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The Star Trek Economy

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Re: The Star Trek Economy

#41

Post by alextingle »

Xylakant wrote: post #37
tiatia wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Question: What is money? And something existed before "money" was "created". It was and is called "debt".

There is a pretty well accepted definition of money: It's an object or record that's accepted as a form of payment, often with very little value in itself. Early forms of money included shells, for example. Coins are an evolution, printed bank notes as well. The precursor to money is barter: I trade 5 goats for one cow, that I can then trade for a horse. The money equivalent is that I sell 5 goats for 10 money that I…

Well strictly speaking, modern money is "debt" while originally money was a commodity such as gold.

Both types of money function in the same way, as a form of payment, but they differ significantly in implementation.

Re: The Star Trek Economy

#42

Post by oelmekki »

I like the exercise and the thoughts developed, but all of it is based on the fact that a post-scarcity state is happening. This is very XIXth century like : "science will abolish work !".

A proof of post-scarcity happening presented is the amount of obesity in US. Let just pretend obesity is just a problem of having too much food, and not at all a problem of bad nutrition or genetics. The fact still remains that while there are a lot of obesity in usa, there still have a lot of hunger in other parts of the world. Could not it be just a repartition problem rather than abundance ?

There's an other sign that could lead to think we're indeed not at the edge of post-scarcity. Currently, many previously called poor countries are getting wealthier. What do we observe in previously called rich countries ? Economical crisis hitting harder and harder. That may not be a coincidence.

Re: The Star Trek Economy

#43

Post by JumpCrisscross »

One capitalist hybrid which does not distort the market is a free market with a basic income [1], i.e. an unconditional income as a right of being a citizen. At what level - survival, comfort, or luxury - the income is set is an open question to each society. Too high and scarcity erupts in the form of inflation, too low and inequality and populism corrode the society.

Post-scarcity economics is more the study of localised phenomena. As alluded to in the post, some things will likely always be in short supply somewhere.

[1] http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_income

Re: The Star Trek Economy

#44

Post by emil0r »

dbcooper wrote: post #28

The Volokh Conspiracy post, How Federal is Star Trek's Federation?, was probably the best thing I've read on Trek's political economy. http://www.volokh.com/posts/1190182117.shtml

That was entirely worth the time to read. Very interesting take on it and it also shows how damaged I am by online forums thinking it read like a perfect troll.

Re: The Star Trek Economy

#45

Post by tiatia »

Xylakant wrote: post #37
tiatia wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Question: What is money? And something existed before "money" was "created". It was and is called "debt".

There is a pretty well accepted definition of money: It's an object or record that's accepted as a form of payment, often with very little value in itself. Early forms of money included shells, for example. Coins are an evolution, printed bank notes as well. The precursor to money is barter: I trade 5 goats for one cow, that I can then trade for a horse. The money equivalent is that I sell 5 goats for 10 money that I…

"but debt is not the precursor to money' There are people that would disagree. Actually already 100 years ago: http://www.ces.org.za/docs/The%20Credit%20Theoriy%20of%20Mon...

"and certainly debt is not a requirement for a money-based system." This is kind of true. You could run a trade based economy on pre 1750 level with' lets say gold or silver or sea shells as "money". But you CANT RUN A INDUSTRIAL CAPITALISTIC society without debt. At least nobody has ever been able to show that this is possible. We need growth, we need more energy. I am afraid this will not end well. Read the links I posted in this thread.

Re: The Star Trek Economy

#46

Post by polymatter »

dbcooper wrote: post #28

The Volokh Conspiracy post, How Federal is Star Trek's Federation?, was probably the best thing I've read on Trek's political economy. http://www.volokh.com/posts/1190182117.shtml

Very interesting article.

tl;dr the Federation is a not a political union, its a human-dominated protection racket. Non-human worlds pay Earth for protection and Earth maintains a post-scarcity economy from living off the proceeds of tribute. In this context, the Prime Directive ensures ambitious captains don't takeover planets that are likely to be a net drain on resources.

Re: The Star Trek Economy

#47

Post by tiatia »

npunt wrote: post #15
robbiep wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But without a scarcity (market) economy how do you determine which is which?

Awareness. Present people with a real problem, explain its implications, and show how someone can make a difference, and you get action. Most people want to do the right thing, but can't figure out where to start or what good looks like. The culture our kids grow up in (through media, educational institutions, community support, etc) is not particularly good at this yet. The work we can do on the internet is to trans…

Yeah. North Korea is pretty good in this to help people figure out what they want.

The typical person is closer to Homer Simpson than to the intelligent, long term thinking and rational decision making individual.

Re: The Star Trek Economy

#48

Post by eru »

tiatia wrote: post #13

Scarcity was a problem, is a problem and always will be a problem: http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2011/07/galactic-scale-e... And sorry to break the news to you: A capitalistic system can not be run without growth and nobody has ever been able to show how it is possible to run a "steady-state" economy, The end is near. Enjoy the ride!

> A capitalistic system can not be run without growth [...]

Several states (eg in Europe) have been running with contracting or stagnant economies for a while. It's not pretty, but they run.

Or what do you mean by "can not be run"?

Re: The Star Trek Economy

#49

Post by bayesianhorse »

I wouldn't use Star Trek as a canon for post-scarcity economics, it's more like an inspiration. In fact we are seeing the elements of the vocational aspects already:

Look at all the Bloggers, the Kickstarters, Youtubers, Justin Bieber at the start of his "career". Aren't they essentially taking a ton of infrastructure and a weird "diffusive" sort of income already?

Joseph Sisko's restaurant in our terms might be more like a kind of hobby rather than a serious economic enterprise. The guests might not pay anything at all, it's just that owner and guests do this because they enjoy making food and eating food, rather than eating from a replicator.

You just don't see all the shitty restaurants noone ever goes to...

Re: The Star Trek Economy

#50

Post by etler »

>The big challenge here is how does society get someone to do the menial jobs that cannot be done in an automated manner.

Are there examples of menial jobs in the Star Trek universe? I would imagine by then there simply are no menial jobs. I'm not sure what menial job examples there are that can't be automated.

The jobs left over are interesting jobs. I'd imagine the motivation to do so are on par with the same motivation to get a phd. Few people get phds solely to get better job prospects, but rather do it for personal enlightenment and passion.

Also the same goes for the infinitely wealthy. If you accumulate billions of dollars and die donating those billions to charity, you weren't motivated solely to have more wealth, but something greater than that.

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