Can Star Trek's World With No Money Work In Real life? (cnn.com)

The economics of the Star Trek universe were discussed at New York Comic Con on Sunday. Paul Krugman was among the panelists who debated whether a world without money could actually work. CNN reports: "Star Trek has dared to 'boldly go where no man has gone before' — including a world without money. 'One of the things that's interesting about Star Trek is that it does try to imagine a post-scarcity economy where there's no money. People don't work for it. People don't work because they have to but because they want to,' said Annalee Newitz, the editor of Gawker's io9 blog. Newitz -- along with Nobel Prize winner and economist Paul Krugman, 'Treknomics' author Manu Saadia, economics professor Brad DeLong, Fusion's Felix Salmon and Star Trek writer Chris Black -- discussed economics through the lens of the Star Trek world at a New York Comic Con panel Sunday."

Comments

Re:No

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, but in Culture there were still things you could not just have. Like position in Contact or SC. There was kind of bartering involved with things like information also. So, overall, pretty well presented and believable post-scarcity scenario if you ask me. Note that Culture also had basic immortality as inviduals. And most of the "humans" were pretty close to well kept pets. And seemingly the whole society was kind of lost with their search for the meaning of life. Great books, highly recommended.

Re:No

[Eunuchswear]

For as long as communities have existed, there has been evidence of bartering.

This turns out to be untrue. Before the invention of money most systems seem to have been based on a gift economy, not barter. In fact debt, accountancy, and later money, were invented as a way of keeping track of the gift economy.

Barter tends to come into existence as when money collapses, it post-dates, not pre-dates money.