Comment on Was it a good thing that SNW explicitly said the Federation is socialist?
bionicjoey@lemmy.ca 3 months agoAnd with only one unfortunate exception that I can think of, matter replication is treated as a net energy loss - it isn’t free.
Well sure, it’s energy negative, but they also have basically free energy. We see in Voyager that as soon as they are cut off from that free energy, they regress to a market-based economy by like the third episode of the show. Doesn’t seem very socialist to me.
ValueSubtracted@startrek.website 3 months ago
They were “cut off” because they no longer had access to the supply lines that provided them with fuel. That’s not “free energy” at all.
bionicjoey@lemmy.ca 3 months ago
Yeah that’s my point. As soon as they no longer had access to the magical impossible logistics network of virtually free energy, they immediately regressed to capitalism with a side order of martial law.
ValueSubtracted@startrek.website 3 months ago
I don’t think what they were doing in the Delta Quadrant would meet many (good) definitions of “capitalism.”
And it’s difficult to say how “martial law” could be imposed on a command structure that was already militaristic.
bionicjoey@lemmy.ca 3 months ago
They use replicator rations as currency and exchange them for goods and services. In a world that frequently says that society has progressed beyond the need for money. As soon as things become scarce they start using a market again. Thus, the lack of scarcity in the Federation precludes the concept of an economy at all.
And yeah Starfleet ships are always militaristic, but people can choose to leave if that’s still an option. I believe this was why RDM left the writing team, but it never seemed right that Janeway just appointed herself dictator when this ship was potentially in for a multi-generation journey. BSG handled that sort of thing much better.