The Federation, what would it take for you to join?

[Sci]

Would a "everything free' world be really all that desirable?

I think it's a meaningless question. Even if we eventually develop an economy where the basics of healthy living -- shelter, food, water, hygiene -- can be provided for free to everyone, it would never be possible for everything to be free or for money to cease to exist. Some forms of scarcity can never be overcome -- living space, for instance. And, more importantly, social prestige. People will always want to compete with one-another and form imaginary hierarchies, and money is, as always, the most universally accepted way of doing that.

Simple: You take the buildable land, take away necessary industries, divide it by persons living in a household and give away the lots freely.

So people don't get to choose their own homes? There's no point in having free living space if you don't get a choice in where you live.

The more children you have, the bigger your lot is going to be.

Then get ready for a lot of people abusing the system and having large families just so they can maximize their home sizes.

Instead of money and wealth, education, degrees, jobs worked in, experience gained and sports could function as an alternative for social prestige.

The problem with that is this: Money works as a mechanism for evaluating social prestige because it's an abstract system. It assigns a numerical value to any given thing, and the numerical value renders the whole thing much more efficient than any other system. Instead of having to judge the value of something by whatever opportunities for bartering present themselves, or by more abstract concepts such as you just listed, there's a quick, clear numerical value that, because it is an abstract concept, can be universally adapted to different motives of valuation.

Maybe some idealists could ask a nation to "rent" them some territory for a few years and try this with a few thousand people. Only under the condition that besides the socialist rules that are in place, they won't try to become independent and adhere to the original nation's constitution, of course.
Has anyone ever tried it?

People have tried to abolish money for centuries, yes. It never works. It ends up leading to a bureaucracy that's as oppressive and dysfunctional as the capitalism that always ends up forming when its "purest" form is pursued. There is no such thing as a functional economic system like what you have described.

 

[Avechbobo]

So people don't get to choose their own homes? There's no point in having free living space if you don't get a choice in where you live.

Sure they do. Just as long as there are any more lots free to choose from. They just don't get any more and can't trade them in with other landowners. That's actually the idea.

Then get ready for a lot of people abusing the system and having large families just so they can maximize their home sizes.

You forgot that it's going to be Utopia. Only the well-educated, the doctors and professors are going to have kids.
Well, wouldn't you consider it fair to give families some more land for bigger homes and a bit of nature for the kids to play on? If you get state support, you could as well have a right to more living space.

The problem with that is this: Money works as a mechanism for evaluating social prestige because it's an abstract system. ...

That's why I said we're never going to get rid of it.

People have tried to abolish money for centuries, yes. It never works. It ends up leading to a bureaucracy that's as oppressive and dysfunctional as the capitalism that always ends up forming when its "purest" form is pursued. There is no such thing as a functional economic system like what you have described.

I didn't mean creating a new nation. I meant getting to live on a few square miles without dependence on the actual government as sort of a utopian sociological test site.

And with a small government that is still obliged to act within the real nation's constitution, maybe it would actually work.

Again, I've said we won't abolish money. And even though history has shown repeatedly and I'm an absolute pro-capitalist with some heavy social apparatus in mind, I don't buy that "communism/socialism doesn't work". It has never really been tried and has always, from the beginning, had a dictatorship behind it. That's why.

Every bet if the human rights were obeyed, free speech was guaranteed and you could leave/enter the country as you can in the western world nowadays, a communist state would work. Don't tell me that's impossible.

 

[Sci]

So people don't get to choose their own homes? There's no point in having free living space if you don't get a choice in where you live.

Sure they do. Just as long as there are any more lots free to choose from.

In other words, they can only choose from those lots allowed by the government.

Then get ready for a lot of people abusing the system and having large families just so they can maximize their home sizes.

You forgot that it's going to be Utopia. Only the well-educated, the doctors and professors are going to have kids.

I think you meant this in jest, so that's fine. But if you meant it in earnest, I'd find that more than a little bit disturbing. The state has no right to decide who may or may not reproduce, and the idea of engaging in class warfare by regulating who can reproduce is disturbing.

Well, wouldn't you consider it fair to give families some more land for bigger homes and a bit of nature for the kids to play on?

I think I'm uncomfortable in general with the idea of the government assigning people homes, and think that it's the sort of thing that should only be done if that person/family is in financial hardship. And I don't like the idea of fostering dependency by rewarding persons who live for free and have many children by giving them larger homes and necessarily taking space away from others to do so.

... Jesus Christ, I sound like a goddamn Republican.

I suppose I'm just generally suspicious of any one economic system that aims for perfection. If you were espousing the virtues of leaving it all up to the so-called "free market," I'd probably be just as skeptical, for different reasons.

People have tried to abolish money for centuries, yes. It never works. It ends up leading to a bureaucracy that's as oppressive and dysfunctional as the capitalism that always ends up forming when its "purest" form is pursued. There is no such thing as a functional economic system like what you have described.

I didn't mean creating a new nation. I meant getting to live on a few square miles without dependence on the actual government as sort of a utopian sociological test site.

There have certainly been utopian communities out there. Most of them have historically failed for one reason or another. But to this day, there are smaller communities -- communes and the like -- which operate as (mostly) self-sufficient systems, away from larger communities. The general sense I get is that the larger such communities grow, the more difficult it becomes to maintain their "utopian-ness."

And even though history has shown repeatedly and I'm an absolute pro-capitalist with some heavy social apparatus in mind, I don't buy that "communism/socialism doesn't work". It has never really been tried and has always, from the beginning, had a dictatorship behind it. That's why.

Every bet if the human rights were obeyed, free speech was guaranteed and you could leave/enter the country as you can in the western world nowadays, a communist state would work. Don't tell me that's impossible.

I'm pretty skeptical of that idea, just as I'm skeptical of the idea that the free market, left to its own devices, will actually provide maximum liberty to all people. In my view, the "pure" forms of Capitalism and Communism both suffer from the basic flaw of ignoring the fact that hierarchies will always be established and need to be checked; Capitalism pretends that such hierarchies don't exist within any business transaction ("You're free to take a job as a store clerk from the rich man, you're both equal!") and Communism pretends it doesn't exist within governmental structures ("The state will always provide for you and its leaders in no way use its power to control you!").

 

[Avechbobo]

To continue in response to T'Girl's opening post:

I think that universal health care should be a right and that everybody should have to be insured at an insurance company of his choice, the insurance companies being privately owned. Should one day all the companies vanish, for whatever reason, the government would need to temporarily organize a state-run one.
If you couldn't pay for it, the state does.
Depending on what level of insurance you choose, you might get special treatment as in single rooms, television or such. Medical care is standardized and the best possible.
Insurance companies only have to pay for plastic surgery if the current state of your appearance can be considered a physical or psychological harm or may become one in the near future.

"Alternative" medicine is outlawed until studies and experiments show its effectiveness and is classified as Fraud. As is palm reading and making prophecies based on astrology etc. without giving the customer a warning that it is fraud, beforehand.

As with schools, private hospitals are allowed if they're just better at treating patients and can make money this way.

Oh dear, I don't feel like this is going to end well.

 

[The Inquisitor]

^ Being British the thought of health insurance being handled by private companies makes me want to vom, the NHS has seen me, my friends and family through many difficult times. Some of the right wing rhetoric in the US regarding universal healthcare is not only dangerously misleading, it's downright wrong. I am yet to see a 'death panel' who decides who lives and dies for example. We still have to pay, don't get me wrong, I alone pay well over £100 ($160) a month in national insurance on a wage of £30k ($48K) which I think is more than fair. Should I not use the health service for a few years then my money will go to help other less fortunate than myself. Making money out of healthcare is just wrong.

I think the way forward for any future society is certainly universal healthcare. Especially in Trek where medicine is super advanced, there would be no point denying people care based solely on their income (if there even was income).

Alternative medicine should without a doubt be banned outright or at least have a 'bullshit' warning on any packaging or above the door of any 'healing center'.

On another note, Capitalism is the best of a bad bunch at the moment. I can hardly moan, I'm sat in a home with heating, running water, electricity, gas, broadband, all the food I can get my hands on before my house-mate does and clothes to keep me warm.

The main issue I see with capitalism is the way value is placed on certain professions over others. Take social workers for example, a friend of mine works over 50 hours a week looking after autistic adults for less than £18k while surgeons who have the skills to help those in need take huge salaries for making womens boobs bigger or Michael Douglas's face tighter. It just seems wrong but I can't see any way to change that any time soon.

 

[Avechbobo]

@The Inquisitor
It's really nothing to vomit about. The companies need to pay for critical surgery and treatments and you can choose several additional services if you wish to spend any more on it than necessary. While I think over the years it has become quite expensive, it still works.

I personally have heard many horror stories about the NHS, but I know that many people exaggerate.

Regarding wage differences, you could make a law limiting a company's best paid person to, say, 10 times maximum the income of the worst paid one. Therefore, nobody could make insanely much money and competition would hopefully even out the differences between companies as well.

 

[KJbushway]

I was once wrongly punished for asking this question, but what the hell.
Could a non-monetary government work in todays time or does it take star trek tech to make it possible.
Because if this federation wasn't controlled by money I would gladly lose a leg and arm to move there.
(of course the health-care system would have to be such that I could get really good fake ones for free as well.)

 

[JiNX-01]

I think that's one of the reasons that the American founding fathers wanted the populace to be able to possess arms, so they could do just that. Basically that's what we did in 1776, well not overthrow, but fought the government of the time with private firearms.

Which is exactly why I am a huge fan of the second amendment. I don't own a gun. I'm just glad I have the option.

 

[Sci]

I think the way forward for any future society is certainly universal healthcare. Especially in Trek where medicine is super advanced, there would be no point denying people care based solely on their income (if there even was income).

I completely agree.

Alternative medicine should without a doubt be banned outright or at least have a 'bullshit' warning on any packaging or above the door of any 'healing center'.

I would certainly concede that no universal health care scheme should be required to pay for alternative medicine, and that practitioners of such should be required to disclose the lack of scientific support for their services. But banned? An adult should be able to make that decision for him/herself if he/she wants to receive alternative medicine.

The main issue I see with capitalism is the way value is placed on certain professions over others.

The main issue I see with Capitalism is the way it uses economic coercion to re-distribute vast amounts of wealth to an elite few and impoverish millions more.

 

[Myasishchev]

I was once wrongly punished for asking this question, but what the hell.
Could a non-monetary government work in todays time or does it take star trek tech to make it possible.

The question isn't really if it could work, but how well?

I mean, it worked for the first 50-100,000 years of human existence and the money economy still did not touch most people's lives only a few hundred years ago. Of course, it worked because 99% of everyone was either a hunter-gatherer or, later, a farmer, and economies were set up on a local scale, with a poor variety of actual goods and services, and thus did not possess acute need for a medium of exchange.

So, yeah, one might become a feral human or a yeoman farmer, and one would (theoretically) never need money again, supposing also that one intended to live a life without the goods and services a money economy make possible.

The other alternative is an invasive and pervasive bureaucratic state, but the inefficiencies imposed would make it nearly unworkable without advances in expert software--at least. The Soviet Union fell apart, and they still technically had money, even if production was organized in large part based on fiat, and then upon a relational economy and barter in the last years.

Without a money economy, organizing the supply and demand of goods and services is difficult in an economy larger than a village. A replicator would probably be necessary to get rid of that, but it could do that, since it would reduce the consumer goods economy to the size of a household.

 

[Hofner]

I was once wrongly punished for asking this question, but what the hell.
Could a non-monetary government work in todays time or does it take star trek tech to make it possible.
Because if this federation wasn't controlled by money I would gladly lose a leg and arm to move there.
(of course the health-care system would have to be such that I could get really good fake ones for free as well.)

It depends on what you mean by "non-monetary". Money is just a way of facilitating the exchange of goods and resources. By itself, money means absolutely nothing, therefore saying "money doesn't exist" means nothing.

If you mean a system of exchange without money, theoretically one could work. Note I said "theoretically" which is not the same as "realistically". This system would be just as prone to abuse by unscrupulous people as a monetary system. So unless you find a way to make every single person honest, nothing will change whether your system uses money or not.

Robert

 

[T'Girl]

Simple: You take the buildable land

Take it away from whom? And by take, you seem to be suggesting without compensation. That will remove 50 or 60 trillion dollars from the US economy, and since real estate is a big part of the American pension system, it sounds like grandma and grandpa would be surviving solely on social security and not eating regularly.

give away the lots freely. After that, everyone can build their house or villa however they desire

People who still have to pay off their mortgages (on the property confiscated) might have to wait to begin building.their new dream mansions. Unless you intend to abrogate the former property owner obligations to their bank or mortgage company. Which would completely destroy said industry.

Has anyone ever tried it?

In the Pacific North-west there are bountiful numbers of modern Hippie communes, many of which operate (to use a term) by socialist rules, some are located in isolated valleys up in the Cascade Mountains, your basic farming communities, because they were never formally incorperated, many don't appear on maps, you simply run across them while hiking.

Especially in Trek where medicine is super advanced, there would be no point denying people care based solely on their income (if there even was income).

It's difficult to say what civilian medicine would be like in Star Trek's future, because the majority of medical care we've seen has been by way of Starfleet. Trek tradition has McCoy being a civilian physician prior to entering Starfleet, he apparently did have income because McCoy's ex-wife took most of it away.

I alone pay well over £100 ($160)

Twice what I pay for private insurance in America.

Alternative medicine should without a doubt be banned outright

I've had real good results with glucosamine sulfate, worked wonders with my knees and cheaper than actual "medicine."

 

[Avechbobo]

Simple: You take the buildable land

Take it away from whom? ...

Stop! You're overthinking this whole thing. What I did was describe my primitive concept of a science-fictional socialist society and nothing more. I said that we can't ever abolish money completely and obviously you'd still need cash for the building.
You asking me where to start such a society is like asking where to build a concept car. In a factory. On any land. Which we're going to buy/rent.

In the Pacific North-west there are bountiful numbers of modern Hippie communes, many of which operate (to use a term) by socialist rules, some are located in isolated valleys up in the Cascade Mountains, your basic farming communities, because they were never formally incorperated, many don't appear on maps, you simply run across them while hiking.

And that's what I meant by test site.

I alone pay well over £100 ($160)

Twice what I pay for private insurance in America.

The difference probably being that in the UK, you have to get treated for life-threatening injuries and diseases by law.
What? That's how it is, is it not?

Alternative medicine should without a doubt be banned outright

I've had real good results with glucosamine sulfate, worked wonders with my knees and cheaper than actual "medicine."

I don't know what your condition is/was and I don't know what exactly that substance does, but at least it's a substance. If an effect can be reproduced in a clinical, scientific test, I'd hardly call it "alternative" any more. If it can't, insurance companies should not have to pay for it.

 

[T'Girl]

The difference probably being that in the UK, you have to get treated for life-threatening injuries and diseases by law.

In America as well, by law a public hospital has to treat you, regardless of if you have money. Oh they'll try to bill you and there will be a notation on you credit history that you didn't pay, but no one (again) by law can be turned away, In addition there are many charity clinics that don't even try to bill you.

I had to have my ankle operated upon last year, on the paper work that I signed there was a short paragraph informing my that the operation would take place even if I was unable to pay, there followed a legal notation of the federal and state laws that require this.

My insurance did pay

 

[KJbushway]

Our public health care isn't that good. There is a story that recently new?. A child with health care losts it arm and feet in a 5 hour ER wait do to fever. Lets hope that instead of making sports building huge, the federation concentrates on bigger and more employed hospital.

 

[PikeFan]

Can I move around without being protected? I like a steady place, so I wouldn't worry.

Can I move around without getting permission? I think the Fleet gives you that freedom.

Can I get a job, house, food, clothes, education, health care without these things being provided or authorized by "The State?" To me, I think to fleet would give you the opportunity to do that, but leave the option there.

What legal and constitutional protections that I currently enjoy might be consider unnecessary or obsolete? I smoke to relieve stress, I'd hate to loose that right, but I would be a bit healthier. :S

Would you trade liberty for security? I don't think fleet is THAT strict. On the other hand, feeling secure in your duties and life is something I dream of.

How much can be taken from you, to provide for me? I like the equal opportunities aspect. To help my fellow human (alien.... whatever) I'd give up a piece of what I'd earn.

Would you want government entitlements, or obligatory personal self-reliance? Self reliance. I've always wanted to prove myself, and can.

Would you want a common melting pot group identity, or a million intermixed pocket cultures? I believe a person is a person. I would friend Uhura, despite that we are different colors. I'd hug a Horta. Maybe I'm too open-minded, but I'm not one to shun anyone.

Should the highest charter of principals be carved in stone, or a living document that changes with the breeze. Carved in stone. It's only 'logical'. I like to know where I stand and what I stand FOR.

How much philosophical diversity can you really entertain before the collective group breaks down? I am hungry for knowledge. I'd have deep conversation with all cultures, then adapt my life to what I believe.

And who should be keep out? NO ONE. Everyone (even Horta ) is the same, while maybe not emotional (Spock) we all have something that makes us tick.

I'd never carry a weapon, I'm like McCoy there. But I protect myself with words (Picard... Pike) but I could whoop ass (Kirk) if I needed too.

 

[The Inquisitor]

I alone pay well over £100 ($160)

Twice what I pay for private insurance in America.

(^ hope I did the quote thing right I'm crap at it)

What I mean is my money goes to help others if it isn't utilized by me. If you go to hospital in the UK you wont get asked a single question regarding money, you will simply get treated. The very fact healthcare reforms are getting bashed by insurance companies in the US is a sure sign that money is the driving force as opposed to patient care.

I was amazed watching a 'shocking videos' show originally broadcast in the US when a lad gets injured (with a skateboard in his gooch, proper nasty) and his friends are heard talking about getting an ambulance. One of them says 'dude, an ambulance is expensive'. I nearly spat out my dinner! The thought of having to worry about paying for an ambulance seems insane to me.

I don't mind paying my NI. I payed sod all until I was earning a decent salary.

 

[The Inquisitor]

^ D'oh! Multi-quote fail.

 

[T'Girl]

What I mean is my money goes to help others if it isn't utilized by me.

With my insurance as well. In fact that is generally how all health insurance works, the organization takes in money from many people, the majority of whom won't use the entirety of the paid for medical service, so the money can be concentrated on those who do.

Unused money, after paying expenses, is paid out to stockholders, I myself have invested in insurance companies (not at the moment) and many of my retired relatives pension packages include insurance investments.

healthcare reforms are getting bashed

One of the "bashes" of so-called Obamacare is the fact that it will require young people to acquire health insurance knowing ahead of time that they (probably) won't make full use of it, and that their money then will partially power the system.

If you go to hospital in the UK you wont get asked a single question regarding money

But even if it doesn't come directly from you, money is still changing hands, yes?

The thought of having to worry about paying for an ambulance seems insane to me.

Regardless if you worry about it, I believe if you use a ambulance service in Britain it would be paid for, correct me if I'm wrong, but it isn't (strictly speaking) "free." You may not pay, but someone else is.

And if you call 911 in America and a ambulance come and you can't pay, they still take you to the hospital.