Description
What would the world look like if everybody had everything they wanted or needed? Trekonomics, the premier book in financial journalist Felix Salmon's imprint PiperText, approaches scarcity economics by coming at it backward - through thinking about a universe where scarcity does not exist. Delving deep into the details and intricacies of 24th-century society, Trekonomics explores post-scarcity and whether we, as humans, are equipped for it. What are the prospects of automation and artificial intelligence? Is there really no money in Star Trek? Is Trekonomics at all possible?
Status
Available
Call number
Publication
San Francisco, California : Published by Pipertext Publishing Co., Inc., in association with Inkshares, Inc., 2016.
User reviews
LibraryThing member slothman
The pace of change in the modern world is frightening to many people, and our current economic system is not coping with it well. We live on a planet that can afford to feed, clothe, and house all of its inhabitants, but billions live with or in fear of poverty.
Manu Saadia uses Star Trek to examine
Manu Saadia uses Star Trek to examine
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post-scarcity economics and the cultural changes that go with it. He points out that abundance does not necessarily lead to universal prosperity, and draws on the themes from the various series to illuminate otherwise abstruse economic concepts. Ultimately, the essence of Trekonomics is an adjustment to moral values, from which the economic policies will be derived. And Roddenberry’s hopeful vision of the future seems a fine place to look for moral inspiration. Show Less
LibraryThing member LisCarey
We don't ordinarily think much about the economics of Star Trek when watching an episode or a movie, but when we step back from the stories themselves, it's a pretty interesting question. How does the Federation's economy work? Although there are references to a currency called simply "credits"
How does that work? Can it work?
Saadia says yes, it can work.
The Federation is a post-scarcity environment. They have more than enough food, shelter, clothing, and what in our time are "luxury goods" to go around, and no need to manage their distribution by means of money. This is true in the time of TOS, but even more true by the time of Next Generation, with its replicators able to produce as many of anything at all as may be wanted, as long as the raw matter exists.
There's no need for anyone to be short of anything, whether they work or not.
Yet everywhere we look in the Federation, we see people working hard at a variety of professions and occupations. Mainly, of course, we see Starfleet officers and crew, but also diplomats, scientists, scholars, and artists. We also see dilithium miners, entertainers, and Picard's family of vintners. There are lawyers and craftspeople and the pleasure workers of the pleasure planet of Risa. Sisko's family runs a famous, popular restaurant in New Orleans.
Why are all these people working, when they don't need to?
Not for money, but for reputation, for status, because they enjoy it, and to make life better. Freed of the necessity to struggle for the basics of survival, humans, as well as other intelligent, social species in the Federation, compete for status and the approval of their peers.
Saadia also looks at the problems. Other cultures don't necessarily adopt the same money-free socio-economic system. The Klingons do use money but clearly place a higher value on honor and reputation; this may be why an alliance between the Federation and the Klingon Empire was eventually possible. We don't really know what the Romulans do.
The Ferengi are full-on rapacious capitalists of the most extreme kind.
There are also still luxury goods, though of a different kind--experiential goods, like Risa, or the Sisko restaurant in New Orleans, or Picard wines. Any replicator can provide wine; only the Picard vinyards can produce, say, the 2340 vintage of Picard wines, and only so many bottles of that. Next year's vintage will be different, in ways that can't be fully predicted in advance. Only so many people can be seated and served in the Sisko restaurant on any particular evening. A less obvious point: Only so many people can work at Sisko's for the experience of making and serving fine food.
In Saadia's discussion of all this, he shows a breadth and depth of knowledge of both economics and science fiction. I was impressed that in discussion the antecedents of Star Trek's post-scarcity economy and the replicator, he mentions not only more well-known writers and works, but also George O. Smith's "matter duplicator" from the Venus Equilateral stories. A discussion of Mr. Data and the uneasy status of artificial intelligence in the Federation includes not just Asimov's sunny early view of robots and the rise of automation, but his later, darkening views on the subject, that robots and artificial intelligence could make humans too safe and comfortable, leading to the stories that eliminate robots from the future of his future history.
The Federation is a near-utopia, and Saadia makes a reasonable case that we can get there--even without the replicator--and indeed that we are already on our way. He also notes, though, that the transition from one type of economy to another is never easy; it is generally brutally hard on a large proportion of the population. We are already producing more and more goods and services with fewer and fewer people. There is less work for people to do--and so, in the midst of plenty, in the richest society on Earth, we have people unable to afford even the basics, because there is simply not enough work available for them to earn those basics.
This is a lively and fascinating discussion, touching on things I've worried about myself, as well as the considerable potential upside if we make this transition successfully.
Highly recommended.
I bought this audiobook.
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scattered through The Original Series, that's later retconned to "just a figure of speech." As explicitly stated in Next Generation and Deep Space 9, the Federation operates without money.How does that work? Can it work?
Saadia says yes, it can work.
The Federation is a post-scarcity environment. They have more than enough food, shelter, clothing, and what in our time are "luxury goods" to go around, and no need to manage their distribution by means of money. This is true in the time of TOS, but even more true by the time of Next Generation, with its replicators able to produce as many of anything at all as may be wanted, as long as the raw matter exists.
There's no need for anyone to be short of anything, whether they work or not.
Yet everywhere we look in the Federation, we see people working hard at a variety of professions and occupations. Mainly, of course, we see Starfleet officers and crew, but also diplomats, scientists, scholars, and artists. We also see dilithium miners, entertainers, and Picard's family of vintners. There are lawyers and craftspeople and the pleasure workers of the pleasure planet of Risa. Sisko's family runs a famous, popular restaurant in New Orleans.
Why are all these people working, when they don't need to?
Not for money, but for reputation, for status, because they enjoy it, and to make life better. Freed of the necessity to struggle for the basics of survival, humans, as well as other intelligent, social species in the Federation, compete for status and the approval of their peers.
Saadia also looks at the problems. Other cultures don't necessarily adopt the same money-free socio-economic system. The Klingons do use money but clearly place a higher value on honor and reputation; this may be why an alliance between the Federation and the Klingon Empire was eventually possible. We don't really know what the Romulans do.
The Ferengi are full-on rapacious capitalists of the most extreme kind.
There are also still luxury goods, though of a different kind--experiential goods, like Risa, or the Sisko restaurant in New Orleans, or Picard wines. Any replicator can provide wine; only the Picard vinyards can produce, say, the 2340 vintage of Picard wines, and only so many bottles of that. Next year's vintage will be different, in ways that can't be fully predicted in advance. Only so many people can be seated and served in the Sisko restaurant on any particular evening. A less obvious point: Only so many people can work at Sisko's for the experience of making and serving fine food.
In Saadia's discussion of all this, he shows a breadth and depth of knowledge of both economics and science fiction. I was impressed that in discussion the antecedents of Star Trek's post-scarcity economy and the replicator, he mentions not only more well-known writers and works, but also George O. Smith's "matter duplicator" from the Venus Equilateral stories. A discussion of Mr. Data and the uneasy status of artificial intelligence in the Federation includes not just Asimov's sunny early view of robots and the rise of automation, but his later, darkening views on the subject, that robots and artificial intelligence could make humans too safe and comfortable, leading to the stories that eliminate robots from the future of his future history.
The Federation is a near-utopia, and Saadia makes a reasonable case that we can get there--even without the replicator--and indeed that we are already on our way. He also notes, though, that the transition from one type of economy to another is never easy; it is generally brutally hard on a large proportion of the population. We are already producing more and more goods and services with fewer and fewer people. There is less work for people to do--and so, in the midst of plenty, in the richest society on Earth, we have people unable to afford even the basics, because there is simply not enough work available for them to earn those basics.
This is a lively and fascinating discussion, touching on things I've worried about myself, as well as the considerable potential upside if we make this transition successfully.
Highly recommended.
I bought this audiobook.
Show Less
LibraryThing member Paul_S
Would be more interesting for someone who watched *all* of star trek. Misses the opportunity to go into areas not shown by star trek where the system doesn't work. Its all rainbows and sunshine, like star trek, with instances of wholly unjustified liberal smugness.
LibraryThing member jamestomasino
Holy cow, what a surprise. I really want expecting much from this book but it wowed me big time. It's thought provoking and just really damned interesting. If you like science fiction, read this. It made me interested in economics!
LibraryThing member Kavinay
A clever exploration of quite possibly the most fantastical aspect of Trek: post-scarcity.
There are two big takeaways for me:
1. A future without poverty necessarily transforms the mindset of Federation citizens. It's the reason why Starfleet officers are unbelievably perfect: growing up without the
2. The Ferengi are us. They're 20-21st century humanity struggling to understand how any society could function without a reliance on capitalism.
My only minor quibble is that I think the back-half of the book is a bit more crunchy than the first. Saadia does a great job when addressing the economic concepts within the TNG/DS9 frameworks. Given the target audience, I wish he did more of that and less background work on explaining Trek conventions to the reader. How many normies are really going to bother picking up what's essentially a love-letter to policy oriented Trek fans?
There are two big takeaways for me:
1. A future without poverty necessarily transforms the mindset of Federation citizens. It's the reason why Starfleet officers are unbelievably perfect: growing up without the
Show More
toxic stress of material instability leads to even humans who are so alien to contemporary norms. The profit motive, price signal and so on are just irrelevant.2. The Ferengi are us. They're 20-21st century humanity struggling to understand how any society could function without a reliance on capitalism.
My only minor quibble is that I think the back-half of the book is a bit more crunchy than the first. Saadia does a great job when addressing the economic concepts within the TNG/DS9 frameworks. Given the target audience, I wish he did more of that and less background work on explaining Trek conventions to the reader. How many normies are really going to bother picking up what's essentially a love-letter to policy oriented Trek fans?
Show Less
LibraryThing member Treebeard_404
Even for the non-Trek-obsessed, this book makes for thought-provoking speculation. It's not so mired in the formalisms of economics as to be opaque or boring. Nor is it so mired in Star Trek trivia as to put off the casual watcher. Instead, it is an exploration of what a post-scarcity economy would
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mean both economically and socially. Show Less
Subjects
Awards
Audie Award (Finalist — 2017)
Language
ISBN
1941758754 / 9781941758755