Money in the Trek Universe

[Williams]

Something I was shown elsewhere, that I thought I should share with you guys. A pretty interesting look into money in the 24th Century, even if I personally think that it completely misses out some fairly obvious points.

http://startrek.com/article/a-look-at-m ... lian-style

[Mikoto Misaka]

I've always thought that instead of money the federation had a credit system. So you buy what you need with the credits such as luxuries and swap them for Latinum at a Ferengi bank?

[Blackcat]

Well, to be honest, money is one of the things that Gene and I don't agree upon. A purely socialist society (which is what he seemed to be aiming for), or to be exact, a moneyless socialist society, just can't exist for several reasons.

The main one would be that we have already been exposed to the class struggle of the haves and the have nots, and as such, our minds have been poisoned by the purely natural desire to want to have at least enough, if not an excess of what we need, as well as want. This alone would be a massive hindrance towards keeping the level playing field that is required to start and maintain a society where there is no money.

Another would be the status quo. Today, throughout history, and yes into the foreseeable future, money equates to power, it can not only buy off government officials and laws, but the government officials themselves try to amass wealth as well as power and so fight any initiatives toward a governmental system that would allow for equal distribution of the goods and services that are needed to survive in an fair and even manner.

Then there's the flip-side of that coin, the leeches on the system. The welfare riders that with no handicaps, try to live their lives leeching off the system without making any contributions into the system. Need more money? Have a kid so the government pays you more! The system can't be polluted by healthy people who play the system to get a free ride when they should be making contributions into the system in one form or another.

Let's hit the middle ground next. If a person isn't getting paid, what impetus is there for them to do their job? Ok, we sort of covered that, if they don't contribute to the system, they don't get the benefits, so they have to work, but now, what inspires them to excel at their job, to do the best they can. Worker's pride? A sense of accomplishment? Fame? Why would an artist throw concerts when there aren't tickets being sold, why would there be innovations in science, industry and the arts? Fame is nice, but the perks from pulling in major cash are nicer.

Then we'll move to external forces, trade with those who aren't part of the system. The system has to be self-sufficient in the first place, having everything it NEEDS to survive. But there are always surpluses and shortages and luxury items. In the ST Universe, there are other races that can be traded with. If the Federation was truly without money, it could still barter goods and services to those outside, but that just sets up the trading captains to make profit. A little of good X siphoned off, a little of payment Y not reported. Finder's Fees and docking fees and bribes and... slipping a small shipment of this or that in or out.

In the end, humans, and yes, I'll extend that to the other races of ST, are products of "Survival of the Fittest". The drive that made us survive, succeed as our individual races combine to make us incapable of escaping the money system. The "have nots" want to become the "haves", and the "haves", well they want to at least stay "haves" if not become "have mores". It's survival instincts, re-tuned to a world where money has come into existence. The Genie's been let out of the bottle, and I'm sorry, Gene, but you can't put it back in no matter how hard you try.

[Williams]

I'm sorry, but I've found a huge, massive, gaping hole in the vast bulk of your argument there; replicators. Yes, we all strive for wealth in order to buy the luxuries in life. But what point would that be if we can just replicate any luxury that we want? Sure, there are some things that a replicator can't make, we know that, and there are some people who want the real article. But the visage you portray of the future in terms of needyness, buying off officials, people leeching off the system... I just don't see that in an age where you can just replicate anything you want.

[Blackcat]

The point is that you can't...

Replicators don't make stuff out of thin air, they draw from ship's (or town's) storage of raw materials, and they draw from the power grid as well. If you draw too much resources from the system, you'd be limited.

Then there's the issue of quality. Throughout TNG, Voyager, and DS9, they touched again and again on the differences between replicated good and the real deal, most notably on food. Coffee doesn't taste quite right, Meats are the equivalent of the mystery meat patties served through out school systems in the US and UK (dip the patty in the appropriately flavored greasy goo, bake it and serve), fruits and veggies taste off. They have the same nutrients and everything, but even the best programming/scanning guru can't get the natural flavors and textures right. The programs are technically correct, it IS beef, or a pear, or a sundae, but it isn't a REAL one.

Then we get to the different kinds of replicators. Even in the series we see differences, some can make some things but not others, other replicators can make those other things but can't make some of the things the first one can. Some are for mass production, but can't make things as well, others can make small quantities of things REALLY well (again, from a technical standpoint.) A "Standard" replicator would be somewhere in the middle, able to make food, clothing, medicine... the basic necessities, but would be more limited than the one aboard a star ship. They wouldn't be able to make specialty items not in the community database, and to prevent harm to others on the same network, you wouldn't be allowed to modify recipes.

And it still doesn't answer the leeches on the system, the "haves" or the traders. The replicator isn't a cornucopia, it's the chinese knock-offs that plague our commerce today, you get what you pay for

[Williams]

Eh, I still disagree with your view of it all. You're looking at it from a very current-era social point of view. You fail to take into account the kind of social change that Roddenbury envisioned as having occurred in his future world of Star Trek. And such change is wholly possible and a fairly logical progression; afterall, if you look 300 years into Earth's past now, society and the way we all acted and such are so dramatically different to how we are now, that it may as well be another world. The Trek timeline just can't be put into the context of how society is now, because it won't be like this in the 2300s.

[Blackcat]

I think we can dismiss anything before Cochrane as having lead up to the changes, as the very idea of factions and such begs to the classical struggle as discussed by Karl Marx as intrinsic to the have-have not class structures.

Mudd and the mention of credits throughout TOS pretty much blows the idea that money wasn't in existence away.

Honestly, while I respect Roddenbury on a lot of things, this is one thing I'll continue to disagree on, not because I'm enamored of the idea of having money, not having such a system would be great! But as a student of human nature, and a realist, the forces against such a change are impossible to overcome. Even logically, as with the Vulcans, it makes sense to use such a system.

It's nice to be able to dream, but with continued references throughout the series to Federation citizens being a part of a company, or being part of a merchant family, seeing some doing incredibly well while others are barely living at subsidence levels. Either the system is incredibly broken, or money still exists. The dream is mere smoke and mirrors, friend.

[Alex]

I am inclined to agree, if for no other reason than the Federation needs to be able to trade somehow. If there are entire civilizations devoted to making profit, I find it a little difficult to believe that the largest superpower in the quadrant has no way to conduct trade. If they are simply exchanging goods for other goods or services, then that would mean that the Federation had regressed to a barter economy.

There are plenty of references to the lack of money in the future, but they are only referred to by Starfleet officers and regarding the Federation. In the grand scheme of things, though, it just seems highly unlikely that such a system can exist and flourish when so many other neighboring economies use money. The Federation doesn't need to use gold-pressed latinum, but I would think some sort of credits that can be transferred and converted. While Kirk seemed to suggest in STIV that he had no money, he may have been referring to money as we know it. The Federation may be to the point where all transactions are purely electronic, and only use a physical currency when necessary. I just keep thinking of Sisko's dad's restaurant; if people could get anything they want from replicators, why would they have need of such business? If he's not getting paid to provide that service, then why not just cook for yourself at home? Canon itself is terribly inconsistent on this topic.

[xox]

This is an excellent thread!

I think the most pertinent line of the text linked to was “A lot has changed in three hundred years. People are no longer obsessed with the accumulation of ‘things.’ We have eliminated hunger, want, the need for possessions.” - Picard

The obsession for things, hunger...the want/need for possessions can all theoretically be eliminated while still maintaining a viable economic system. The point - I think - that Roddenberry might have been trying to achieve was, the elimination of Greed...capital "G". Roddenberry lived through the Great Depression, WWII, and by the time TOS was over, experienced a cultural shift that could be described as seismic compared to everything he had witnessed to that point. It makes sense to me that by the time he was developing TNG he wanted to drive the point home even further...one of his proteges, Brannon Braga is probably keenly aware of Roddenberry's propensity to keep the subtext alive by not outright attempting to teach these things to the audience...but, yeah, there is no reason to suggest that the 23rd century functions without an economic structure of some kind.

[Treymiar]

Forgive me for lazily using copy/paste from my own forum.
But here is my Trekspective:

Money & Trektopia

Against the backdrop of Liza Minnelli and Joel Grey singing from Cabaret, money in the Trek world needs to be addressed. Any devotee of the Roddenberry Utopia will point out that he espoused a money-less culture. Trek movies and series have made explicit references to this within the Starfleet family.

Acknowledging that long running entertainment series written by many authors will inevitably result in contradictions, the topic needs to be addressed for practical simm purposes:

1. From the simm aspect, adventuring characters obviously need money if they are going to function within non-Federation worlds. What's the Federation going to do, replicate it? (I think they call that counterfeiting.)
Also, some Starfleet personnel might just want to retire to outside colonies. Prooobably need some savings to do that.

2. Characters need money for functioning in Federation member worlds which still use money, unless joining the Federation means your culture must sacrifice money. That doesn't sound so good under the toot of the non-interference horn. In fact, that's a big, glaring problem.

3. Trektopians assert that desire for possessions is an "infantile" aspect of humanity to be outgrown. Desire present or not, needs will always exist. There must be some means for arbitrating distribution of limited resources. Pointing to the nearest Cornucopia (aka replicator) is technologically naive. Replicators take power and, sometimes, rare materials. Power then becomes the commodity. There's a rule which applies to computers, politicians, and consumers: "The more resources you create, the more resources will be used." It is delusional fantasy to assert that ALL people will ever harmoniously agree as to what their needs are. They won't, ever. And the very moment someone decides to lord of your needs, the first step towards tyranny is taken.

If the Canon Trektopia arbitrarily declares that both poverty and disease have been conquered, then it makes for a rather boring adventure in space. I seem to remember a few episodes where Trek abundances encountered desperate poverty. The "Well, they can join the Federation" implies that the Federation will bring prosperity to all civilizations that they touch. How many times just in the past century have social ideologies preached that one? There's an old saying, "The poor will always be with us." However noble or passionate the desire might be, declaring that technology will conquer poverty is naive, wishful thinking.

Okay, simm rule time: Quite simply, It's your choice.

IF you want your character to function sans money, great. More power to you.
However, if you adventure on a credit/money planet, you'd better explain how you got it.
Also, expect the shoreleave honeys to ignore you in favor of those who do have jingle in their pockets.

IF you want your character to use money? That's fine too.
A payroll or stipend will exist for your character.
Don't ask me for details, I hate accounting.

Call it my interpretation of the Federation's 'tolerance' and multiculturalism. :p