Hi there, I’m not trying to start a political argument or anything, I’m just curious what people here think about this often repeated claim that the Federation is a socialist or even communist utopia? I know Strange New Worlds did say in dialogue it is socialist but I was wondering if people here think that’s accurate? I’m not a communist or a marxist or anything like that, but I’ve had people who identify as such tell me the Federation basically is communist. So anyway, what’s your thoughts?
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The federation is a post-scarcity socialist utopia. They don’t even have money. Every single human being has ensured healthcare, housing, food, and education of their choice guaranteed from birth. Rise among ranks of the few hierarchical power structures is based on merit, performance, experience and training. I can’t recall anything specific about the productive sectors that allow this to happen, but since they have access to virtually infinite amounts of energy and everything can be done by machines and matter replicators, there’s no motive for hoarding means of production or wealth, so one would assume that most productive endeavors and enterprises are collectivists by default. Same with political institutions as hoarding power doesn’t guarantee anything significant beyond what the average person already posses. They also have wide social openness, tolerance and acceptance as the most common sources of intolerance and bigotry (wealth, religion, power, prestige, etc.) have been regulated or removed. So there’s no logical point on slaving, discriminating, oppressing or exploiting any particular class of people, some classes of people might not even exists, as there’s no concept of poverty, nor race or sexual discrimination in the culture of the federation.
As a result people don’t have to work, but most probably choose to involve themselves in some sort of productive activity as a form of hobby. Members of the Starfleet for example, aren’t doing so for any particular material incentive. But do it because they think space exploration is neat, or because they seek glory and honor on the Starfleet mission, or because they really really like fusion cores.
They are as socialist as it comes.
Does the term “socialist” make sense in a post scarcity world?
I guess the question is who controls the replicators and other things needed to provide what people need to live? Can it be taken away from them?
Post-scarcity is a socialist term. It came about from futurist elaborations on Marxist materialist ideology. The reduction of labour to the minimum necessary in a society is one of the tenets of communism in order to reach post-capitalism. Certainly by technology, but also by diverting the products of labour, not for the profit and enrichment of the capitalist class, but for the provision to the needs of all society via free distribution of goods and services to all. According to Marx socialism is a necessary stage to reach communism, but communism doesn’t mean the disappearance of socialism.
Hmm, I guess there is post scarcity - everyone works and everyone has what they need, there is no scarcity of resource.
But then there’s post-scarcity - everything you need to live is created instantly by replicators so no one even needs to work unless they want to. Maybe that has a different term.
It’s the same thing. Post-scarcity doesn’t mean no scarcity. The point is, though, that people are not compelled to work under risk or threat of death, hunger, poverty, cold, homelessness or illness. If you can’t or don’t want to work, you are not doomed or socially shunned. Even if you do work, that’s no guarantee that you’ll not suffer from the occasional hardships of reality like there’s not enough chocolate this month due to a drought, or avocados went extinct or whatever, but you won’t die of starvation with millions of tons of food hoarded on a warehouse because a capitalist pig decided to rack up the price of rice.
Post-scarcity is a socialist term.
I’m having a hard time convincing myself that the term automatically implies on universal access.
It came about from futurist elaborations on Marxist materialist ideology.
And if it did, it was just a historical accident. It could be much more promptly derived from Keynes than from Marx. Also, Keynes work leads to a working theory for how a post-scarcity economy would work, with or without universal access to it.
If some people are starving due to artificial (economically induced) scarcity of food. As in, there’s enough food and means to distribute it to feed everyone but we don’t. Then it is not post-scarcity. Post-scarcity is about universal access to resources. Not about the material accumulation of the resource in a spreadsheet. As I said, small and circumstantial scarcity can occur under post-scarcity, it doesn’t mean no-scarcity. But gross artificial scarcity is automatically a disqualification.
What I don’t understand is how some of them are obviously better off than others, like Picard. His family owns a sweeping vineyard and a huge house, and other people are living in trailers in the desert.
My head canon for this is that the only way tptb allowed such socialism without sabotaging it was after reserving a looot of rights and property, especially on Earth, for themselves. There was probably some excuse along the lines of ‘maintaining and respecting traditions and cultures’ that let them keep the bulk of their estates, without having to let the poors (who are welcome to their own vineyards anywhere else) take it over.
Some people are happy living in trailers in the desert. Not everyone wants a big house in a lush environment… And some people just like a bit of misery.
I’d say they’re post-scarcity anarchist. There’s no central/communal resource dispersal as needed for socialism, nor the central/communal resource allocation/planning needed for communism.
There’s seemingly no authority outside starfleet exerting any power, nor does anyone ever claim a motivation beyond exploration or study (to do something meaningful). The lack of money and unlimited access to replicated resources pending available dilithium also points to a society without exploitative discrepancies.
The humans also never are reported to have any resource hogging, the only tensions/stratification seem to be militarily (and against external parties also diplomatically), meritocratic, and even then the bottleneck seems mostly to be to not fall behind other races.
I don’t see neither capitalism, socialism, communism, despotism, theocracy, nor fascism, but many aspects of anarchism. If you’ve read anything about The Culture, they openly speak about being anarchist, and it’s very similar to Star Trek.
There most certainly is a Federation President. There is definitely government, authority, and laws, with Starfleet appearing to be the law enforcement.
I agree, this is also a perfectly valid read. Unfortunately Star Trek spends a lot of time with Starfleet and The Federation and almost not at all with Earth to understand the nuances of governance of productivity. But they are still supposed to be several billions of people, it’s hard to imagine there’s only ad-hoc organization going on to keep something as massive as Starfleet and The Federation going. Even the Vulcans had the High Command. Earth must have something akin to a government structure going on to produce a representative diplomatic corpus. The Federation is supposed to be a Republic after all, and that’s not anarchy. Perhaps a system of direct democratic municipalism, but we don’t know for sure.
But the Federation is a government, so can’t be anarchist
Anarchist doesn’t need to mean without government, simply that no one is above another, which is echoed in how the Federation is structured towards the other races.
I thought it meant no laws and no government
That’s one form of it, but there are plenty other schools of thought that overlap quite significantly with the Federation, check out the primer on Wikipedia.
Will do
@MrSaturn So by whom is this government elected? Are there elections in the Federation?
Capitalism was eliminated on Earth by the New World Economy, which was likely a Dictatorship of the Proletariat as envisioned by Marx, Engels, Lenin, Roddenberry, etc. The Federation appears to be a classless, moneyless post-DotP society that still has one primary state apparatus (the Federation itself) that oversees many smaller state apparatuses (the Federation’s many member-worlds). You’ll notice a contradiction, though: If a state “is a system by which the ruling class maintains and perpetuates its dominance within the social formation… by subjugating the other class(es) within class society” then how can the Federation be a classless society? I propose two solutions:
- Star Trek is fiction and fictional worlds are often incomplete and contradictory. Everything I’ve said about the New World Economy, the Federation, etc. should be taken with a grain of quadrotriticale.
- No society has established a DotP, and there are certainly no examples of post-DotP societies. Marxism is a scientific and materialist worldview – it has evolved since the 19th century and it will continue to evolve into the 23rd century and beyond.
Was Roddenberry a Marxist?
Most sources on Roddenberry’s political beliefs are people who knew him, and they didn’t open up about those beliefs until after his death. Here’s an article that I’ve skimmed:
According to his last wife, Majel Barrett, he identified as a communist. But we know from the many accounts of his unethical business practices that he was also obsessed with making money. He preached peace and love but was infamously difficult to get along with. And he flew the flag for feminism while being a notorious womanizer.
Gene was a delightful man with great creativity and talent, but he was also a deeply flawed man who often failed to practice what he preached.
Interesting, he was an actual communist. Had no idea
Yes, obviously. The Federation is a postscarcity socialist society
Neither, since they are moneyless and post scarcity. We honestly don’t have a word for whatever they are.
The most textbook definition of communism as a political-economic organization (rather than an ideology) is that of a “stateless, classless, moneyless society.”
Which does not describe what we see of the Federation so I’m not sure what point you’re trying to make with this.
It’s pretty close, not sure why you’re being so belligerent over this.
lmao it’s not close at all read a book
It’s pretty close, you just don’t want to admit it because you’ve been taught to hate that word.
google communism
Google doesn’t, didn’t and likely won’t implement communism, so calling Google communism is as Marx said…
I did and it didn’t say anything about replicators
You can look up the definition and see if it applies. I’d argue it isn’t a classless society. Especially with all the military ranks and hierarchies. And socialism is kind of a broad term. I’m pretty sure you can apply it to this case without starting a debate.
Classless societies and justified hierarchy aren’t mutually exclusive, however. That’s the entire point of anarchist strains of political ideology, the only hierarchies that should exist are ones that can be justified for the good of everyone. The hierarchy of Starfleet is justified because it’s still syndicalist in nature while requiring a person to ensure the survival of everyone on board.
Is that alright with communism? Strive for a classless society except for when we like to do classes anyways? I mean starfleet is kind of military and I don’t know much about that in the context of communism. But there’s also the separation between the worker class in a starship and then the officers who manage them and who get depicted in most of the TV series. I’m pretty sure that doesn’t align well with communism. I’m not sure how many exceptions there are in a communist utopia. But I’d like to see some strong arguments when doing away with some of the core values of an ideology. And I’m not sure if there is a better way to organize a starship than 20 century military hierarchy style.
Well the show and the universe also have to be looked at separately in that context. The show was made for an American audience, which has a strong cultural belief in “great man” theory. The American audience wouldn’t accept a show that doesn’t follow high ranking officers being the paragon of bravery. It also had to keep an arm’s length away from a specific socialist ideology to avoid being swept into the red scare.
Workplaces will still require management, even in communist and anarchist societies. It’s all about who’s doing the managing. The show doesn’t get very detailed in this aspect of their society afaik, but by all means it seems that the rank and file are valued appropriately with their knowledge and input. Believe it or not, but this aligns quite nicely with most types of American brands of socialism. The show keeps it vague for a few good reasons
Communist states had/have large militaries so I guess that’s not a problem
“Communist” states also aren’t very communist.
Why not?
Read a history book. So far communism is a theoretical concept. Never has been achieved. And all the attempts didn’t even get close.
There are capitalist elements. The Picard family still owns a farm and farm house and pass it down generations. There is still some concept of money being used by humans who are pursing payments for rare and stolen goods. Most of what we see around Starfleet is merit driven people working in starfleet out of self interest but the ships appear to be owned by Starfleet and they seem to have some democractic structure. Since most basic needs are met via replicators it seems they are post scarcity and trips to the doctors seem free but is not really socialism in the sense of people owning the means of production, there doesn’t seem to be much of anything said about how these ships get built and the implication is its a lot of automation but there seem to be a lot of facilities on Earth with people in them like Starfleet academy and in bars. We have no idea how factories work in this world other than on other planets and people work in them.
I don’t think its brilliantly clear, there are a mix of ideologies on display and what makes it hang together is the humans are all behaving well, which isn’t very human nature like at all. People don’t seem to own what they are working with in all cases but they do in some of the smaller settlements so its a bit of a mix dependent on circumstances.
what makes it hang together is the humans are all behaving well, which isn’t very human nature like at all
That’s the entire point, is that humanity has grown beyond its destructive nature. Picard talks about it at length with Q, and it was one of Roddenberry’s central visions. That’s why the new “gritty” shows bother me so much, because they’re a slap in the face to Roddenberry’s vision.
Yeah I agree
inhaled very deeply about to talk about activitypub and techrights idealism then noticed this is star trek dot website
It’s absolutely not a communist anarchy. There’s a government, and it controls all those ships, science stations and mining operations. It doesn’t look like URSS-ish communist either, as it’s clearly democratic.
Besides, there exists some form of capitalism in it. It’s just not very intense on the human worlds. And it’s clearly socialist, as everybody is included on the society… So, my guess it’s social-capitalist just like every advanced society today, just way richer than anything we know.
Is there capitalism within the Federation? There’s capitalism on Deep Space Nine for sure, but that’s an outpost at a merger of cultures and governments. Not sure if we have seen money from any Federation cultures. Individuals might have and use money to buy things in other cultures, but I’m not sure such things take place within the Federation itself.
People clearly have money to trade with other civilizations, there are human trading transports that clearly care about their cargo, they bet something in poker games, some large projects have “patrons”…
External trade with capitalist cultures doesn’t mean the Federation itself has internal capitalism, it’s just a necessity for getting things from cultures outside of it. All the poker on the Enterprise was almost certainly just friendly games with chips, not actual gambling. Picard himself says money doesn’t exist so it’s not like they’re getting a salary. And I can’t recall the projects and patrons you’re referencing, but that could mean someone providing non-monetary support like using their connections or social status to support the project.
I thought it was widely understood that Star Trek is FALGSC
What’s that?
Fully Automated Luxury Gay Space Communism
Oh, never heard that before
Not communist but I would say Communitarianism
OK, Memory Alpha says the President of the Federation is democratically elected
#[1](https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/United_Federation_of_Planets#The_executive_branch)
Idk… for good starters, I’d ask ye this
I’d rather ask how it is not capitalist
Is it capitalist and hegemonic
Does this federation have a system of unequal exchange and resource exploitation of one place to another, the core, essentially, with the majority of the federation being an large mass of desperate wage and salary laborers, once self-sufficient peasants, in the resource-rich place of the periphery, under the guise of “investment”?
Does this federation love to lend and privatize foreign economies, and cut social spending, a la IMF, in order to dominate the latter’s economy?
Does this federation have a policy of CAPITALIST settler-colonialism, based on classical-liberal style property rights and genocide of the indigenous people?
If this is all merely in the past of class struggles and national liberation movements, and the federation has fought and abolished such forms of exploitation, yay
To check if its communist, in the more modern form {there is such thing as primitive communism}, however:
Does this federation wrecked out any chance of capitalist and liberal restoration, due to past ‘authoritarianism’?
Does this federation work without the use of money, any proprietorship, social class, and the force of government, but instead with collective ownership of major assets and modern cooperative values or ‘ideology’ being casually accepted as the norm, instead of as an old-fashioned ideology or academic subject?
This is to ensure that Communism is dominant, as to be practically ‘Communist’, in such a federation
Does surplus value, from labor, go into the needs of the people, even in its ‘authoritarian’ fetus defensive form, instead of going towards any capitalist profit or landlord’s rent, or any past economic mode of production?
Note: Personal property, such as watches and purses, do not count as private property, unless you’re using it to make into an asset, like a steam engine, to run a metro-train system, or a collection of buildings, to take rent upon
I would say the Federation is basically a liberal utopia so it’s not against being liberal
One needs to be careful with the word “liberal”, because it means very different things in different contexts (in large part due to political parties identifying themselves as “liberal”). In the stricter political-philosophical sense, liberalism is very closely tied with capitalism and the “freedom” to own things as private property (market allowing) and do what you want with it.
Yeah the Federation has private property and individual rights, so we wouldn’t that be liberal?
Does the Federation really have private property? Are there landlords and business tyrants? Or does it just have personal property, things a person owns for their own personal use?
Personal rights also aren’t monopolized by liberalism, as much as neoliberal media tells you it is so. Personal rights also existed in classical slave societies, under feudalism, and yes, under every Marxist state (I don’t know about the weirdo ““communist”” ones like Peru or Cambodia)
I mean ppl own businesses, land and houses. Is that not private property?
I can’t think of any societies that emphasize individual rights that aren’t liberal
Consider Joseph Sisko’s restaurant, Sisko’s Creole Kitchen. Joseph owns the restaurant, but he doesn’t sell anything. He provides goods and services, but he doesn’t make any money. Sisko’s Creole Kitchen is not a business, it is a labor of love that Joseph operates for himself and his community.
Additionally, the Federation is very socially liberal but it is not economically liberal. Economically, liberalism is a pro-capitalism ideology and capitalism has been abolished in the Federation.
Well an interesting question would be, could the government just seize his restaurant in the name of the good of society? If not, then it’s private property as we understand it, no? Whether it makes money or not
Firstly, I thought it was a moneyless society. What do the so-called businesses operate with? Secondly, owning land is not the same as using land ownership to extract a rent from people who don’t own land, which is what a landlord is. You’re asking an economic question, so economic relations are important!
I can’t think of any societies that emphasize individual rights that aren’t liberal
Genuinely, how hard are you thinking? Everywhere from Ancient Greece to Medieval Ireland to every iteration of China (except Japanese occupation) had personal rights.
“Emphasize” here is a weasel word, but can you really say it about the darling of neoliberalism, America? America abuses more rights abroad than any other country, so I guess you mean American denizens. Oh, but non-citizens get treated horribly, especially illegal immigrants but also immigrants in general, so you must just mean citizens. Then again, prisoners in America are kept in conditions consistent with its own definition of slavery, which is why there’s a cutout in the Thirteenth Amendment to permit just that, so I guess non-criminal citizens? Of course, being homeless in quite a lot of America is de-facto criminal and the homeless suffer heinous abuse by the cops with little recourse, so I guess it’s actually the housed, non-criminal citizens. Speaking of the cops, they kill over a thousand people every year, something that would be called “summary execution” if it was done by America’s enemies. Do I need to keep going? And mind you, this is all at the relative zenith of human rights in America, ignoring chattel slavery, Jim Crow, the various forms of patriarchal domination, disenfranchisement of non-land-owners, and so on.
What I’m saying is that your definition needs work.
I’m pretty sure all those ancient societies didn’t have universal human rights and civil liberties. The concept of rights doesn’t really begin until the 1600s afaik and universal rights until the 1800s at the earliest. There are non liberal societies right now, they’re all dictatorships with no freedoms, hence my statement
Land and houses aren’t private property unless you’re renting them out. If they aren’t a financial asset, they’re just personal property.
Businesses are an interesting question? The Federation, or at least its core worlds, doesn’t use money (by the 24th century). The only business we see onscreen, on a Federation core world, as far as I can remember, is Sisko’s Creole Kitchen. If there’s no money, why does Joseph Sisko run it? My guess is to maintain the tradition of Creole cuisine, to perfect his skills as a chef, to meet and interact with guests, and to preserve an historic New Orleans building by keeping it in use. Is it private property? Does he own it? He owns the business in some abstract sense, but the building? Probably not. I’d expect he holds it in trust in some kind of legal arrangement with the city, but there’s really no onscreen evidence.
No, the Federation has personal property, not private property.
Huh, do you exactly know exactly the term?
To me, Liberalism is to capitalism, like Christianity was for western feudalism; a ideological framework that the ruling classes of its day uses to justify their existence
The federation tends to let member planets be independent, the federation doesn’t come in and be like “we own your planet and we provide for you in return we take everything”, so it’s definitely leaning socialist.
The main difference is who owns the means of production. In communism, the government does. In socialism, the people do.
Both aim to provide for the population at large and not just benefit to a few rich elites that own everything, but socialism is a bit more robust against tyrannical governments.
It’s amazing how people just make things up. I genuinely have no idea where you got these definitions unless it was some hole on Reddit or similar.
What manages the means of production if not a government? Saying “the people” is as hollow as the US talking about “Freedom” and “Democracy”. “The people” cannot merely project their will into the aether and have it realized, they need some method of organization. They need to be able to administrate complex systems rather than just hang out in “primitive communism but with high technology somehow”. Whatever that system is and whatever you call it, that’s a government. In a system of democratic government that administers things, the difference between “the people” owning things and the government – here an organ that exists only so the people can manage the means of production – owning them is immaterial.
It’s amazing how people just make things up. I genuinely have no idea where you got these definitions unless it was some hole on Reddit or similar.
I’m not claiming anything I said is facts, just the way I understand it to be/how it had been explained to me quite a while ago. I could absolutely be wrong, if that’s the case I’ll gladly retract my comment based on new (to me) information. I’m far from qualified to give an authoritative answer on this topic.
The way I understand it is “the government decides to build a factory because the country needs a factory” vs “the people of a region get together and build a factory because they want one”. Well, in either case nobody really owns the factory (compared to capitalism), but rather who’s in charge of it, who decides who works on what and how it comes to be.
Unfortunately the only examples of communism we’ve seen are authoritarian regimes like the Soviet Union, and currently North Korea and China (sort of). I don’t think we have a true socialist community that’s not some form of capitalist hybrid, let alone post-scarcity communism or socialism without massive corruption tainting it.
I’m not claiming anything I said is facts, just the way I understand it to be/how it had been explained to me quite a while ago. I could absolutely be wrong, if that’s the case I’ll gladly retract my comment based on new (to me) information. I’m far from qualified to give an authoritative answer on this topic.
I apologize for being coarse, it’s a bad habit of mine.
The way I understand it is “the government decides to build a factory because the country needs a factory” vs “the people of a region get together and build a factory because they want one”. Well, in either case nobody really owns the factory (compared to capitalism), but rather who’s in charge of it, who decides who works on what and how it comes to be.
If the government is democratic, there’s very little substantive difference here as-described, because “the government decides X” is an entity with the popular mandate doing it, and if that decision loses it the popular mandate, the people can oppose it. Likewise, if “the people” of a locality decided to build a factory in this hypothetical and a minority opposed it, if the minority cannot sway the majority, they are simply ignored.
The problem comes in when you realize that the goods produced by factories mostly aren’t for the use of the local community, they are for a much more expansive group of people. There need to be systems to coordinate production at the full scale of society so that people have some idea of who needs what. It’s compounded by the fact that the machines in the factory will themselves probably need to be imported from elsewhere.
Unfortunately the only examples of communism we’ve seen are authoritarian regimes like the Soviet Union, and currently North Korea and China (sort of). I don’t think we have a true socialist community that’s not some form of capitalist hybrid, let alone post-scarcity communism or socialism without massive corruption tainting it.
Depending on your definitions, you left out Cuba, Vietnam, and Laos. In any case, I don’t think most people are able to maintain the “real communism has never been tried” stance. Eventually, you either come down on the side that “No, they were real communism and communism is therefore evil” or “I was lied to about at least some of these countries and should give them credit”. For an anglophone, societal gravity is very much on the side of the first option, but it’s possible to reach the second conclusion if you have a strong enough motivation to dig through information. Cuba is probably the route of least resistance.
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The main difference is who owns the means of production. In communism, the government does. In socialism, the people do.
What would we call a hybrid system in which the government is made up of the people and owns the means of production? Direct Democratic Communism?
Edit to add:
A federation (also called a federal state) is an entity characterized by a union of partially self-governing provinces, states, or other regions under a federal government (federalism). In a federation, the self-governing status of the component states, as well as the division of power between them and the central government, is constitutionally entrenched and may not be altered by a unilateral decision, neither by the component states nor the federal political body without constitutional amendment.
Seems relevant considering “The Federation”.
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Yeah I’m not a communist primarily because I’m against dictatorship and human rights abuse but socialism sounds more interesting
From a Marxist perspective, all class-based societies are governed by dictatorships:
A dictatorship is the political dominance of one group of people over others. In a class society, a dictatorship usually favors the interest of certain classes over the others.
Right now, we live in the Dictatorship of the Bourgeoisie
The bourgeoisie is the ruling class in capitalist society; it owns the means of production and has a decisive influence on production. It lives off of surplus value which it obtains by exploiting the labour power of the proletariat.
I’m not a Marxist so don’t agree
You literally just don’t know what you’re talking about
Because I’m not a Marxist? Um ok lol
Well yes, but more broadly because you keep using words without knowing what they mean
Do you mean dictatorship? Most ppl use it in the way I mean, as the vast majority are not Marxists.
Given this thread is about whether or not the Federation is a communist or socialist society, Marxist definitions are the most useful, eh? Furthermore, I’d argue that the term Dictatorship of the Bourgeoisie very accurately describes American (I’m an American) society, and does so regardless of one’s personal beliefs.
Well there are non Marxist socialist/communist models and systems but I take your point. I was just answering you because you responded to why I’m not a communist, that’s all
Again, perfectly fair. Before I was a communist, I rejected Marxist concepts as well. I’ve spent over two decades reading and listening to arguments for and against all sort of political, social and economic ideas. I’ve identified with centrism, liberalism, libertarianism, social democracy and other ideologies. Today, I consider myself to be a Marxist/socialist/communist not because it’s just the latest thing I’ve hit upon, but because it’s what’s made the most sense to me. When I use Marxist words and ideas, I don’t do so because I’m a Marxist; I’m a Marxist because those words and ideas have helped me to make the most sense of the world. And I’m certainly not demanding, or even asking, you do become a Marxist, I’m just asking you to consider what makes the most sense.
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If you don’t want to start a political argument, that’s not the way to do it.
(to my knowledge) they never actually said who controls the means of production. But so called “true communism” is impossible, even in post scarcity, so we can rule that out.
So it’s either capitalist or socialist, and in post scarcity societies, there’s no real difference.
