[tarheelswamprat]

The Ferengi were a cross between space pirates and corperate socialists with a tax system that made the IRS Income Tax code look simple.

The Ferengi were not capitalists, and the Federation would not know what a capitalist is considering thet are all communists.

I'll grant you the pirates, but socialists.... that's nonsense. A cross between pirates and mercantilists (remember their obsession with gold-pressed latinum?) would be more accurate. And they were most definitely capitalists of a sort (that obsession with profit thingy).

[Paul C. Jesup]

I'll grant you the pirates, but socialists.... that's nonsense.

You should watch the later episodes of Deep Space Nine, everything the Ferengi collects/makes in gross (before profits) is audited, taxed and controled by their race's government, which head by their Grand Nagus.

It's socialism anyway you cut it.