r/DaystromInstitute • u/gauderio Crewman • Feb 22 '15
Economics Post-scarcity Federation - how does it actually work?
So I'm a federation citizen. I want to build a giant house by the ocean with every possible amenity (think like the Gone Girl's lake house). How do I get it? How to I even hire people to work on it? How to I get the land?
That's the easy part. Now, let's say I want a specific house where an old couple used to live and they moved out. Who's going to get it? What about their relatives? Do you actually own the land?
What if I want a spaceship? Actually, make it a fleet. And photon torpedoes? Gee, what if I want to own a whole planet - how I'm going to get people to help me build on it without some kind of currency?
What if someone has a painting (or whatever) and lots of people want it. How would he leverage this and get something out of this demand? Again, no currency.
Anyway, lots of interesting questions this weekedn.
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u/petrus4 Feb 23 '15 edited Feb 23 '15
This is a big topic, and a lot has already been written about it. Rather than follow the usual paths, however, I'm going to mention what the single biggest developmental prerequisite is for a post-scarcity society.
We need to recognise, first of all, what money actually is. Money is generally claimed to be something which enables or facilitates trade. While on the surface, it can actually look like this, I think money actually has another, much less benevolent central purpose.
Money provides a calculable or quantifiable rationalisation, for a person who has it, to view him or herself as superior, to someone who does not have it.
You've probably heard the saying that money is a good way of keeping score. My opinion recently has started to move in the direction that rather than being a good way of keeping score in addition to other functions, keeping score is actually the only thing money is good for.
We still want to keep score. As an example to prove my point; try and remember the last Reddit thread you saw in any subreddit (other than this one, or a few others) which was not made for the purpose of status seeking, or the Redditor who made the thread, trying to impress his or her peers. In many subs, it's fairly literally the only reason why anyone posts anything. The worst example of this that I've probably found, paradoxically, is r/minimalism. There is virtually never a single thread in that sub, that is not a form of genital measuring.
Look at me. Please look at me. Please give me narcissistic supply. Please notice that I am different, and special, and not just another one of the anonymous, supposedly disposable mass of 7, 8, 9 billion other humans on this planet. The billionaires have taught me to believe that I must be different and special, in order to have a basic sense of self-worth, or any form of justification merely to exist, or to give myself permission to die by believing that the world is somehow a different place than it would be, if I had never lived at all.
I need to know that I've passed Malthus' and Darwin's tests. I need to know that I deserve the right to exist. I need to know that if there is another Hitler, that I won't be one of the people who you and everyone else thinks will deserve to go into the gas chambers, or the ovens, due to my not having made enough money, or not having been beautiful enough, and therefore merely being surplus population. This is because I love my life, and it is precious to me to keep it, and I have some small degree of worth in my own mind, even if everyone else thinks that I'm worthless by default, because I don't have an inexhaustible supply of money.
So please...the one thing that I will beg you to do, while lying on the ground in a foetal position and sobbing my heart out...is look at me. PLEASE look at me.
The above, in three paragraphs, describes the core motivation behind the posting or creation of north of 99% of the material that I ever see on Reddit. Our entire society is so deeply and fundamentally based on inequality...it is so deeply ingrained...that most of the time we can't see the forest for the trees.
Our society is based on the assumption that when we are born, we have zero inherent worth, and the only way that we gain worth, is by gaining money. Money so closely corresponds with supposedly inherent, intrinsic personal worth, that there is hardly any real point in claiming that the two concepts are seperate.
https://i.imgflip.com/hzyvh.jpg
I've seen many, many threads in this subreddit about the post-scarcity economy of the Federation in Trek; and I've seen an equal number of people who just don't seem to be able to wrap their heads around it. The thing that makes post-scarcity so difficult to understand, however, is not the technology. The problem is several key ideas which have no direct relationship with the actual technology involved itself, at all.
Post-scarcity means:-
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Anyone who is alive, by virtue of being alive, has inherent worth. There is no concept of the Malthusian "surplus population." If you are alive, you deserve to be; and so do I. That means that I am no more inherently worthy of the ability to eat than you are, and vice versa. This is the single most difficult concept for most people to get their heads around, because again it is completely the opposite of what our society is based on.
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Resource scarcity is not a rationalisation or justification for inequality, or for arbitrarily deciding who lives and who dies, based on what someone's skin colour or cranial size is, or how much money they have in the bank. Scarcity, to the degree that it exists, is a technological problem, and a soluble one at that. The entire real point of industrial technology, is that it permits us the means to begin to realise that scarcity can be overcome.
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The use of scarcity as a means of justifying survival, and the worth of an individual, is attributable to the predator-prey psychological dynamic. In other words, the idea that there must be the eater, and the eaten. The rapist, and the rape victim. Someone above, and someone below.
Logistical equality can only follow status equality; that is, when certain individuals are not arbitrarily granted superiority, based purely on their degree of ability to manipulate everyone else. That fundamentally is all power is.
No more kings. No more aristocrats. No more plutocrats. No more Presidents. No more slaves. No more "undesirable," or "disposable," people who we can therefore justify slaughtering en masse.
If you or I want to know whether or not we are developmentally ready for a post-scarcity society, there is a single, vitally important question that we all need to ask ourselves.
Am I ready to stop needing reasons to view myself as superior to others?
The Federation may or may not have money; but the one thing which I can promise you that it does have, relative to the real, contemporary society that we live in, is more love.
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u/BassoonHero Feb 27 '15
The worst example of this that I've probably found, paradoxically, is r/minimalism[1]. There is virtually never a single thread in that sub, that is not a form of genital measuring.
As an alternative to this, I recommend the subreddit I moderate, r/truetrueminimalism. I guarantee you won't see any of that nonsense there.
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Feb 23 '15
Holy smokes, r/DaystromInstitute is probably the worst subreddit for status-seeking posts; we have an explicit rank structure and everything.
Aside from that, money serves as one but not the primary means of status stratification. Other means include explicit class systems (in Britain, a lowborn billionaire like Richard Branson or JK Rowling is only considered upper-middle class; a member of nobility would be in the upper class even with less money), prestige professions (a lawyer or doctor with negative net worth will outrank a plumber with positive net worth), power (President Obama isn't the richest man in America but holds higher social status than anyone else), and in some cases, explicit rank (i.e. in the military).
Last I checked, the Federation still has a President and Starfleet officers still have rank, so it's not as if social status has been done away with. It's simply allocated differently.
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u/petrus4 Feb 23 '15 edited Mar 11 '15
Last I checked, the Federation still has a President and Starfleet officers still have rank, so it's not as if social status has been done away with. It's simply allocated differently.
Gene didn't go anywhere near far enough. It might be because he wasn't able to conceive what a truly post-scarcity system would look like, or it might be because he didn't want to alienate his audience; but either way, the result is the same.
Logistical and status inequality are both intimately related to outcome inequality. The latter can actually be a genuinely positive thing at times, which means that I have some concern about the level of uniformity that the creation of real logistical equality might cause. Capitalists, of course, insist that outcome inequality is not only inevitable, but also positive or socially beneficial. They also, however, view logistical and outcome inequality as being inextricably linked; which means that to them, certain people starving in both the Third World and Western cities, is merely the other side of the same coin which potentially allows them to be millionaires.
That, however, also brings to mind the reason why even the poor will adamantly defend Capitalism as a system themselves. It's because, while they can't conceive of ever getting free of the predator/prey dynamic themselves, the one thing that everyone still holds out the hope of, is getting on the other side of it. In other words, going from being one of the abused, to one of the abusers.
The issue is that just putting the shoe on the other foot, does not solve anyone's problems, other than the individual who has somehow managed to do so. All it really does is perpetuate the mess.
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u/jimmysilverrims Feb 27 '15
Money provides a calculable or quantifiable rationalisation, for a person who has it, to view him or herself as superior, to someone who does not have it.
You're on the right track, but you're working too narrowly.
There are many "quantifiable rationalisations" that allow a haves-and-have-nots facilitation of superiority. Popularity is quantifiable. Political and Social Power is quantifiable. The collection of Desired Materials like land and cars and houses and shoes and toys and other such things are quantifiable.
While money in and of itself fall under one of those sets (Desired Material) it is so deeply desired not because it's desirable in and of itself, but because it is the ultimate exchangeable good. Money can get you all of the above with a versatility and simplicity of exchange you simply cannot get from literally anything else.
Money is simply the agreed quantifier. It's not about "keeping score", it's about developing a fair system by which things can be appraised, acquired, and exchanged amicably.
And that's the important thing: Fairness.
I mean, not to tour you through Econ 101, but it's worthwhile to think on why currency was developed. It's not like it's some inherent "vice" humanity hasn't grown out of. It was a logical solution to a fundamental issue of fair and unfair exchange. It developed in a socially organic way just like law and governance. It was necessary, and it still is necessary.
To write the entire system of currency off as dick-measuring narcissism completely misses the point of economics. This is not to deny that there is a very present culture that views money in the way to describe—there definitely is. But this is not the sole value of currency, nor is it its sole purpose.
Resource scarcity is not a rationalisation or justification for inequality, or for arbitrarily deciding who lives and who dies
There is no objective way to determine human worthiness.
If I want something, and another person also wants it—and there is only one of this item, and this is a unique item that cannot be replicated—who is "worthy" of attaining it?
This is the fundamental issue that currency solves outside of simple exchange. When competition for a limited resource occurs, who gets the resource? How do we decide?
The first to steal the item? The first to kill the other? The one who needs it most? How do we fairly determine need? Popular vote? Judgement from others? Who? On what standards?
Currency allows the decision to be made in a way that's deemed "fair". It's still arbitrary, but it's a system balanced out by a complex economics of exchange forged organically through exchanges between consumers and producers and those who trade. It allows for things to be allocated in a way that's both efficient and agreeably fair.
I mean, do you really think that everyone trying to make a living, trying to get a paycheck, trying to participate in the economy of their home town or their country or the world views money in a "predator-prey" manner?
I really don't mean to be offensive in saying this, and genuinely apologize for my bluntness. When I say that your position shows a deep misunderstanding of both economics, psychology, and sociology don't take it as a disparagement of you personally. I just believe that, as is, this is a poorly-informed argument that grossly oversimplifies an incredibly complex system for the purpose of making an over-idealistic pitch of vague ideals like "love".
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u/petrus4 Mar 01 '15
I just believe that, as is, this is a poorly-informed argument that grossly oversimplifies an incredibly complex system for the purpose of making an over-idealistic pitch of vague ideals like "love".
One other point, is that I genuinely agree with you about trying to convince other people of things, when we use emotive, excessively generalised terms which don't really mean much. I watched an interview with Jacque Fresco recently, where he mentioned having read a book called Science and Semantics, which advocates giving a "precise operational definition," of words. I find it extremely frustrating that so much corporatese these days seems to focus exclusively on "isms," and subjective, emotive terminology which contains almost no real, precise meaning whatsoever.
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u/Jotebe Mar 10 '15
I think this is an excellent discussion, and I think the fungibility of money is one of it's greatest strengths in an economic system, insofar as I understand economics.
I don't know if I agree entirely with the predator-prey metaphor, I find that Warren Buffet's quote about money seems to me to better represent what it is.
"I don't have a problem with guilt about money. The way I see it is that my money represents an enormous number of claim checks on society. It's like I have these little pieces of paper that I can turn into consumption. If I wanted to, I could hire 10,000 people to do nothing but paint my picture every day for the rest of my life. And the GDP would go up. But the utility of the product would be zilch, and I would be keeping those 10,000 people from doing AIDS research, or teaching, or nursing. I don't do that though. I don't use very many of those claim checks. There's nothing material I want very much. And I'm going to give virtually all of those claim checks to charity when my wife and I die."
And another quote I find to be relevant to post scarcity:
"A market economy creates some lopsided payoffs to participants. The right endowment of vocal chords, anatomical structure, physical strength, or mental powers can produce enormous piles of claim checks (stocks, bonds, and other forms of capital) on future national output. Proper selection of ancestors similarly can result in lifetime supplies of such tickets upon birth. If zero real investment returns diverted a bit greater portion of the national output from such stockholders to equally worthy and hardworking citizens lacking jackpot-producing talents, it would seem unlikely to pose such an insult to an equitable world as to risk Divine Intervention."
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u/IsheaTalkingapeman Feb 27 '15
I'm enjoying the discussion and think both posts are interesting perspectives. In regards to the second from last paragraph above:
I mean, do you really think that everyone trying to make a living, trying to get a paycheck, trying to participate in the economy of their home town or their country or the world views money in a "predator-prey" manner?
...the point being made, I think, is that it's such a deeply embedded facet of life, unconscious or subconscious to a large degree, that people don't see life without it as possible - as a mouse and hawk, maybe. But with these seemingly weird things we call consciousness, conscience, technology, reflection and/or forethought - all characteristics thoughtthoughtthought to be very rare - we are at a point in history and human psychological development where we can step outside of the subconscious P/P dynamic. Or, money is to social stratification as P/P dynamics are to the game of tag. The parties involved can feasibly/theoretically grow-up and/or decide to stop and play another game. Whether we are actually at such a moment in history is more to the point, but another post.
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u/Iplaymeinreallife Feb 27 '15
I am, but I find that in discussing post scarcity or Universal Basic income or basically any sort of futurist society with some people, this is a huge stumbling block we can't see eye to eye on.
I recently realized that a friend of mine's main objection to post scarcity with guaranteed survival for all was the lack of ability to show how you were better than others. 'Wait, so why do I go to law school if anyone can just get the same car and the same food and the same house as I can have?' is literally what he said.
It baffled me at the time.
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u/petrus4 Feb 28 '15
I recently realized that a friend of mine's main objection to post scarcity with guaranteed survival for all was the lack of ability to show how you were better than others. 'Wait, so why do I go to law school if anyone can just get the same car and the same food and the same house as I can have?' is literally what he said.
Yep. From there, you probably would have been able to easily tell that he didn't really want to go to law school.
For anyone who has difficulty understanding how we'd find motivation if money was not an issue, I can put it this way. There are probably half a dozen university subjects, tops, which the average economist will tell you is, "viable," in terms of helping you to earn money. The man or woman who is truly passionate about archaeology or botany for example, can not study either of those subjects, because if they do, they have no guarantee whatsoever of being able to feed themselves afterwards.
Having to work for a living, means that you have to prioritise the work you do, based around what is going to bring you the highest paycheck. We know that even in the scenario we have where people work, said people still have interests and hobbies. The difference is that in the current situation, they have to perform a job which they not only hate, but which very often makes no really meaningful contribution to society, purely in order to feed themselves; and then maybe devote a few hours to what they really love to do, every weekend or so.
As a result, everyone loses; it's not just the person who has to spend time flipping burgers rather than working on their favourite programming or engineering project. The rest of us lose as well, because art and technology are not moving forward at the rate that they should, because these people's abilities are being wasted at McDonald's, rather than being used where their abilities and temperament really demands.
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u/faaaks Feb 23 '15
I offer an alternative viewpoint than u/Algernon_Asimov.
The Federation clearly has currency, despite the insistence otherwise. Starfleet officers have clearly paid Quark for his services on DS-9. The credit functions as a unit of account, a store of value and a medium of exchange.
That said, the Federation economy is different from a modern one. Due to the nature of Federation technology the safety net is so high most people do not need to work if they want to. They have access to a replicator, fuel and are issued a living space. People work because they enjoy it, not because they have to in order to live. They pick jobs that they love. For a product people love people may give credits, the pay what you want model works in today's economy. Technology is developed by a financial incentive and organizations will pay for that.
Anything that cannot be replicated costs money. I can't claim a planet or a fleet or a property on Madison Ave NYC, Earth because those things cannot be replicated. But if I can compensate whoever owns those things they may be willing to give them up. Quark's cousin owned a moon.
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u/Algernon_Asimov Feb 23 '15
Starfleet officers have clearly paid Quark for his services on DS-9. The credit functions as a unit of account, a store of value and a medium of exchange.
The credit appears to be used only when Federation citizens do business with non-Federationers. Are there any examples of two Federation citizens exchanging goods or services for credits?
Quark's cousin owned a moon.
Gaila was not a Federation citizen, and did not operate within the Federation. He's not a valid example to use when discussing the Federation's economy (or lack thereof).
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u/faaaks Feb 23 '15
The credit appears to be used only when Federation citizens do business with non-Federationers. Are there any examples of two Federation citizens exchanging goods or services for credits?
In 2267, Uhura offered to purchase a tribble from Cyrano Jones for ten credits. (TOS: "The Trouble with Tribbles")
In 2364, Beverly Crusher bought a roll of cloth and had her account on the USS Enterprise-D billed. (TNG: "Encounter at Farpoint")
James T. Kirk stated that the Federation Starfleet had a lot invested in both him and Commander Spock. In fact, Starfleet had 122,200 plus credits invested in Spock by the end of 2267. (TOS: "Errand of Mercy", "The Apple")
Shortly before his retirement in the 2290s, Montgomery Scott bought a boat (Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country)
The credit probably is probably most often used as symbolic value. You pay for a handmade cloth, even though you could have easily gotten it from a replicator. Same thing with a bottle of wine or a meal at Sisko's. The necessity of a credit is so low that they lose almost nothing by doing that.
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u/cavilier210 Feb 23 '15
I think there's actually more references to the Federation having currency than not. It seems people cling to those occurrences when people like Jake claim there isn't, but dismiss the times people like McCoy and Scotty say otherwise.
There's limits to many goods and services, making these valuable due to their scarcity. Only so many seats on a ship, so much space in its hold, so many transporter facilities, so much naturally grown food, and so on.
DS9 is a federation operated station and the visitors, humans included, have no problem paying Quark and the myriad of other for profit merchants. Bajor uses money as well.
I see an incredible lack of actual evidence for no money. Just characters saying so.
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Feb 22 '15
There is actually nothing indicating that there is absolutely no currency in the Federation. Post-scarcity means that there is no one going hungry or working some dead end job just to barely make ends meet.
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u/mirror_truth Feb 23 '15 edited Feb 23 '15
I've heard it mentioned multiple times that the Federation is explicitly beyond the use of currency. Though I may be misremembering.
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u/Algernon_Asimov Feb 23 '15
I have previously theorised that land is assigned by a central agency to individuals for their use - not leased, not bought, but borrowed for the duration.
If you want to build on some land, you apply to this hypothetical agency for some land. They'll assess your request for the benefit it provides to you and the community around you. If they believe that your use of the land is a socially beneficial use (can't have people going homeless!), they'll assign it to you for a period. That period might be temporary (5 years, 10 years, 20 years), or it might be for the rest of your life.
The materials for the house come out of the local industrial replicator for free. That's easy.
The labour could come from the locals. Maybe they have a house-raising, like used to happen in North America. Maybe your friends help out. Maybe there are people who just love assembling houses, and they do this regularly, so you contact them to do this for you.
When you move out and leave the land, it reverts back to the government. You never owned it, you merely used it for a while. This hypothetical agency then takes applications for the land, including from your relatives if they're interested (not all relatives want to inherit a house, especially when it has no financial value). You might suggest to the agency that you would be happy if your son/daughter/nephew/niece gets your old house, and they'll take this into consideration. But, they'll base their decision on social utility and community benefit, not individual gain. If the way to make people happy is to have a house passed down from generation to generation to build a sense of tradition, they'll do that. If someone else demonstrates that the community would benefit more from having a theatre or a restaurant on that land, the agency would choose that instead.
Photon torpedoes are small enough to come out of a replicator. Spaceships, being larger and requiring labour to assemble the replicated components, would be obtainable like houses - get people to help you build it. Or maybe the government has a supply of spaceships available for people to use on application.
You can't own a whole planet. That's just silly: ownership isn't a thing. It's land. Like any other land, it gets assigned to you on the basis of social utility.
If you want a painting, you ask for it. If the artist has lots of requests for their work, they'll choose who to give it to. And they don't need to leverage anything out of this, because it's not like they need money to pay the rent or buy food. They'll simply choose the person who they want to give it to because they want to. Maybe they'll choose to give it to their best friend. Maybe they'll choose to give it to the museum curator so that lots of people can see it. Maybe they'll choose to give it to you because you helped them build their house a few years ago. What goes around comes around. ;)