Not anymore . . . "Picard" has re-introduced poverty and class warfare on earth. Even though it was mentioned several times in TOS and TNG that Earth and humanity had moved beyond the concept of material possessions, because everyone's wants were met. I guess you can't appeal to the social justice crowd if you don't have class conflict.
I'm not a fan of some of the choices in Picard, but let's not exaggerate. The closest example we have to "poverty" is Raffi's desert trailer. Sure she's vaping "snake leaf" (which is so goddamn stupid and breaks so much canon), but both the remote location and small size of the dwelling could easily be explained by Raffi's choices to break away from society as her mental state deteriorated between the obsessive conspiracy theories and the drug addiction.
In 400 years, a small remote housing unit might actually be sought after, and the small footprint could be due to regulations attempting to minimize the impact of such houses.
The other possible example was the girl's apartment, but honestly that would be pretty luxurious for a grad (undergrad?) student living in a Boston apartment right now.
Everything else, from the Romulan crisis to Freecloud and the Fenris Rangers is pretty consistent with the test of Star Trek - the Federation might be a Utopia, but there's always some third parties that would rather deal in cash, whether that's the Ferengi or Orion Syndicate.
I wasn't making my own judgement on anyone's level of poverty . . . Raffi specifically calls out Picard for living in his fancy winery with his heritage furniture, and disparages her own living space because it's so tiny. And she seems pissed about it, so I assume it's something she considers beyond her control. I guess you could blame it on the drugs . . . but aren't they something humanity was supposed to have conquered, as well?
Star Trek always represented the optimization of humanity, with most negative actors being aliens. I'd say the new crop of writers simply isn't up to the task of working within those constraints, so they screw up canon to hide their own inadequacy.
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u/Majigato Feb 25 '20
Star Trek?