canon is considered, there's no money and no need for compensation in the Trek future (for the Federation anyway). Trek has contradicted itself on everything though, so if we're going to nitpick on that, we couldn't have a discussion on any aspect of its universe in any coherent fashion :P
If you replace someone with automation, you don't increase that individual's wages, you end their wages, at least in that particular job.
This is a poor understanding of economics. Automation only decreases wages in a capitalist framework which is reliant on jobs within a "private" sector, this is kind of its core contradiction. But in a different framework, it would only increase wages and lower workloads and hours since it increases productivity gains. All we need is a system where productivity gains go to the mass of people instead a small group of property owners. All you have to do is decouple peoples entire incomes from reliance on "private sector" (capitalist) jobs and you have solved the issue, which is an easy thing to do technically but difficult politically, since we live in a capitalist society.
Money replaced barter, and is more efficient than barter. And it is in fact more convenient to use money than it is to have to be in possess of whatever the other party in deal wants in exchange for their item.
That's not how money came about. That's a common tendency, but it's not historically accurate. Here's a simple description of the origin of money:
In order to understand how money works, like most things, it is helpful to understand its development.
Money developed independently in a variety of cultures in a variety of different ways. Despite the fact that the first tendency when thinking about how money would likely have originated is to think of money as way to make trade easier, this is not historically accurate. Money commonly developed for religious and State practices.
Livestock served as one of the earliest forms of currency, which other forms of money evolved out of. Cattle were not merely a form of wealth, but were actually a medium of economic exchange. In fact "capital", "chattel" and "cattle" all have the same linguistic root.
Livestock were also important in religious ceremonies as sacrificial animals in many cultures. This may be why some other early forms of money that came after cattle had religious significance as well. Money was often reserved for important ceremonial purposes, such as contributing to priests or for dowry payments - it was not used in everyday transactions.
Taxation and "banking" also played an important role in the development of money. In Egypt for example, commodities such as grain were stored in large State silos for safekeeping. Peasants would deposit their grain into these silos and be given a receipt.
Taxes were often demanded in the form of grain. In many cases the appropriate amount of receipts would be turned over to the tax collectors instead of the actual grain itself. These receipts were mostly reserved for the payment of taxes or to retrieve the grain, but they became a medium of exchange among individuals as well, though barter still remained the dominant means of exchange.
Money continued to evolve, and its role in societies all around the world continued to change throughout history, becoming increasingly important as economies became more complex.
Despite the variety of forms of money that have existed throughout history, the important thing to understand about money is that money is something that represents value. Money itself is not generally valuable, though in the case of cattle and some other forms of money there is arguably an intrinsic value in the object itself, the main function of money is to represent some other form of value. Historically money has typically represented some real material object of value.
When the Egyptians deposited grain into a State "bank" and received a receipt in return, the value of that receipt was that it entitled the holder to a specified quantity of grain or some other commodity in the storehouse.
This, ultimately, is still the same role that money serves today, however today money is more abstract and represents not only material goods, but also service potential and intellectual property.
http://www.rationalrevolution.net/articles/capitalism_property.htm
There are a variety of cases and situations where barter and other methods of compensation and trade make more sense, and many situations where just giving away stuff for free is. Money has ideological and cultural reasons for its usage, it's not that it's necessarily more efficient all the time.
Picard didn't directly answer Lily's question, if the answer was "no cost," then that what Picard should have said. But he didn't. This was Picard response to the question of whether he got paid, again he didn't directly answer her question.
Uh she asks how much the Enterprise cost to build, and he said money doesn't exist so thus the question doesn't make sense in the 24th century, going on to say acquiring wealth no longer matters to humans. You're stretching to interpret this as "money still exists" when he literally says "money doesn't exist" and official Trek canon says this. Kirk also said this :P It's something Roddenberry demanded, ironically most of writers hated this concept, but I like it, because it's communist
Yes, currency.
Money comes in different forms other than currency, even today I myself rarely use currency, but I do employ money on a daily basis.
No, currency is synonymous with money. If you rarely use currency, it's because you're either so incredibly poor, or so incredibly rich off of capital dividends that other people buy everything for you. Both of which I find unlikely, I just think you don't know what "currency" is.
A
currency (from
Middle English:
curraunt, "in circulation", from
Latin:
currens, -entis) in the most specific use of the word refers to
money in any form when in actual use or circulation as a
medium of exchange, especially circulating
banknotes and
coins.
[1][2] A more general definition is that a currency is a
system of money (monetary units) in common use, especially in a nation.
[3] Under this definition, British pounds, U.S. dollars, and European euros are different types of currencies. These various currencies are stores of value, and are traded between nations in
foreign exchange markets, which determine the relative values of the different currencies.
[4] Currencies in this sense are defined by governments, and each type has limited boundaries of acceptance.
Other definitions of the term "currency" are discussed in their respective synonymous articles
banknote,
coin, and
money. The latter definition, pertaining to the currency systems of nations, is the topic of this article. Currencies can be classified into two
monetary systems:
fiat money and
commodity money, depending on what guarantees the value (the economy at large vs. the government's physical metal reserves). Some currencies are
legal tender in certain jurisdictions, which means they cannot be refused as payment for debt. Others are simply traded for their economic value.
Digital currency arose with the popularity of computers and the
Internet.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Currency
Disease does exists on Earth, we see Picard suffering from disease in the last TNG episode.
The writers clearly meant mass pandemics and outbreaks and mass disease like we see now (which could be largely mitigated even now with our current technology, case in point Ebola), not that every single instance of illness no longer occurs.
War is still fought by Humans, they just moved it off world. Humans still fight other Humans (Maquis), but again it's off world. And Earth is occasional attacked.
Uh, the writers and the articles quoted clearly state humans on Earth no longer fight each other in war. You're stretching very far to find contradictions, which is odd because Star Trek is actually full of them, but one thing that's constant in the franchise is Earth is a near paradise with no war, disease or poverty, and basically in some pseudo-communist Promethean future. It's the whole point why its optimistic views on humanity and the future caught on with people, as opposed to most futuristic science fiction which is typically very grim and dystopian.
That all Humans exist (or not) at the same economic level is unclear. Sisko's Creole Kitchen is located in a three story building (plus basement?), and Joseph Sisko's residence is above the ground floor restaurant, that give's Joseph a fairly large living space. For a man living alone pretty nice.
But do other Humans live as well?
People don't cook to gain money, I mean they do, but people wouldn't stop being gourmet chefs because of a lack of money, this is kind of silly, since it's an art form. When the Trek canon and every series says poverty is eliminated on Earth, you're stretching for some weird reason to say it's not true.
Take Siskos word for it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=crpUHa9_pJ0 "On Earth there is no poverty, no crime, no war".
They learned to grow and replicate food, bravo. However Carol Marcus, in her Genesis proposal to the Federation, specifically mention a ongoing problem with food supply.
I honestly don't know why you're trying to attack the Star Trek universe to make a weird political point (it's a fictional universe, it doesn't have any bearing on actual socio-political models, but you seem offended at the idea of it being basically communist). Replicating food from thin air would be of course an Earth-shattering and society changing invention, though we don't need it to feed the world, we have enough food and technology now to feed the planet, it's just capitalism that's causing mass starvation and inefficient food distribution. We don't need replicators and warp drives to eliminate poverty and hunger.
That quote said the "cosmic problems" of population and food supply, not that Earth hadn't eliminated hunger, which the earliest Trek canon establishes. Again, this is supposed to be a utopia :P
Problem is there is no mention of this on the show.
Yeah there is, many times:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ui6g23ygov8
Humans, what about the rest of the Federation? As has been pointed out, if Human had no access to money, how are they going to interact with the majority of the community known as the Federation? Are they going to be in the same situation as Jake, where they have to resort to begging to acquire money on those occasions when they do need some?
I thought we were talking of human society, but then again the canon states the Federation as a whole is like this.
Jake Sisko was "begging" to buy some luxury present for his dad, not exactly begging for the basic necessities of life.
) This is just one more continuity issue - and hardly a very important one, in the grand scheme of things.
No, I really didn't. You're the one saying it has never existed. I'm the one saying assessing it based on not existing is silly. 
.
