Star Trek's economy without money, how?
« Thread started on: Aug 17th, 2009, 3:38pm »
"No money? You mean you don't get paid?" "The acquisition of wealth is no longer the driving force in our lives. We wish to better ourselves and the rest of humanity." - Lily and Picard
We are told that in Star Trek humans have advanced beyond the drive for material wealth and possessions.
I was wondering how an economy without money could be put into place in practice. At first when I though about it, it sounded utopian and unfeasable. I guess we are so immersed in our present system that imagining alternatives can be quite hard.
But then I started thinking about the various problems that money triggers both by itself an indirectly by shaping our perceptions. A lot of problems we face as a civilization can be traced to the monetary system. Pollution costs are not considered at the point of origin but are passed on society, wars often conceal conflicts to control ressources(though we are told otherwise), crimes are more prevalent the more money is a neccessity and the less there is (ex: I would not be surprised if the US had more crime than Sweden[in any case the US sure has a large portion of its citizens in Prisons], and within the US it appears crime increases with unemployment), and money is a conduit for corruption in our political system. Plus the fact that things are sometimes made to be obsolete or solutions made to be temporary so that the clients return for more (otherwise you go out of business).
So how do you guys think this works in Star Trek Universe? (within the federation)
Re: Star Trek's economy without money, how?
« Reply #1 on: Aug 20th, 2009, 04:03am »
Still looking for your opinons on how a moneyless system could work in star trek, but in the meantime it looks like we might have the technology to pull it off before the end of this century
I saw this presentation about robots http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W0Z8TR4ToNs&feature=channel I think that improved Asimo robots are likely to be mass produced before we even get our first colony on Mars, and that will greatly affect employment, in a bad way in our present system or in a good way if we improve the system so that automation benefits everyone
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