Transformers 3: Dark of the Moon

[Atlantis]

Sigh... If only we lived in a perfect world where there was no money, like in Star Trek.
(please don't start a discussion that there is money in Star Trek )

One of the flaws in Star Trek You cannot sustain an economy without money

 

[Joelist]

One of the flaws in Star Trek You cannot sustain an economy without money

Makes me wonder what that gold pressed latinum the Ferengi liked was all about...

 

[Overmind One]

One of the flaws in Star Trek You cannot sustain an economy without money

LOL...are you serious? Money is worth nothing.

 

[Overmind One]

Makes me wonder what that gold pressed latinum the Ferengi liked was all about...

As long as there is a demand and a supply to fill the demand (and individuals to facilitate the movement of supplies to its customers), you have an economy.

 

[Gatefan1976]

Gold pressed latinum was valuable because it could not be replicated.

 

[Joelist]

Gold pressed latinum was valuable because it could not be replicated.

Exactly. This made it usable as money which clearly is what the Ferengi are doing.

While money per se is not eseential to a basic economy, once the economy gets more complicated that barter some type of note becomes needed. And in its simplest form that is what money is - a note that represents something of value. In the good old days before fiat currency money always was either valuable in itself (gold coins for example) or was directly exchangable for something of value (usually a precious metal, but land and other things also have been used throughout history).

This is where the Star Trek economy supposedly having no money falls down. The society is too complex for barter and without some means of transferring value between parties nothing would ever get done. But then again the whole "moneyless" society thing was just a rarely mentioned part of Rodenberry's vision, so I doubt extensive thought went into it in the first place.

 

[Gatefan1976]

Money as a concept does exist in the Trek-verse, the difference is there is no real need for members of starfleet to actually deal with it at all. if they want food, they replicate it, a book, music, games, anything really, they just replicate it. There really is no need for them to worry about it. On the rim or in a situation where replicators and or energy is an issue however, money again becomes an issue.Trek is not so much a "moneyless society" as one where the main characters simply have no use for it in the main.

 

[Backstep]

Gold Pressed latinum

The Federation Credit is inferred to be the basic monetary unit of the United Federation of Planets in the fictional Star Trek series. Although the term has never been used on-screen and is thus considered non-canon.
It has been said in episodes like the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "The Neutral Zone" and movies like Star Trek: First Contact that the economy of the Federation is quite unlike the economics of the 20th and 21st centuries - almost unrecognizably so. It is a socialist post scarcity society: There is no poverty and no hunger, and the accumulation of wealth is not a driving force in society. According to Tom Paris in the Star Trek: Voyager episode "Dark Frontier", a "New World Economy" began to take hold on Earth and throughout the Federation in the late 22nd century, and eventually made money obsolete. He even mentions that in the 24th century, Fort Knox is a museum, apparently to money and capitalism.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federation_credit

 

[Joelist]

Gold Pressed latinum



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federation_credit

LOL! Typical socialist utopian fantasy.