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posted by cmn32480 on Sunday July 12 2015, @11:25AM   Printer-friendly
from the eject-the-core dept.

Anna North writes in the NY Times about Star Trek's "post-economic" system, in which money no longer exists and anything you want can be made in a replicator, essentially for free. According to Manu Saadia, the author of "Trekonomics," a forthcoming book about the economics of the Star Trek universe, when everything is free, objects will no longer be status symbols. Success will be measured in achievements, not in money: "Instead of working to become more wealthy, you work to increase your reputation," says Saadia. "You work to increase your prestige. You want to be the best captain or the best scientist in the entire galaxy. And many other people are working to do that, as well. It's very meritocratic"

In a time of rising inequality and stagnating wages, a world where everyone's needs are met and people only work if they feel like it seems pretty far away but a post-scarcity economy is actually far more within reach than the technological advances for which Star Trek is better known. If productivity growth continues, Saadia believes there will be much more wealth to go around in a few hundred years' time. In general, society might look more like present-day New Zealand, which he sees as less work-obsessed than the United States: "You work to live rather than the other way round." Wealthy retirees today also already live an essentially post-money existence, "traveling and exploring and deepening their understanding of the world and being generally happy." According to Saadia we're beginning to get a few hints of what the post-money, reputation-based economy might look like. "If you look at things like Instagram, Vine, places where people put a huge amount of work into basically just gaining a certain amount of reputation, it's fascinating to see. Or even Wikipedia, for that matter. The Internet has begun to give us a hint of how much people will work, for no money, just for reputation."


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 12 2015, @01:54PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 12 2015, @01:54PM (#208142)

    Take current world population, cut it by 90% without destroying infrastructure, political stability, or the knowledge base - and reverse the concentration of wealth while you are at it. Now, that might be a basis for starting down a "Star Trek economy" path.

    For every "boring job" that still needs doing, other people could research and develop ways of automating it. Some work, like firefighting, will always need ad-hoc action - but, last time I checked, firefighters are mostly volunteers?

    I haven't seen the obligatory Manna Link in this thread yet, so here it is: http://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm [marshallbrain.com] Where I think Brain misses the reality mark is with the US actually provisioning decent welfare housing - Denmark has done it, but the current political climate in the USA would never give "freeloaders" a decent roof over their heads - criminals? sure, but the lazy? nope.

  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by Ethanol-fueled on Sunday July 12 2015, @02:30PM

    by Ethanol-fueled (2792) on Sunday July 12 2015, @02:30PM (#208145) Homepage

    The reality is that if we had Star Trek Technology people wouldn't be exploring the galaxy, they'd be spending all their time getting their nuts off in holodecks and holosuites. There'd be no need to fly actual starships when they could do it in a holodeck and return home to their lives every day.