5 thoughts on “When we play Star Trek Monopoly, I am the Captain’s chair.”

1. Isn’t the Federation a post capitalist society? You never see characters concerned with money on board the Enterprise.

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   • Hm… well, Chekov and Uhura go “shopping” in The Trouble with Tribbles, Kirk once threatens to “fire” Scotty and another time tells him “you’ve earned your pay for the month,” though Kirk could have been teasing both times. When we first see Dr Crusher in Encounter at Farpoint she tells a merchant something like “Charge it to my account, care of the Enterprise,” but you are right, Roddenberry’s world view did emphasize a post-scarcity economy.

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   • Some episodes of DS9 hinted that civilian use of transporters are rationed, and VOY sometimes had characters discuss “replicator rations” but those series deliberately changed Roddenberry’s original vision in order to tell stories with more conflicts among allies.

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   • A couple times Kirk and Spock talked about Starfleet investing considerable resources in training them, and on one of these occasions Kirk actually says “money.”

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   • I always felt The Next Generation did a better job of imagining a post capitalist society. There may still be currency, and I’m sure there are economies in different planets, but I always got the impression that poverty was a thing of the past.

     What do you need money for if you can have food synthesized, for example?

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