The Economic Fantasy of “Star Trek”
Gene Roddenberry Believed Money Was a Vestige of Man's Base Past
Gardner Goldsmith (ELGGRANDE@msn.com) is an independent journalist and screenwriter in New Hampshire.
A friend of mine is an award-winning science-fiction novelist. When we first met, I happened to mention to him that I was working on a science-fantasy novel, just as he was.
He bristled.
“I write science-fiction, not fantasy,” he said. “Those two genres shouldn’t even be in the same section at the bookstores.
It was an early lesson in the difference between those who write books that employ real science to drive the plot and those who create unrealistic worlds, even if those worlds conform to their own internal logic. I was not to encounter again the difference between science fiction and science fantasy until years later, while in the script department of one of the many “Star Trek” spinoffs.
Sitting in a “story pitch session” with one of the producers, I happened to offer a story outline that involved a Sting-like scheme by the main characters to retrieve a sizeable amount of stolen money. But as I told the story, the producer held up a hand and informed me that I needn’t go any further.
Seeing my puzzled face, this warm and genuinely friendly person told me something I did not know.
“Gene,” the producer said, referring to Gene Roddenberry, the creator of the series, “stipulated before he died that there was to be no money in the Federation.”
I was still puzzled.
“Right. He believed that by the 23rd century, mankind would have evolved past the need for money.”
I wondered if Roddenberry meant that mankind would develop some sort of bio-electronic monetary data system, something that would allow the characters to eschew paper money and walk freely, without bulky wallets and pocketbooks to get in their way on the transporter pads. That was, however, far from the case.
According to this producer, Roddenberry, who was known as the “Great Bird of the Galaxy,” simply thought that humanism would strip mankind of the acquisitive tendencies it had shown throughout history, and that the use of money was a vice his utopian “Federation” would eliminate.
The producer looked at me and said, “It was one of the biggest mistakes he ever made. You have no idea how much of a headache that rule has been.”
Given my background in economics, I actually had a pretty good idea.
Roddenberry’s belief was nothing new. In his eyes, money was clearly a vestige of man’s base past. It was a symbol of greed, a cause of war and hatred and anger and loss. The drive for it was something mankind needed to overcome, and in Roddenberry’s pristine world of the future, man would rise above his dirty urges for riches and concentrate on more noble goals, like science, adventure, green-painted women, and mind-melding rocks.
Given this idealistic concept, it can only be assumed that Roddenberry believed man would somehow surpass the need for products and services, would move beyond the subtle and noble differences in interest and skills that prompted the ancient differentiation of labor and free trade, and would glide toward a socialistic method of living, where there would be no need for money. There would be no need for money because there would be no need for exchange, and there would be no need for exchange because man would “evolve” beyond the need for private property, the division of labor, and the gauche acquisition of goods, services, and funds that come with them.
It was at that moment, sitting there in the Paramount Studios on Melrose Avenue in Hollywood, that I realized “Star Trek” was not science fiction, but science fantasy.
The No-Money Fantasy
This is not to deride the series. I like it. But despite the attempt on the part of the producers to back up facets of the stories with well-researched science, the fact that Gene Roddenberry outlawed money means his creation can be nothing other than fantasy.
The reason is simple. Like Roddenberry, many thinkers have tried to envision a world in which there is no need for money, no market exchange, and no property. And every one of those thinkers, be they followers of John Lennon, Michael Moore, or Karl Marx, has overlooked one key insight: man’s nature does not change.
When people try to fulfill their needs, their varying interests, talents, and skills will prompt each of them to concentrate on what he does best. Such differentiation of labor will allow each to use his capabilities in the most productive way possible. Each person will soon see the benefits of trading some of the fruits of his labor for those of another. The way to maximize one’s labor in a world of differing skills and interests is to enter into market exchange with others, offering what one makes or does well in exchange for what others make or do well. Thus if you are a lumberjack, you can offer wood in exchange for food from the farmer. That way you don’t have to farm and the farmer doesn’t have to cut down trees. Since the two of you are doing what you do best, you are maximizing your work, and there will be more of both products than would exist if you and the farmer had to concentrate on the two forms of labor.
But what if the farmer has already traded for all the wood he needs? In that case, you will have to find a product the farmer does need, approach the producer of that item, and see if that producer needs wood. If he does, you can exchange your wood for the new product, then approach the farmer to finish your original exchange.
This becomes complicated when myriad interests, needs, skills, and products begin to come into play. Therefore, man, in his striving to maximize convenience, gradually evolved a method to facilitate exchange: money.
Money allows all participants to employ a universally recognized medium of exchange. No longer will you have to find a third or fourth or fifth party to trade your lumber to in order to get goods from the farmer. You can use money. You can hold it, spend it, and even lend it for a return sometime in the future. The flexibility of money, with its ability to let disparate persons work in harmony, is (far from Roddenberry’s view) one of the most glorious developments in the history of mankind. Money is the machinery of peace, not of war.
Furthermore, without money, it is impossible for the value of consumer or producer goods to be expressed in a practical way. Prices reflect the countless subjective valuations of sellers and buyers engaging in peaceful exchange. Prices are the result of each participant’s decisions—the essential carriers of information and the indispensable elements of economic calculation. They not only reflect preferences, but also the relative scarcity of goods and resources. Without money, there can be no systematic expression of value or scarcity. Even in Roddenberry’s “Federation,” someone had to buy the “dilithium crystals” for Scotty to use in his famous Engine Room.
If one looks closely at “Star Trek,” Gene Roddenberry’s United Nations-based concept of the “Federation” and the military life of his space travelers, one concludes that he adhered strongly to the fanciful ideas of utopian socialism. Like the socialists who preceded him, he favored large-scale blocks of control instead of small political bodies or individual autonomy. He rejected private property and market exchange, believing that man would “grow out” of those childish idiosyncrasies. He embraced a paternalistic view of the future that would inevitably lead to depleted resources, impoverishment, and economic stagnation, not a galaxy-hopping culture that found adventure at every turn.
Oddly enough, his stipulation that there be no money in his high-tech space series means that his main characters, when in dire need of some product or service out in deep space, have to revert to the inefficient and outdated method of exchange we replaced thousands of years ago. In fact, this is precisely what the producer who sat before me explained when I asked her how they wrote stories that required some kind of market exchange.
In the “Final Frontier,” she said, they are forced to barter for what they need—just like the olden days.
How frustrating for both the writers and the characters they created. It’s no wonder Captain Kirk always wanted to be beamed away. He wanted to get to a world where the universal principles of economics applied, not the fanciful dreams of a visionary whose ideas had been tried and failed many times throughout human history.
Comment by www.goatse.asia on 11 May 2009:
http://www.goatse.asia
Comment by yospos on 11 May 2009:
“obviously a world where money is unnecessary is fantasy because i like money.
why yes, i am white, why do you ask?”
Comment by Nathan Rhodes on 1 December 2009:
P. Goldsmith,
Is this a joke? Or did you proceed to write this post without doing any research whatsoever into why money is erradicated on the show? You have seriously missed Roddenberry’s point and I fail to understand how you can purport to have watched so much Star Trek without understand some basic tenents of the show.
Its really simple. Everyone has replicators. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replicator_(Star_Trek). Um, I think you need to read this. Your story about money is all well and good but when you can replicate any provision that you might want you really stop needed money and exchange.
Oh any by the way you really think transporters, warp drive and force fields are ‘fiction’ and that a moneyless society is ‘fantasy’.
Did you take your medicine on the day you wrote this?
Comment by Chris Albert Sonit on 22 March 2010:
This article is very poorly researched. No wonder why Star Trek dragged it’s heels for so long. Writers like this guy should not have made it onto the team. I hate to sound a bit nerdy here, but writers for this series should have to undergo a simple test so that they don’t put out illogical crud.
Come on, think! If you can create any substance out of energy, then the entire economic system we are familiar with today would not work! Think of the implications!
Comment by Nathan Rhodes on 3 April 2010:
Yes, the implications are as such depicted in Star Trek. A complete reverse of our obsession on money with no need to be a corporate slave anymore.
The entire way of life stops and we become a society striving for our own betterment not simply going to work everyday and being a slave to some boss or corporation.
The ideas expressed in Star Trek about not having money as a root of all our endeavours are what enables the society to be so advanced.
Comment by Gary McGath on 23 May 2010:
Nathan: The existence of replicators couldn’t realistically obviate the need for money, since it wouldn’t eliminate all scarcity. I’m assuming a replicator can only rearrange atoms of elements into other arrangements of the same element; it takes a huge amount of energy to transmute one element into another. Even chemical changes take significant energy. So a replicator has to use large amounts of energy, for which there’s a cost. On a starship, replicating matter into food might be more practical than storing food supplies for months or years, but on a planet it would be hugely wasteful.
You should also note that on Star Trek, we see people _working_. It doesn’t depict a society in which people can just walk up to a replicator and get anything they want and otherwise not have to do anything. A society like that would be one well on its way to self-destruction and wouldn’t make interesting TV.
I can’t grasp why you think the lack of need to earn a living is what makes Star Trek’s society “advanced.” Do you think people join Starfleet out of boredom? (I’m not counting Abrams’ Kirk.)
Pingback by Blagnet.net » The Great Material Continuum on 7 June 2010:
[...] Star Trek presented a notoriously bad conception of economics because of creator Gene Roddenberry’s insistence that humans and all other races belonging to the United Federation of Planets would use no money. Science-fiction author Gardner Goldsmith explained why this economic ideal was not only fantasy but would result in material deterioration to…. [...]
Comment by Mark Biernat on 5 July 2010:
I think we do not have enough information about the economics of Star Trek. I think your post is is a very assumptive interpretation.
For example, there are a number of episodes which referenced trade, trading posts and traders.
Also, the episode “Omega Glory” was about Yankee’s vs. Communists and Kirk was on the Yankee side.
Kirk said alluded to in many other episodes that there was no such thing as utopia, rather that is was man’s plight to struggle for what he wanted.
A Federation tends to be more decentralized and libertarian than a Republic.
Comment by Stephen on 19 July 2010:
The whole socialist utopian vision of the future that many people think of when they think of Star Trek that’s being referred to here is almost totally the creation of Star Trek: the Next Generation. A more complete look at all five series plus all the novel and other fan reference sources actually reveal a galaxy teeming with capitalism. They are even dozens of corporations devoted to building warp drive, transporter system ect. Take a good look through James Dixon’s Star Trek Chronology and will see this immediately. Some manuals even give the exact amount that the Enterprise and other star-ships cost in credits. Deep Space Nine in particular proved the Star Trek universe in teeming with capitalism.
Comment by Barbara on 9 August 2010:
I think the error in your argument is that you think economics is the answer. In fact I would say that economics is too entrenched in money and trade to provide a useful argument about this. Anthropology provides the answers. The exchange of goods wasn’t necessary in an older world tribal system because members of the tribe simply did what they could – usually what they did best or had a talent for – for the group, out of a need to help each other, to provide for the group as a whole. This wasn’t socialism, because socialism hadn’t been invented. They did what they did out of love and in order to survive as a group. The “trade” was not for necessary goods but more a form of ceremony or gift exchange to cement a friendship, to build trust that the other would do for you, and you would do for them, as was needed for a village or nomadic band to survive.
You might get the idea by reading more about Native American culture, or you could try Thom Hartmann’s book, THE LAST HOURS OF ANCIENT SUNLIGHT – which is primarily about oil and energy, but touches on the “gift economy” of our ancient ancestors.
Comment by Buzz on 10 December 2010:
So who made the replicators? Who maintains them? Who fixes them when they break? Who creates the energy to run them?
Sorry, but your replicator solution to basic economics doesn’t pass the basic logic test.
Now, “Tea. Earl Grey. Hot.” Yeah, that hits the spot.
Comment by James Madison Fan on 10 December 2010:
Buzz,
If you can deconstruct and rebuild a human body with a replicator then a replicator can replicate a replicator. When you’re so far up the technology tree you can create matter out of energy there aren’t any limits.
Energy isn’t an issue because once you find a practical way to exploit anti-matter you have a fuel source that makes cold fusion look like a joke. E=MC^2 so .5 kg of matter mixed with .5 kg of anti-matter will yield 90 quadrillion (9*10^16) joules of energy which is roughly 15 million barrels of oil from something the size of your left shoe.
The problem is this means the replicator is a power hog of epic proportions if it is true energy to matter conversion because it would take 90 quadrillion joules to create 2.4 pounds (1 kg) of matter (i.e., making a new left shoe). It is far better to start with mater and manipulate it than to assume energy to matter conversion.
The good news is that when you can fly around in space at will you can harvest energy from entire stars so energy really isn’t a problem.
One thing the writers of Trek don’t seem to grasp is once you can manipulate matter with a replicator you don’t need to build star ships. You just build a really big replicator, put it in orbit around a super-giant and it will squirt out ships of any size and type you can imagine as fast as the mechanics will allow and the capacitors can recharge.
After we talk about the tech inconsistencies in Trek we can move on to the problems with At Will Time Travel and why the Battlestar Galatica episode “Water” didn’t make a lick of sense.
At some point it would be nice if these writers paid attention to the first word in SCIENCE-Fiction. >>heavy sigh<<
Comment by Doug Barbieri on 13 February 2011:
Nathan Rhodes makes a good point that replicators have eliminated a lot of scarcity. But he also ignores Deep Space 9. Outside the Federation, societies trade using gold-pressed latinum. Why? Because latinum is a special liquid that *cannot* be replicated, therefore is scarce. The writers of DS9 understood that basic economic principle. In order to have trade and prosperity, you *have* to have scarcity.
Technology never obviates the need for trade. People adjust and other things will be traded. You can’t replicate the human gut, drive, initiative and creativity.
Comment by Matt on 22 March 2011:
Stephen’s comment that “Deep Space Nine proved the Star Trek universe in teeming with capitalism” is a deeply odd and misguided reading of the series. The space station Deep Space Nine is set at the edge of Federation Space, and so has more opportunities to come into contact with commerce and trade, yes. Yet the Ferengi – who epitomise the search for “profit” and “latinum” – are ridiculed throughout the series, especially compared to the Federation’s continued commitment to equality and universal prosperity. The head of the Ferengi’s capitalist society, “Grand Nagus Zek”, is a patently comical caricature, played, as it happens, by a well-known and controversial left-wing actor (Wallace Shawn). To miss the point that the Ferengi are the butt-end of many of the show’s jokes (and that by the end of the series Zek promotes Rom to be the new Grand Nagus, ushering in a period of labour rights, environmental protection and trade reform in the Ferengi Alliance) is a strange and almost total misunderstanding of the show.
Comment by Mimbrena on 9 July 2011:
I dare to join these true aficionados and thank them for countering the ex-Star Trek-writer who failed to digest the initial premiss.
What our writer missed, perhaps he was too young, was this series was not written for children. It was an adult “western” that addressed the pressing issues of our time when no one else would.
While suspending my disbelief in what could be possible, it was what might be probable that fired my imagination. Obviously the “Federation” is a collection of independent and sovereign entities with their own economic systems. However, Kirk explained more than once that they had learned to share resources. This dialogue spoke directly to present day facts like we already produce enough food to feed our (real) world but it is the distribution system that gets controlled by the greedy that keeps people hungry.
The difference with Fantasy is there must be an insurmountable problem that can only be resolved by extra human forces. Science Fiction needs to explain how their solution fits our knowledge of physics. Admittedly that can be a giant leap but the point remains.
Roddenberry obviously hoped for a time when we could reach beyond our selfishness and when technology as well as our better selves would make that possible. There were credits for work performed and in TNG they were required for time on the Holodeck. I did not know of his exclusion of “money” but that some might hoard resources for profit and then hoard that profit was, in fact, the joke.
I do not know if we can achieve his vision. How can we transport strawberries from the south to the north in winter? How can we extricate ourselves from the despot Corporate rulers? How can we feed the world? Replicators are more believable than a change from human greed. It doesn’t negate economics but changes the supply & demand curve substantially.
Fantasy is believing some super-human will lead us to our better world. Maybe that is why our politicians feel the need to promise to be Saints and then proved so much less. Science Fiction asks the question: Why can’t we?
Comment by NathanMcKnight on 30 September 2011:
“man’s nature does not change”
Now *that* is fantasy! We’ve got about two million years of human biological evolution and several thousand years of cultural evolution–not to mention a wealth of currently existing cultural diversity–that demonstrate beyond any doubt that mankind’s nature is constantly changing and highly malleable.
Comment by Mark on 30 September 2011:
In Easy Rider, Jack Nicholson’s character gets stoned for the first time & talks about Venusian aliens having the technology to feed, cloth, transport, etc all of their citizens equally & w/out effort. If such technology could in fact eliminate scarcity, then yes, economics could be eliminated also. But that isn’t the case in Star Trek, where beings compete over modes of transportation, the occupation of planets that make their inhabitants immortal, and positions of control of resources. If they really are able to replicate away their desires, then why do they have orbital shipyards? Why not replicate a ship for each person, instead of having them go to the Academy to determine who is worthy of directing the limited resources of ships like the Enterprise? There are more demands than supplies in the Federation, so there is a logical need for economics. Money makes economic exchanges easier.
Comment by Just Jer on 27 October 2011:
I love this article not for it’s content but for the comments. That the author thinks the value of a commodity is set by demand, completely ignores the effect of wall street commodity trading on prices. Who’s writing economic fantasy?
Comment by New England Patriots on 4 February 2012:
I don¡¯t ordinarily comment but I gotta say regards for that post on this one.
Comment by Zackdc on 13 February 2012:
This article is right on spot. What all of you “money-less future” proponents leave out of this arguement is LAND! Back on Earth, who gets on the oceanfront? On the lake?
What about great works of art? There are no private collectors anymore?
Even in the cities…who determines who get’s the penthouse apartment and who gets the ground floor? I live in SF and work at Starfleet HQ…who get’s the beautiful flat in Sausalito with amazing views of the Golden Gate bridge?
There will ALWAYS be money because something is always scarce..in this case..LAND.
Comment by James Babb on 2 March 2012:
Note that every Star Trek character that engaged in commerce was disreputable: Harry Mudd, the tribble peddler, the Ferenghi… Roddenberry was clueless about economics, but I’ll bet he didn’t mind getting paid.
The lack of money was less realistic than warp drive and universal translators.
Comment by some inetrnet dude on 12 April 2012:
The world of Star trek had an economic of where one does work for a curtain amount of Federation Credits, which in turn allows one to use a replicator or go about there day acquiring various things one mite need. Think of it as a futuristic commune that worked on the trade and barter system “I work and the system gives back”. And lets not forget that this “utopia” also had its seedy underbelly. You wanted something that was “off limits”, well you dip into your secret stash of “Gold pressed latinum” and low and behold you get your self a Halodeck program with your hot next door neighbor topless on Rissa the pleasure planet giving you a massage. SomeInternetDude out.