Money

[Teaos]

We all know that money supposedly does not exist for humans and supposedly for the Federation as a whole.

Now Graham has an artical in DITL which stats all the verious areas that monaey are mentioned if you want to check it out.

My problem is not wether they claim it to be true but the utter impossibility of it.

I understand the ethic behind it. There is bountiful supplies and people only take what they need (pfft yeah right) so there is no need for money.

But that only works for basic needs. What about wants.

What if someone really likes art. How do you get your hands on some art. Does someone paint something you see it in a window and grab it?

There just has to be some form of money.

Especially when dealling with other species that do have money. You can't barter for everything. They may not want anything you have.

Also it is shown that Siskos family have a restaurant? What do people just go in there eat there food then bugger off?

[Blackstar the Chakat]

There has to be some form of money, otherwise what motivation is there to do work? I figure most needs are taken care of so there's no poverty.

Maybe physical money no longer exists and it's all digital. That would explain why Federation people stumble with hard currency. There just has to be some method of money. I don't see how an entire society could operate then. A few small villages could do it, but not an entire planet.

[Teaos]

Credits were mentioned a few times but TNG retconned them away.

I believe there motivation for working was as Picard said "Self improvement"

Apparently humanity collectivly decided we should all try to be the best we can be... pfft.

[Graham Kennedy]

If you read the Culture novels by Iain M Banks, he has a much better thought out version of this philosophy.

The idea goes that in the Culture, the means of production comprehensively outweigh the needs and even the wants of the citizenry by a massive magnitude - this is a society that can build Dyson spheres, incidentally.

So why have money? You want something, you ask for it, it's given to you. Food, housing, whatever. Want art? Any artwork ever made could be replicated and you can have an atom by atom copy.

But that's only half of it. The other half is societal. In the Culture people are raised from birth to believe that ownership of property is pretty much a null concept. They build to last; your house was probably there a thousand years before you were born, and it will be there a thousand years after you die... saying you own it is like saying you own a mountain.

There are exceptions, of course. But if people want to go around claiming they own things, others tend to just laugh at them behind their back.

As for work... most of it is done for fun. The Culture is highly mechanised, nobody has to work. The place would still function just fine if every Human sat around and did nothing. But most Humans do some sort of work, just to avoid boredom.

The Federation, or at least Humanity, *could* work like this. You could interpret what we see as that kind of society. But the writers certainly never made any consistent effort to depict it.

Which is one of the things that annoys me about the whole "no money" thing. If they had decided on it, stuck with it, and tried to show how it worked and what the consequences would be, it would be great. But they act like there is money 90% of the time, and then just declare that there isn't the other 10% of the time. It's annoying.

[Blackstar the Chakat]

I remember in Voyager, Janeway told Kes how she and Tuvok bought a meditation candle from a Vulcan master who doubled the price when he saw the uniforms. So maybe just humans got rid of conventional money? Or maybe Picard was trying to sound impressive with the self-improvement stuff.

[Teaos]

Yeah it seems like they just say money isnt around to sound important.

One possibla explanation is each ship has a kind of open bank on it. You want something from another culture you take as much as you need. But then you would need to have very restrained people to do something like that.

[Sionnach Glic]

Maybe for another race, that type of system could work. But for humans, it's just imposible. Greed is literaly bred into us, its a part of our instincts to want as much as possible. There is no possible way, short of brainwashing, that you could ever get someone to work for no personal reward.
Even the USSR had money.

[Teaos]

But society has changed. Maybe we managed to teach our children better.

[Sionnach Glic]

Very unlikely.
Did greed disapear in the USSR? Where people were constantly told, and thought, to forget it? No, because that is our nature. The only thing that would rid us of that is brainwashing.

[Blackstar the Chakat]

Very unlikely.
Did greed disapear in the USSR? Where people were constantly told, and thought, to forget it? No, because that is our nature. The only thing that would rid us of that is brainwashing.

That means it's a conspiracy! They've brainwashed us! We never landed on the moon! The President can hear my thoughts! Red and Blue are the same! They put floride in my water!

[Sionnach Glic]

Well that was....random...

[Bryan Moore]

Well even without the greed of money, it's not like its true equality for everyone. Lets not forget the intellectual elitism we see in The Next Generation. If the richest arent' the most powerful, certainly the best trained/well educated are. Not to mention the fact that we essentially have a nicer version of fascism, what with the military presence of Starfleet dominating society. But thats for a different thread. Hmmm.

[Monroe]

Well fascist at the core is that all work is honorable and all work should be for the good of the country (Federation).

Yep, sounds like fascistism to me.

[Captain Seafort]

Well even without the greed of money, it's not like its true equality for everyone. Lets not forget the intellectual elitism we see in The Next Generation. If the richest arent' the most powerful, certainly the best trained/well educated are. Not to mention the fact that we essentially have a nicer version of fascism, what with the military presence of Starfleet dominating society. But thats for a different thread. Hmmm.

Not fascism, but communism. State ownership of the means of production, state control of communications and transport, excessive military control of the government, (theoretical) lack of money, subordination of the individual to the state - it all fits.

[Sionnach Glic]

Personaly, I consider the fact that the military conducts civilian trials to be the most damning piece of evidence towards teh Federation.

*goes off to find source*