Star Trek Abundance

[alanjjohnstone]

http://www.businessinsider.in/The-utopian-future-of-Star-Trek-doesnt-work-without-extreme-inequality-and-some-slavery/articleshow/49432854.cms

It seems we have authorities such as Paul Klugman who does not believe that servants will disappear in a post scarcity society. 

It seems they forgot that Sisko's dad had a restaurant and enjoyed cooking food for those who used it. That is a big difference from being a waitress surviving on tips and gratuities from customers…much service workers will be replace by self-service.  

Capt Picard's family had a vine-yard producing wine…no mention of how the grapes are picked…but possibly by fellow wine connoisseurs rather than poverty stricken migrants.

I think the critics are actually ill-informed on the actual social organisation of communities…they still equate work with wage-labour and drudgery despite their supposed illustrious professional credentials. 

[Dave B]

I think it is ‘interesting’ that when it comes to ‘old science’ fiction eg Ursula’s ‘The Dispossessed’ we are all on board  as regards a bourgeois intellectual seminal piece of communistic literature. Personally I thought it was a bit of a grubby communistic paradigm. In contrast when it comes to popular and modern communistic material eg Star Trek The Next Generation, it is only fit for the working classes and thus beneath intellectual analysis and is ignored.   I don’t deny that Star Trek The Next Generation is padded out with 95% crap probably just like the film ‘Spartacus’ was. I think the last episode of Star Trek The Next Generation has Picard working in ‘his’ or ‘a’ French vineyard as a labour of love.  I didn’t like Deep Space 9 much.

[ALB]

Dave B wrote:

I didn’t like Deep Space 9 much.

Who does? It's not really a genuine part of Star Trek, just an ordinary soap opera set in a space station with people who still have capitalist ideas. Basically, it's just crap.

[alanjjohnstone]

DS-9 – Workers of the World Unite https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qag2bOBUVfQForm a unionhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vx-pEArlNDUbtw, Armin Shimerman (who plays Quark) at the time of filming was a leading member of the Screen Actors Guild being on its national executiveWhile another Fernengi – Wallace Shawn (Grand Negus Zek) in real life calls himself a socialist http://www.huffingtonpost.com/wallace-shawn/why-i-call-myself-a-socia_b_818061.html

[ALB]

You're talking about the actors not the role they play, especially not in the two cases you mention as the Ferengi are portrayed as the epitome of capitalist profit-seeking. But why in a post-capitalist, post-scarcity world are there capitalists? In fact why are there be workers who needed to form a union?

[alanjjohnstone]

Tsk Tsk Tsk, ALB…you simply aren't following your standard Trotskyist uneven development properly…not all planetary systems have reached post-scarcityPeople only use money in Quark's bar on DS9 because DS9 is a Bajoran space station, subject to Bajoran laws. The main currency unit on Bajor was the lita. In fact, Quark's bar's customs would be very illegal in the Federation. Quark is a Ferengi, and as such he uses latinum as currency.  The Federation Credithttp://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Federation_creditLatinum was a rare silver-colored liquid that was used as currency by the Ferengi Alliance and many other worlds. It could not be replicated. For ease of transaction, latinum was usually suspended within "useless" gold as a binding medium to produce gold-pressed latinum. Denominations of gold-pressed latinum, in order of increasing value, included the slip, the strip, the bar, and the brick. One bar of gold-pressed latinum was equal to twenty strips or two thousand slips of latinum.The lek is a Cardassian unit of currency (perhaps equating Cardassia with Albania)The darsek was the main unit of currency used in the Klingon Empire.Aboard the Voyager, each crew member recieved energy credits that could be exchanged for replicated goods; a similar system was employed on DS9, but it would seem that in that system one could buy credits with latinum. Latinum isn't just used as a currency by the Ferengi, as much as some Star Fleet people might like to pretend. It's basically used as a universal currency.The United Federation of Planets is probably a technocracy with an elected government. Everyone has access to basic necessities but you get a little more if you have a job and even more when you have an important job. The captain's quarters on a starship are bigger than all the other ones and ensign's (and below) quarters have to be shared so in many ways Star Fleet isn't much different than today’s military.All info found athttp://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Portal:MainI'm sure in socialism, our sci-fi fiction will be nothing like we imagine.   

[ALB]

The whole thing is silly. Why are technologically advanced economies that can support space travel such as the Klingons and the Cardassians still using money? Why is there a poverty-stricken planet not far from a post-scarcity space station, i.e if there's enough abundance to sustain a space station why isn't there enough to feed the population of a nearby planet?I once drafted an article about an episode in the first Star Trek series in which Captain Kirk and the others come across a technologically advanced planet (one that had advanced to Earth's current stage) that had the social structure of Ancient Rome, with patricians and slaves. I was going to argue that this was impossible as an economy with such a technology could not function on the basis of chattel slavery. I didn't finish it because I didn't want to come across as a technological determinist, even though I think there is an element of technological determinism in Marxism:

Quote:

The handmill gives you society with the feudal lord; the steam mill, society with the industrial capitalist.

And the interplanetary spaceships gives you a moneyless society of abundance …

[Young Master Smeet]

Posadist!https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_International_Posadist

[Anonymous]

I don't think Gene Roddenberry had anything to do with Deep Space Nine. Think 'Lenin Distorts Marx'  There will be no money in the 24th Centrury, Captain Pickard should know, he has been there. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TOcKGREiY30 and as Spock would say 'Money is completely illogical' Even tho' his face has been put on dollar notes in Canada. But then they played John Lennon's Imagine in Church.Completely illogical but then so is capitalism,

[SocialistPunk]

A scene from the 1996 Star Trek film First Contact.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PV4Oze9JEU0

Quote:

Lilly  "It took me six months to scrounge enough titanium just to build a four meter cockpit. How much does this thing cost?"Capt. Picard  "The economics of the future are somewhat different. You see, money doesn't exist in the 24th century."Lilly  "No money. You mean you don't get paid?"Capt. Picard "The acquisition of wealth is no longer the driving force in our lives. We work to better ourselves and the rest of humanity."

[SocialistPunk]

Sorry Vin, I didn't notice the link you provided in your post.

[ALB]

In the meantime I've found that draft (it must be from the late 60s or early 70s):

Quote:

In a recent Star Trek adventure Captain Kirk and the starship Enterprise came across a planet whose technology exactly paralleled Earth's in the twentieth century but whose social development had not advanced beyond the slave society of Roman times. Indeed the Roman Empire still existed, with televised gladiator fights sponsored by motor manufacturers. The slaves were, for the most part, contented having been granted a free medical service and old age pensions.Of course anything goes in science fiction, but would it really have been possible for social development to have taken this course? Could modern technology have been developed on the basis of chattel slavery? No, not unless you are prepared to reject the scientific approach to history pioneered by Marx and argue that property forms are quite independent of the relations and methods of production.In Roman times industry was very little developed and largescale production was confined to agriculture, mining, road building and construction work. All these are labour-intensive projects requiring a mass of unskilled labour. Which is precisely why slave-labour was appropriate, and developed. Modern technology, capable of producing television sets and internal construction engines developed [not completed]If Spock had studied Marx he would have been able to tell Kirk and McCoy that what they saw on the planet's surface was a illusion of some kind.

I'm sure a trekkie like Alan seems to be will be able to identify the precise episode.

[alanjjohnstone]

Bread and Circusesclipshttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jBwJ9MyxxsQwelfare state slaveryhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YTvwK319mlo

[ALB]

Thanks, Alan. There was also a sting in the tail (but not as bad as the spirituality crap in Deep Space Nine):

Quote:

When Kirk landed with Spock and McCoy they came across some runaway slaves who were apparently "sun"-worshippers. Only later did they discover that they were really "son" (i.e son-of-god) worshippers. The SS Enterprise went away with its captain and crew satisfied that the Roman Empire would fall under the impact of Christianity, even if some 2000 years later. The only trouble is that the rise of christianity under the Roman Empire [not completed].

I imagine a summary of Kautsky's Foundations of Christianity was to follow or that this led to the rise of feudalism not industrial capitalism.

[Dave B]

ReligionThe Ferengi concepts of the afterlife are a mirror of their pursuit of wealth in life. When a Ferengi dies, he is said to meet the Blessed Exchequer, who reviews the financial statements of that Ferengi's entire life. If he earned a profit, he is ushered into Ferengi heaven: the Divine Treasury, where the Celestial Auctioneers allow him to bid on a new life. Ferengi who were not financially successful in life are damned to the Vault of Eternal Destitution.[3]When a Ferengi prays or bows in reverence, he holds his hands in a bowl shape with his wrists together. A typical Ferengi prayer begins with this phrase: "Blessed Exchequer, whose greed is eternal, allow this bribe to open your ears and hear this plea from your most humble debtor." As is typical, this is accompanied by placing a slip of latinum into a small statue made in the Exchequer's likeness.Ferengi make regular pilgrimages to Earth's Wall Street, which they view as a holy site of commerce and business. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferengi That is just straight out of Marxist economic base ideological superstructure play book.Although with early christianity the early christians were the the oppressed and dispossed workers etc hence they had a communists interpretation. EGThe Epistle of BarnabasThou shalt communicate* in all things with thy neighbour; thou shalt not call things thine own; for if ye are partakers in common of things which are incorruptible, how much more [should you be] of those things……….. Thou shalt not join thyself," he means, "to such men as know not how to procure food for themselves by labour and sweat, but seize on that of others in their iniquity, and although wearing an aspect of simplicity, are on the watch to plunder others.http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/barnabas-roberts.html *Apparently the greek word that was translated as 'communicate' had a more general meaning as share. These modern christian translators try and rip the share stuff out as much as they can. It is the same with Latin i think with commūnicāre.I 'think' all this shared root meaning of communicate, share, commune and communism etc goes back to this Greek word the begins with K i think.Not my game really.It was attributed to Barnabas but it is unlikely it was.That attribution is probably interesting in itself in that Barnabas was one of the communists in Acts.So you could make the case that the attributiion was based on the communist content of the 'Epistle' and that was considered the central and the main theme of the text?Barnabas was hanging around circa 60AD apparently and the text is as good as internally date stamped as any can be at 132AD

[Author]

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