With replicators and whatnot they are really a post scarcity society so capitalism and Marxism and all that kind of lose any meaning.

I think this point is incredibly important to understand.

The USSR allowed the peasant natives in Siberia to possess firearms too. Since some Siberian Snowman deep in the Taiga with a rusty Mosin ain't much of a threat to Moscow and the Politburo.

Why would I serve on some UFP starship's reactor section and possibly die because of the million QC and design flaws where everything explodes or releases radiation/gas fromthe slightest jolt if it was all about bettering myself? Fuck no.... no reward for the risk. Fuck that!

That is the honest truth about humanity.

The UFP is like the USSR. Either you do your assigned task or off to the reeducation camp penal colony (gulag) where through drugs and memory wipes you're made into a productive UFP peasant again.

Wolves, bears, the occasional tiger and God only knows what else in the Russian wilderness.

If I were a space colonist I could imagine suits of power armor being extremely handy for colonists. And not just as weapons. But if I'm going to live on some colony world that may or may not about to be raided by Klingons, the Borg or some random God being wandering the galaxy, I'm going to want ALL THE WEAPONS!

The Prime Directive. They were just being consistent.

It's again indicative of the utopianism.  Everybody wants to be an officer, everybody gets to be an officer.  That officers are devalued to the point of losing them (red & gold shirts) being meaningless is a consequence, unintended but apparent.

Officers are "better", so everyone gets to be one.  A science officer is a bigger deal than a science enlisted man.  You're not an intern, you're an officer.  You're not a lowly security guard, you're a security "officer".  You're not a paper shuffler, you're a command "officer".

It's indicative that it's utopianism that, as expected, doesn't hold up well to deep criticism.

Enlisted ranks look to be basically added as an afterthought.

They're still not commies.

First off, they're not really trying to be - they don't have equality of outcomes.  They don't push for equality of outcomes.
Second off - looking at the points of communism:
1 - there is such thing as property - Sisko's restaurant, for one.
2 - Progressive income tax - Mudd says the federation tax-men were after him, but the only real talk we have of heavy progressive income tax is from Grand Nagus Zek after fucking Moogie, which seems about right.
3 - Abolition of all rights of inheritance - Seems unlikely.  Picard's family vinyard and Sisko's restaurant suggest otherwise.
4 - Confiscation of all property of emigrants and rebels - sporadic at best.  There were people who left the Federation (look at all the colonies from ToS), and there were those who settled in shithole regions (Maquis).  Seems doubtful.
5 - Centralization of credit in the hands of the state - seems likely.  The Federation deals in credits, while currency-based economics and monied systems (latinum, etc) seem to be alien to them.  But they still have credit accounts to trade with outside colonies and nations.
6 - Centralization of communication and transportation - sort of.  Federation doesn't control all ships, nor do they control all communication, but they certainly did impose a galactic speed limit at the end of TNG.
7 - Extension of factories, common plan economics - I'm not seeing it.  The Federation doesn't act very expansionist/colonialist with a central plan attached to it.
8 - Equal liability of all to labor/industrial armies - Not really.  Most of their citizens seem to be unproductive pastel-wearing musicians and writers.  They may be on UBI, but they're certainly not labor.
9 - Agriculture/abolition of town/country - Dunno.  I'm not seeing where they mandate what resources on Earth or other worlds can or cannot be used nor how their distribution of population is to be mandated across worlds.  This isn't to say they don't do some Cass Sunstein "Nudging" public policy that de facto gets the results they want, I'm just not seeing hard authoritarianism here.
10 - Free education/education/industrial production - Oh yes.  Commie as fuck.  To the point that every day on the Federation flagship is bring your child to work day.

Keep in mind what we see on the show is typically the experience of those inside Starfleet, where life is more regimented, controlled, and by nature of uniform organizations, collectivized.

The UFP aren't communists.  Or at worst, the UFP aren't real communists™.

Federation says fuck you. You get one rusty TOS era phaser and a half drained battery.

The show focuses on the officers but there are enlisted ranks, and I'd guess the  majority of the people on the ships are enlisted.

Almost like it was that show Wagon Train... in SPAAAAAAAAAAAACE!

Cuba under Raul Castro relaxed some control on the economy and allowed "private" businesses to exist. The catch is that the State is a joint owner in everything. The UFP is the same.

As for rank, both the PRC and USSR abolished rank once too. That didn't get then very far.

Ground Troops.... LOL. They pull the Ship's Machinist Mate, give him a Tricorder and a Phaser and says he's leg infantry. If the Empire fought the Dominion War. They'd have been crushed within a week even if the Empire only threw in C Division Reservists and local Constabulary Forces.

Joseph Sisko owns Sisko's Creole Kitchen.

Picard family vinyards are owned by the Picard Family.

Please reference where the UFP has joint ownership of their property.

PRC Citizen, Jack Ma "owns" Alibaba. Huawei Technologies is "owned" by Ren Zhengfei. Sisko claims ownership of the business like a home owner claims ownership mortgaged home. Picard is a Party Elite. His vineyards are like Soviet Dachas.

That's about all UFP troops can do. Cover, concealment, encirclement, etc are foreign concepts. Their Political Commissars force them to perform frontal assaults on held positions.

Captain Tracey drained four phasers and killed thousands on Omega IV.

ToS phasers were superior.

Back then they also drank real liquor. But the Federation became more progressive. Less lethal weapons and snythol.

Now I'm imagining a conversation.

Attached File


"Hey! What's that!?"

"It's my power lifter, I need it for work."

"Looks like power armor to me, that's banned on this planet."

"It has no armor, no mounted phasers or disrupters or even a slug thrower. I would be completely vunerable."

"Yeah, but you could bolt some on. And... What's this? Does this thing use a military issue power cell? You're in big trouble."

"Yeah well, perhaps I would be more willing to follow the nuance of some of the federations more obscure rules if my daughter hadn't just been turned into a Yam by some damned god being that the the USS Lovecraft just dumped on my Planet! What were you people thinking? The Giggler was created when a mad scientist harvested all the eyes from the colonists of Yuban Prime, and you're keeping it in a luxury hotel, thinking you can... Reason with it!?"

Yar, despite the haircut,  had a fucking phenomenal body!!!

Power armor is neat, but far less useful in a world with force fields and beaming technology.

In the future most agricultural equipment is probably going to look and work like overgrown roombas.

Certified organic quadrotritcale harvested by the earth-tones-wearing-farmers of Sherman's Planet would probably be more valuable.

"We were never expecting the Amish to take over so many planets. But it turns out they are way better at this farming and commerce stuff than we are."

I read the OP in Manny from Scarface's voice.

They run the Outworlds Alliance in Battletech.

Private Property.... the Picards have their vineyards and the Siskos have their restaurant. Sounds good and well right? Well, if society has evolved past the need for money and live in a "post scarcity" economic system where people work to better themselves. Then how and why do they "own" those businesses/property?

They can't and shouldn't under the very rules the UFP has established. What grants them the favoritism to possess it while someone else can't? Land in of itself is still valuable. LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION after all is value unto itself.

They are Political Elites. That's what.... no different than the political elite living in Pyongyang or the Nomenklatura having a dacha outside of Moscow.

Why would Yates start a shipping business if there is no income and profit to be derived from it? Betterment of mankind because energy and material goods are free? Please.... give me a break. No one in their right mind would voluntarily deal with being a small shipping business owner if they didn't need to.

Why did she? Because she is well connected in the Party and is trusted to make income in a resource scarce environment and make sure thay the UFP makes some on the side.

The UFP is like every other Kleptocracy. It claims the advancement of mankind through Socialism when it is in fact a Petty Fiefdom where the masses toil away under serfdom. True Communism is just over the horizon, and like the horizon. No matter how far you reach out towards it. You'll never reach it.

The Picards may have once owned their land, and may continue to possess it, but I don't think the idea of private real property squares well.

I suspect they are either owned as life estates or possessed as an at-will tenancy, the latter determinable by either the tenant (Picard, Sisko) or the landlord (the state). The bureaucracy in charge permits this type of land use because they have decided that there is some social utility in it. They provide society real French wine on one hand, and a social gathering place for real food on the other. Since the UFP is a welfare state, getting people to do anything socially useful, especially manual labor, is no doubt hard, so getting the bureaucracy's permission was probably not too difficult. However, if they stop using the land for the public good, I imagine it escheats immediately back to the state. This probably happened after the fire in Generations.

The UFP is portrayed as a humanist utopia, were people are supposed to be smart, tolerant and altruistic, as well as far better off. But we know the truth about Humanity. That never happens and every utopian vision of Socialism evolves into Despotism and Chaos.

The UFP presents itself as a Potemkin village.

There are enlisted. O'Brien was a Senior Chief Petty Officer

I had TOTALLY forgotten this song, thanks for the reminder!

Hell, he fathered a kid on some planet where time wasn't in sync.

Boy, imagine trying to explain that.

"So, our entire planet goes faster through time than any other in the universe?"

"Yes."

"And not only are you not from this planet, you are a hologram? A creation of light?"

"Yeah."

Hundreds of years down the road I can see a vast and bizarre conspiracy involving the... "Bloodline of light."

You could certainly state they were post scarcity when it comes to the necessities of food, water, shelter, ect, and in a lot of ways land as there were hundreds of colonies. The morals of many of the federation members were very communist and looked back on history with the slant of "why couldn't they just give those people food and jobs" and the Federation was tyrannical, especially when it came to seceding planets being colonized by Federation citizens when it lost a war.

again, the replicators change everything so we don't have anything to compare it to same way we can't really place Genghis Khan by todays standard left-right, since he ruled with a iron (and rapey) fist but basically opened the silk road.

If you want a clear view of basically "best case scenario" socialism the UN in The Expanse is the most likely representation. Its basically over run with nearly ungovernable drug addicts walled off in cities, fringe groups are people who use religious exemptions just to own land. Mars was basically where the US was in the 50's, the belt was the wild west.

one thing of bother with the Ferengi is how much power the Grand Nagus held over social and economic policy...

to be fair, in a federation of potentially TRILLIONS, your going to find a few million to sign up and work on that reactor just for the experience and adventure of it. You could say the risk is the reward.

People pour tons of money into racing cars, motorcycles, bikes, basically anything that moves with the risk of injury or death with no illusion of gaining anything except for the reward of the experience.

I agree, in this society you would have MAJOR issues with people just sitting around, eating, doing drugs, waiting to die... just like I said, the tropical nations are so often disasters because life is too easy, while places that life is difficult you often have the most successful peoples. there's no reason for that aspect of human nature to change.

Another aspect of human nature, is some people are driven to do shit, just to fucking do it... its what separates the winners from the losers.

@Billy_dee

You can be a collectivist in a national scale as oppose to a community (commune) or international scale (communism).

Those of us in the Federation have learned to live in peace.  There's no need for money, unless you are some kind of slimy Ferengi.
It's only the continued existence of aggressive species like the Klingons, Romulans, and Kardashians that force us to even have military capabilities.

The Borg are the true communists.

This is why Babylon 5 was the superior sci-if show.

The Earth Alliance still had money and religion. They were also portrayed as overly bureaucratic fucks and were the villain for a good portion of the series.

In fact every species in the series was shown as being good and bad. Though the Drazi clearly had the best political system.

The Drazi election of 2259 suffered from Russian meddling that caused the greens to forfeit the election to the purples.

The Equinox was even smaller and got thrown into the Delta Quadrant. They made it just as far as Voyager by killing some aliens and using them for fuel.
Janeway had a fit of course and demanded that that crew stopped doing it. In that 2 part episode she even tried to tell Chakotay if he went against her again she'd have him removed. I was hoping for a Denzel Crimson Tide moment. Were he placed her under arrest and tossed in the brig

She really was a can I speak to your manager type...She looked better with her hair down though.
Someone should've gave her some dick so she would have mellowed out

Discovery season 2 is pretty dang good.

And how often is the Transporter running right?

Haha, holy shit! I didn't think of that.