Is it really so hard to imagine a world in which some agreed-upon set of basic needs are pretty much universally met, but luxuries beyond that must be “earned” or otherwise bartered for? Whether you use some monetary system or a barter economy or a gift economy doesn’t really fundamentally change the dynamics; a dollar by any other name is still a unit of exchange. Even a favor owed is eventually remembered and hopefully one day repaid.
The Star Trek world just has better logistics and manufacturing for some types of goods, e.g. food, but they haven’t really fundamentally changed human greed or competitiveness, just outsourced its worst parts to humanoid aliens. But also nobody is really deprived of basic needs, unless the episode calls for a forced existential crisis and sticks them in some sort of romantic time cave with Picard. That’s a pretty big difference from our world. They’re always jockeying for status and new planets and fighting time-traveling god-cyborg-aliens-spider-squid-things, but usually nobody is dying from mundane starvation, homelessness, disease, etc. The drama is what kills them. In our world very few people die dramatic, profound deaths, and most just fall victim to the banal lethality of capitalism.
I mean, isn’t that really the whole point of Star Trek to begin with? Look what we could be arguing over instead if we just gave everyone enough food and shelter! We’d be having intergalactic philosophical battles over the place of humanity amidst time-traveling gods and interdimensional robot communists, instead of fighting over the last bite of cow!
This is true, but it’s not relevant to the point I’m making. My point is that today’s society still uses a universally accepted means of exchange, something which is conventionally called money, and that it is likely that future so-called “post-scarcity” societies will do the same. Whether that money is/will be fiat or commodity-based or something dfferent is not of importance in this regard.
Sure, if you look at Maslow’s pyramid statically, as the model that Abraham Maslow came up with in the 1940s, then this has, by definition, not changed; and since this argument results from the definition of Maslow’s pyramid, it is tautologica, Human wants and desires certainly have changed. People today who have access to all the bare necessities plus the goods and services that were considered to constitute a decent, not overly luxurious but reasonable comfortable middle-class life in 1943, but not more than that, would definitely feel below middle class today.
There are a number of people in this world whose basic needs are not met, and every day is a struggle for survival. Some don’t survive that struggle. 25,000 people a day die from lack of basic food and nutrition. So, being alive today does not necessarily mean that your needs are being met, if you are going to die next week from lack.
In any case, I said their needs, and their basic wants.
Wants are unlimited, but there is a limited number of wants that most of society could agree are close enough to being necessary.
With Star Trek level technology, any deprivation of needs or basic wants is due to a societal failure, not a lack of resources.
You don’t need internet access to survive, but it is a basic want that is necessary to participate in our modern world. Same with education, healthcare, dignified living conditions, some entertainment, and even the occasional small luxury. That is the sort of thing that would generally be provided.
You don’t need a beachfront mansion with matching yacht, and that is the sort of want that you would need to work pretty hard to obtain.
If you look to some underdeveloped countries, there are people who spend the majority of their time collecting water and firewood in order to survive.
When they no longer have to do that, due to advances in their infrastructure, suddenly, these kids are able to go to school, learn thing and further better themselves and their communities.
Imagine if we didn’t have to work 40 hours a week to get a paycheck in order to pay for our food, clothing and shelter. What could people accomplish if given the freedom of not having to interrupt their studies, or their creativity, to go do a task that barely keeps them afloat.
Well, yes, but that list changes with time. Star Trek technology could easily meet everything that we consider a “basic want” for everyone, but if you ask a Federation citizen what they consider to be “basic wants”, they’ll include things that we can’t even do at all right now, and which not everyone in the Federation has.
Which the Federation might well do. We know they say they don’t use “money.” We do not know if they have developed some alternate form of assigning resources and credit and don’t call it “money.”
Of course the real reason is, again, Roddenberry’s unyielding utopianism. “We work to better ourselves and the rest of Humanity.” Yeah, man, whatevs.
But putting that aside, in-universe it does at times seem that it’s more a matter that, whatever they use for “assigning resources and credit”, the Earth humans of that age are culturally convinced It. Is. Not. “Money”.
Just as their travel and weaponry is based on treknobabble theories of physics discovered at some point between now and then, there must be also a treknobabble theory of economics developed between now and then – and AFAIK we have never met the Economics equivalent of Cochrane. Who may or may not have herself dedicated a chapter as to why what she came up with should not be called “money”, but a whole series of academics following her surely published extensive work “proving” this.
By the time we look at them, in the worlds of the core Federation this has been simplified and propagandized into “we no longer use money!”
Now that you mention poker. Why would you play poker without any chance of winning anything? There’s no point in bluffing if there is no real loss. Playing for matchsticks or beans onmly work when your teaching someone. In TNG they seem to take the game seriously, it’s not just an excuse to talk and drink.
Moneyless poker must suck.
ETA: Whoever decided that space money was to be called credits should shot taken in front a shooting squad armed with machine guns. If that person is dead, take all their heirs’ possessions.
What an unimaginative name.
Everyone else who used, has used, uses or will use credits should be given GoT’s “shame, shame, shame” treatment.
I don’t know who first named space money as “credits”, but you will note that “credits” and “debits” are canonical accounting terms dating back to the Renaissance, and what they are accounting for is money, money, money.
According to TVtropes, the term was first used by E.E “Doc” Smith in his Lensman stories, although I wouldn’t be surprised if it were mainly popularized by Asimov in the Foundation trilogy.
Absolutely. To take my example with communications technology further: German law stipulates (as do, probably, the laws of many welfare states) that recipients of public welfare are entitled to benefits that cover the costs of basic needs. And there is case law by German courts that internet access at home is a basic need, which means the amounts of welfare must be calibrated so as to take these costs into account. So there you have an example of something that is now recognised as a basic need although it was inaccessible to many people within our lifetime and entirely unthinkable not so very long ago.
The Culture had the Minds, and a whole lot of robots to do all that stuff that people didn’t.
So far, in the ST world, we haven’t seen very much evidence of AI or robots, save maybe Data/Lore, and no evidence that they’re doing all the grunt work behind the scenes that would allow for a post-scarcity society. We have however, heard some sort of vaguely space-communist commentary about how everyone’s free to do the jobs they want/are best at, not that they have to have to live. Which sounds great, but nobody chooses to be a janitor or clean out grease traps and garbage trucks.
What I understood to be going on in the ST universe was that the advent of replication technology removed MOST of the scarcity. Not all, but most. Everyone can have a 1500 square foot apartment somewhere, with air conditioning, the equivalent of a big screen TV, Xbox, leather couches, etc… because all that can be replicated for nearly nothing. Same for food/alcohol/toiletries, etc…
Where they haven’t done a good job of illuminating us is in where there IS scarcity. I’d think that various talents and competencies are one thing that would still be scarce, and there are examples of elements/compounds that can’t be replicated in the show. That stuff would also be scarce. But they haven’t really explained how say… a super-duper leader in the ST universe is compensated for being an officer for Starfleet, vs. hanging out in Colorado, smoking weed and skiing/mountain biking all day. The implication is that he’s free to do all three as he sees fit, but that doesn’t make for a good not-military, so there would have to be some sort of compensation beyond duty and honor. We’re just not privy to WHAT that is so far.
They seem to treat Starfleet membership as somewhat like a positional good in-and-of-itself. They make it competitive to join, so just being Starfleet is itself a status symbol and a desirable reward.
BTW mind you, that ski slopes and biking trails in Colorado are physically finite commons thus there cannot be entirely unrestricted availability.
Maybe what you get through academic and work effort is somehow the equivalent of social network “influencer following”, some sort of standing in recognition of your greater effort or effect in the quest to “better ourselves and the rest of Humanity”, which can translate into favored conditions and access…
…Ye gods. The Federation functions on Social Credit.
Or as Cecil Adams once explained about the old communists systems, rather than wealth or income, the reward for being (and rising) in Starfleet is measured in “pull”. How more likely is an “ask” from a Starship Captain or Academy Superintendent to be given attention and moved to the front of the queue relative to one from someone whose contribution to the betterment of Humanity is to just not be a nuisance while toking and skiing.
There’s nothing inherently wrong with social credit. As long as the society values the right things.
A definition of social credit like that imposed by Xi’s Chinese Communists will be evil. As would one defined by the Proud Boyz or the KKK.
But once you posit the improved version of human nature shown throughout ST, it becomes plausible that they have an enlightened-enough version of social credit to be desirable.
Especially given their UBI-like features of post-scarcity for all necessities & moderate wants. All the horror of social credit schemes is at the bad end, where doing disfavored stuff relegates you to being a beggar or a prisoner. Comparatively, a flaky Trek society member being relegated to being loadie ski bum is not such a bad fate.
Hell, the entire point of 20th century and contemporary Progressivism is the belief that we can create a virtuous circle of better, more fully socially aware behavior that in turn enables a more just & capable society that in turn engenders greater awareness of the stuff that’s still not good. etc.
Having all of humanity, not just WAG 10% of it, fully participating in all the goodness the human economy, educational system, and governmental system can provide would be a gigantic boon to humanity.
Just like rock-tumbling, once you start knocking off the sharp edges, the stones get rounder and smoother then smaller and smaller rough edges become the outliers to be smoothed.
That need not (and certainly should not) lead to absolute conformity in all things. It just leads to an absolute reduction in the individual behaviors that have the largest harmful externalities. As with rock tumbling, you don’t end up with perfect spheres; you just end up with fewer sharp edges.
That’s the catch though; is there any proof that it’s at all realistic? Every utopian commune that people have tried thus far has failed, or warped into something less than the original ideals.
Let’s take a different example from Starfleet officer. Even today’s military is mostly motivated by things other than sheer pay. How about some other dirty, dangerous job that isn’t military? The contention is that people will think highly enough of this guy’s service to offset having to do this awful job?
Seems to me that one problem with that would be that it would be constantly malleable; you’d run the problem of someone who fixes something that breaks intermittently would be relatively unvalued until it breaks, then he’d be super-valued, and then go back to unvalued. Meanwhile, someone doing something that would be constantly visible would be overvalued simply because of his exposure, instead of his actual work.
Kind of how people who plan ahead and get their jobs done on time aren’t always rewarded as they should be, because there’s no drama or anything to notice, while the jerks who wait until the last minute, manufacture drama, and then solve the drama are often disproportionately rewarded, because they were visible in the solving of their own self-made drama.
I tend to be of a more pessimistic bent; I tend to think that thousands of years of history show that humans act in fairly predictable and unfortunately, reprehensible ways when push comes to shove. Progressive virtuous circles may work on small scales, but enough people are just selfish pieces of shit that it would never work on a large scale, because these people would game the system and/or corrupt it for their own gain.
First and foremost ST is fantasy. The same universe that has dilithium crystals can have better humans. Just because.
And despite the big discussion in this thread about the Federation civilization, ST never tried to fill in the details about how their society worked. Just as they never dealt seriously with the time dilation effects of their FTL travel. It just wasn’t important enough to any one story to open that can of worms. So they didn’t and we’re reduced to picking apart minor plot point inconsistencies.
IOW: fun, but ultimately unenlightening.
Agree somewhat with the above.
In the context of ST there could certainly have been an off-camera 2-century experiment in some combo of eugenics and genetic engineering aimed at breeding psychopathology & sociopathology out of the populace.
Today we can test fetuses for a variety of genetic defects. Some of which are used to guide selective abortion in a way that seems consistent with most of our current ethics. Imagine a society that can test for psychopath, schizophrenic, or sheer meanness etc., and has internalized the ethical idea that one psychopath or bully can harm thousands or millions of other lives. Those would be happily aborted. Or repaired in utero if that tech existed.
It’s a truism that “freedom for the wolves looks very different for freedom for the sheep.” Current humanity has a certain mix of sheeps, wolves, and every animal in between. Progressives believe that although human nature may be unchangeable except on a scale of many millennia, that’s no reason to assume that today’s society represents the optimal possible balance between the wolves and sheep and whatnot that exist today.
