Didn't Sisko's dad run a restaurant on Earth? How the fuck did he manage that without money?
Agreed. I meant to mention that when talking about Quark. DS9 definitely showed there's SOME type of bartering system on Earth. So, then, is it a Communist state? Do the individuals perform necessary tasks and jobs to further the whole, or is it an advanced, altruistic form of commerce and/or capitalism? I know they made a reference that Sisko's Naw'leans restaurant was unusual because they cooked real food by hand, instead of using Replimats. Which kind of points to basic human needs being easily met by technology (food, water, etc.) Thus, if having all your basic human needs met is as much of a given as say breathing air, where would humanity find the impetus to grow? If all needs are met, then extracurricular needs such as the luxury of real hand-cooked food might be what they work to gain. I mean, the Picards have huge vineyards. They're wine makers. So, who are they making the wine for and why?
And I watched the first Harry Mudd episode about a month or so back and was struck by how he was to be put up for 'psychological rehabilitation' because of his aberrant behavior, which seemed to be mostly greed and lying.
Kind of what I was talking about. It has a very brainwashing/Big Brother feel to it.
Again, TOS has several people mining for their own fortunes. You could say it was a socialist society because Kirk had to negotiate for dilithium directly from the miners themselves instead of some corporation. They were still after personal wealth, though, which would indicate some form of currency.
Ah, but the difference there could be that we're talking about colonies and not Earth citizens. Just like everyone flooding west for gold in American history, humans leapt out into space to find their fortune. It might be that, during Archer to Kirk's era, there was a functioning economy and the like, and it was the cultural evolution from first contact and the meeting of other lifeforms over the next century that lead to Picard's 24th century no-money-on-Earth utopia.
The pursuit of wealth is very present in some of the alien cultures we've seen, the Ferengi being the epitome of that idea. So, it's a fact that some type of galactic economy does exist. But, humans and/or Earth's place in the scheme of thing is muddled at best.
Still, sometime in the mid seventies, Roddenberry lost his goddamn mind and started to push the whole socialaist utopia and 'Starfleet isn't a military organization' bullshit that most of the writers had to include but didn't really like.
I don't know. Given the timeframe you're speaking of (late-60's/mid-70's) I don't know if I would say he "lost his mind" as much as rode the wave of the free-love zeitgeist of the day. It was the 70's, "man". Peace, love, and acid. The collective demographic of twenty-somethings and younger would not see a "military organization" of any kind true to the philosophy of their day, any more than 80's kids "loved" authority figures. Those kids wouldn't have found it "cool" to dig Vietnam Era "space soldiers". Thus, between '69 and the '79 movie, TREK swung into the "global peace" ideology of the hippy movement. Thus, it's actually a pretty genius business move on his part.
He molded TREK from the "Wagon Train to the stars" as it was pitched in the westerns-of-the-60's era, into an intergalactic Peace Corp for the next decade and culture swing. The kids followed. Spock became a cultural icon as his "logic" was embraced by the hippie crowd. Just look at all the "SPOCK FOR PRESIDENT" slogans of the day.
Then, by the late 80's, it was time to move into the "Next Generation" of Star Trek viewers. Thus, TREK became the evolution of the 70's utopia (which admittedly Roddenberry held onto) but with the avarice of the 80's (check the size of that bridge and ship) and the burgeoning pseudo-psychological feel-good New Age vibe of the mid-to-late-80's (which was in itself a sociocultural response to the height of the Cold War tensions). Enter TNG. Then, the darkness and cynicism of the 90's was front-and-center in DEEP SPACE NINE, curtailing that utopian platform that TNG had preached. So, taking all of that into place, I think Gene was a genius to evolve it to sell, even if he had no idea what he was actually talking about.
And if we're going with the reboot, that motherfucker had Nokia phones and Budweiser beer.
VERY good point. I think it's fair to say that the JJ-Trekverse has abandoned that "utopian" angle. That Earth didn't seem too much of a paradise to me. Looked like they were still in the years of rebuilding society after "the great war". But, the major cities like the San Fransisco city looks very, very advanced. So...
It's interesting to consider, really. Even though, realistically, we know there are real-world reasons and inconsistencies that caused this background subtext to the Trek universe.
