posted
The proletariat labours for society as a whole not for himself, since there is no such thing as money, everyone receives free health care, everyone receives equal education opportunities, plus many other similar differences.
But not all races are communists, for example the Ferengi are clearly capitalists since they believe everyone should work for himself.
posted
Well, the Federation's utopian post-materialist uberegalitarian and ubersecular society certainly borrows more than a few pages from Marx, yes. Of course, it apparently arose not through a revolutionary displacement of the bourgeousie by the proletariat brought on by technology cheapening labour and rendering the proletariat irrelevant (as Marx predicted) but by technology eliminating disparity and a Roddenberrian enlightenment descending on all humankind to make love not war and to share their lunch money.
-------------------- "I was surprised by the matter-of-factness of Kafka's narration, and the subtle humor present as a result." (Sizer 2005)
Registered: Mar 1999
| IP: Logged
posted
To disagree with my good friend Tom, no, of course they aren't. Earth, and the Federation in general, represents a post-scarcity economy.
Registered: Mar 1999
| IP: Logged
Similar to Marx in may respects, yes. But communist in the traditional sense, no.
In fact, on the macroeconomic scale, the Federation is not a post-scarcity economy, seeing as starships can't be magically replicated and the power for transporters doesn't just come out of the wall. But I think the implication has been strongly given (though not said outright) that the state acts on the macroeconomic scale essentially alone and conducts trade with other powers, acquiring resources and then investing them exclusively in public institutions like Starfleet and Earth's planetary power grid and such. In that sense, the Federation may well roughly translate to a socialist state.
[ February 03, 2002, 13:14: Message edited by: The_Tom ]
-------------------- "I was surprised by the matter-of-factness of Kafka's narration, and the subtle humor present as a result." (Sizer 2005)
Registered: Mar 1999
| IP: Logged
quote:Originally posted by The_Tom: the power for transporters doesn't just come out of the wall.
Of course not, everyone knows that the transporter's power comes from the floor.
Seriously, Communism according to Marx states that there is no government, people just govern themselves based on agreement (take that Hobbes). As long as the Federation have things like the Federation Council and the President, it's a Socialist state. And as far as we can tell, 300 years into the future, the Federation remains a Socialist state.
A damn fine one, though.
-------------------- "God's in his heaven. All's right with the world."
Registered: Apr 2001
| IP: Logged
Quiggie
Ex-Member
posted
Yes I will have to agree. Those are some interesting analyses. And unlike a communism, in the Federation there are benefits to labouring hard, for example an Admiral with many years of education would have a huge house and his own shuttle and whatnot, whereas someone who refuses to do any work will probably not have much.
So let's say someone refused to do any work at all. What would the society do with him? I doubt they'd let him die. They'd have to give him a place to live.
IP: Logged
posted
It's probably unwise to question utopias too closely. They were named as they were for a reason, after all.
But, to address your question, some level of food is probably assured. (I don't want to get into the issue of energy "too cheap to meter," but considering the general state of affairs on Earth, it seems likely they're capable of pulling more power, probably from the sun, than they tend to use.) Housing is a little trickier. Even if energy becomes unlimited, space is not. I suspect a nice two story villa by the coast is not part of the Federation Constitution. But I'm sure there are shelters just as there are today.
Registered: Mar 1999
| IP: Logged
posted
Not that I aprove of the dumbing down of today's society, but good grief Tom. Had someone delivered a load of spare letters to you that you had to use today or you'd be forced to pay tax on them?
-------------------- Yes, you're despicable, and... and picable... and... and you're definitely, definitely despicable. How a person can get so despicable in one lifetime is beyond me. It isn't as though I haven't met a lot of people. Goodness knows it isn't that. It isn't just that... it isn't... it's... it's despicable.
Registered: Mar 1999
| IP: Logged
posted
My keyboard was feeling frisky. I couldn't say no to it.
-------------------- "I was surprised by the matter-of-factness of Kafka's narration, and the subtle humor present as a result." (Sizer 2005)
Registered: Mar 1999
| IP: Logged
posted
I feel that it was an-anti 733t reaction on your part. Join Tom's Campaign for Real Words. Use uneccesarily complicated phrases in everyday life. Only get off with ugly women. Rub it in Liam's face that he is awful at finding synonyms. Go on.
Bastards.
-------------------- Yes, you're despicable, and... and picable... and... and you're definitely, definitely despicable. How a person can get so despicable in one lifetime is beyond me. It isn't as though I haven't met a lot of people. Goodness knows it isn't that. It isn't just that... it isn't... it's... it's despicable.
Registered: Mar 1999
| IP: Logged
posted
Then again, what do we really know for sure about the Earth government in the 24th Century? We've seen precious little about how the average, non-Starfleet citizen lives on Earth, and as far as I can remember, the only government agencies we've seen on the planet are Federation, not local. Picard's little speech to the thawed corpsicles in "The Neutral Zone" seems to imply a world where you don't have to do anything at all if you don't want to. Certainly replicator technology has made a major impact on day to day life; Keiko seemed surprised that Miles' mother still cooked her own food. It would be interesting to find out what the population of the world is at that time. I doubt it would be anywhere near what it is now.
-------------------- The difference between genius and idiocy? Genius has its limits.
Registered: Aug 2001
| IP: Logged
posted
The Federation, in ITSELF, may be somewhat socialist, but it's an alliance of over a hundred local governments, who can probably do anything they darn well please (minus things like caste systems once mentioned and violations of basic rights). It's interesting that the central government is NOT all-powerful, nor does it seem inclined to be. That's just weird. It's as if human nature suddenly made some absurdly massive change around 2100. What, did we kill all the greedy, power-seeking people? It'd go along with there being lower population.
-------------------- "This is why you people think I'm so unknowable. You don't listen!" - God, "God, the Devil and Bob"
Registered: Mar 1999
| IP: Logged
OnToMars
Now on to the making of films!
Member # 621
posted
quote: What, did we kill all the greedy, power-seeking people?
Yeah. Don't you remember Picard's line, "then we did what Shakespeare suggested - kill all the lawyers..."
(I'm paraphrasing of course)
-------------------- If God didn't want us to fly, he wouldn't have given us Bernoulli's Principle.
Registered: Jun 2001
| IP: Logged
![[Smile]](smile.gif)
Earth, and the Federation in general, represents a post-scarcity economy.
![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
Printer-friendly view of this topic
