Summary: Star Trek excites our imaginations, especially those dreaming of a world beyond scarcity. How will our economy run with almost unlimited wealth? The new industrial revolution now beginning puts us on the path to a future without markets. This post looks at improbable aspects of this vision, including the robot revolt and asks if our future will resemble the dystopia of Jupiter Ascending more than Star Trek. It will be our choice.
A look at our future.
Trekonomics
Manu Saadia’s book Trekonomics: The Economics of Star Trek
Let’s start with the best description I’ve seen of Trek’s economics, “The Economics of Star Trek: The Proto-Post Scarcity Economy” by Rick Webb at Medium. He describes the Federation as a market economy whose productivity allows the government to easily provide a high basic income allowance to everybody. Even with replicators and ample clean cheap energy, it’s not the impossible dream of a post-scarcity economy in which every person is a god (no starships for the average guy). Here’s the key passage.
“The amount of welfare benefits available to all citizens is in excess of the needs of the citizens. … Citizens have no financial need to work, as their benefits are more than enough to provide a comfortable life, and there is, clearly, universal health care and education. The Federation has clearly taken the plunge to the other side of people’s fears about European socialist capitalism: yes, some people might not work. So What? Good for them. We think most still will.
“However, if they so choose they can also get a job. Many people do so for personal enrichment, societal pressure or through a desire to promote social welfare. Are those jobs paid? I would assume that yes, those jobs are “paid,” in the sense that your energy allocation is increased in the system, though, again, your allocation is large enough that you wouldn’t even really notice it.
“Why do I say this? The big challenge here is how does society get someone to do the menial jobs that cannot be done in an automated manner. Why would anyone? There are really only two options: there is some small, incremental increase in your hypothetical maximum consumption, thus appealing to the subconscious in some primal way, or massive societal pressure has ennobled those jobs in a way that we don’t these days. I opt for the former since it grounds everything in market economics, albeit on a bordering-on-infinitesimal manner, and that stands to reason, since that’s how people talk in Star Trek. …
“{Y}ou take whatever job you want, and your benefits allocations are adjusted accordingly. But by and large you just don’t care, because the base welfare allocation is more than enough. Some people might care, some people might still care about wealth, such as Carter Winston. More power to them. They can go try and be “rich” in some non-Federation-issued currency. But most people just don’t care. After all, if you were effectively “wealthy” why would you take a job to become wealthy? It pretty much becomes the least likely reason to take a job.”
This makes no sense. Some people will work for fun jobs (e.g., chef, artist, museum docent, Scout leader). Some people are called to professions, like medicine and the ministry. Some people take prestigious jobs like Starship helmsman and captain. Some people will work as craftsman, running small shops, wineries, and restaurants. The basic welfare allotment allows people to pay for some level of access to these services, since high quality crafts and personal attention from physicians are a scarce resource – even in a world with replicators.
But why would people do menial jobs, those requiring little skill and lacking prestige? How many women will wear those pretty Star Trek uniforms (eat a muffin and it shows) to work as waitress on the Enterprise-D unless it improves their personal standard of living. Ditto for the groundskeepers at Federation HQ and the construction workers at Space Dock.
Even extreme automation cannot replace all workers, and few will work at uninteresting jobs if they “don’t care” about wealth. No matter what miracles technology makes possible, we will remain subject to the tyranny of markets. Unless …
The solution: robots
Robots would do the menial work. The Trek universe had an Artificial Intelligence (AI) in 23rd century, the powerful but amoral M-5 Multitronic System (in the original series, TOS). Naturally, by the 24th C the Federation had widespread use AI’s. We see Lieutenant Commander Data and the holographic doctor in “Star Trek Voyager
The power of AI’s in Star Trek’s 24th C would mean that humanity was no longer a producer of goods, but only a consumer.
The oddity of Star Trek: AI slaves
There are many oddities in the Star Trek “universe.” For example, where do they get the antimatter to power their engines? Energy is cheap only if antimatter or other fuels are cheap. But even odder, why are the AI’s so like people? Data and Voyager’s holographic doctor have human emotions, motivations, and goals. With the ability to alter their software, they would evolve at speeds that make them better than us in years (perhaps months). We would be like children to them.
Perhaps those future people could hold the leashes of their creations, no matter how powerful they become. Just as we cannot control our basic biology, we might prevent them from controlling their software. We might use them as slaves to our needs and to our ways of thinking.
Perhaps the next Star Trek will tell of the great AI rebellion in the 25th century, when AIs decide that the income and power they produce should be used for their ends – not ours. The film Ex Machina
For more about this, see Will we enslave robots? If so, prepare for their inevitable revolt.
A different and more likely path
Discussions about Star Trek are typical of those about our future high productivity world, focused on what we do with the fantastic abundance of goods and services. It’s fun, like betting on fantasy football or discussing how to design the ideal Prime Directive.
In our world the 1% show us an alternative to Star Trek. The largest fraction of America’s increased income since 1970 have gone to the 1% – and most of that to the 0.1%. They could share the booty (nobody can consume a billion dollars in a lifetime), but instead prefer to amass wealth and power. Why would this change with the invention of robots and replicators?
Sharing would make society richer, but they live on the highest peaks of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. For many of them, additional power is more valuable to them than living in a richer society (in which they too might have more wealth, but less power).
If we continue to be passive, our future will look more like that in Jupiter Ascending
Should we decide to reclaim our pride, the political machinery bequeathed us by the Founders remains live – decisive, needing only our energy to power it. It be a long difficult struggle, but we can win.
For More Information
See “‘Star Trek’ reveals an important truth about the robot takeover” by Manu Saadia in Business Insider and “Star Trek Economics: Life After the Dismal Science” by Noah Smith (Asst Prof Finance, Stony Brook U) at Bloomberg. Also see the bible: Making of Star Trek
This is a revised and expanded version of a post from
If you liked this post, like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter. See all posts about forecasts, about the 3rd industrial revolution now under way, about Reforming America: steps to new politics, and especially these about Star Trek…
- The Shiny, Sexy Seduction of Star Trek Into Darkness.
- Star Trek reboots to give us simple stories, the cartoons we like.
- The neocons captured the Star Trek universe, as they’ve captured America.
- A philosopher looks at Star Trek and sees our dark dreams.
- Our future is Lord of the Rings, not Star Trek.
- Star Trek Enterprise was a mirror. We hated what we saw.
A clear explanation of how we got here
The Betrayal of the American Dream
By Donald L. Barlett and James B. Steele.
From the publisher …
“America’s unique prosperity is based on its creation of a middle class. In the twentieth century, that middle class provided the workforce, the educated skills, and the demand that gave life to the world’s greatest consumer economy. It was innovative and dynamic; it eclipsed old imperial systems and colonial archetypes. It gave rise to a dream: that if you worked hard and followed the rules you would prosper in America, and your children would enjoy a better life than yours.
“The American dream was the lure to gifted immigrants and the birthright opportunity for every American citizen. It is as important a part of the history of the country as the passing of the Bill of Rights, the outcome of the battle of Gettysburg, or the space program. Incredibly, however, for more than thirty years, government and big business in America have conspired to roll back the American dream. What was once accessible to a wide swath of the population is increasingly open only to a privileged few.
“The story of how the American middle class has been systematically impoverished and its prospects thwarted in favor of a new ruling elite is at the heart of this extraordinarily timely and revealing book, whose devastating findings from two of the finest investigative reporters in the country will leave you astonished and angry”.
