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The Star Trek Economy

• gress 13y ago
  It's worth emphasising that a great deal of work in unnecessary for improving net happiness and consumes resources in the process and so undermines long term prosperity.
  • robbiep 13y ago
    But without a scarcity (market) economy how do you determine which is which?
    • npunt 13y ago
      Awareness. Present people with a real problem, explain its implications, and show how someone can make a difference, and you get action. Most people want to do the right thing, but can't figure out where to start or what good looks like. The culture our kids grow up in (through media, educational institutions, community support, etc) is not particularly good at this yet. The work we can do on the internet is to translate phenomena into data, stories, and experiences that build awareness of problems and build skills to solve them.
      • tiatia 13y ago
        Yeah. North Korea is pretty good in this to help people figure out what they want. The typical person is closer to Homer Simpson than to the intelligent, long term thinking and rational decision making individual.
        • rasz_pl 13y ago
          Now that you mentioned it, Idiocracy (2006) is also post scarcity idyllic universe.
    • gress 13y ago
      It's actually the scarcity economy which prevents us from determining which is which. Because we need to work to get the basic resources needed for living, there is a huge incentive to do whatever sells rather than actually makes things better. I am neither advocating nor rejecting a basic income as a solution, but you can use it as a thought experiment to consider this. If people didn't need to work, why would they do things that consume resources and make us less happy?
  • patio11 13y ago
    A heretical thought I have had about Star Trek: the Federation has no need for Star Fleet. They're fantastically wealthy and cannot meaningfully gain from trade in physical items. They're not just singularity-esque wealthy relative to the present-day US, they're equally more secure. Nobody kills mass numbers of Federation citizens. That occasionally happens on poor planets elsewhere. Sucks but hey poverty sucks. So why have a Star Fleet? Because Jean Luc Picard is a Federation citizen, and he wouldn't be happy as other than a starship captain. It's a galaxy-spanning Potempkin village to make him happy. Why would they do that? You're thinking like a poor person. Think like an unfathomably rich person. They do it because they can afford to. He might have had a cheaper hobby, like say watching classic TV shows, but the Federation is so wealthy that Starfleet and a TV set both round to zero. This makes Star Fleet officers into in-universe Trekkies: a peculiar subculture of the Federation who are tolerated because despite their quirky hobbies and dress they're mostly harmless. Of course if you're immersed in the subculture, Picard looks like something of a big shot. We get that impression only because the camera is in the subculture, not in the wider Federation, which cares about the Final Frontier in the same way that the United States cares about the monarch butterfly: "We probably have somebody working on that, right? Bright postdoc somewhere? Good, good."
    • stormbrew 13y ago
      Yep. Aside from the fact that Star Trek economics make no sense simply because there have been several ideological shifts in its fundamental nature over the last 50 years, this is by far the best and most obvious answer to any question of why there are still people flying around in spaceships. Post-scarcity doesn't mean post-danger. No one has to do luge in the Winter Olympics to survive, and not more than 4 years ago someone died doing it, and yet people continue to do so.
      • patio11 13y ago
        Yep. This means that when the Federation media covers the battle of Wolf 359 (11k dead, worst military disaster in centuries) it probably caused a brief flurry of controversy leavened with "Well at least they died doing what they loved: live-action role playing" and then it promptly went back to more interesting topics like which pop stars had just broken up. It naturally follows that Earth was never in serious danger at any point because, hah, are you insane? We just didn't hit the Borg cube with the Lance of Judgement and instakill it from half a galaxy away because that would have been a terrible affront to Picard's character arc, and we really care about that sort of thing. Look at our Prime Directive: we'd rather genocide an entire race than interfere too much in the story. (Heh, psych, we're not total psychos. The Prime Directive strikes a few chords with our culture, because it needs to sound plausible to Starfleet officers, but isn't our main guiding principle any more than the US is based on not violating a shot clock. The Prime Directive is actually just there to provide interesting moral situations for Star Trek officers. We wargamed out several hundred generations of officers on a Holodeck simulation and they end up tremendously unfulfilled when doing the right thing is obvious, possible, and successful, like it always is in real life in the Federation.)
• sdegutis 13y ago
  Very good points.
• nhaehnle 13y ago
  An interesting read, but there is one paragraph in particular that sounds a bit like an elaborate troll. Take a look at this: The most notable is participatory economics, or parecon. This is a worthwhile attempt, I think, but to me it doesn’t quite pass the smell test of being sufficiently un-communist, what with its workers councils and lack of any sort of ruling class. All very un-American, [...] Did the author just imply that they are in favor of having a ruling class? Then, just after that: When you start thinking this way you start getting into the dodgy world of heterodox economics and, well, that’s a world of a lot of crackpots. Some good ideas, sure, but a lot of crackpots, and more to the point, it’s a world devoid of empirical research, which is a serious problem. Uh yeah, go talk to a real heterodox economist, and they will explain to you how a lack of listening to real world data is actually the core problem of orthodox economics. By the way: What's lacking in the initial brief discussion of alternative economic system is that aside from capitalism (i.e., firms are privately owned, compete in the market) and centrally planned communism (i.e., firms are state-owned and follow a central plan) there are also variants of market socialism (i.e., firms are typically state-owned and compete in the market).
  • rickwebb 13y ago
    Original author here: 1) No trolling, just sarcasm. Not a comment on my personal beliefs, more along the lines of "wouldn't wash with a bunch of American TV writers during the cold war." I hope it's pretty clear that someone who wrote this isn't so into a "ruling class"! 2) Okay that one might have been a bit of a troll. There is some good heteroeconomics out there. Including, this, I hope. ;) But yeah. The goal here was to paint a way to the future without getting bogged down in that world.
    • notahacker 13y ago
      I thought you were trolling when you cited parecon as an example of heterodox economics that was actually good. "Democratically" achieved job rotation to ensure everyone does an equal share of "empowering" and "disempowering" work? Really?
• harshreality 13y ago
  I think this is a useless exercise. The economics of Star Trek won't be coherent, because it was pieced together through multiple series and some wishful thinking while retaining certain properties needed for the universe to be interesting. You can't have a TV show about drone ships flying around and beaming back exploration data via subspace. Without Star Trek replicators in the foreseeable future, all the 3d printing and robots in the world will not give us unlimited amounts of basic materials needed. Concrete and glass might be virtually unlimited, but certain metals are definitely not. If those resource constraints lead to energy constraints, we'll have problems getting to any sort of proto-post-scarcity stage at current standards of living. AI might solve the problem, but the consequences of AI are unpredictable (singularity). A few books on the subject worth mentioning, but not mentioned in the essay: Doctorow - Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom (fiction, set in a speculative world where the economic system is based on units of social status called whuffies; everyone is born with some, if I recall right (nope, apparently I was wrong, it's not zero-sum), and from there it's a free market). Rifkin - The End of Work (nonfiction, takes a look at how society might function as jobs gradually disappear due to technology). Iain Banks's Culture universe is mentioned in the further reading section, but it's completely post-scarcity on planet and orbital scales, with AIs running everything. The aforementioned books are much closer to home.
  • hitchhiker999 13y ago
    I do not prefer your 'harsh reality' - but good luck to you! I choose something else.
  • InclinedPlane 13y ago
    > Concrete and glass might be virtually unlimited, but certain metals are definitely not. Automated asteroid mining basically takes care of that. Even the largest asteroids can be easily excavated right down to the core, and many of them contain a wide abundance of many metals, basically everything from Lithium to Copper to Nickel to Platinum or Iridium. With low gravity and 24/7 in situ solar power any reasonable separation technology can just be let loose and given time to work. Near Earth orbit there's more than 10 gigajoules of energy available per year per square meter from solar power, and that includes factoring in the efficiency of conversion.
• jedmeyers 13y ago
  What are those "we" the author keeps talking about? - "we" actually have the capacity - "we" don't have the will I have the will but don't have the capacity. I am assuming that author also has the will. So, again, who are those "we" that don't have the will? And how is the author planning to make them to go against their will to not have the will?
  • hitchhiker999 13y ago
    I assume this is a 'thought piece' - it is designed to foster discussion. I don't think the author is suggesting a force against any will. The 'we' refers to his understanding of the collective '?consciousness?' subjectively observed in his surroundings.
  • cryoshon 13y ago
    Probably he means "we" as a generous substitution for "the unwashed and politically unenlightened proliteriat who compose the vast majority of humans". I also have the will, and we definitely have the capacity right now. Think of it this way: have you ever wanted to go to the store to buy food, and the store has been out of food? Have you ever been to the computer store to buy a computer and the store has been out of computers? Have you ever been to the doctor's (as scheduled) and the office has been out of medicine? What about housing? We're already past the technological-industrial barriers required for post-scarcity, just not post-work (yet). What doesn't exist is the general public's will to make this a reality, even though it would certainly benefit them.
• sabbatic13 13y ago
  Umm, documentary fallacy much? That and pretending like hundreds of scripts written by dozens of hands somehow cohere. Oh, yes, and that thing about people not living according to economic theories, but having societies and cultures, only a slice of which economic theories try to capture. And while I'm at it, the fact that economic theories float above the actual behavior of humans and only thinly capture what they are up to, while floating below any serious philosophy that explain why people should or do anything in the first place.
• thaumaturgy 13y ago
  So, economic models are more or less based on, or at least constrained by, human psychology, right? Communism and socialism don't work because peoples' brains aren't wired to do lots of work for little or no or unequal reward. This isn't restricted to just people, either, it's been observed in monkeys (http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/09/0917_030917_monkeyfairness.html http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/09/0917_030917_..., https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lKhAd0Tyny0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lKhAd0Tyny0 -- it's a short video and pretty hilarious, worth a watch). At the same time, capitalism has serious flaws, also exploited by human psychology. Capitalism rewards not just work and the investment of capital but also greed and cheating. So, when looking for a new economic model, why not go back to psychology? Is it really true that most people don't want to work? There are some people who are content to receive a small stipend and spend their lives jut getting by without doing very much, but does that describe enough people to cause the collapse of a strong welfare society? I think we probably are headed towards a post-scarcity (or low-scarcity) economy. Food costs as percentage of income in the U.S. have fallen quite a bit just in the last thirty years (http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-02-28/americas-shrinking-grocery-bill http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-02-28/americas-shr...). People are already going to find that it takes less real effort to survive (http://www.economist.com/news/finance-and-economics/21596529-americas-labour-market-has-suffered-permanent-harm-closing-gap http://www.economist.com/news/finance-and-economics/21596529..., posted earlier to HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7235810 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7235810). A different economic model seems inevitable. Likewise, there will probably always be jobs that people don't want to do. Take oil rig work for example: hard, dangerous work, and it pays well, starting at the U.S. median wage for unskilled, inexperienced labor (http://money.cnn.com/2012/05/10/news/economy/oil_workers/ http://money.cnn.com/2012/05/10/news/economy/oil_workers/) and going up from there. As long as demand for this labor doesn't fall, if the available labor pool continues to shrink, those jobs should net greater incomes. Maybe we'll see an economy, not quite like Star Trek's, but with a large leisure class and a well-paid class of plumbers, construction workers, mechanics, and technicians. That would be kinda neat.
  • Gupie 13y ago
    "peoples' brains aren't wired to do lots of work for little or no or unequal reward" This is the actuality for most people in the West or the Third World. Thinks sweat shops, paddy fields, StarBucks...
• tiatia 13y ago
  Scarcity was a problem, is a problem and always will be a problem: http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2011/07/galactic-scale-energy/ http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2011/07/galactic-scale-e... And sorry to break the news to you: A capitalistic system can not be run without growth and nobody has ever been able to show how it is possible to run a "steady-state" economy, The end is near. Enjoy the ride!
  • Xylakant 13y ago
    > nobody has ever been able to show how it is possible to run a "steady-state" economy This is a non-argument. Before money was created, nobody had been able to show that a non-barter economy would work. Or capitalism for that matter. The fact that nobody has so far has figured out a way to make it work doesn't mean anything. The only thing of interest would be conclusive proof that it's impossible. I'm fairly sure that at some point we need to move over to some sort of steady-state economy due to the scarcity problem [1]. I'm also fairly sure that the transition will happen in small steps and people will only notice afterwards. Some pieces are already being discussed and some have been tried, such as currencies with negative interest, basic income, ... [1] The only other option being mass extinction. That's a bit meh, I don't feel like being part of that. I'll rather choose Star Trek :)
    • tiatia 13y ago
      Question: What is money? And something existed before "money" was "created". It was and is called "debt".
      • lutusp 13y ago
        > And something existed before "money" was "created". It was and is called "debt". The word you're looking for is "barter", not debt. Debt exists whether or not there is money.
        • tiatia 13y ago
          yes. And this is why I was talking about "debt" and not "barter".
• teddyh 13y ago
  This should be read in the context of the grand-daddy of such posts, The Economics of Star Trek (http://www.stardestroyer.net/Empire/Essays/Trek-Marxism.html http://www.stardestroyer.net/Empire/Essays/Trek-Marxism.html), written back in 2000.
• deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
• patrickphilips 13y ago
  Reminded me of Krugman's Theory of Interstellar Trade (http://www.princeton.edu/~pkrugman/interstellar.pdf http://www.princeton.edu/~pkrugman/interstellar.pdf)
• dbcooper 13y ago
  The Volokh Conspiracy post, How Federal is Star Trek's Federation?, was probably the best thing I've read on Trek's political economy. http://www.volokh.com/posts/1190182117.shtml http://www.volokh.com/posts/1190182117.shtml
  • emil0r 13y ago
    That was entirely worth the time to read. Very interesting take on it and it also shows how damaged I am by online forums thinking it read like a perfect troll.
  • polymatter 13y ago
    Very interesting article. tl;dr the Federation is a not a political union, its a human-dominated protection racket. Non-human worlds pay Earth for protection and Earth maintains a post-scarcity economy from living off the proceeds of tribute. In this context, the Prime Directive ensures ambitious captains don't takeover planets that are likely to be a net drain on resources.
  • ItendToDisagree 13y ago
    Great link! One thing that always bothered me about The Federation was how they treated certain worlds and members. Recall the TNG episode Journey's End where the Enterprise is sent to remove what amounted to some 'Space Native Americans' from a planet the Federation had given to Cardassians in a treaty. The inhabitants in question were members of the Federation (with all the rights that was supposed to confer) but they were (going to be) forced off the planet. The only way they could stay on their planet was to give in to the treaty and make themselves inhabitants of what was then a Cardassian planet (and arguably Cardassian property). Then there is the TNG movie Insurrection. Where a group of settlers who are not Federation citizens were going to be transported off of their planet against their will. But Picard decides that they deserve to stay on the planet so the Enterprise destroys the Federation/alien ships that were sent to do the relocation (among other things and aliens). So why is it the Federation wont fight for actual Federation members, but they will fight for some random civilization because of 'reasons'? Ok I'm done with my Star Trek rant and feel like a terrible nerd now. Thank you for letting me vent and for the link. Nerd gland expressed. Edit: For a laugh Google the Red Letter Media Harry Plinket review of Insurrection which goes deeper into this.
• terranstyler 13y ago
  Post-scarcity economics sounds to me like post-human anthropology or post-matter physics, i.e. economics is by definition science on "managing" scarcity. No scarcity, no trade, no economics. Honestly, capitalism would be a good system if we had just one example. Closest example is maybe Hongkong or Singapure, see http://www.heritage.org/index/ranking http://www.heritage.org/index/ranking
  • pbhjpbhj 13y ago
    >capitalism would be a good system // The reason we have overlays on capitalistic systems seems to me to be because capitalism values the masses [people] at approaching zero, except where slavery/soylent green/organ harvesting and such is allowed. Scenario: Humanland has a dearth of population who're not adding culturally or through labour to their pure capitalist economy - if they kill them and use them for animal feed they will both add resources and reduce outputs. Under capitalism, why not? Capitalism starts with financial wealth and aims to increase it through competition. Communism starts with human society and aims to support its needs through cooperation. The later always seems to be far more reasonable to me. You intimate [I think this is what you're saying] that there has never been a capitalist economy and that this would be best - absolute market freedom - I'd like to see a communist society that didn't degrade in to a dictatorship. In recent historical economic systems it seems this pithy aphorism is apposite: "Under capitalism, man exploits man. Under communism, it's just the opposite." (J K Galbraith, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Kenneth_Galbraith https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Kenneth_Galbraith)
• oelmekki 13y ago
  I like the exercise and the thoughts developed, but all of it is based on the fact that a post-scarcity state is happening. This is very XIXth century like : "science will abolish work !". A proof of post-scarcity happening presented is the amount of obesity in US. Let just pretend obesity is just a problem of having too much food, and not at all a problem of bad nutrition or genetics. The fact still remains that while there are a lot of obesity in usa, there still have a lot of hunger in other parts of the world. Could not it be just a repartition problem rather than abundance ? There's an other sign that could lead to think we're indeed not at the edge of post-scarcity. Currently, many previously called poor countries are getting wealthier. What do we observe in previously called rich countries ? Economical crisis hitting harder and harder. That may not be a coincidence.
  • 001sky 13y ago
    Scarcity is rooted in social rank, it is a (by) product of psychology, and politics, not strictly speaking economics. Someone has to have the corner office, date the homecoming queen, and be the ranking executive. This is true outside of markets...just look at...firms. That's the unfortunate dead-end of this type of thought experiment. Although, I otherwise applaud its focus on interesting phenomenon. Because in many ways the ~premise is likely true: we can feed, cloth and shelter the world with only a small subset of working primates doing the "work". What we can't do...is give everyone the best house in the neighborhood, the choicest cuts of meats, and the most attractive partners. But that latter bit of ~scarcity is true...logically. Empirically it is an observation independent of the the proposed explanatory variable (economic system X^). Its not the x^, but the physics of life that creates scarcity. At least when sociological factors are considered.[1] Edit: [1] See, for example, the notion of 'hedonic adaptation'. Evidence of this also exists as ~shadow 'fairness' principles, in non-human primates, and also observable in domesticated canines.
    • tomp 13y ago
      > What we can't do...is give everyone the best house in the neighborhood I think that we can, because land is plentiful, and construction can soon be automated. True, not everyone will be able to live in city centres, but given that most people come to the cities only for work, if there is no need to work, many would probably prefer to live in villages and close to nature.
• JumpCrisscross 13y ago
  One capitalist hybrid which does not distort the market is a free market with a basic income [1], i.e. an unconditional income as a right of being a citizen. At what level - survival, comfort, or luxury - the income is set is an open question to each society. Too high and scarcity erupts in the form of inflation, too low and inequality and populism corrode the society. Post-scarcity economics is more the study of localised phenomena. As alluded to in the post, some things will likely always be in short supply somewhere. [1] http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_income http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_income
  • marknutter 13y ago
    What is this "basic income" you speak of?
  • skylan_q 13y ago
    One capitalist hybrid which does not distort the market is a free market with a basic income Yes, it does distort. Why work on a manufacturing line producing required and high-demand materials and equipment when instead you can be creating arts and crafts that very few people would want and adds little to the productive capacity of the economy? People need to realize that prices are not just a pain in the butt, but they are useful pieces of economic information.
    • sopooneo 13y ago
      Potentially, people might work on factory lines for extra money, so they could buy more stuff.
    • AngrySkillzz 13y ago
      The key point to basic income, in my opinion, is that it seems like it would increase social welfare while minimally distorting prices and being cheap to administer. So let's take this to its logical conclusion, that lots of people don't work/do "useless" jobs, but still want to buy high-demand goods. Demand gets higher, and prices for those goods go up. Does this break the economic signalling mechanism? I'd argue that it doesn't, price signals are still firmly in place. Producers of high-demand goods can afford to raise salaries and attract more workers. There is still an incentive to work. On top of that, necessary goods with a satiation point (e.g. food and shelter) would be more resistant to these effects. You don't need more food than you can eat or more houses than you can live in. If you aren't working, you still have to mind your money and budget accordingly; it's not like everything is free.
• bayesianhorse 13y ago
  I wouldn't use Star Trek as a canon for post-scarcity economics, it's more like an inspiration. In fact we are seeing the elements of the vocational aspects already: Look at all the Bloggers, the Kickstarters, Youtubers, Justin Bieber at the start of his "career". Aren't they essentially taking a ton of infrastructure and a weird "diffusive" sort of income already? Joseph Sisko's restaurant in our terms might be more like a kind of hobby rather than a serious economic enterprise. The guests might not pay anything at all, it's just that owner and guests do this because they enjoy making food and eating food, rather than eating from a replicator. You just don't see all the shitty restaurants noone ever goes to...
• etler 13y ago
  >The big challenge here is how does society get someone to do the menial jobs that cannot be done in an automated manner. Are there examples of menial jobs in the Star Trek universe? I would imagine by then there simply are no menial jobs. I'm not sure what menial job examples there are that can't be automated. The jobs left over are interesting jobs. I'd imagine the motivation to do so are on par with the same motivation to get a phd. Few people get phds solely to get better job prospects, but rather do it for personal enlightenment and passion. Also the same goes for the infinitely wealthy. If you accumulate billions of dollars and die donating those billions to charity, you weren't motivated solely to have more wealth, but something greater than that.
  • rasz_pl 13y ago
    I dont remember seeing any robots (other than Data) on Star Trek. How do you propose to fix broken replicator? or a toilet? Best case scenario is you throw whole thing away and put a new one - now someone has to unbolt the old unit, get the new one out of storage, push it through half of the ship and mount it.
    • Nicholas_C 13y ago
      Maybe things didn't break. I would assume everything in the Star Trek universe is super high quality and doesn't just break like things we have today.
      • philwelch 13y ago
        Considering how busy everyone is in Engineering I find that unlikely.
    • etler 13y ago
      I don't consider being a mechanic to be a menial job necessarily. I was thinking more about boring jobs where you do the exact same thing over and over again, like working fast food or factory work. A mechanic has to solve new problems all the time making it more interesting and fulfilling.
  • 13y ago
• Udo 13y ago
  The fundamental take-away here is that old systems die, whether proponents of the old system believe it's possible or not. I think parallels can be drawn between a lot of articles written by people so deeply embedded in the status quo they literally can't fathom their pet concept might go away at some point in the future. And sure enough, this one is written by a venture capitalist. Of course, a post-scarcity world is inherently incomprehensible to people who are economists, in much the same way a rational world motivated by ethics is incomprehensible to a religious person. The first sign of this is vocabulary, they'll insist on a "post scarcity economy" or a "religion of science" respectively. While it's probably true that there will always be aspects of supply and demand, and it's likely also true that people will always believe in certain ideas, it's really questionable if these terms as they're being used still mean anything. These word choices are a subconscious expression of the perceived impossibility of an idea. For example, a world with (almost) no manual labor. Or a world where things are so abundant that for practical purposes of daily life there is no shortage of supply. When looking at Star Trek it's first and foremost important to keep in mind that these are stories intended to entertain. As such it's moot to try and incorporate every episode of every show into some kind of big common canon. The issue is not whether "Federation Credits" (must) exist, the trick here is to look at the broader concept presented. There are scientific indications that the general idea of the Star Trek "economy" is valid. When a civilization gets access to advanced robotics, the ability to mine entire star systems for resources, and advanced 3d printers, it generates a setting that pretty much speaks for itself. The interesting aspect here is that this state of affairs is very likely in the cards for humanity's future. Of course, there are extremely strong aspects of our society still prominent in Star Trek. This is grossly unrealistic, but probably necessary for storytelling purposes. For example, DS9 was really out of touch with the in-universe realities of manufacturing and labor, but it made for some pretty awesome stories. I believe in the future we have a choice to make when it comes to scarcity, and the battle lines are already drawn today. People who are invested in the status quo will not only tell everyone it's impossible but they will go to great lengths in keeping scarcity alive. Artificial scarcity perpetrated by big powerful players is already a big staple in today's system, and that's only going to get more audacious with growing technical capabilities. I think a good argument could be made that this will lead to horrific social and economic pathologies, and it probably already has. The big reason the alternatives are scary to a lot of people is not just because they fear a loss of traditional values and social cohesion. It's scary to them because this kind of future is inherently experimental and so far doesn't seem to yield itself to planning from on-high. This means there will most likely be a huge loss of power and influence in the turmoils ahead and it's going to be very difficult to port existing power structures to that new kind of society. Whether this fundamental transformation is even stoppable in the long run is an open question. There are certainly scenarios imaginable where we just stagnate instead of moving on. It's also not inconceivable that the human civilization might fracture and split up into different groups pursuing their own trajectories - and at least one of them might elect to keep scarcity alive indefinitely.
• loahou04 13y ago
  Human greed pretty much takes over. Social pressures won't work because people will always want to "keep up with the jones" or show off what they have done. The only way you could have post scarcity is if everything and anything in the living reality could be created, which of course is just highly improbable if not impossible due to the emotional nature of our species as well as differences in individual needs and wants (I.e. Not everyone can fall in love and be married or be just as popular or be just as good I sports). Personally, I don't think there is a reason we can't have a better welfare system, I just don't think we should care about those who do not contribute to society. If all people in Star Trek are now in it for the bettering of the human race than that would mean not a single person is thinking of themselves, which much like greed, is a natural human state of mind. Do we know what/who is going to better society, no we don't. However, with capitalism people democratically choose what does and doesn't. To have government subsidize specific items/ideas we leave capitalism and start having a centrally governed panel who picks the winners, or at least subsidizes them. Let the free hand of capitalism decide who can contribute the most to society and let the people also decide who much they should be rewarded. If anything it's not economics that needs to be changed, rather the human psychology that needs to be reformed.
  • robryan 13y ago
    The problem emerges though where there is absolutely nothing of value left, or at least minimum living standard value, left for a large group of people to do. No mater how willing these people are there is going to be very little movement up as all the positions of value are covered. What becomes of these people?
• kijin 13y ago
  > If it were, the credit would be too much like money because a) accounting is done in it, b) it is issued by a governing body (like a fiat currency) and c) it is fungible, i.e. you can already buy things with it and if you could buy things with it AND a and b were true, it would pretty much be a currency. By that reasoning, the Joule is the currency of the Federation. a) The article already supposes that "the accounting is done in energy units", so a) is satisfied. b) Energy isn't exactly "issued" by a government. But neither is gold, and this hasn't prevented gold from being money through most of human history. c) Finally, energy is fungible, especially if you have replicators. 1KWh of electricity in your battery is as good as any other 1KWh of electricity. It doesn't matter whether the people who live in the Star Trek universe actually call it "money" or not. If it walks like money and quacks like money, it is money. And once there's technology to convert anything to and from energy relatively easily, a Joule does sound like a good candidate for a universally accepted unit of value. An alien species might not give a damn about some shiny yellow metal, but they need good ol' Joules just as much as we do.
  • dkuntz2 13y ago
    The Joule is basically the currency of the Federation. While most of the time in the Federation people don't use currency and get what they need/want, in Voyager because there suddenly was scarcity again they implemented replicator rationing.
    • talmand 13y ago
      I wasn't the biggest fan of Voyager, I saw episodes here and there so maybe someone can explain this idea to me. I saw a few of the episodes where they described the rationing of replicator usage due to some shortage of something. I never understood this as the replicators are described as transforming a base material into near anything a person asks for which required energy to perform this task. The ship was the source of the energy and canon suggests that as long as the systems were working properly there was an over-abundance of energy available for use. Granted it wouldn't be a good idea to ask for a cup of tea while the ship had full shields engaged with constant phasers firing during a battle. But during normal warp hops there shouldn't be a problem. If the power system was having problems then it stands to reason that going to warp wouldn't work as it required an immense amount of energy to accomplish. Which is the reason for the massive power system in the first place. It couldn't be a shortage of base material because just about anything could be used and the ships took advantage of a massive recycling effort that almost everything discarded was transformed back into the base material that was stored on the ship. It would be easy to replace if need be so it had to be an energy shortage of some type. I always felt the replicator rationing was just a writer's way to excuse Neelix suddenly becoming a cook on the ship for additional storylines. It didn't make sense to me. So, what was the rationale behind the replicator rationing? Did it even make sense? To be fair, I had lots of problems with Voyager which is apparently why I never cared for it. I probably just couldn't get into the spirit of things to enjoy the show as envisioned.
• squozzer 13y ago
  My reading of history tells me the human hunger for wealth and power (what some call greed) would easily adjust to any increase in prosperity, no matter how large. And some materials would still be scarce. They could not replicate dilithium, it had to be mined. So like oil is today, such materials would become the new next of power.
• blueskin_ 13y ago
  Amazing article. Explained it roughly how I always assumed it as being, but far better than I ever could have. Also, interesting link from there on The Culture, another of my favourite scifi universes: http://www.vavatch.co.uk/books/banks/cultnote.htm http://www.vavatch.co.uk/books/banks/cultnote.htm
• vinceguidry 13y ago
  I think the author overlooked a much more elegant solution to the problem of menial labor. People simply don't do it, except when they want to, and rely on automated / robotic solutions to do it for them. At some point, it will get far easier and cheaper to design and implement robotic maids than it will to convince a human to do anything resembling a good job at something people are bound to shit on him for. The economy will simply optimize all such tasks out of the system. Surfaces won't need more than the quickest of spot cleaning, people will get used to checking out their own groceries, they'll go get their own drink refills and clean off their own tables.
  • canvia 13y ago
    If every item in the grocery store had an RFID type tag your whole cart could be scanned instantly. Load the items right into bags as you shop and you're good to go, no check out required. It would making performing inventory checks a lot easier too.
• Shivetya 13y ago
  The major problems with capitalism in Western economies is that the government regulations corrupt the process and create artificial scarcity. There are lot of areas where competition does not exist because regulatory hurdles prevent or discourage it. Politicians on both sides of the Atlantic, if not everywhere, game the system. The put in rules/roadblocks to help out favored groups which in turn damages the system. As for the planned economies, well we saw how well those worked. I know, I know, the people coming up with ideas now will of course do better than THOSE people. Yet that is the typical lack of hubris politicians always show, just like ACA - of course it will be better than how those other people did it because we are so smart. Keep telling me about the EU safety net and I will keep pointing out Greece and riots in other EU countries. Sorry but I tire of hearing about a safety net then reading how bad off some of these people are. Whats the point of a net when so many slip through or never had a chance to get caught.
• bnolsen 13y ago
  this is pointless. star trek describes no real society and ther are conyinuity holes everywhere from multiple series, writers and directors. a nice dream but in no way deployable.
• motters 13y ago
  You don't need to speculate because there already is a model for post-scarcity economics in the form of free and open source software. The free software economy is more like an economy of attention or allegiance. It has sometimes been called a "doocracy" in that those folks who do things tend to get the most attention.
  • dkuntz2 13y ago
    A do-ocracy is just a form of governance. The economic system used in FOSS is similar to a gift economy.
• facepalm 13y ago
  I'm not well versed in Star Trek, but it seems to me there is at least one limited resource: jobs as captains of star ship Enterprise, for instance. Another resource that will probably always be limited: attractive mates. I think that is a good example to think about when you think about Utopia. Of course plastic surgery will be free, too, as well as psychotherapy, so perhaps we all can be perfect mates, too.
• powertower 13y ago
  > But we actually have the capacity to feed them, to feed everyone, even now, even if we don’t have the will. Careful, having the capacity to do something does not mean you should do it. An excellent way to grow a starving population from 80MM people to 800MM people in about 80 years is to feed them (these numbers aren't made up). Then all you have to do is just feed their children, and their children, and their children, until that population hits some type of a pivotal point where everything becomes great, they become independant, responsible, have a self-sustaining economy, government, start having only 1.4 children, etc. The chances of it all going horribly wrong is very high, but why not balloon the population of the world, and have all those new soles competing over limited resources.
  • philwelch 13y ago
    http://annualletter.gatesfoundation.org/#section=myth-three http://annualletter.gatesfoundation.org/#section=myth-three
    • powertower 13y ago
      So all we have to do to prevent the population booms by feeding the poor of the world is to provide them education, housing, clean water, healthcare, a good government, and about 12 other things (while praying hard to make sure they don't get dependant on that outside help)? And then after the initial exponential population run-up (which happens anyways), it will all level out in the end (with lower birth-rates). Seems kind of like the counter-argument is avoiding the issue at hand by re-framing it in terms of future birth-rates (instead of accepting the immediate reality).
      • philwelch 13y ago
        It's not like current birth rates are lower for lack of aid.
      • jotm 13y ago
        Well, if you do provide all that, it would be smart to create a better integration along the way, so it stops being 'outside help'...
• mempko 13y ago
  The way people talk about socialism and communism in the west show the sad state of our education system. communism is already a big part of our lives. When you sit at the dinner table and ask for the salt, you get it. When are at work and you ask for a code review and the person gives it to you. If the need is great enough, or the obstacles to ability are small enough, people do things. From each according to their ability, to each according to their need. Our economy is firmly based on communist actions and the capitalists exploit this. but the way that people talk about communism, as a centrally planned economy, shows great ignorance of both the literature and a blindedness to "already occurring communism"
  • tian2992 13y ago
    I agree that the article went downhill, as he implied communism requires a centrally planned anything. It just proves the author has not read enough to understand the basic tenant of a communist-like economic system.
  • macspoofing 13y ago
    >When you sit at the dinner table and ask for the salt, you get it. Actually, it's you who has a fundamental misunderstanding of communism, and yes, this probably shows the sad state of our education system. Communism is not cooperation. Sitting down to dinner with family, is not Communism. Working on a project with your friend is not Communism. Donating money, time or skills is not Communism. Communism is a particular way of allocating scare resources (which also implies a particular government structure). Capitalism is another. Communism has been shown in practice to be a devastating, corrupt and wasteful system. It doesn't work in theory either because it creates huge incentives to cheat and lie (because if you don't inflate your need, your neighbor will and he'll get more - after all you have to prove your need before you get yours). I have more, but I think I made my point.
    • saraid216 13y ago
      > Communism is a particular way of allocating scare resources (which also implies a particular government structure). Such as salt at the table, or time spent at a company. You haven't actually explained what he got wrong about communism; you're just basely asserting a negation.
• Xdes 13y ago
  How do you give everyone a basic income without leading to overpopulation?
  • Retric 13y ago
    Don't give adjust the basic income for people with children and suddenly there is a huge disincentive to having kids. Play with the numbers until the population growth or shrinking balances out.
• DanielBMarkham 13y ago
  Capitalism isn't a model that we try on, like we would try on a new set of pants. Capitalism is just trading stuff. Capitalism drove the accumulation of things easily tradeable, which then, by convention, we started calling money. You can add all sorts of political systems on top of capitalism, but it never goes away. The only thing you end up doing is hurting people. I liked this article because it's an example of fiction learning from reality, then scientists trying to learn from fiction. There's a wonderful feedback loop at work between fiction and science that's neat to watch. But this post-scarcity nonsense is tripe. I trade with you, not only because I need to eat or have shelter, but because you have something I want. And I have something you want. It is our _desires_ that cause the trade, nothing else. And I don't want to live in a world where humans stop wanting stuff. Sounds horribly stagnant and/or medicated. So I liked the writing style, loved the theme, and kudos to the author for having such a good grasp of Trek lore. But from a rational-thinking standpoint, this guy ain't hitting on much. The quality of analysis itself is what's missing.
• tian2992 13y ago
  I liked the overarching idea, however the author proves himself ignorant of the basic economic ideas and concepts. The main keys of communism-socialism are the redistribution of the surplus value and the control of the means of production. Even private ownership of the land is not a requirement, even more so in a highly developed society, where land is no longer a resource highly sought to produce. I'd suggest the writer reads his Marx and Engels, and even some Adam Smith before venturing into writing on topics like this.
• dec0dedab0de 13y ago
  I just wanted to chime in that his link that says We have capitalism, of course, the proverbial worst model except for every other one actually points to http://wais.stanford.edu/Democracy/democracy_DemocracyAndChurchill%28090503%29.html http://wais.stanford.edu/Democracy/democracy_DemocracyAndChu... which is about democracy. Democracy and Capitalism are not the same thing. That is all.
• skyshine 13y ago
  I've recently gone public with a an economic system I've been developing that can bridge the gap between a free market and a post scarcity economy. http://babblingbrook.net http://babblingbrook.net
• transfire 13y ago
  The main hurdle facing post-scarcity economics is not actually scarcity. Rather it is the elitist class, who will do everything it can to ensure continued scarcity in order to keep their socioeconomic positions. We already see this today in a number of ways. For instance, if a commodity isn't scarce, it can be made scarce by effectively creating a monopoly (even if it doesn't appear to be a monopoly from the outside) and hording the commodity. The diamond industry is a good example of this. Another technique is using complex laws to ensure a great deal of labor and supplies are needed to comply. Tax laws are a great example of this. How many accountants would loose their jobs if taxes could be done in five minutes on the back of a napkin? Probably the worst tactic of all is simply the promotion of continued population growth. We really do NOT have enough resources on this planet to give everyone on it a modern life style. And it is imperative for populations to shrink. Until we are well on our way to the stars this is not going to change. But our current economic models crumble in the face of decreasing population. So we can only expect more scarcity in the future, not less.
  • skyshine 13y ago
    Then perhaps it is time to start looking for an alternative economic system. I've been developing a framework to explore new economic systems for several years. http://babblingbrook.net http://babblingbrook.net There are two pressures in society. One pushing in the direction you say and another pushing towards a post scarcity economy. Which will prevail is difficult to say, but I suspect that in the short term the status-quo definitely have an advantage, but in the long term they will most likely lose. The reason is due to a little known theory called non equilibrium thermodynamics, which essentially states that if the reconfiguring of a system (an atom, a cell, a solar system, a hurricane, society etc...) can produce more entropy in the universe, then given the opportunity, it will do that. A moribund restrictive society that inhibits innovation creates less entropy than one where everyone is free to innovate, investigate and have fun in ways that expend energy. This doesn't mean that this will automatically happen, in the same way that biological evolution uses chance to produce more adapted species, so do all forms emergent complexity due to non equilibrium thermodynamics (evolution is just one organising principle). Also, it needs to be possible for the system to organise in this way. Societies organising principle is its socio-economic system. We have had several in the past, such as a monarchic command economy, but today the most successful is free market democracy. There is no reason to presume that this is the best one. Free market democracy became possible due to several inventions and innovations, such as coins, the printing press and debt. Recently we have invented the internet and this makes many new systems possible. I've written a lot more on my theory page. http://babblingbrook.net/page/theory http://babblingbrook.net/page/theory. Sorry if this is poorly written. I have just bashed it out and would like to write more, but I have to go and get my daughter from grandmas so I don't have time...
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  • bubbleRefuge 13y ago
    A fiat currency backstops its value at least with the issuing government's willingness to accept it for payment of taxes. What is wrong with current monetary regimes? Sounds like you are suggesting a return to fixed/commodity money regimes which have failed many times over. As you suggest , fiat currency issuers backstop the value of their currency via taxation. But its not their willingness to accept the backstops it, its the power to impose mandatory taxes on the population that gives value to the currency. Warren Mosler -one of the founders of Modern Monetary Theory- has a great allegory to describe how it all works: ( I paraphrase) A group of people are in a room and I have business cards in my pocket. I have a gun in my hand and no one else does and I am standing in front of the only exit. Now I decree, in order to exit the room it will cost you 1 business card. Suddenly, the business cards have value and folks in the room will provide me goods and services in exchange for payment in business cards.
• deleted 13y ago
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• temuze 13y ago
  I think the logical conclusion in post-scarcity economy is that more things will be determined as a basic human right. Consider "the right to privacy", "the right to a job" or the "right to healthcare". Less than a century ago, many of these rights didn't exist. Now, some people are saying access to the Internet is a basic human right! So here's my theory - in a society where technology advances so much that the basic needs of humans are met with the need of little human interaction, two things will occur: 1) More things will be determined as basic human rights. A certain baseline for wealth, even. 2) We will shift more and more to being a generation of artists. I believe an AI complete being that we create will never be able to replicate a fundamental understanding of being human. Books, plays, shows, art will be a human endeavor, for humans, by humans. I believe that some sort of social capitalism will exist, where the baseline is met and those who achieve great success through art (or rarely, science), will have the opportunity to create more wealth.
• calroc 13y ago
  I've been saying for years now that Star Trek forms the best commonly-known model for what future "economics" will be like. It's really awesome to read a well-thought-out treatment of that idea. Some points in no particular order: * In the limit of nanotechnology and fusion power we can produce anything (physical.) This forces us to confront our essential challenge which is the development of good character. All forms of government are attempts to manage human wickedness. Corollary: it very nearly doesn't matter what form of government obtains if the people in that government are virtuous. * Permaculture (modelling agricultural systems on natural ecologies) is a non-technological mode of abundance. * Communism: The Smurfs. * It seems to me that the "natural" economic system varies with personal "distance". Broadly: immediate family/friends -> communistic; (Are the Amish commies? No.) neighbors -> barter / reciprocal gift-giving; strangers -> capitalism. * If there is something to that last point then as the Internet shrinks personal distance we should expect a general trend from impersonal capitalistic forms to more personal "altruistic" forms (Gittip, etc...) * As technology advances we are forced to become unwilling to "solve problems with bullets". If you are willing (for any reason) to commit violence you will perforce be kept from the really potent weapons. Already so-called "psych-ops" have become the cutting edge (no pun intended) of warfare: eliminate the enemy's desire to fight. It is only a matter of time before hippy-dippy shit becomes the obvious counter to hostilities by the intrinsic logic of warfare itself. ("Men Who Stare at Goats" is a documentary.)
• johnrob 13y ago
  There will always be scarcity; if not we'll keep making more humans until there is.
  • worldsayshi 13y ago
    Yes there will be scarcity as long as there is demand for more. More of the basics like space and food/energy. If we stop reproducing and/or consuming to the point of scarcity by choice - then we will no longer have scarcity. It's not an impossible scenario. It has happened to some cultures.
• novalis78 13y ago
  It would be interesting to see how a complete planetary financial/economic system would look like that was built on top of the blockchain: http://marscoin.org http://marscoin.org An early Mars colony would probably resemble organizationally a family/village but as soon as you get distinct locations that produce various raw materials and are run by different communities you'd probably have to fall back to facilitate free trading. It would be interesting to observe if the growing planetary GDP tied to a deflationary cryptocurreny would lead to similar boom and bust cycles as the 1870-1920s. On a planet that's close to the Asteroid belt with its resources that might lead to fascinating trading opportunities :-)
• firstOrder 13y ago
  > we have the centrally planned systems of Communism and Marxism, not particularly effective, as it turns out. Sure, China only has the second biggest economy in the world. Also for the USSR, once the civil war ended and the American soldiers and so forth had been kicked out, and Stalin gained political control - the economy had incredible growth. While the West was mired in Depression, Russia was going gangbusters building steel works and such. European and American workers went there to work, because there was work there and not the West. American companies went there as well as they were hiring contractors while American businesses were not. Russia's economy did very well under Stalin. People talk about the stagnation during the Brezhnev years, which is true, but they ignore the booming economy from the 1920s to the 1950s/1960s.
• dredmorbius 13y ago
  The fundamental problem with any post-scarcity economy is that it presumes a world in which resources aren't fundamentally constrained. It's been argued that this is in fact one of the limitations of orthodox / neoclassical economics, in that it assumes that unlimited growth it possible. That's a view that's championed, interestingly, by both the far Left (Marxist and Socialist economists) and the Right (business lobbies, various cornucopian ideologues, putatively much of the Koch-backed propogandasphere, and their Libertarian sycophants). Curious bedfellows. I've only recently run across an essay of Garrett Hardin's (of "Tragedy of the Commons" and "Lifeboat Ethics", with whom I've long been acquainted), "The Feast of Malthus" (http://www.garretthardinsociety.org/articles_pdf/feast_of_malthus.pdf http://www.garretthardinsociety.org/articles_pdf/feast_of_ma...) which explores this idea further. He notes specifically: I think that a single overarching view accounts for these and many other invectives put forward by Marxists and liberals during the past century and a half: this is the tightly held denial of limits in the supply of terrestrial resources. Friedrich Engels, Marx's collaborator and financial supporter, asserted baldly that "The productivity of the land can be infinitely increased by the application of capital, labour and science." Much of the essay continues on to discuss population. The upshot being: you can accept unconstrained consumption (but limits on population), or unrestricted procreation, with severe restrictions on individual consumption. There is no universal freedom.
• Tycho 13y ago
  In reality,the market already basically dictates this, for who can claim that a Wall Street banker works more than a teacher? Um...
• stefanobaghino 13y ago
  The article forgot to mention that in the Star Trek timeline things didn't go so smoothly: a third World War eventually occurred and only the invention of warp drive and the first contact with the Vulcans turned things around. But I think the point is another: for as much as I love Star Trek and advocate a smooth transition to a post-scarcity economy, I don't think Roddenberry and the writers that succeeded him are experts in currency, economics or even in the techologies that made that fictionary society a perfect post-scarcity economy. There are, however, some interesting thoughts that could serve as a basis for a more deep look into the post-scarcity economics. Organizations such as the Venus Project and the Zeitgeist Movement tend to advocate it under the "resource-based economy" name and I find their views interesting, relatively to this topic.
• landryraccoon 13y ago
  Here's a problem with the post scarcity economy. There will be long lines everywhere. Let's suppose Sisko's restaurant is actually good. Now people want to eat there. There are two options: either Sisko raises the price until the number of people that can eat there matches the number of seats (supply and demand) OR there's a huge line outside the restaurant until the wait time is high enough that most people don't want to eat there anymore. Since there is no money in this hypothetical society, option #2 is the only possibility. And in fact, this is going to happen at every good restaurant in the Federation. The only restaurants without lines will be the ones that suck, and the length of the line will be exactly proportional to how desireable it is to eat there. Now you could say that there are tons of restaurants as good as Siskos. But unless human beings have radically changed and there are NO FOODIES whatsoever, there will be some restaurants that are better than others, and a significant fraction of people will prefer the better ones. And the absolute quality of the restaurants relative to today doesn't matter AT ALL - all that matters is that some are better than others. The only plausible reason for Siskos to not have a line is that it is at best an average place to eat. (I shudder to imagine how long the lines must be for the best restaurant in the Federation on Valentine's Day! I think a black market based on Latinum would emerge based just on that). So, one thing that the article doesn't realize is that the absolute amount of resources available is fairly tangential to the issue of money. The issue really is that people have differing preferences. Even in a society where nobody starves because you can produce an infinite amount of food, some people will want to eat at a nicer place. "Nicer" is always relative to what is commonly available so no matter how good the restaurants are, unless they are all equally good, there will be higher demand for the better ones. See, you don't get around this problem by making more of everything. Suppose the Macdonalds of the future is the quality of a three star michelin restaurant today. Some people will want to eat at the magical 4 star michelin restaurants, but there won't be enough of them to go around. So there will be a line, or a cost.