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http://youtu.be/8MUVGTdXkzk

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http://www.stardestroyer.net/Empire/Essays/Trek-Marxism.html

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Replicators.  You don't need anything when everything is free.

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This article raises the point, there was no money, a replicator could make anything you wanted, why work?  The crew didn't even have pockets on their uniforms

Can Star Trek's world with no money work?
http://money.cnn.com/2015/10/11/news/economy/new-york-comic-con-star-trek-economics/index.html

"Star Trek" has dared to "boldly go where no man has gone before" -- including a world without money.

Through its many iterations -- including TV series and films like Enterprise, the Next Generation, and Deep Space Nine -- one thing is constant in the "Star Trek" franchise: It's set in a future world where accumulating wealth does not carry the same value as in the present day.


  In this world, characters live in an economy where currency isn't necessary.


"One of the things that's interesting about 'Star Trek' is that it does try to imagine a post-scarcity economy where there's no money. People don't work for it. People don't work because they have to but because they want to," said Annalee Newitz, the editor of Gawker's io9 blog.



<snip>



 

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It was based on bartering stuff. In the case of Star Trek, stuff is free so it has no value.

Which leaves the only things with value to be those that are illegal and those that can't be replicated.

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leftist morons think that if there is no money, there is "equality."  This is not so, even in the ST universe.  Money is just a means of exchange. There are other things that one uses. In Star Trek it is rank and social standing. The captain may not have been paid in more "money" but he was rewarded in prestige and privileges.  He had the biggest stateroom. People deferred to him. What he said, went. He could use the holodeck as he pleased, he got all the shore time he wanted, etc. The "everyone is the same" nonsense isn't even true in Star Trek.

Not everyone can have a vineyard, as mentioned above, yet Picards brother had one. What we see in ST is rule by the elite, even without "money."

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This article raises the point, there was no money, a replicator could make anything you wanted, why work?  The crew didn't even have pockets on their uniforms

Can Star Trek's world with no money work?
http://money.cnn.com/2015/10/11/news/economy/new-york-comic-con-star-trek-economics/index.html

"Star Trek" has dared to "boldly go where no man has gone before" -- including a world without money.

Through its many iterations -- including TV series and films like Enterprise, the Next Generation, and Deep Space Nine -- one thing is constant in the "Star Trek" franchise: It's set in a future world where accumulating wealth does not carry the same value as in the present day.


  In this world, characters live in an economy where currency isn't necessary.


"One of the things that's interesting about 'Star Trek' is that it does try to imagine a post-scarcity economy where there's no money. People don't work for it. People don't work because they have to but because they want to," said Annalee Newitz, the editor of Gawker's io9 blog.



<snip>



 

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In Picard's words, "Because we work for the betterment of mankind, not profit."

Stardate 42207
Calltime/Location: 05:06 - Holodeck 4
Call Reason: Occupant Unconscious

If I had to pick one person to consider my arch enemy aboard the Enterprise it is, undoubtedly, Commander William Riker. No one abuses the holodeck more often or more creatively than Commander Riker. His rank grants him seven hours a week and Riker somehow manages to squeeze almost 20 visits out of that.

Commander Riker uses the holodeck for everything, from his darkest fantasies to the most ridiculously mundane task. One day he'll be oil wrestling with kangaroos on top of a giant mattress or making love to a duplicate of himself with huge breasts. The next day he'll show up in his bathrobe and use the holodeck to shower and shave himself. What makes me hate him is that Riker pays no attention to the rules about bodily fluids. He will use the holodeck just to go to the bathroom. He'll have a floating toilet made out of clouds and he'll lay the biggest and smelliest deuce I've seen this side of the neutral zone. Then he'll just walk right out like he's allowed to do that.

When I got this particular call Riker had been at the tail end of one of his binge periods. His weight had skyrocketed up around 300 and he was trying to use the holodeck as a weight loss routine. Basically, he'd come in and gorge himself on everything he could think of. The man ate like a goat. He'd start with pies and cakes, work his way through a half dozen pizzas and tens of bottles of beer, then he'd finish by chewing up old belts and piles of weeds. When he was distended to the point of bursting he'd waddle out and the food would just *poof* disappear from his stomach. This time things didn't go so well.

I get there and Riker is rolling around groaning, foaming at the mouth, with a belly that looks like someone jammed a boulder inside. Turns out he'd been having mini-strokes all week during his binges and this one was a bit bigger than the others. He'd soiled himself, of course. He was naked, of course. And, of course, I had to start cleaning him up while a team from sickbay hurried down to the holodeck.

Once I had most of the crap off of him I dragged him out into the corridor. His swelling went down immediately and by the time the sickbay team arrived he was sitting up and swearing like a sailor. Riker uses language salty enough to cure pork and that particular day he repeatedly threatened to "choke the eyes out of my sockets" if I didn't get him a "triple milkshake." Luckily the sick team got there before he could make good on his threat and got him sedated and hauled in for surgery. I finished the cleanup in about half an hour.

Status:Resolved.

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I can see how society would get weird for a while once you invent a power source so efficient that you are basically giving power away for free.  Tack on the ability to replicate nearly anything with that power and it gets stranger.  BUT

1) maintenance and fuel for the power system and replicators must come from somewhere. Repairs and energy/fuel require payment.
2) the supply of non-replicatable items would be the currency. That and unique items of significance, "the actual wooden teeth of George Washington" for example.

It seems like the ultimate item to own is a warp+cloak capable armed ship with enough power to travel, replicate, and holodeck all your needs for life.  If everyone can truly afford this, it would be more like the diaspora in Dune than what we see in Star Trek.

And if each citizen can't have this then the basis that you are in a post scarcity economy is incorrect.  I think as a minimum their energy source would require an equal amount of matter as is replicated, so the supply of that fuel would be the primary currency.

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http://youtu.be/8MUVGTdXkzk

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Why weren't there any fat chicks in Star Trek?  

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You can't have a FSA in a post-scarcity world. That's a logical contradiction. If no one has to work and there is no need to take something from one person to give to another it is impossible for there to be an FSA as we conceive of it.

I'm sure there would be plenty of folks in the ST universe who do not work, but in a post scarcity world their choice would have no effect whatsoever on anyone else.

If you're asking why some people would choose to work in a post-scarcity world, it would be because they enjoy what they do.

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Just don't ask the replicator to make you a nice cuppa because then you'll get a liquid that is almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea.

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There were "federation credits" all over the moneyless star trek world.  Roddenberry's utopian vision didn't even really survive itself.

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I can see how society would get weird for a while once you invent a power source so efficient that you are basically giving power away for free.  Tack on the ability to replicate nearly anything with that power and it gets stranger.  BUT



1) maintenance and fuel for the power system and replicators must come from somewhere. Repairs and energy/fuel require payment.

2) the supply of non-replicatable items would be the currency. That and unique items of significance, "the actual wooden teeth of George Washington" for example.



It seems like the ultimate item to own is a warp+cloak capable armed ship with enough power to travel, replicate, and holodeck all your needs for life.  If everyone can truly afford this, it would be more like the diaspora in Dune than what we see in Star Trek.



And if each citizen can't have this then the basis that you are in a post scarcity economy is incorrect.  I think as a minimum their energy source would require an equal amount of matter as is replicated, so the supply of that fuel would be the primary currency.

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The stupid and lazy are fed into the replicators and transporters as feed elements.  You cannot generate something from nothing.

Maybe your Earl grey used to be someone neamed Earl?

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I look at it like this: Sci Fi is a means to explore alternate realities. Some do plural marriages. Some interspecies conflict (or peace). Some do all of the above but that's beside the point.

Roddenberry clearly wanted to explore the alternate reality where everyone's equal and everything is equal. So disease was cured, inequalities fixed, etc. Money, being a source of "inequality" was at least partially abolished. We can table the discussion of the money-grubbing Ferengi for another time.

The important thing is this: In order for Roddenberry to make what he may or may not have realized was a socialist utopia to function, he had to go so far off into science fiction that the Star Trek 'verse is what we always like to say Socialism is: Fantasy. Pure fantasy. It cannot work.

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In Picard's words, "Because we work for the betterment of mankind, not profit."