…is far from libertarian:
The Federation isn’t just socialist in the hyperbolic sense in which some conservatives like to denounce anyone to the left of them as socialist. It’s socialist in the literal sense that the government has near-total control over the economy and the means of production. Especially by the period portrayed in The Next Generation, the government seems to control all major economic enterprises, and there do not seem to be any significant private businesses controlled by humans in Federation territory. Star Fleet characters, such as Captain Picard, boast that the Federation has no currency and that humans are no longer motivated by material gain and do not engage in capitalist economic transactions.
The supposed evils of free markets are exemplified by the Ferengi, an alien race who exemplify all the stereotypes socialists typically associate with “evil capitalists.” The Ferengi are unrelentingly greedy and exploitative. Their love of profit seems to be exceeded only by their sexism—they do not let females work outside the household, even when it would increase their profits to do so.
The problem here is not just that Star Trek embraces socialism: it’s that it does so without giving any serious consideration to the issue. For example, real-world socialist states have almost always resulted in poverty and massive political oppression, piling up body counts in the tens of millions.
But Star Trek gives no hint that this might be a danger, or any explanation of how the Federation avoided it. Unlike on many other issues, where the producers of the series recognize that there are multiple legitimate perspectives on a political issue, they seem almost totally oblivious to the downsides of socialism.
You don’t say. That episode TNG did on cryonics was extremely off putting to me.
Ferenghi is a variant of the Arabic word for western Europeans. It means Frankish.
Quark’s always been my favorite Trek character.
Apart from Quark I found almost all the Trek characters to be shallow portrayals of Human beings, lacking heart and any real personal drive, maybe the whole franchise should be seen as a cautionary tale of what socialism does to people.
Actually, I thought the portrayal of the Ferenghi was an almost precise transference of the most poisonous anti-Semitic tropes. The “business” stereotypes…the “filthy” personal habits, the “ugly” appearance (calling “Der Sturmer?”), the exaggerated mother-son relationships, the “Book of Acquisition” as a broad type of the Christian view of the nasty “Old Testament.”
The leading Ferenghi characters in DS9 were almost all played by Jewish actors, who, if they thought about the stereotype parallels at all, probably thought they were just having fun with them – and getting a good paycheck at the same time.
Not that I feel micro-agressed by all this… I could go on about the younger Ferenghi character (what was his name?) “escaping” from this insular image of Judaism to the “light” of “Federation values” (aka Christian mercy and kindness). But I won’t 😉
Bingo. I remember being shocked at how in-your-face it was.
You don’t have to love it. Just like you don’t have to love the military dictatorship of Starship Troopers either.
It’s well known a lot of the sci-fi writers back then had leftist tendencies. Much of it was driven by the idea that technology could solve all problems. Isaac Asimov included. But Asimov stands out precisely because he points out flaws in all the systems he describes.
I always thought Star Trek was kind of two-dimensional. So when I saw Babylon 5 I was kind of taken aback with how much more believable the whole thing was.
I wouldn’t characterize the human government in Heinlein’s “Starship Troopers” as a dictatorship, much less a military one. Remember, active service members could not vote, only those who are no longer in service.
If you’re talking about a hypothetical movie version, it’s worth remembering that it never actually existed; it was just a bad dream. Maybe someday somebody will make a movie of “Starship Troopers”, but it hasn’t been done yet – especially not by Paul Verhoeven.
Ok. I didn’t remember that active service members couldn’t vote. I do remember you had to serve in the military to vote. The heads of the military were elected I think?
I guess it might constitute some sort of a republic. I kind of get how it is supposed to have started out. But it’s still a military government. I have the book in a shelf just behind me.
Always worth a re-read.
Well, it wasn’t entirely a bad dream. No movie with Dina Meyer’s breasts in it is ever going to be utterly unwatchable.
Verhoeven seems to have had the idea he was making a burlesque of both alien invasion and war movies. But a lot more Heinlein made it through onto the screen than I expected. Even with respect to the burlesque aspects, he did a better job than, say, Tim Burton did with the execrable ‘Mars Attacks.’
I gather a new production of ‘Starship Troopers’ is in development. Let’s hope it’s a significant improvement on Verhoeven and not just a remake.
Yes, Babylon 5 was far more believable in many ways. The human ships, with their attenna, tanks, and cables looked like something we would actually build one day-they even had centrifuges to generate artificial gravity-and the Earth Force uniforms looked like real uniforms, not Armani knock offs. In one episode the station doctor even became addicted to his own drugs and had to take leave to dry out. On the whole, the characters in Babylon 5 were more fleshed out than many Trek ones.
Apart form the Ferangi, there was one hint of surviving capitalism in DS9. The father of Benjamin Sisko, DS9’s commander, owned a restaurant in the French Quarter in New Orleans back on Earth. There also seemed to be a market for originals of any kind, which makes sense in a society with access to unlimited natural resources-cheap space travel up to the interstellar level, along with antigravity and matter transmitters for shorter ranges-and cheap replication. An original bottle of wine made with grapes from a real vineyard was a very big thing. Plus Captain Picard in TNG had brother back on Earth in France who owned a vineyard.
AFAIK they did not have unlimited natural resources. Dilithium crystals couldn’t be replicated and the energy, at least on the Enterprise, was generated with dilithium crystals.
About their only restriction then.
Armin Shimerman, cast as “Quark” on Deep Space 9, spoke of himself as being in awe that he was granted a major part. I really wouldn’t characterize Mr. Shimerman as “after the paycheck (another stereotype)” but rather as a Trek fan who put his heart and soul into the character, which in this case was the Western movie trope of the mercenary (usually female character)-with-a-heart-of-gold.
Before Quark, we really didn’t know much about Ferenghi apart from them being like “Yankee traders.” With DS-9, Shimerman’s Quark-the-bartender became the type model for Ferenghi.
Oh, and if you want to find more stereotypes in the Ferenghi, they were also genetically endowed with superior intelligence.
I find it ironic that Roddenberry had these vehement anti-capitalist views yet he wrote lyrics to the original series opening theme, which he never intended to be used, just so he could claim a 50% share of the music’s performance royalties.
The concept of Federation socialism will only work if you solve the power problem. Energy is the limiting factor in all development, hence why western civilization enjoys such abundance. If unlimited energy were free to everyone, then poverty really does go away in time.
As long as one human wants to control another (or many) Utopia is not possible. Or the short version,,, it’s not possible.
Is it that gov’t crushed small business or most business? Or, does a replicator remove the need for many businesses?
If modern humans are any gauge, humans in the future will give up QUALITY for speed. How many people eat fast food / take out instead of cooking?
How many people would go to Starbucks IF their replicator could spit out some kinda $9 cup of coffee in an instant? And there are a thousand other goods or products that would get programmed into the replicator.
The one new business I can think of would be programming said replicators with “X” style half-caf, mocha latte dingleberry frape! Just as there are people writing stuff for 3D printers now.
How many people would go to Starbucks IF their replicator could spit out some kinda $9 cup of coffee in an instant?
You mean a Keurig? Yeah its pretty popular. Still you may be in some place where you don’t have access to one, or you may actually want to talk to someone else in a public space. Starbucks is a place to meet or relax for a bit not just to drink coffee.
In an unintended way it is quite an affirmation of the libertarian point of view: All it takes to make Federation style socialism work is infinite resources.
The left claim that Star Trek works because it’s a post-scarcity society.
But they never explain why anyone would choose to be a Redshirt or a toilet-cleaner on the Enterprise when they could just have a fleet of their own (being post-scarcity and all).
Do the laws of economics even allow such a thing as post scarcity? I don’t think so. The whole point of economics is everything is scarce (if only by virtue of time and attention) so there are always choices to be made.
Obviously not, unless we can create anything we want from nothing. But in ‘post-scarcity’ utopia we’re going to be so enlightened that we won’t actually want anything other than whatever the commissars give us, you see.
Seriously, that’s the argument I usually get from lefties when I point out that the wonderful ‘post-scarcity’ society they’ve just imagined is nothing of the kind.
Good point.
Some of the political theory that comes out of the post-scarcity wannabes is pretty bizarre. I recall one system, called “technocracy” (which had little to do with actual technocracy) where they excised all traces of modern economics (scrubbing history 1984-style is a common theme of such things) to the point that they proposed to do away with any sort of money, and then, without awareness of the resulting self-parody, created an energy-based currency to replace the money that they removed. Of course, they broke it by making it illegal/impossible to “hoard” energy credits – merely to say that their energy-based money wasn’t really money.
That’s one of things I liked in “Star Trek: First Contact” where Lilly busted Picard’s b*lls when his human nature pushed past his arrogant “evolved sensibility”.
With the Klingons, the Romulans, the Cardassians, and the Borg all roaming around beyond Federation borders ? Mutual security of course.
Some of the Voyager (Star Trek series) episodes showed how federation children are raised and educated. They engage in adventures in holodeck simulations that teach them the “right way” to solve problems.
See: http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/The_Adventures_of_Flotter
I always found it a little unsettling.
TOS didn’t talk that much about economics. It was TNG that tried to portray the Federation as some kind of socialist utopia. Even there though, some are more equal than others. Picard’s family owns (as in they decide what happens on it) a vineyard and Sisko’s dad owns a restaurant. Learjet liberalism at it’s best.
As to Asimov, yes he was a socialist. He understood though that humans couldn’t be trusted with the power it would take to make such a system “work”. That’s why he created robots that could be programmed to be altruistic. Literally a deus ex machina.
“TOS didn’t talk that much about economics.”
Not directly no…but in the TOS episode “Mudd’s Women” the plot hinged on Mudd’s beautied up on the “Venus Drug” women trying to snare rich “dilithium” minors as husbands. There is even a line where Mudd says that dilithium crystals are worth 300X their weight in diamonds, thousands of times their weight in gold. That sounds pretty capitalistic to me. Always preferred TOS to Next Generation…I will still catch and episode of TOS now and again even though I have seen them all a bazillion times; rarely a Next Gen episode.
I could almost quote every line from the original series. The cryonic episode in nextgen almost made me stop watching.
Forgive me Trent, but that’s why I loved Firefly. They’re alliance federation is in control, but humans wanting freedom could still find some. When the doctor asks Malcolm why…
I can’t find the scene on youtube. Oh, well.
Anyway, he recounts the latest adventure where people get shot up and a host of other things and Malcolm replies that they’re still flying and that’s something.
Socialism, even with every desire filled, is slavery. You can do anything you want as long as others, a very few in control, allows it.
I get the distinct impression you saw the new movie? Yes/no? Or just commenting in general because it premiered last week?
No, just saw the article and thought it an interesting link. I have no plans to see the movie.
The problem here is not just that Star Trek embraces socialism: it’s that it does so without giving any serious consideration to the issue. For example, real-world socialist states have almost always resulted in poverty and massive political oppression, piling up body counts in the tens of millions.
But Star Trek gives no hint that this might be a danger, or any explanation of how the Federation avoided it.
Well, it does, in the sense that the answer is right there and unstated: replicators.
Like Ian Banks’ Culture series (another Socialist Utopia, though a far better thought out one, with no central government in the normal sense and no military fetish), it’s a post-scarcity economy.
In such an economy, “socialism” as in “give everyone whatever they want, pretty much” is obvious and not especially troublesome – you don’t even need a government involved, if anyone can build/acquire/replicate a replicator and power source!
Socialism (in the sense above) is deadly in the real world primarily because we have scarcity, and likely always will.
(They had to add scarcity back in with “latinum” and the Ferengi to make for some plot points and tension and realism…)
If we really did at some point in the future reach a “post scarcity economy” who thinks it would look like Star Trek vs who thinks it would involve 90% of the population living in holodeck debauchery 24/7?
“You know, folks, the day an unemployed ironworker can lie in his BarcaLounger with a Foster’s in one hand and and a channel-flicker in the other, and f**k Claudia Schiffer for $19.95, it’s gonna make crack look like Sanka.”
– Dennis Miller
So, who cleans the toilets on the Enterprise?
We’ve been discussing the absurdity of ‘post-scarcity societies’ a few pages up. Until you have a machine that can make anything I want with no energy or raw materials, there’s no such thing.
Socialism (in the sense above) is deadly in the real world primarily because we have scarcity…
Exactly wrong. Without class warfare you have no socialism.
There can never be such a thing as no scarcity. Even though socialists focus on things, that’s just a red herring. Socialism is about control.
When those that want to take away freedom have the power, they don’t just continue to debate… they kill… because elections have consequences. …or, “Let’s compromise. You do what I want or I take everything from you including your life.”
TOS came out when I was a kid and I loved it. Certainly it was better than Lost in Space and the “Carrot Monster”.
I was happy when TNG came out but was quickly disillusioned: I hated the outward design of the spacecraft. I did like Picard’s brother and the concept of the Borg, and Q was pretty funny at the start.
I couldn’t stand Wil Wheaton’s character. Frakes’ character was almost as bad (though he can direct pretty well). Happy to see Dwight Schultz working but I disliked his character – too wishy washy and unfunny – I preferred Howlin’ Mad Murdock.
But I was turned right off on the show when I heard Troi say, “In the Federation, we celebrate Diversity.”
ICK. GACK. CHOKE.
That’s it….done.
So then some TNG movies came out. Generations, I watched because it had some of the TOS crew. But it was a lousy movie.
First Contact I actually enjoyed because of Alfre Woodard and James Cromwell. They did great characters.
I may have watched some of the next movie but didn’t finish it. Never watched a TNG movie after that.
None of the spin off shows (DS9, Voyager etc) interested me.
I must say, though, that I do enjoy the re-boot movies. I only wish that the writers could somehow wean themselves off of the “fall from an enormous height” and “Hero hangs on to the cliff edge by his fingernails” – way overdone.
If you want an idea of what the new Star Trek TV series will be like, watch some of the video below, ff this Fuller dude pushes his leftist agenda as hard in the show as he does in this panel discussion “STD” will be a total freak show. I could only watch about 20 minutes of this:
https://youtu.be/9HGsl8ovA30
Star Trek is socialist. Yes. Do you have anything more to contribute, Captain Obvious? 😀
I guess they must be struggling for clicks to write such an obvious article.
I was always creeped out by Star Trek in all its forms, because it always seemed like what the Federation propaganda of what Starfleet was like, and I kept feeling like there were all these atrocities being committed behind the scenes. But then, I grew up in the TNG days and never watched TOS.
Nope, that’s totally wrong. The Federation in StarTrek is an alliance of planetary governments that has a common ideology and defense force. It’s somewhere between NATO + EU and the South interpretation of the US. Each member planet has their own sovereign rights as long as they agree to some common rules, and I’m fairly sure abolishment of money is not a requirement for joining the Federation. In fact a major plot in DS9 is Bajor joining the Federation, and Bajor is some sort of theocracy like Iran. So any attempt to put a common economical system on the entire Federation is insane.
Earth, as a member of Federation, does seem to run on post-scarcity communism. I don’t see anything wrong with this idea, but that’s too long to explain in a comment, suffice to say who clean the toilet is not an issue.