anarchist economics of star trek

[Bryan]

check this site my comrade matt grinder made every body!

http://vanparecon.resist.ca/StarTrekEcon/

[mhandel]

Whatever you say, the top-down hierarchical nature of the Federation really demonstrates how anarchistic Star Trek is....

[Bryan]

I agree , the site I think aims at trying to get the writers of star trek to adopt parecon because of the many similarities between star trek and it. As well as get the writers to impliment some of the things in parecon that are missing from the show.

[Iconoclastic]

It was always my understanding that the ships were a kind of military situation. You never saw a lot of the economic workings on Earth, and the fleet was commanded top-down style

[albamuth]

Reading it was kind of scary for me. For one, it simultaneously lauded Parecon while not even addressing the total hierarchy that the Federation is. I have quite a few reservations about Parecon because it is not a new way of expressing value, just a different distribution system. All the planning committees and setting of prices...ugh. People have enough trouble balancing their checkbooks.

My suggestion for a Star Trek economic system:

The currency is in Joules--that is, units of energy. The Federation (which has a monopoly on dilithium crystals or whatever they use to generate power) rations out Joules to people who can use it to power their replicators. If you use too many Joules they send a gang of Klingons to your house for some "corrective measures." If join the military, you don't get any Joules at all, but unlimited access to Federation resources (replicators and phasers and whatnot) and you get to vote for the next President-For-Life or whatever. If you start complaining about how hierarchical the Federation is, they tell you to "join the Borg then, commie". If you're an anarchist then they ship you off to some M-class planet around a G-type star.

[Morpheus]

The Federation is obviously Authoritarian Communism without the Party. They've even got secret police - section 31.

[Area23]

The Federation is obviously Authoritarian Communism without the Party. They've even got secret police - section 31.

Especially since you only see the military part in the series, and in the rare scenes of actual federation daily life you only see happy people like in Watchtower', all dressed in more or less the same quasi utility dress, I've come to believe that the OFFICIAL federation policy and political situation must be very different to reality and there might be something very, very wrong with the Fed. system some sort of 'socialist workers paradise dystopia' where any dissent is surgically cut out by commitees of shrinks and psy-ops. At least.
And probably most citizens arent even aware of it.

Therefore all Star Trek series are blatant Federation propaganda and misinformation!

[lumpenoid]

Oooh boy. This is going to get nerdy. I actually did an interview with George Takei (who played Sulu) and we talked about the politics of Trek at some length. He basically said that Trek reflects Roddenberry's liberalism and ideas of social justice (that, funnily enough, Takei seemed to share a fair bit. We talked about the situation of refugees here in Australia and he was very cool about the whole thing). But that's a bit beside the point.

First of all, you have to make the distinction between the Federation and Star Fleet.

In various episodes of Trek, it's clear that Starfleet (two words or one? I can never remember) doesn't have a monopoly on scientific exploration or use of force. There was Seven of Nine's parents who were freelance scientists and, by all appearances, very well resourced.

My understanding of anarchy is that hierarchy is not bad per se, but unjustified hierarchy is. Members of Starfleet seem to voluntarily submit to the structure because it works, ditto with being part of the Federation (the "great unity" Picard talks about in Generations). Who hasn't joined a collective that doesn't have problematic aspects? That isn't to say that either the Federation or Starfleet is anarchist, but it seems the Federation is flexible enough to encompass differing structures. It's your classic 1960s liberal vision of near-utopia that is being unwound the further Trek goes on after GR's death.

And Section 31 is clearly an abhorration. I remember in episodes of DS9, Bashir arguing something along the lines of S31 being a self-justified organisation that bears no real relationship to the survival of Starfleet or the Federation. And I'd agree with the little GMO. S31 is secretive because they believe that well-meaning citizens would not tolerate their existance and methods, and S31 deliberately refuse to submit themselves to any checks and balances. This clearly implies that everyday people have the power to directly influence something like military organisation.

Where I'm unclear is the amount of influence Starfleet's upper hierarchy has on ordinary people in the Trek universe. Could, for example, an Admiral order me go to jail or out again, a la Lt Paris? And what role does the New Zealand penal colony play in the Trek universe?
And, if my uderstanding of the Federation is correct, what the hell are the Marquee rebelling/fighting against? Where the Feds trying to stop the Marquee killing Cardassians? From blocking consenus? What?

Just remember: it's a TV show about adventures in space. But I think we can all agree that Enterprise bloody sucks.

[Xenopatriot]

The thing about Trek is that it gives a very sunny-happy spin (in general) to militarism, under the guise of "exploration" and "science". These are the same masks that fuelled colonialism for a long long time, and still do. If I was going to choose a a Sci-Fi space series that truly embodies anarchist thinking, I think I'd have to go with either Farscape, or my personal favorite of all time, Firefly. In both cases the "crews" are fighting an authoritarian regime, and bear much more resemblance to an affinity group than a military crew.

[billythethird]

To the people that say the hierarchical chain of command on star trek makes it non-anarchist I say that it is not the same as modern day real life hierarchies. On the show there are many examples of someone running off and doing whatever they want with no consequences. Commanding officers are more like teachers and wise (wo)men than authority figures. Kirk was given a 5 year mission to go off and bang green chics. Picard regularly did whatever the hell he wanted including disregarding rules as he saw fit as did his senior staff.

Compare the show with the reimagined Battlestar Galactica. Adm. Adama nearly executed one of his crew because her husband organized a strike. THAT is an oppressive hierarchy.