[Captain Tom Coughlin]

Yes, that could get me into trouble!

[Captain Tom Coughlin]

Of course, that raises the question. Why do you need your bar tab paid in a society without money?

[kevin]

Well, if you're operating outside the society or on it's outermost fringes, things probably work a little differently to the core worlds.

[Captain Tom Coughlin]

Yes, I suppose that's true. There have been lots of references to various types of money and trade outside of the core Federation worlds.

[kevin]

We know that some other cultures do use currency so while it does lend itself to the 'money' question overall it's one that has no seemingly concrete answer.

Myself, I don't really believe the no money system. I think it's just not a system that resembles Pounds and Pence or Dollars and Cents as we use it. But it will never be truly answered.

[Captain Tom Coughlin]

I never really bought into the no money thing either. A society like that would collapse. You need a reason to get up and go to work, paying the bills is usually that reason.

[Saquist]

Originally Posted by Captain Tom Coughlin

No other Breaking Bad watchers, I suppose.

It's the first time I've heard of it.
I like anime.

[horatio]

Originally Posted by Captain Tom Coughlin

I never really bought into the no money thing either. A society like that would collapse. You need a reason to get up and go to work, paying the bills is usually that reason.

Funny, that's not why the 70 year old company patriarch gets up in the morning and endangers his health, that's not why an officers fights in a war and endangers his life and that's not why Kirk or Picard get up. Workaholics are addicted to the work, not the money that comes with it.
There are plenty of non-pecuniary aspects of work and while they do not matter as much in our liberal societies they definitely did in pre-modern (social pressure) and will in post-modern ones like the one depicted in Trek. And I say this as an economist who thinks all the time in terms of pecuniary incentives.

[kevin]

Originally Posted by Captain Tom Coughlin

I never really bought into the no money thing either. A society like that would collapse. You need a reason to get up and go to work, paying the bills is usually that reason.

There's a lot of people who do what they love and aren't bound by the same drudgery the rest of us have to do, but they still get paid alongside loving it.

Normally people serving in public service don't do it for the salary, but because it's a service they want to do. Or, sure, because they need money coming in and it's what's on the go.

While glamourous Captain's have an exciting life, we should remember there's the lowly ensign who lives a marginally less glamourous one. On a remote outpost on their virtual own, etc.

There may be a greater variety of reasons why they get up.

And that doesn't cover how people not in the services make their way in the world.

[Captain Tom Coughlin]

Of course there are other various reasons to go to work that don't involve money, but enough to get the kind of productivity you need to keep a society afloat. No chance in hell. Why scrub plasma conduits when you can spend your day writing bad novels, or painting bad paintings, or pursuing any one of a million different interests people may have.


It's not that I doubt that you would get people willing and able to do work. It's that I doubt that you'd get them in the numbers that you would need, or in the jobs that people simply don't want to do. Now, I'm sure replicator technology certainly lessens the need of a workforce to some unknown degree, but would that be a large enough factor? I'm not convinced.