The reason the UFP is moneyless

[The Yosemite Bear]

Sexual Favors

[BabelHuber]

What I want to know is, if they don't use money anymore like they claim, then what are they playing for in all those poker games throughout TNG?

Federation credits, I guess. But they seem to be worthless outside of Federation territory, and only of limited use within. The basic needs seem to be supported by the government, and there is no further investment possible, e.g. buying a better replicator (with better tasting food) or a private space craft, or booking a journey on a private airline.

[Warspite]

The basic needs seem to be supported by the government, and there is no further investment possible, e.g. buying a better replicator (with better tasting food) or a private space craft, or booking a journey on a private airline.

The replicators are all from the same company (read, state-owned), so the food tastes all the same... No wonder Sisko's restaurant was making money!

[Darth Servo]

Sexual Favors

Eeeeeew. Keep in mind that Wesley is a regular at those games.

[Durandal]

I suppose Feddies have to pay a "replicator tax". And it's probably through the roof.

For example to make water a replicator would
need hydrogen and oxgen to work with. This means even if you have a
replicator you will need money to purchase the raw materials.

Couldn't oyu make water from Hydrogen and Oxygen without a replicator? I believe turning the two elements into water is an exothermic reaction.

Hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe, so there's really no point in making it. You can grab it from just about anywhere.

[Galaxy]

The federation might be communist, but at least it's a free society. Not like the old communist ways.

[Master of Ossus]

The federation might be communist, but at least it's a free society. Not like the old communist ways.

Agreed. It enjoys many freedoms that were not present in the USSR, or even China and North Korea today.

[Patrick Ogaard]

There is actually a way that it could work, though it would not necessarily work particularly well, and I would not enjoy living in such a system. Here comes the idea:

Every citizen of the Federation is guaranteed a minimum living stipend in the form of living quarters, replicator allowances, computer time, medical care, and the use of transporters and other transportation. To guarantee that the basic citizen dole does not get wasted by the inevitable fools, the citizen credits are issued in various categories: quarters credits, food replicator credits, general replicator credits, transporter credits and travel credits. Medical care is not issued on the citizen credits system, a point of prestige for the Federation.

By modern standards, the minimum standard of living guaranteed a Federation citizen is pretty posh. The food from the replicators may taste a bit bland, and the clothing and furnishings from the replicators don't always get the textures and colors quite right, but it's all pretty well usable.

What you don't get guaranteed as a Federation citizen is "real" food, "real" clothing, "real" anything. What you get is the future equivalent of food stamps and government-issued mass-produced goods from the 99-cent store.

The primary expense for a Federation city would be the initial cost of building the structures and installing the utilities, particularly one or more fusion plants. Once that is done, the city becomes practically self-supporting. Initial construction is through community service (AKA convict) labor or something like Starfleet SeaBees (Construction Battalions), and further physical maintenance of the structures is through further community service labor. Sewage and trash are recycled via replicator systems into the cheap replicated goods and foods needed by the population.

Inevitably, a majority of the population will very likely decide it's pretty comfortable right where it is. Of that population, a huge portion will be self-proclaimed artists and/or permanent students of their pet subjects. Call it making a life-filling purpose out of a hobby. Those masses spend their time consuming replicated coffee or tea, doing empty philosophizing, composing bad classical music, bad poetry and bad prose, and producing bad sculptures and bad paintings.

Those who yearn for more social prestige and more everything else enter career fields or go into business for themselves. Career fields like medicine, public works administration, industrial control, colony administration, law practice, teaching, science and engineering research and Starfleet service all bring with them increased social prestige and a corresponding modest increase in credit allocations. Prestige gives one larger quarters in a more fashionable neighborhood, as well as sufficient credits in the various categories to be able to trade some of them for real goods, such as farm-grown food or real tailored clothing.

A tiny portion of the population supports the overwhelming majority. Massive advances in automation make that feasible, if not necessarily desirable.

The production of those goods requiring conventional (non-replicator) manufacturing techniques is carried out in largely automated factories well away from population centers.

Resource extraction is handled primarily through the use of penal labor within the Federation, essentially as community service, and through trade with non-Federation sources.

Private businesses produce the luxury goods that distinguish the important people from the common herd: real (as in unreplicated) food from a farmer or fisherman, real clothes from a tailor, real wine from a vintner, real glass from a glassblower, real furniture, curios from other Federation worlds and from outside the Federation, and real antiques. The lack of incentive or means to invest in business ventures generally limits the size of businesses to small sole-proprietorships and family operations.

The gradation of income based on perceived social prestige is scaled in such a way that those at the top of the heap have just enough more than those at the bottom that they can feel a sense of accomplishment. A lifelong dilettante without an hour of work to his name might lay claim to an apartment with 60 or 70 square meters, with cheaply replicated but stylish-looking furnishings and artwork (plus some almost real artwork traded with other dilettantes). A retired Startfleet admiral with 50 years of service might lay claim to a two-level apartment three times that size, with real furniture and artwork, and a pantry stocked with real food. Each family member would add perhaps 10 to 15 square meters or so to the respective apartment sizes.

It might work, but it would certainly not be an efficient system, in that per capita productivity would be incredibly low compared to what it could be. It also leaves very little room for private fortunes, or even the private ownership of real estate.

All excess industrial production and resource extraction is skimmed off directly by the Federation itself, as pretty much all the significant means of production are owned by Federation instrumentalities. That control of production at the source also removes the need for taxation. Excess accumulations of things like transporter or food replicator credits in an urban population are easily skimmed off by the Federation administrators through fractional, temporary increases in the per unit costs, increases too small to be noticed unless looked for.

With everything necessary for a comfortable -- if enormously bland -- life available as a stiped issued by the Federation itself, there would be no need for a formal currency except in foreign (non-UFP) trade. The various forms of credits issued by the Federation may serve largely the same purpose as proper money, but there is a major distinction: transporter credits, replicator credits, etc. are not legal tender for all debts public and private but rather amount to scrip that can be used to buy at the company store, and that can be turned into goods that can then be bartered for foreign economically backed currencies and those backed by precious metals (like latinum).