No Money Economy-unrealistic and stupid

[Mikey]

I like the idea of drug glands myself

Yeah, I'm down with that, too. Plus, you see an interesting species? No problem - just become one for a few years!

[Duskofdead]

I like the idea that people do get paid, but not in money.

As I suggested in the other thread this topic came up in, if you work A hours at job B you get X replicator rations and Y amount of time in a holodeck as payment. That way there's incentive for people to work, while still keeping money out of the equation.

There's evidence of this. Holodeck time and rations are treated like currency on Voyager. And certainly the senior staff seemed to have no trouble at all accessing either at a significantly greater rate than you would guess if things like holodeck time were simply split evenly across the crew.

[Sionnach Glic]

My idea for that actualy came from VOY due to the fact that we heard talk of people having rations for such things. It made sense to me that such a system may have replaced money due to the prevalence of replicators.

[Graham Kennedy]

The trouble with the "something other than money" idea is it's inherently unstable. Say you use holodeck rations or replicator rations, like on Voyager. The next thing that happens is that people trade those rations; I couldn't cite an ep, but we heard more than once of people betting holodeck time or desserts on Voyager. Congratulations advanced Federation citizens, you now have a barter economy. Welcome to the dawn of man.

Next step. It's damn hard to keep track of who has given what hours to who, so I take some bits of paper and write down "Graham gives the bearer 1 of his hours in the holodeck" on then and sign them. When I bet or trade with people, I give them a slip. Other people think it's a good idea and copy me. Welcome to the middle ages folks, we now have commodity based currency. It's not so bad being in the middle ages, the Ferengi economy operates there after all.

Of course cheating takes place, so Janeway steps in and orders standard notes produced in a centralised system. And of course inflation kicks in, and soon a holodeck breaks down, and now we have more notes than we have actual hours available, and it becomes apparent that the notes are mostly just circulating around the ship's crew anyway, only rarely actually being used for holodeck time. And eventually Janeway thinks what the hell, the link between the currency and actual holodeck hours is largely hypothetical now anyway. So she breaks the link. Welcome to fiat money and the 21st century, Federation types!

I can think of damn little reason why some version of the above wouldn't happen, if you introduced ANY kind of rationing system. At best you might declare that the rations are simply not transferable, ever, under any circumstances. Use em or lose em. But that's just not sustainable without a dictatorship, IMO.

[Sionnach Glic]

I agree that the above would be very likely to happen. Thing is, it's really the only way to have citizens motivated to do difficult jobs without paying them with official money.

[Teaos]

There i also the fact that what does the Federation do when it needs to buy stuff off other people? Or when its officers want something off Quark?

[Sionnach Glic]

They do it in latinum, a type of precious material.

[Mikey]

They do it in latinum, a type of precious material.

Which latinum was specifically pressed in gold (minted, if you will) in a very specific way in very specific sizes/weights - denominations, you might call them. Hooray! We have rudimentary coinage! Pay your enlisted men in salt and you'll soon catch up to the Roman Empire, c. 100 BCE.

[Deepcrush]

Does it have to be that they don't have an Economy? I would take it as a no money thing being a working idea (still works in parts of the US).

[Graham Kennedy]

There are ways the no money economy of Trek could work. There are even ways that fit the facts, at least with a degree of twisting. I wrote an article about it once for the site. It's highly, highly speculative though.

[Teaos]

It could work and I can see why they did it but they way they handle it is badly.

[Deepcrush]

The whole thing is just very iffy though. I think a semi-money vs commie economy would have been smarter for Trek UFP.

[RK_Striker_JK_5]

I've just always gone with the TOS version, where they do have an economy.

[Tsukiyumi]

Yeah, I bet the homeless shelters would be pretty nice, even in the TOS era. And, the unemployment benefits might actually pay for a month's rent...

[Mark]

I'm sorry, but what I don't understand is, how does the average federation citizen get their hands on any gold pressed latinum in the first place? Do they use some kind of barter system to get it origianally? Is there a "vault" on a ship or station where some can be drawn from? My point is this. If the federation has NO MONEY, at all of any kind, then what does one exchange for goods and services outside of federations worlds? They would use the "credit" system. Doesn't that mean that at the very least Starfleet would have a treasury somewhere to pay off the credits it's officers are spending?