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posted 3 years ago by AzureAceStarburst69 3 years ago by AzureAceStarburst69 +47 / -7
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– SparkPlasma 5 points 3 years ago +5 / -0

Obviously this all occurs within the “post-scarcity” (i.e. “space communism”) setting of the shows

I've heard this "post-scarcity" thing thrown out a few times now, did the shows really present a post-scarcity society? Granted, I've largely only watched TOS, but there were numerous times where there was definitely scarcity. IIRC Mudd's Women involved Mudd trapping the Enterprise in orbit of a planet by removing their fuel cells. I saw one episode of Voyager where Captain Janeway was impersonated in a trade deal in which they stiffed some miners and gave the Federation a bad name. If it was post-scarcity would it not be simple to generate the materials that they needed to fuel their ship, or to satisfy the stiffed miners? Lots of TOS revolves around war and acting as frontiersman where they are fighting over planets, trying to survive while exploring, etc. I never got the sense that they were post-scarcity.

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▲ 6 ▼
– Graphenium 6 points 3 years ago +7 / -1

I’m no economist, nor am I the biggest Trek fan, so I’ll just link you to two viewpoints on the topic:

https://old.reddit.com/r/DaystromInstitute/comments/52i48r/in_star_trek_humanity_is_not_postscarcity_it_is/

Trek is not post-“scarcity”, it is actually a depiction of a human civilization post-“greed”

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trekonomics

A book written on the subject which sides with the idea of a post-scarcity society

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▲ 5 ▼
– Isolated_Patriot 5 points 3 years ago +5 / -0

"Post-scarcity" in that absolutely no one within the federation itself has need for food or shelter and energy is limitless enough that it's not a concern for every day citizens.

However, pretty much the entirety of all the shows take place outside of the federation, thus they are both dealing with scarcity (of fuel or other advanced resources) and interacting with other societies that still have various scarcity issues.

Voyager specifically is about a single crew so far from home they are dealing with scarcity issues for the first time. That's pretty much the whole first season.

The actual day to day life and governance within the federation is pretty vague actually. There are episodes that suggest it's a highly regimented society (Ben Sisco's dad mentions not having enough transporter credits) as well as monologues which imply it is some idyllic zero-racism, zero-poverty, zero-political disagreement society. Never any explanation further than that, just "it is, because we've grown."

Those monologues fall on deaf ears when Starfleet is a militaristic, hyper-meritocracy, the entire admiralty was compromised by an alien race in the very first season of TNG, section 31 exists, extremely questionable moral decisions made by starfleet are constantly harming average people in favor of politics (much of DS9's plot), and the only average citizens we ever see are usually in peril on some planet the bureaucracy doesn't care enough about.

It's also hyper xenophobic and racist because the federation is almost entirely run by humans and all decisions are made by the 95% human admiralty, and a human president (who only ever seems to be for show). So leftists should hate it.

OP is right though, Star Trek has always been liberal and progressive for it's time. Compared to today though, even the most progressive ideology of TNG era trek would be a breath of fresh air.

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▲ 3 ▼
– lgbtqwtfbbq 3 points 3 years ago +3 / -0

We also never see anyone who's incompetent by the standards of their time: someone who through some physical or mental deficiency is incapable of doing anything productive with their life. Everyone is either high-ranking military/government official or their close relatives, or someone of comparable rank in the civilian world. And we are left judging their society based purely on observations of how they live and how they say the less capable live.

But how does someone who (eg.) works on one of the Federation mining colonies actually live? How comfortable is their life? For that matter, how does someone come to find their way on a Federation mining colony? Is it all prisoners? Do people chose that life? Is there some amount of coercion or social pressure placed upon certain individuals do do that work? Does society grant them some particular reward for doing it?

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▲ 6 ▼
– Isolated_Patriot 6 points 3 years ago +6 / -0

And we are left judging their society based purely on observations of how they live and how they say the less capable live.

Like judging China based only on it's airports and the life of one of it's naval captains.

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▲ 4 ▼
– lgbtqwtfbbq 4 points 3 years ago +4 / -0

Or North Korea based on what the government-approved tour guide shows and tells you, yes.

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... continue reading thread?
▲ 1 ▼
– Assassin47 1 point 3 years ago +1 / -0

Post-scarcity and not using money was conceived of by Roddenberry for The Next Generation. In TOS they were using money quite frequently. (but you can retcon this to mean Starfleet credits or money just to trade with outside species) The replicators weren't as advanced in TOS times.

In DS9 they also sort of retconned it by saying that post-scarcity applies to Earth specifically. Other planets had their own resource issues.

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▲ 1 ▼
– realerfunction 1 point 3 years ago +1 / -0

they're post-scarcity for things that can be replicated.

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