Is it the Federation, or Just Earth that Doesn't Use Money

[Dilandu]

Frankly, I failed to see how the money-based economics is supposed to work in replicator-based society. You pay whom for what exactly? The owner of replicator? But the replicators are so common, that basically anyone could have one.

Basically the only commodites left are:

* Energy & materials for replicators. They MAY be produced privately... but there isn't real reason why they couldn't be produced by state. Actually, state-based energy production & basic materials production make more sence, considering that the equipment for that, again, replicated...
* Design & research works. While designing (as creative activity) may be better a private venture, the research aren't. Especially high-cost research.
* Non-replicable materials. In 2200s this was dilithium, which have practical use. In 2300s this was lathinum... which, basically, have no practical use. Probably some other non-replicable materials might be also, but I strongly suspect that private citizen have no use for most of non-replicable materials at all.

So, basically, if you suggest that Federation is capitalistic-based economy... how, for Marx's sake, are you supposed to run it?

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

And it always comes back to this: What happens with the people (like Picard's relatives) who refuse to use replicators?

For example, how does the Picard family winery operate its business? Robert would not allow replicators anywhere in his home or lands. So it begs the question, how do the Picards get compensated for what they do? How do they get the supplies needed to operate?

 

[Prax]

And replicators can only produce out of what goes into them. They need the elements to convert.

 

[Ithekro]

The Picards seem to thrive on hard work. I don't think they care about compensation at all, just doing the work. I have known people that do stuff because they can and don't expect compensation. A lot of them are reenactors. The Picards might as well be a French Vineyard reenactment family with other families in the region providing supplies to keep the reenactment going because there are people who enjoy the historical aspect of it. Others might do it because it is a good wine and they would rather it still exist. It is unknown who tends the vineyard. It can't be just a one man job for Robert. Captain Picard is seen tending the place seemingly alone after he retires and he's pushing 100 at the time. No one know who does what there after the death of Robert and his son around 2371.

The are the equivalent of a blacksmith or glass blower family (or cobbler even) today. There are people that do that still, but it isn't a thing that is needed generally outside of a historical reenactment setting.

 

[Timewalker]

The Picards seem to thrive on hard work. I don't think they care about compensation at all, just doing the work. I have known people that do stuff because they can and don't expect compensation. A lot of them are reenactors. The Picards might as well be a French Vineyard reenactment family with other families in the region providing supplies to keep the reenactment going because there are people who enjoy the historical aspect of it. Others might do it because it is a good wine and they would rather it still exist. It is unknown who tends the vineyard. It can't be just a one man job for Robert. Captain Picard is seen tending the place seemingly alone after he retires and he's pushing 100 at the time. No one know who does what there after the death of Robert and his son around 2371.

The are the equivalent of a blacksmith or glass blower family (or cobbler even) today. There are people that do that still, but it isn't a thing that is needed generally outside of a historical reenactment setting.

And there are some people who actually do this stuff for a living.

I spent 12 years in the Society for Creative Anachronism (nonprofit educational organization that researches and re-creates various aspects of the Middle Ages). The fighters in that group make their own armor, and some people actually managed to take what they learned about making armor and weaponry and turn it into a RL job.

I didn't do that with any of the SCA skills I learned (some types of embroidery, dancing, calligraphy, as a few examples), but I did have a craft business specializing in 3D needlepoint. When I first learned that craft, it was for fun. But after a year or two I got good enough that it occurred to me to try to sell it (there are only so many needlepoint items a person can make and give away before it becomes too much). I ended up with consignment agreements in several craft stores around town, sold at several annual craft fairs, and got commissions for original projects.

Did I charge money for this stuff? Unless it was a gift for someone or for my own personal use, you'd better believe I charged money.

It started out as a hobby, but became a job. I don't find it hard to believe that the people of 24th century Earth would want compensation for their efforts. The materials and supplies needed to make whatever they make aren't free.

 

[Tenacity]

Frankly, I failed to see how the money-based economics is supposed to work in replicator-based society. You pay whom for what exactly?

Pay the cost of the original purchase of the machine, the operating costs, energy, supplies, maintenance.

If you want to replicate something which is proprietary/copy righted, the newest fashions, similar to ordering something out of a catalog.

Today if you want a new game in your device, you have to fork over cash. Sure there are free games today, but the real cool ones aren't free. Instead of games, you order the pattern or program for something and have your replicator make it.

Miles O'Brien grew up without a replicator in the family house, so there are sources of products other than the replicator on Earth.

The Picards seem to thrive on hard work. I don't think they care about compensation at all, just doing the work.

The two Picard brothers seem very different from each other, I think Robert and Marie sell their wine as a business and this is how they support themselves and their son.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

The two Picard brothers seem very different from each other,

Well, that much we know for sure. Robert was always the more traditional one - he resented Jean-Luc for breaking every rule their father made (and getting away with it).

 

[Crazy Eddie]

Yes, I'm aware that Starfleet is not a species. However, it is a subculture of the Federation.

As is "humanity," which is identified in this exchange as "the people who don't use money." It has nothing to do with his relationship with Starfleet, it has everything to do with the fact that a member of a civilization that abandoned the use of money for the regulation of the means of exchange.

Right, because frontier worlds always have the up-to-date modern conveniences.

Sometimes they do. Depends on who setup the colony and how well they planned the venture in the first place. It also depends quite a bit on what PART of the frontier you're on; the galaxy is pretty well inhabited, it turns out, so none of those "frontier" colonies are actually in unsettled space, just areas far from EARTH. Deep Space Nine, for example, is technically far out on the Federation frontier, but it's also right smack in the middle of the Bajoran home system, and once they repair the damage the Cardassians did, it's pretty comfortable too.

When was it ever stated that Kes was an outcast?

When she rejected the fundamental dogma on which her entire civlization was founded and ran away with her talaxian husband with a bunch of wandering vagabonds from the other side of the galaxy. It's a self-imposed exile, to be sure, but it's an exile born out of the fact that she hates the way her people live and thinks they're all a bunch of suckers for depending on the caretaker as long as they have. They, in turn, pretty much assume she's going to get wind up as a Kazon comfort woman and bid her good riddance.

Picard is basically part of the 1% of Earth in the 24th century in that he never needs to worry about ANYTHING. He will never go hungry, never want for shelter, health care, clothes, or anything else. His fault is that he thinks this is true of everyone else on Earth and he'll preach it to anyone who will stand still long enough to hear him say it.

Except that when it comes to EARTH, he's actually right about this, and he's not the only one who says this. Troi says the same thing to Zephram Cochrane, and Picard and many others explain this to Offenhouse and his collection of castaways too. Sisko goes on an angry rant about this after Nechayev struts out of his office and he describes Earth as "paradise" which is actually part of the problem.

So no, it's not just Picard. Earth really IS that post-scarcity society where nobody goes hungry and nobody ever wants for anything ever. But when you get far enough away from Earth, you run into places like Turkhana IV where civil wars and/or poor planning have ruined the economy and reduced the population to something that resembles 1990s Sarajevo. I would place a wager that those folks probably use some form of currency on those backwards failed colonies, but I'm from Earth and therefore don't HAVE any money.

You are not going to convince me that ALL humans on Earth think like Picard does.

I don't have to. The burden of proof is on YOU to find evidence that some humans on Earth do not think this way. It shouldn't be that hard, it seems to me. We got a pretty good look at Earth in Deep Space Nine.

OTOH, the few humans we've seen with serious mental issues and/or overwhelming ambition that would make them NOT content to stay on Earth... for some reason we find them in surprising abundance way the hell out in deep space. I can't imagine that's a coincidence.

It's not "I don't need money because Starfleet takes care of me" but rather "I don't need money because I'm HUMAN and we're just so enlightened that all we ever want is to better ourselves, blah... blah... blah...".

Yeah, that's exactly what it is. And it's exactly the social/economic bedrock on which Earth current operates. People who grow up on Earth and internalize it quote it pretty much without thinking about it and therefore can't really explain it when they're called on it. People who grow up in rougher places, on the other hand, just roll their eyes at this idea.

Evidently this line of preachy brainwashing didn't work on people like Vash, or Tom Paris.

Yep. Which is why Vash does everything she can possibly think of to stay as far away from Earth as possible, and Tom Paris is jail for treason.

If Jake had not become friends with Nog and acquainted with the realities of societies that use currency and had this whole money concept explained to him, I think he would indeed have been completely unprepared for life outside of the shelter of Starfleet.

No, he would have just moved back to Earth and become a bestselling novelist (as we saw in "The Visitor") and done just fine for himself, considering it is EARTH, and not Starfleet, that provides that shell of protection.

I find it completely unrealistic to expect that the entire Federation runs like that, or even all of Earth. You're always going to find people who don't agree with this

And we do. The one thing we know for sure about all of these people is that they DON'T want to live on Earth. In that sense, it's a lot like Kes and the Ocampa: there are a few mild malcontents, but the people who truly refuse to tow the party line pack up and leave at the first chance they get.

Besides, this is Star Trek we're talking about. We've seen planets whose entire populations were modeled after 20th century Chicago gangsters, planets inhabited by space nazis, planets populated by indians, planets whose entire destinies apparently were decided by wheather or not a bunch of hillbillies had better rifles than the city slickers. Meanwhile we have the Klingons, an ENTIRE SPECIES that believes in a nebulous and ever shifting warrior ethos based on the teachings of Khaless; we have the Romulans, who apparently cling to the tenets of fascism planet-wide; we have the Cardassians who worship their global military junta, and even the surprisingly dynamic Bajoran monoculture only possesses a single major religion (two if you count the Pah Wraith cults) and a single line of social tradition based on it. Every planet you will EVER encounter in Star Trek is only ever big enough for a single ideology and a single defining feature, and apparently "We don't need money and everyone is taken care of because we're too rich to give a shit about that kind of stuff!" is Earth's defining characteristic.

tl;dr: The galaxy is full of "planet of the funny hats." Qo'nos is the planet of the warriors, Romulus is the planet of the backstabbers, Romulus is the planet of the fascists, Cardassia is the planet of the autocrats, Bajor is the planet of the formerly oppressed but still somehow spiritually optimistic, Ferenginar is the planet of the stereotypical space jews, and Earth is the Planet of the Sanctimonious Rich People.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

Today if you want a new game in your device, you have to fork over cash. Sure there are free games today, but the real cool ones aren't free. Instead of games, you order the pattern or program for something and have your replicator make it.

Basically this. MOST things you can get from a replicator slot are free, so money is only for those things that you can't replicate or don't have the pattern/rights to replicate.

DS9 is actually a good example of this. It may not be an Earth installation, but it DOES have replicators in all of the quarters and it's heavily implied that their use is free to all. But Quark still makes a pretty big deal about some of the rare and exotic beverages and food products he happens to stock (as does Guinan, come to think of it). I would wager that Quark has some things behind his bar that you won't find anywhere else in the system, and while you could probably get bye just as well drinking that dreadful Bajoran synthale, if you want the GOOD stuff, you're going to have to pay for it.

The two Picard brothers seem very different from each other, I think Robert and Marie sell their wine as a business and this is how they support themselves and their son.

Pity they couldn't afford a working fire extinguisher.

 

[Prax]

The are the equivalent of a blacksmith or glass blower family (or cobbler even) today. There are people that do that still, but it isn't a thing that is needed generally outside of a historical reenactment setting.

Daniel Day Lewis supports his Cobbler business with money from his acting career.

There are many glass blowing shops in Venice(especially on the smaller islands). They make their living from tourism. Tourists can watch them work(which is so cool) and then they buy something. They can make on the spot requests, or even help blow the glass.

I think Picard's family really produces a winestock that is probably distributed. It could be a family business going back many generations.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

Daniel Day Lewis supports his Cobbler business with money from his acting career.

Something about that sentence makes me incredibly sad.

I think Picard's family really produces a winestock that is probably distributed. It could be a family business going back many generations.

See above. It's another example of "the good stuff" that you don't get out of a replicator and have to actually pay for. You could replicate a generic (and terrible) Standard Wine, but Chateau Picard is the stuff you drink when you just fenced the loot from the Lissepian Mother's Day Heist and you really feel like celebrating.

It's not that Earth doesn't HAVE money, it's just that money is completely optional and nobody really NEEDS it.

 

[Nyotarules]

Exactly.

I always got the impression they did that to make humans look more exciting and interesting, since if they really went with the no money thing it would be hard to explain people's motive's for doing things in some of these episodes.

I guess we could say that Kassidy worked as a freighter because it was challenging for her, but then you get to the part where she starts delivering supplies to the Maquis. She knew she was breaking the law, but acted as if she really needed to do it, out of necessity, to get paid.

She didn't have to do it. She could have traveled back to earth where she can get what she needs or wants for free. (According Jake and Picard and some others)

Same thing with Liam Bilby, the human who was in the Orion Syndicate (organized crime). Hustling and risking life and death and prison to make money? All he has to do is travel to earth. It makes no sense.

Examples of unenlightened humans who did not want to better themselves? Right? Also Julian Bashir's parents had to use some form of exchange for that DNA enhancing operation, cos I bet it wasn't free on Adigeon Prime.

 

[JesterFace]

Do you think humans could change within few hundred years to not work for money but just for the good of humanity... Maybe some but majority might just lay back and collect the rewards of those who actually do something.

 

[Nyotarules]

Pity they couldn't afford a working fire extinguisher

As sad as that part of the plot was it was unbelievable, you mean that large house had not one single fire alarm in it? The fire suppression systems of the 24th century must be worse than my smoke alarm for my small maisonette. Either that or Mrs Picard murdered her family to get away from too perfect, smug Earth, collect the life insurance credits and go live with her Andorian lovers on Andor in a group marriage.
That makes more sense.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Do you think humans could change within few hundred years to not work for money but just for the good of humanity...

I doubt it. Human nature always gets in the way.

 

[Nyotarules]

Do you think humans could change within few hundred years to not work for money but just for the good of humanity... Maybe some but majority might just lay back and collect the rewards of those who actually do something.

That is no different from real life. In our welfare system there is a tiny minority of people who refuse to work and find its better to collect the giro than get a job. And yet the rest of society chooses to work for a living, we don't en masse want to live off social security for the rest of our working lives.
So its a possibility those who choose not to work or be productive in any form in the 24th century are also a small minority. And yet society functions with their existence pretty well. Just like we do today with so called benefit scroungers.

 

[Timewalker]

As is "humanity," which is identified in this exchange as "the people who don't use money." It has nothing to do with his relationship with Starfleet, it has everything to do with the fact that a member of a civilization that abandoned the use of money for the regulation of the means of exchange.

So Tom's favorite bar - Sandrine's - just gives drinks away, for free? It's not synthehol she's serving, and it's pretty plain in the alt-universe episode where Harry hauls Tom out of the bar to help him get back to Voyager, that Tom has basically become an unemployed bum who's reduced to scrounging for drinks and has nowhere he actually lives.

Tom is one of the people who fell through the cracks in Picard's oh-so-perfect Earth. I'm not saying it's anyone's fault but Tom's, but the fact exists that there are homeless bums on 24th-century Earth - even ones who are the offspring of Starfleet admirals.

Sometimes they do. Depends on who setup the colony and how well they planned the venture in the first place. It also depends quite a bit on what PART of the frontier you're on; the galaxy is pretty well inhabited, it turns out, so none of those "frontier" colonies are actually in unsettled space, just areas far from EARTH. Deep Space Nine, for example, is technically far out on the Federation frontier, but it's also right smack in the middle of the Bajoran home system, and once they repair the damage the Cardassians did, it's pretty comfortable too.

Yeah, Julian and his "wow, I always wanted to be a frontier doctor!" struck me as rather condescending, since the Bajorans were a reasonably advanced society. That said, Deep Space Nine wasn't an Earth colony, nor was it even originally a Federation colony. It was a military installation run by hostile aliens. Going by all the complaining Keiko was doing, it was a pretty grungy installation, too.

When she rejected the fundamental dogma on which her entire civlization was founded and ran away with her talaxian husband with a bunch of wandering vagabonds from the other side of the galaxy. It's a self-imposed exile, to be sure, but it's an exile born out of the fact that she hates the way her people live and thinks they're all a bunch of suckers for depending on the caretaker as long as they have. They, in turn, pretty much assume she's going to get wind up as a Kazon comfort woman and bid her good riddance.

"Talaxian husband"?

WTF?

Kes and Neelix were never married, so what is this "talaxian husband" thing?

And I would hardly describe the Voyager crew as "vagabonds."

Except that when it comes to EARTH, he's actually right about this, and he's not the only one who says this. Troi says the same thing to Zephram Cochrane, and Picard and many others explain this to Offenhouse and his collection of castaways too. Sisko goes on an angry rant about this after Nechayev struts out of his office and he describes Earth as "paradise" which is actually part of the problem.

Troi, Picard, and Sisko are all career Starfleet, and in their ordinary working lives, none of them ever knew any serious lack of the basic necessities of life or wondered where their next meal was coming from. They were raised to think of the Federation (and Earth) as this wise, enlightened place where everything was perfect, and the people were perfect. It takes the Borg and Deep Space Nine for Sisko to start waking up to reality. Picard is still clueless even after his captivity with the Cardassians, when he is literally stripped of everything.

So no, it's not just Picard. Earth really IS that post-scarcity society where nobody goes hungry and nobody ever wants for anything ever.

Nope. There are reasons why prisons exist, and most people are in them because there was something they wanted and they broke the law when they tried to get it. The "it" doesn't have to be something tangible, it just has to be a lack of something the person perceives and they made wrong choices in trying to remedy that lack.

In the case of Tom Paris, his life was spiraling down even before he was kicked out of Starfleet, and he didn't join the Maquis for any other reason than they gave him food, a place to sleep, and the chance to use his piloting skills. He got caught and was sent to the penal colony in New Zealand, on Earth.

But when you get far enough away from Earth, you run into places like Turkhana IV where civil wars and/or poor planning have ruined the economy and reduced the population to something that resembles 1990s Sarajevo. I would place a wager that those folks probably use some form of currency on those backwards failed colonies, but I'm from Earth and therefore don't HAVE any money.

You don't have to have money to make wagers. Just bet some tangible object you own or some service you could perform for someone. And yeah, I very much doubt that anyone gives stuff away for free on Turkana IV - by the point that Tasha and her improbably-fashionable sister describe, that planet would run on the barter system, and likely organized crime would bring in whatever money they would use.

I don't have to. The burden of proof is on YOU to find evidence that some humans on Earth do not think this way. It shouldn't be that hard, it seems to me. We got a pretty good look at Earth in Deep Space Nine.

I don't own any of the DVD, and don't get any channels that currently run Star Trek. If I did have the time to go through what's on Netflix I could likely come up with people on Earth who don't just accept that it's a moneyless paradise.

Oh, wait... Vash. Tom Paris. Kassidy Yates. All of them are well aware that life doesn't just hand them everything from the nearest replicator.

OTOH, the few humans we've seen with serious mental issues and/or overwhelming ambition that would make them NOT content to stay on Earth... for some reason we find them in surprising abundance way the hell out in deep space. I can't imagine that's a coincidence.

There are some Starfleet officers with overwhelming ambition. They end up as smug admirals who can't imagine the realities outside the grounds of Starfleet headquarters.

Besides, this is Star Trek we're talking about. We've seen planets whose entire populations were modeled after 20th century Chicago gangsters, planets inhabited by space nazis, planets populated by indians, planets whose entire destinies apparently were decided by wheather or not a bunch of hillbillies had better rifles than the city slickers. Meanwhile we have the Klingons, an ENTIRE SPECIES that believes in a nebulous and ever shifting warrior ethos based on the teachings of Khaless; we have the Romulans, who apparently cling to the tenets of fascism planet-wide; we have the Cardassians who worship their global military junta, and even the surprisingly dynamic Bajoran monoculture only possesses a single major religion (two if you count the Pah Wraith cults) and a single line of social tradition based on it. Every planet you will EVER encounter in Star Trek is only ever big enough for a single ideology and a single defining feature, and apparently "We don't need money and everyone is taken care of because we're too rich to give a shit about that kind of stuff!" is Earth's defining characteristic.

You're comparing apples and jelly beans. TOS was full of references to money and getting paid. It wasn't until the fourth movie that there was even the hint of a moneyless society. And even then it was perfectly reasonable to assume that what Kirk actually meant was that it was a cashless society, not that there was no money at all.

Fast-forward to TNG, and suddenly the Roddenberry Vision of Paradise and Enlightenment takes over. It's nice, but completely unrealistic to expect humanity to change that fast - and yes, a few centuries in this case is fast, unless you can basically rewire everyone's thought patterns to never want anything tangible that they own for themselves or have exclusive use of.

Take the fact that most RL western countries have some kind of social programs to help people who are out of work, have trouble paying the medical bills, etc. Does that mean everyone approves of them? Not in the slightest.

tl;dr: The galaxy is full of "planet of the funny hats." Qo'nos is the planet of the warriors, Romulus is the planet of the backstabbers, Romulus is the planet of the fascists, Cardassia is the planet of the autocrats, Bajor is the planet of the formerly oppressed but still somehow spiritually optimistic, Ferenginar is the planet of the stereotypical space jews, and Earth is the Planet of the Sanctimonious Rich People.

Change that to "Mostly Sanctimonious Rich People" and I'd agree with you.

As sad as that part of the plot was it was unbelievable, you mean that large house had not one single fire alarm in it? The fire suppression systems of the 24th century must be worse than my smoke alarm for my small maisonette. Either that or Mrs Picard murdered her family to get away from too perfect, smug Earth, collect the life insurance credits and go live with her Andorian lovers on Andor in a group marriage.
That makes more sense.

Having a sprinkler and fire alarms doesn't guarantee that someone is going to get out alive. All that needs to happen is that you get trapped by a wall of flames or the ceiling falls in on you.

 

[Romulan_spy]

I know I am late to the discussion so forgive me if this has already been said, but I think what the writers were trying to say is that while humans still use some form of money to exchange goods and services, they no longer obsess over it as a means of accumulating stuff. The writers were trying to make a statement about present day society where a job is often just a paycheck to buy our wants and needs and there is a drive to make more money in order to buy more stuff. In contrast, the humans in the Federation are supposedly more enlightened and advanced because they care more about learning, or doing a job because they actually enjoy it or want to contribute to society. So for example, a starfleet officer becomes a starship captain not because it pays well and they want to buy a big house and nice car but because they genuinely want to serve the interests of the Federation, meet new aliens and explore the galaxy.

 

[Nightdiamond]

This is what I get when you analyze the situation by little steps;

If a miner or transport operator gets paid by their employer in special credits, then we would think an organization like the Fed News Service would definitely have to. Reporters risking their safety, spending long hours editing, various expenses if they live out in space where money is used?


Jake worked for them. He said they published one of his books, but he didn't get paid anything, and thought it was normal. The scene seemed to be suggesting that being a Fed company, it didn't deal in money, just like Picard and Jake said.

So going with this, we have to expect that Data's maid, a transport operator, or a waiter doesn't get paid, just like Jake didn't.

That's going to leave us with some weird conclusions; Everything is free, including ships, properties, tools, computers etc.

The other conclusion is humans don't own anything--because they get their food clothing and basic needs from the replicator. Like Jake maybe? He had a job, was well fed and clothed, he just didn't have any type of money to do anything on the station that required money. How did he expect to ever get or own anything?

 

[Dilandu]

Pay the cost of the original purchase of the machine, the operating costs, energy, supplies, maintenance.

But paid to whom? And what if such cost are neligible? If there are plenty of cheap energy and basic materials, and production are largerly automatic - what for you should paid and to whom?

If you want to replicate something which is proprietary/copy righted, the newest fashions, similar to ordering something out of a catalog.

Today if you want a new game in your device, you have to fork over cash. Sure there are free games today, but the real cool ones aren't free. Instead of games, you order the pattern or program for something and have your replicator make it.

Exactly as I mentioned above:

Basically the only commodites left are:

* Energy & materials for replicators. They MAY be produced privately... but there isn't real reason why they couldn't be produced by state. Actually, state-based energy production & basic materials production make more sence, considering that the equipment for that, again, replicated...
* Design & research works. While designing (as creative activity) may be better a private venture, the research aren't. Especially high-cost research.