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The Star Trek Economy

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Re: The Star Trek Economy

#61

Post by dnautics »

simonh wrote: post #57
WalterBright wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Capitalism rewards not just work and the investment of capital but also greed and cheating. That implies that socialism and communism do not reward greed and cheating, which is hard to believe.

In fact by concentrating strict monopolies on political, military, judicial and economic power in a narrow party elite, it pretty much guarantees it will be rewarded. I realize Communism and Socialism as abstract principles don't require this, but that seems to be the way it works out as they have been put into practice historically by actual Communists and Socialists. There's nothing about capitalism that demands th…

Also the concentration of power, corruption, and depredations against individuals (gulags etc) were predicted as an outcome of socialism and communism by Benjamin Tucker, a contemporary (and critic) of Marx.

Re: The Star Trek Economy

#62

Post by rasz_pl »

etler wrote: post #50

>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 motiv…

I dont remember seeing any robots (other than Data) on Star Trek. How do you propose to fix broken replicator? or a toilet? Best case scenario is you throw whole thing away and put a new one - now someone has to unbolt the old unit, get the new one out of storage, push it through half of the ship and mount it.

Re: The Star Trek Economy

#63

Post by loahou04 »

Human greed pretty much takes over. Social pressures won't work because people will always want to "keep up with the jones" or show off what they have done. The only way you could have post scarcity is if everything and anything in the living reality could be created, which of course is just highly improbable if not impossible due to the emotional nature of our species as well as differences in individual needs and wants (I.e. Not everyone can fall in love and be married or be just as popular or be just as good I sports). Personally, I don't think there is a reason we can't have a better welfare system, I just don't think we should care about those who do not contribute to society. If all people in Star Trek are now in it for the bettering of the human race than that would mean not a single person is thinking of themselves, which much like greed, is a natural human state of mind. Do we know what/who is going to better society, no we don't. However, with capitalism people democratically choose what does and doesn't. To have government subsidize specific items/ideas we leave capitalism and start having a centrally governed panel who picks the winners, or at least subsidizes them. Let the free hand of capitalism decide who can contribute the most to society and let the people also decide who much they should be rewarded. If anything it's not economics that needs to be changed, rather the human psychology that needs to be reformed.

Re: The Star Trek Economy

#64

Post by rasz_pl »

tiatia wrote: post #47
npunt wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Now that you mentioned it, Idiocracy (2006) is also post scarcity idyllic universe.

Re: The Star Trek Economy

#65

Post by tiatia »

tiatia wrote: post #35
terranstyler wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A capitalistic system can not be run without growth I disagree. You are told we need to grow by X% p.a. and we need an inflation of Y% p.a. and we need to weaken our currencies to boost exports bla bla. It is possible to show that this is BS if you thought it through. BTW, I'd call "them" by their name if I knew it. BTW2, "Economics in one Lesson" was my eye opener, it was written in 1946 but it reads at if is was…

It is very easy. If you speak German I actually could send you an excellent PDF. Debt is a law like gravity. You can have it explained by Ludwig von Mises. It is a reward for risk and saving. Discounted cash flow is actually the opposite and the reason why a cash creating asset, let's stay farmland, still has a finite price but theoretical unlimited future income. To serve debt you have to create more in the future.…

Actually, the line Debt is a law... Should be Interest is a law...

Re: The Star Trek Economy

#66

Post by pbhjpbhj »

terranstyler wrote: post #29

Post-scarcity economics sounds to me like post-human anthropology or post-matter physics, i.e. economics is by definition science on "managing" scarcity. No scarcity, no trade, no economics. Honestly, capitalism would be a good system if we had just one example. Closest example is maybe Hongkong or Singapure, see http://www.heritage.org/index/ranking

>capitalism would be a good system //

The reason we have overlays on capitalistic systems seems to me to be because capitalism values the masses [people] at approaching zero, except where slavery/soylent green/organ harvesting and such is allowed.

Scenario: Humanland has a dearth of population who're not adding culturally or through labour to their pure capitalist economy - if they kill them and use them for animal feed they will both add resources and reduce outputs. Under capitalism, why not?

Capitalism starts with financial wealth and aims to increase it through competition.

Communism starts with human society and aims to support its needs through cooperation.

The later always seems to be far more reasonable to me. You intimate [I think this is what you're saying] that there has never been a capitalist economy and that this would be best - absolute market freedom - I'd like to see a communist society that didn't degrade in to a dictatorship.

In recent historical economic systems it seems this pithy aphorism is apposite:

"Under capitalism, man exploits man. Under communism, it's just the opposite." (J K Galbraith, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Kenneth_Galbraith)

Re: The Star Trek Economy

#67

Post by terranstyler »

tiatia wrote: post #35
terranstyler wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A capitalistic system can not be run without growth I disagree. You are told we need to grow by X% p.a. and we need an inflation of Y% p.a. and we need to weaken our currencies to boost exports bla bla. It is possible to show that this is BS if you thought it through. BTW, I'd call "them" by their name if I knew it. BTW2, "Economics in one Lesson" was my eye opener, it was written in 1946 but it reads at if is was…

It is very easy. If you speak German I actually could send you an excellent PDF. Debt is a law like gravity. You can have it explained by Ludwig von Mises. It is a reward for risk and saving. Discounted cash flow is actually the opposite and the reason why a cash creating asset, let's stay farmland, still has a finite price but theoretical unlimited future income. To serve debt you have to create more in the future.…

The BS part was meant w.r.t. the theories because, unlike theirs, your opinion is not forced upon the people, so sorry if I left room for the misunderstanding.

I disagree in particular to the "to serve debt you have to create more" because creating more debt is incompatible with a capitalistic system because someone has to take the other side of the trade (the creditor).

A rational creditor wouldn't loan more debt and this is why the PIIGS don't get money on the bond market anymore. Therefore the CBs have to "print" the money or take it from somewhere else (ESM, OMT, QE ...) but none of these measures is voluntary but instead forced.

Therefore we have no capitalistic system but planned economy which was the original point.

Debt can also reduced via default. And this happens regularly with many companies and is ok. What is not ok is when these defaults get deferred, for instance, because a defaulting entity has the monopoly on creation of legal tender.

Re: The Star Trek Economy

#68

Post by robryan »

loahou04 wrote: post #63

Human greed pretty much takes over. Social pressures won't work because people will always want to "keep up with the jones" or show off what they have done. The only way you could have post scarcity is if everything and anything in the living reality could be created, which of course is just highly improbable if not impossible due to the emotional nature of our species as well as differences in individual needs and w…

The problem emerges though where there is absolutely nothing of value left, or at least minimum living standard value, left for a large group of people to do.

No mater how willing these people are there is going to be very little movement up as all the positions of value are covered.

What becomes of these people?

Re: The Star Trek Economy

#69

Post by BugBrother »

fulafel wrote: post #53
thaumaturgy wrote: post #10

So, economic models are more or less based on, or at least constrained by, human psychology, right? Communism and socialism don't work because peoples' brains aren't wired to do lots of work for little or no or unequal reward. This isn't restricted to just people, either, it's been observed in monkeys ( http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/09/0917_030917_... , https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lKhAd0Tyny0 -- it…

You describe life in the rich west. It's not looking as rosy for most people. It'll be interesting to see how the perception of capitalsm's problems shifts as we wade towards the deeper end of the climate crisis. Will human suffering invoke more actionable empathy when it's in the form of agricultural collapse vs current income inequality problems?

>> [ capitalism's] current income inequality problems

I will assume you talk about the income inequality between nations. That is, in most cases, not solvable by other countries.

To make a country (without military conflicts) better is not rocket science. You get infrastructure and education to work well in addition to limiting corruption. The corruption part is probably enough, since non-corrupt politicians will fix the rest.

After that, a generation or two later you have a South Korea. Estonia is getting there.

For examples of this, see East Europe inside the EU after 1991. The main failures with corruption are Romania and Bulgaria, which also have horrible economic inequality. The politicians even steal the money for roads!

The point is, income inequality is not a problem of economics. The problem is that packs of thieves have stolen a country/government and sucks the lifeblood out of it.

Re: The Star Trek Economy

#70

Post by tiatia »

terranstyler wrote: post #67
tiatia wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is very easy. If you speak German I actually could send you an excellent PDF. Debt is a law like gravity. You can have it explained by Ludwig von Mises. It is a reward for risk and saving. Discounted cash flow is actually the opposite and the reason why a cash creating asset, let's stay farmland, still has a finite price but theoretical unlimited future income. To serve debt you have to create more in the future.…

The BS part was meant w.r.t. the theories because, unlike theirs, your opinion is not forced upon the people, so sorry if I left room for the misunderstanding. I disagree in particular to the "to serve debt you have to create more" because creating more debt is incompatible with a capitalistic system because someone has to take the other side of the trade (the creditor). A rational creditor wouldn't loan more debt an…

"to serve debt you have to create more" This is actually a well known fact.

"creating more debt is incompatible with a capitalistic system" Wrong. It is the basis of the capitalistic system.

"because someone has to take the other side of the trade' Yes. All debts have corresponding claims.

"A rational creditor wouldn't loan more debt and this is why the PIIGS don't get money on the bond market anymore." The game may have come to an end already. The only thing that delays a "jubilee" is the state as the lender of last resort. It is the last thing that will fail but it will fail. A "jubilee" is only a mid-term solution. The underlying problems (limited energy, exponential growing interest, debt based economy) may not be solved. We are running into a trap at a very fast speed. Even things like thorium reactors or fusion can only delay the sun set.

"Therefore the CBs have to "print" the money or take it" It does not make a difference for the problems if you use FIAT money or an asset based currency.

" from somewhere else (ESM, OMT, QE ...) but none of these measures is voluntary but instead forced." You may think a gold based currency may prevent this problems. We may only have collapsed faster (small collapse, "jubilee", not the big collapse).

"Therefore we have no capitalistic system but planned" yes we do have one. And we had a very good time with it. Unfortunately capitalism needs growth. And only madman and economists believe in infinite growth in a finite world.

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