A 'Star Trek' Economic System May Be Closer Than You Think

HughPickens.com writes: Anna North writes about "Star Trek'"s "post-economic" system, in which money no longer exists and anything you want can be made in a replicator, essentially for free. According to Manu Saadia, the author of "Trekonomics," a forthcoming book about the economics of the "Star Trek" universe, when everything is free objects will no longer be status symbols. Success will be measured in achievements, not in money: ""Instead of working to become more wealthy, you work to increase your reputation," says Saadia. "You work to increase your prestige. You want to be the best captain or the best scientist in the entire galaxy. And many other people are working to do that, as well. It's very meritocratic."

In a time of rising inequality and stagnating wages, a world where everyone's needs are met and people only work if they feel like it seems pretty far away but a post-scarcity economy is actually far more within reach than the technological advances for which "Star Trek" is better known. If productivity growth continues, Saadia believes there will be much more wealth to go around in a few hundred years' time. In general, society might look more like present-day New Zealand, which he sees as less work-obsessed than the United States: "You work to live rather than the other way round." Wealthy retirees today also already live an essentially post-money existence, "traveling and exploring and deepening their understanding of the world and being generally happy." According to Saadia we're beginning to get a few hints of what the post-money, reputation-based economy might look like. "If you look at things like Instagram, Vine, places where people put a huge amount of work into basically just gaining a certain amount of reputation, it's fascinating to see. Or even Wikipedia, for that matter. The Internet has begun to give us a hint of how much people will work, for no money, just for reputation."

Comments

Yes, here's the evidence...

[MindPrison]

...minus the replicator:

We're in for a rough ride. A real rough ride. Automation is increasing fast, industry production is being outsourced to 3rd world countries or where labour is cheap, this isn't new, but it's increasing rapidly now. The 1% Richest Elite in America owns 40% of the country, and the rest of the world, the scenario isn't far away. One day, there will be severe uproars amongst the increasingly poor population, not to mention the INCREASING population.

The software companies are essentially building platforms rather than hiring, the industry heads for full automation. The days where you had manual labour is on a fast track to oblivion, all the unemployment numbers speaks for themselves. People are more and more RENTING their own homes rather than owning, more laws are being imposed on the populations "freedoms" to keep them in line during this transaction to new times, it happens with a speed that's similar to cooking a lobster, it dies, but it's so comfortable while dying in the heat that it gets docile and have no clue what's coming, same with the population. We slowly accept the situation.

At some point, there will be so few jobs that socialism technically controls everything, and socialism will by then look more like slavery than freedom and democracy. Voting for all of the above instead of several parties...because they all steer in that direction, they just know...telling you, isn't going to work. But telling you what you WANT to hear, will work. (For them!)

This sounds like some crazy conspiracy tinfoil hat theory, right?

Well it isn't. And it's happening right in front of you, you know it...harder and harder to get a proper job, highly educated people clueless to why they can't get a decent job. Forget manual labour jobs, those are already given to those before you that'll give up their jobs over their cold dead hands before giving it to you, so they now work OVERTIME. Why do you think we just passed laws to allow higher overtime pay?

And property? Don't even get me started. Do you guys remember the 2007 crisis? When hundreds of thousands of people had to leave their homes because they couldn't afford to pay their mortgages? And foreclosures was abundant? Guess what happened after that. Two things, a lot of houses where left abandoned and the banks/financial institutions lost billions on houses that became trashed, unmaintained and uncared for while people still had their debt which they can't possibly hope for to ever repay, now if they had kept their homes - they would have stood a fighting chance, but no. Corporate greed eats itself up.

The second thing that happened, was that smart real estate investors came and purchased the foreclosed homes, and rented them out.

Joblessness, lack of freedom, lack of happiness, lack of money, lack of jobs, outsourcing, automation will ultimately lead to one of the worst periods in history, civil wars will break out, huge fights amongst growing masses of unemployed welfare recipients fighting against the elite who has the law-in-hand, for food and basic needs. This will probably last a good 20 years or so, until we phase into the next "moneyless" society.

The moneyless society is actually good, but it's going to be a rough ride (as described above), and the hardest part will be to convince those with the money to part with the monetary system for good, for the common good of everyone, this will eventually equal man to everyone, and our future jobs will basically be to secure our planets resources and stability. But there's going to be ONE huge fight before we get there. Brace yourselves!