Hi there, I’m not trying to start a political argument or anything, I’m just curious what people here think about this often repeated claim that the Federation is a socialist or even communist utopia? I know Strange New Worlds did say in dialogue it is socialist but I was wondering if people here think that’s accurate? I’m not a communist or a marxist or anything like that, but I’ve had people who identify as such tell me the Federation basically is communist. So anyway, what’s your thoughts?
It’s absolutely not a communist anarchy. There’s a government, and it controls all those ships, science stations and mining operations. It doesn’t look like URSS-ish communist either, as it’s clearly democratic.
Besides, there exists some form of capitalism in it. It’s just not very intense on the human worlds. And it’s clearly socialist, as everybody is included on the society… So, my guess it’s social-capitalist just like every advanced society today, just way richer than anything we know.
Is there capitalism within the Federation? There’s capitalism on Deep Space Nine for sure, but that’s an outpost at a merger of cultures and governments. Not sure if we have seen money from any Federation cultures. Individuals might have and use money to buy things in other cultures, but I’m not sure such things take place within the Federation itself.
People clearly have money to trade with other civilizations, there are human trading transports that clearly care about their cargo, they bet something in poker games, some large projects have “patrons”…
External trade with capitalist cultures doesn’t mean the Federation itself has internal capitalism, it’s just a necessity for getting things from cultures outside of it. All the poker on the Enterprise was almost certainly just friendly games with chips, not actual gambling. Picard himself says money doesn’t exist so it’s not like they’re getting a salary. And I can’t recall the projects and patrons you’re referencing, but that could mean someone providing non-monetary support like using their connections or social status to support the project.
@marcos @startrek As I see it, capitalism, socialism, and communism are largely systems to determine distribution of limited resources. In a post-scarcity society I’m not sure they’re really applicable.
Just one give away that you don’t know what socialism and communism is