“If people really paid attention to Star Trek, by TNG and Deep Space, Earth is ruled by if not “noble” houses but political or influential families. Kirk’s family, Riker’s family, Janeway’s family, were all connected to the space aristocracy.”
Funny you mention this.
At one time I considered trying to write an ST novel, though CBS buying the IP probably means that project will never be done now. One of the things I wanted to do was show how the average person lived a little more, so I tried to do a logical think-through of how the Federation’s economics would work with no currency. I started with my base assumptions we can get directly from the source material, which are:
1. The Federation does not use currency for exchange of goods
2. Replicators do not create a post scarcity society like is claimed, because replicated food and goods are considered lower quality. Those items are ‘good enough’ but traditional manufactured and prepared items are higher quality.
3. Certain things of value can’t be replicated, not even cheaper, lower quality versions of these things. Prime location real estate comes to mind. Starship fuel (anti-matter) is probably also in this category.
4. The Federation has not abolished the idea of private property.
5. Picard goes at length to talk about how people work to better themselves and not for pay. We know the truth of human nature, however, and while some may truly work because they want to, it would not be a necessity. You’d have huge numbers of people who simply subsist on freely available replicated goods, living in their tiny replicated box for an apartment, and watching TV all day.
6. The source material also makes it clear that reputation is hugely important in Federation society. This strongly suggests something like an official or unofficial social credit score system.
Conclusions that can obviously be drawn from this:
1. At the point in history that currency was abolished, those who found themselves in possession of valuable goods that couldn’t be replicated, or the means of producing goods that perhaps could be replicated, but the replicated versions were poor quality, would be in strong positions of power.
2. The result of #1 is an unofficial but very real aristocracy. Federation society would have the trappings of a representative government but in reality would be an oligarchy ruled by a small number of families that control influential industries.
3. Those in power would constantly be doing favors for each other using the means at their disposal. They would also use these means to reward those from the lower class that they liked and punish those that they didn’t.
4. There would be almost no middle class. There would be a small aristocracy at the top, a gigantic underclass at the bottom, and the middle class between these would be the smallest group. Middle class people, being generally defined as those willing or wanting to work and having the skill to do so, would really only have three options to make anything of themselves. A) The extremely intelligent may invent something new that becomes an essential, non-replicable item that elevates that person to the unofficial aristocracy (this would be difficult though. More likely this person’s idea would simply be stolen by the powers that be). B) Colonization of frontier worlds. C) Starfleet. Most will probably choose C.
5. Because of #4, Starfleet’s enlisted personnel, junior, and field grade officers will tend to have a different cultural attitude and mindset than the rest of Federation society or Starfleet’s admiralty. Basically, I would expect one would need to start toeing the political line to reach the rank of Captain or higher (the idea of my original novel took place after the Dominion War, where that normal unofficial rule was relaxed out of necessity). Similarly, those who choose to move to remote worlds as colonists will have a different view as well. Only the group that works its way into the aristocracy will fit in with current Federation society, though that fit probably won’t be perfect either.
6. The incredible amount of laziness and sloth in Federation society will be a breeding ground for ignorance and ripe for exploitation by a bad actor or actors. The society described is not stable and could be broken pretty readily by a small group of motivated individuals. The only reason it hasn’t already is because the cultures the Federation interacts with commonly either 1) are similar to themselves (these are mostly Federation members) or 2) so different that the foreign culture can’t really infect or subvert their own (Klingons, Dominion, Borg). The Romulans might prove a cultural threat, except they are so isolationist it’s never been an issue. In recent Trek canon, their biggest cultural threat was actually the Cardassians, even though they weren’t a military threat. The Cardassians were not isolationists and their culture was similar enough to infiltrate and be disruptive to the Federation’s fragile society. Their initial military hostility to the Federation and later joining the Dominion prevented this.
7. Federation leadership would have little understanding of anything like moral values. Their morals would be maintaining power at all costs. The underclass would be ‘medicated’ with free stuff and wouldn’t know anything about values either. Only Starfleet and pioneers who choose to colonize remote planets would have any moral basis to their lives, because their lives would require it.
An adversary with the right cultural context wouldn’t have too hard of a time breaking the UFP. It is truly ripe for massive exploitation, chiefly because it’s philosophical view is that people are better because they evolved, which is not how people are. If people are better, it’s because they chose to be. If you think that people are better because they evolved to be, then anything you do becomes good, because it’s in your nature, and therefore moral. Such a society could easily be lead around by the nose using propaganda and fear.
They just changed the first letter of their last name to 'K'.
That was a profound and illuminating analysis you put great thought to. And you pointed out where humankinds’ inherent failings prevent us from truly progressing - like where they merely replaced currency with standing in the pecking order and exchanging favors. That’s where the Soviet Union was and China surely does today.
I met and spoke with Rodenberry pre-resurgence when he was floating a small presentation between colleges showing the pilot doing Q & A and he sincerely believed this was the way to go. I’m a Cold War guy who knows that system would work if people could live up to it, but they can’t so we’re far better off with meritocracy (or close illusion of it) that really does push people to bettering themselves and their society.
Thank you for posting that. All we need to know is look at our Welfare State. Are many of the people subsiding on government handouts “improving themselves” with all their leisure time. Of course, not. “Star Trek Man” is just as likely to happen as “New Soviet Man”.