A thread in GQ started discussing money in Star Trek.
Since that was a hijack I figured it was worth starting a thread here to explore it.
In Star Trek we are led to believe it is a post-scarcity society. No one wants for anything. There are some moments in the series where they mention money is no longer a thing. Captain Picard alludes to it here. Picard says there is no money in the 24th century in Star Trek VIII: First Contact.
But, as noted in the thread linked above, in Star Trek: DS9 - they spend money at Quark’s Bar.
Also, if there is no money on Earth, does everyone have a mansion and a super-yacht? If not, what stops them?
I assumed it was just for fun. Everyone was handed (say) 20 chips and went from there. No money, just the fun of winning.
Occasionally, on Star Trek Voyager, they’d make the stakes worth something by betting duty time (i.e. if I win I don’t have to work tomorrow, you take my shift).
As I mentioned before, in Picard’s former lieutenant commander’s own words, “I saw you, sitting back in your very fine château. Those big oak beams, heirloom furniture… I’d show you around my estate, but it’s more of a hovel, so that would just be, you know, humiliating.” This was on Earth. Shortly afterwards, Picard is shown to have enough money to hire an off-the-books ship and pilot, pay cash bribes, etc.
Also, Uhura was prepared to pay cold, hard credits for a tribble.
In the episode “Mudd’s Women”, why was he transporting the girls to the miner’s planet if he was not expecting compensation? Selling them was the whole plan.
Anyway, the Federation may advertise that nobody uses money, but somehow everyone has some, except for poor souls who don’t. (You can imagine a “post-scarcity” civilization where nobody starves to death, but that does not make everybody a billionaire nor imply orthodox communism is in effect.)
My take on it is that, in the Federation, there isn’t any need for money, until the existence (or lack) of money furthers the plot of the episode in question.
Star Trek presents this idyllic future where no one needs money but is thin on details.
Picard has a vineyard. Can anyone have a vineyard? I am guessing not.
Post-scarcity only goes so far. Everyone can have a replicator that feeds them and provides clothes but some things are still finite (like land) and thus have a value and that can be traded.
Actually, I doubt that replicators are widely available to people on Earth and other planets, especially not for food. We see wide use of replicators on board the ships because otherwise it would be impossible to stock everything needed.
I believe in a post-scarcity society about as much as I believe in a perpetual-motion machine. Roddenberry and Banks were writing fantasy, not science fiction.
My fanwank is that a key component of the replicators is found only in a few places. Earth and Vulcan have it, and their governments are the oil sheiks of the Alpha Quadrant. Elsewhere, normal economics apply.
Post-scarcity, to me, really means a society with unlimited free energy. Most sci-fi societies rest on this conceit. That’s the magic box that makes everything else work.
I think in the Star Trek universe replicators are like microwave ovens. Cheap and everyone has one.
But they never get in to the wanker who just replicates shit non-stop because he can. Or the limits of what can be replicated. If unlimited we can start to see problems.
