How could Star Trek economics be improved?

[Rossum]

Okay, the Federation is a society that has replicators that can churn out pretty much and sort of good that a person may need or desire, holodecks that can recreate any fantasy or environment a person may want, power generation that can support all these things, and medical technology (and a system) that can apparently provide some pretty decent health benefits for members of a wide variety of species (including members of species that were only discovered 15 minutes ago).

Considering the (by our standards) incredible technology and the opportunities for both use and misuse then how could they make a realistic economy?


For the sake of setting a scene:

After the Dominion War, the Federation found a fairly nice uninhabited planet that is basically Earth-like aside from not having any native life on it. Terraforming it should be easy though the colonists may have to stay indoors for the first decade or two while filters deal with the atmosphere (no idea how long it takes to terraform a planet, I'm just tossing this out because conveniently earthlike planets and edible vegetation should be extremely unlikely).

You are in charge of the colony and many of the people there are willing to try an economic system that will hopefully help the new colony prosper. The colony is on the edge of Federation space and not much reason for members of other races to head there for trade. You haven't run into anything weird like energy fields that grant eternal youth or killer snowflakes but pretty much everyone knows those sorts of things exist.

Due to the unbreathable atmosphere, you are also supplied with the modified EMH hologram software and the replicator patterns for suitcase sized holo-emitters (from that episode of Voyager where they learn that the first EMH had such bad bedside manners that they reprogrammed it for mining minerals with pickaxes or something) so there is little reason to send humans out to do the hard work of mining minerals up in an atmosphere they can't breath. For that matter, you could probably program the Emergency Menial Hologram to to all the drudge work that nobody wants to do.

So, what sort of economic system would really help this colony get off the ground and improve the standard of living for everyone?

[Samuel]

It is worth noting we see this in use by the Federations top of the line warship. It is possible that they simply have the best technology or that the requirements for them are so high (antimatter or other really compact energy sources, rare materials, etc) that they are in limited circulation.

Actually if holodecks were in common use, the "we labor for the common good of humanity" makes more sense. After all, money isn't an incentive anymore if people can just get whatever goods and services they want.

On the topic of economics, how profitable is trade in the series? It seems to be like most science fiction universes in that you have interplanetary trade enough to make specialization and resource colonies profitable. If you have to make everything locally than things are going to be very different- to start with the hologram laborers will eventually drain your batteries. So really we will be seeing command economics at the start because of the extremely limited resources, the need to prevent waste and the fact that we have a record of previous command attempts to get colonies off the ground.

[Junghalli]

Do you mean how could the writers have thought and fleshed it out better, or how could it be improved over what it's supposed to be in the show?

Because I really don't see how we can answer the second question seeing as we have very little information on how their economy actually works. Any suggestions on how to "improve" it are probably going to have to rely on a huge load of unproven (if not outright asspulled) assumptions on how it works in the first place.

[dragon]

Do you mean how could the writers have thought and fleshed it out better, or how could it be improved over what it's supposed to be in the show?

Because I really don't see how we can answer the second question seeing as we have very little information on how their economy actually works. Any suggestions on how to "improve" it are probably going to have to rely on a huge load of unproven (if not outright asspulled) assumptions on how it works in the first place.

Well common enough that there are several in a bar (Quark's). So appearntly the requirements can't be to high to have them, maybe they just require permits to own.

[Nephtys]

There was mention in an episode of DS9 from Sisko remembering his days at the Academy. He had to 'save a months worth of energy credits' or somesuch so that he could constantly transport home to New Orleans from the academy at San Fran so he could eat home cooking. There's some sort of rationing going on in this case, where the most common currency is some form of energy ration. This was of course, on Earth, a place Sisko said was substantially nicer than frontier and outer worlds in the Federation.

Presumably, traders don't exist in the inner federation in any bulk simply because planets are self-sustaining in their energy and raw material needs. Only rare things or hard to replicate things are traded around, or sent to the frontier.

[Stofsk]

There was mention in an episode of DS9 from Sisko remembering his days at the Academy. He had to 'save a months worth of energy credits' or somesuch so that he could constantly transport home to New Orleans from the academy at San Fran so he could eat home cooking. There's some sort of rationing going on in this case, where the most common currency is some form of energy ration. This was of course, on Earth, a place Sisko said was substantially nicer than frontier and outer worlds in the Federation.

Energy credits makes sense as a form of currency, and probably also why it doesn't transfer easily between nations. Energy is the one important factor that determines what you can do in a society so it makes sense that the Federation pays its people in the form of energy credits that allow you to use transporters, replicators, book passage on a ship, use a holodeck or other forms of recreation and so on.

Presumably, traders don't exist in the inner federation in any bulk simply because planets are self-sustaining in their energy and raw material needs. Only rare things or hard to replicate things are traded around, or sent to the frontier.

Raw material needs would need to be provided for even the Core Worlds. I think you'd have traders and freighters operating there as well.

[Junghalli]

Raw material needs would need to be provided for even the Core Worlds. I think you'd have traders and freighters operating there as well.

Realistically a single solar system like ours should probably have plenty of all the raw materials a relatively modest-scale (as in: not building Dyson Spheres and the like) civilization should ever need, barring super-rare McGuffinite. Of course, Star Trek was never particularly realistic.

[Stofsk]

Raw material needs would need to be provided for even the Core Worlds. I think you'd have traders and freighters operating there as well.

Realistically a single solar system like ours should probably have plenty of all the raw materials a relatively modest-scale (as in: not building Dyson Spheres and the like) civilization should ever need, barring super-rare McGuffinite. Of course, Star Trek was never particularly realistic.

I guess this depends on the relative development of infrastructure. A system like Sol would be self-sufficient, and could rely on intra-system freighters and resource barges (say perhaps from the asteroid belt to mars orbit, or earth orbit). In systems that are colonies, you might have to bring in many resources at least until the place is up on its feet. Even then, I can see say agricultural colonies producing food stuff or biomass for replicators or both.

Plus there are exotics, one example I can think of is pergium, which according to memory alpha is a rare radioactive element that's used in many world's power generation, and first referenced in TOS. This isn't exactly realistic, as you said, but it's established in the continuity. EDIT: dilithium as well for that matter

[Temujin]

It's been discussed before, but I don't think in an economic sense, but DS9 does give the impression that the core worlds paradise comes from the backs of the secondary worlds and colonies. Which is not too unlike our current situation here on Earth.

[Stofsk]

I doubt it in an economic sense. Political sure. Things are safe and rosy in the core, if you live on the frontier border regions with the Klingons, Romulans, or Cardassians, things are a lot more hectic and tense.

[Temujin]

Yeah, as was already stated earlier, the idea of trade between star systems, let alone to support an empire, federation, etc. is pretty daft. But than, so are the Trek Writers, so they may have been thinking of things that way; and the NextGen writers did have a tradition of being quite preachy at times.

[Uraniun235]

Yeah, as was already stated earlier, the idea of trade between star systems, let alone to support an empire, federation, etc. is pretty daft. But than, so are the Trek Writers, so they may have been thinking of things that way; and the NextGen writers did have a tradition of being quite preachy at times.

Pretty sure interstellar trade is a staple in just about all space opera.

[Stofsk]

Yeah, as was already stated earlier, the idea of trade between star systems, let alone to support an empire, federation, etc. is pretty daft. But than, so are the Trek Writers, so they may have been thinking of things that way; and the NextGen writers did have a tradition of being quite preachy at times.

I am not sure what you mean. Interstellar trade in Star Trek is understated, not the reverse. It no doubt goes on, but not in any huge volume IMO.

I would think a colony would want to get self-sufficient as quickly as possible. Most Class M planets seem well able to achieve this as well. Industrial centres have enough raw materials in any given solar system that you wouldn't need to import commodities like metal ore and heavy metals or radioactives (with the exception of pergium) too much. Interstellar trade could very well be highly specialised as a result. Luxury goods and manufactured goods would be in short supply in a colony that hasn't established itself, but once it does those goods can be replicated. Perhaps the only vital commodity would be raw organic material to be used in food replicators, however there is even natural farming on Earth, so I doubt the colonies and frontier would be totally dependent on food replicators.

In general Trek hasn't really pushed the merchant marine idea that strongly anyway.

[Temujin]

I am not sure what you mean.

Well looking back at my posts, now neither do I.


I guess this (the bolded):

Yeah, as was already stated earlier, the idea of trade between star systems, let alone to support an empire, federation, etc. is pretty daft. But than, so are the Trek Writers, so they may have been thinking of things that way; and the NextGen writers did have a tradition of being quite preachy at times.

Was supposed to be referring to this (again the bolded) in my previous post.

It's been discussed before, but I don't think in an economic sense, but DS9 does give the impression that the core worlds paradise comes from the backs of the secondary worlds and colonies. Which is not too unlike our current situation here on Earth.

In general Trek hasn't really pushed the merchant marine idea that strongly anyway.

True, but there has been plenty of references to freighters and traders and such. However, I think your explanation covers that pretty well.

I've been rereading a lot of Atomic Rockets and the Rocketpunk Manifesto recently, so my brain is in a harder science fiction mode. And its also been a hell of a week!

[RedImperator]

A new colony might actually need quite a lot of outside support. Look at the early English settlements in America or Australia--it was quite a while before they could manufacture their own tools (Jamestown and Plymouth both would have died out completely without outside support). And Trek technology is a lot more complex and difficult to manufacture than simple iron tools or glassware. It's hard to see how these tiny frontier colonies could sustain themselves on virgin worlds without a lot of equipment and finished goods coming in from the outside.

But of course, this isn't exactly trade. There's no conceivable product these colonies could contribute to the outside economy (unlike timber, cod, and tobacco).

[Temujin]

In hard SciFi, I envision a wagon train of colony / supply ships continuously heading out from Earth (or wherever) to the colony for the first x number of years until it is reasonably self sufficient and populated, with only a sporadic influx of new colonist from that point on.

We don't see any colony ships in Star trek, but the colony's themselves seem to start off pretty small and spartan. Perhaps allowing independent traders like Kasidy Yates to transport supplies and new colonists to these colony worlds is an economic niche the Federation has encouraged to develop.