Lily: How much did this ship cost?
Picard: The economics of the 24th century are a little different. You see, money no longer exists.
Lily: No money? You mean you don't get paid?
Picard: The aquisition of wealth is no longer the driving force of our existance. We seek to better ourselves.
Star Trek is pure Marxism.
Given the technology in the "Star Trek Universe," I don't know that would really be the case.
You need to remember that given the sort of technology they "have," there really aren't any economic models in our "real universe" that would actually corespond...
Imagine unlimited cheap power supplies, based on anti-matter. Combine that with the replicators they have. If you can create anything of value (gold, jewels, etc...) using a replicator, any sort of a standard economy would collapse. Nothing would haven any sort of commercial value any more.
Again this doesn't necessarily lead to marxism. But then it wouldn't lead to any sort of realistic economic model that we would have either.
Mark
"Star Trek is pure Marxism."
Nonsense! When you have replicators what do you need money for?