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Star Trek Economics
An anonymous reader writes "Rick Webb has an article suggesting we're in the nascent stages of transforming to a post-scarcity economy — one in which we are 'no longer constrained by scarcity of materials—food, energy, shelter, etc.' While we aren't there yet, job automation continues to rise and the problem of distributing necessities gets closer to being solved every day. Webb wondered how to describe a society's progress as it made the transition from scarcity to post-scarcity — and it brought him to Star Trek. Quoting: 'I believe the Federation is a proto-post scarcity society evolved from democratic capitalism. It is, essentially, European socialist capitalism vastly expanded to the point where no one has to work unless they want to. It is massively productive and efficient, allowing for the effective decoupling of labor and salary for the vast majority (but not all) of economic activity. The amount of welfare benefits available to all citizens is in excess of the needs of the citizens. Therefore, money is irrelevant to the lives of the citizenry, whether it exists or not. Resources are still accounted for and allocated in some manner, presumably by the amount of energy required to produce them (say Joules). And they are indeed credited to and debited from each citizen's "account." However, the average citizen doesn't even notice it, though the government does, and again, it is not measured in currency units—definitely not Federation Credits.'"
A Ferengi without profit is no Ferengi at all.
Overpopulation is only a problem in India and China. The rest of the civilized world, especially Japan, is having severe problems due to negative population growth. Population is predicted to plateau and start shrinking after around 2060. I am not worried about overpopulation.
As far as limited resources, we are only limited by the amount of energy it takes to extract those resources, and those sources of energy can and will transition to renewable sources as consumables become expensive. Indeed, we are already seeing that transition come into play with wind and solar electricity, electric cars, and efficiency drives. At the same time, we're seeing new sources of consumables come online as prices increase - see shale oil - and as technology advances to the point that we are able to extract more cheaply, effectively, and efficiently - see natural gas.
Overpopulation and resource limitations will work themselves out naturally.
Your penalty is 15 bars of gold-pressed latinum.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
All we see are the pro-Federation propaganda. All those pro-Starfleet shows with their fictional "Prime Directive" and an emphasis on exploration are just propaganda to paper over the federation's relentless military buildup to support their imperialist expansionist policies.
They show Starfleet and the rich nomenklatura, but never the vast backwater gulag planets where slave laborers work tirelessly to keep the military and party elite in Saurian Brandy and Starships.
Why do you think so many crew members wear redshirts, comrade?
I believe that this is best described by Ian M Banks in his culture series
Compare it to a century or two ago and you'll see that many homeless now have a higher quality of life than a good portion of the middle class did back then.
Bullshit. You CLEARLY have no idea what being homeless is actually like, nor do you have any realistic idea what being "middle class" was like 100 years ago. Let me give you a hint. My grandmother is close to a century old so she was around back then and her family could accurately be described as lower middle class. It wasn't all that different than it is now aside from some of the technology advances. Her father was a barber, her mom worked for a state agency, they had a house not so different from the one you probably live in. You seem to have some bizarre notion that people lived in caves and squalor a hundred years ago. It wasn't like that at all nor was it like that 200 years ago.
I think you are misunderstanding or misconstruing the argument. Post-scarcity doesn't mean that "limited resources" cease to exist. The primary driver of our modern economy(and any new economy) is energy. Energy is becoming rapidly less expensive because of modern technologies. He is arguing that at a certain point we will have to acknowledge that we have enough energy to meet everyone's basic needs. At that point, excess energy can be used to meet everyone's luxury desires. We tend to think of everyone's luxury desires as limitless, but that isn't exactly true. Our appetite for luxury goods is highly pliable. A great example of this would be video games. In the late 80s, you probably would have wanted a lot of Nintendo games. Those were a desirable luxury good. Now, you can acquire all of those games(through illegal and quasi-legal channels) and play them on a machine that costs as much as 2 beers. Yet, you don't play all of those old games. Why not? Your appetite has changed and now you are more than happy to play one new game rather than dozens of old ones. Consider it the "Brewster's Millions" problem.
As far as "limited resources", they will continue to exist. However, we might find that their value and how we assess that value has changed dramatically. Gold will probably be the clearest example. Gold has very little intrinsic value. It is a rare metal, but materials of similar rarity do not approach anywhere near the value of gold in the current market. Tellurium, an element found with gold which is actually rarer, has similarly valuable commercial applications. However, tellurium does not trade for 1/100th the price of gold. In a world where you can have all of your needs met, what use will we have for gold? We only wear it now as a symbol of wealth. If everyone has quasi-limitless wealth, then what point is signaling your wealth? Yes, in the Star Trek economy, gold is still rare. However, since there are few commercial applications for gold, you would see the price drop precipitously.
Nature does not pollute itself.
WTF? I mean seriously WTF?
Have you ever seen a volcano? Nature - polluting.
We have evidence of asteroid strikes that caused massive extinctions by - massively polluting the atmosphere. - Nature
Nature doesn't pollute. Bzzzt, wrong.
There is one thing that will never be able to replicate easily: human time and human skill. While a citizen might be able to "replicate" food, some people might still enjoy the touch of a real person, and feel that it carries a certain status. Let's assume that you have all of your needs met. So, you decide to open up a restaurant because you enjoy it (let's call it "Milliway's"), and for no other reason. You cook great food, and people flock to your restaurant because of the reputation. You cook for fun, so you have no desire to expand, and you can only serve a few dozen people per evening.
Now, if you can seat three dozen couples per evening, and you have 300 dozen couple wanting reservations, how do you decide which ones to seat? First-come, first-served certainly seems fair. However, your friend runs HIS own restaurant: you want to eat there, and he wants to eat at your restaurant. So, you can bump each other to the top of the reservation list.
Hmm. You decide that there is some food in the next town (state, country, continent, etc.) that you want to try. You do not know the person, but you want to figure out a way to exchange bumps to the top of the reservation list. Rather than having to do this manually, and having to contact each restaurant owner individually, you come up with a scheme. Each diner that you serve suddenly counts as a "dining reputation token." By accumulating, these tokens, you can use them to visit other restaurants. All of the chefs agree that this is a wonderful idea, since, by serving food, they can also get themselves to the top of the reservation lists at other restaurants.
Suddenly, you now have a new currency.
Of course, similar arguments can be made for other things that have more value when done by a person. Art being another fine example. An original painting can be worth millions, while a poster of the same painting can be worth $10. Both can look the same, but the inherent value is that one of them is one-of-a-kind, while the other can be produced by the boatload.
So, it is easy to imagine an "artistic" or "prestige" form of money, where the value is determined by the human skill and artistic vision that went into it.
Another thing is that not everything can be easily reproduced. Yes, you might be able to get a house built by robots for cheap (or even free). But there are only so many plots of land available by the side of a lake / ocean / river / etc. How do you divide up this property?
I cannot imagine a world without money. I can imagine that the essentials are free, so that you do not actually NEED money to get by. But there will always be luxury items that will NOT be free.
"-1 Troll" is the apparently the same as "-1 I disagree with you."