Posted by Ilya Somin: When and Why did the Federation Turn Socialist? - A Question I Hope Will be Answered in the New Star Trek Movie: http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2009_05_03-2009_05_09.shtml#1241844798
Peter Suderman gives [1]a positive review to the new Star Trek movie, but notes that it focuses more on personal issues than political ones. It will be interesting to see the young Kirk, Spock, and McCoy. But I hope the movie answers an important question about that has always perplexed me about the Star Trek universe: When and why did the Federation turn socialist? As I explained in[2] one of my most widely read articles, Star Trek's Federation (or at least Earth) is definitely socialist by the time of the New Generation series, and probably the time of the original series that focused on the Enterprise commanded by Captain Kirk. By "socialist," I mean an economy where all large enterprises are controlled by the state, not merely a market economy where there is government regulation or a welfare state. Despite Republican rhetoric to the contrary, Barack Obama is not a socialist; but he would be one if he sought to nationalize all private enterprise and abolish the use of money, as Star Trek's Federation seems to have done. By the time of the original series, the Federation already lacks any kind of currency (which is necessary to run a market economy), and all large enterprises seem to be government-owned; this is even more clearly the case in TNG. However, Star Trek's future Earth wasn't always that way. In [3]Enterprise, the series set in the period just before the founding of the Federation, we see many private firms still in existence, including even privately owned space colonies and interstellar freighters. And Earth still has currency at that time. Thus, the Federation's transition to socialism probably took place [4]sometime between 2161 (the end of Enterprise and the founding of the Federation) and 2245 (the beginning of Kirk's "five year mission" in the original series). The new Star Trek movie, which covers the days of Kirk's youth, is set right in the middle of the transition period (the early 2200s). So what caused the transition to socialism during that time? Was there a sudden violent socialist revolution, as happened in Russia in 1917? Or was there a gradual transition caused by a slow but inexorable growth of government until it gradually took over the entire economy? [5]Bryan Caplan points out that the Earth portrayed in the new movie seems to have experienced very little economic growth over the previous two centuries. That suggests a slow transition over a long period of time. The low growth could be the result of gradually increasing government control choking off the private sector. A sudden socialist takeover would presumably leave intact much of the technological infrastructure built up by the market over the previous centuries. Obviously, the most likely answer to my question is that the developers of the TV series' and movie simply didn't think very hard about developing a realistic economic and political history for Earth and the Federation. However, the issue is of more than pedantic interest. Star Trek is a cultural icon watched by tens of millions. Many more people will derive their vision of what the future should be at least partially from Star Trek than from reading any kind of serious scholarship. [6]Law professor Benjamin Barton wrote that "no book released in 2005 will have more influence on what kids and adults around the world think about government than The Half-Blood Prince [of the hugely popular Harry Potter series]." Similarly, no nonfiction book of the last few decades is likely to have more influence on how people see the future than the Star Trek series. If Star Trek continues to portray a socialist future as basically unproblematic, and even implies that a transition to full-blown socialism can be achieved without any major social trauma, that is a point worth noting. With rare exceptions, the Star Trek franchise has been far too blase in its portrayal of future socialism and its implications. After all, [7]socialist regimes have been responsible for the death and impoverishment of millions. There has never been a society that combined full-blown socialism with prosperity or extensive "noneconomic" liberties for the population. And there has never been a transition to socialism without large-scale repression and mass murder. If Star Trek's writers want to posit a new form of socialism that somehow avoids the shortcomings of all previous ones, they should at least give us some sense of how this new and improved socialism escaped the usual pitfalls. Had a similarly prominent pop culture icon been equally obtuse in its portrayal of fascism or even milder forms of right-wing oppression (e.g. - by portraying a rightist military dictatorship that seems to work well and benefits the people greatly without any noticeable loss of personal freedom), it would have been universally pilloried. Despite this criticism, I still like many things about Star Trek, and I certainly think it is often fun to watch. Political ideology is not the only noteworthy aspect of a science fiction universe, or even the most important. I don't ask that the producers of Star Trek incorporate my political views into the series. I do wish, however, that they would consider the implications of their own more seriously. UPDATE: I'm sure various readers will claim that socialism in Star Trek works well because they have transporters and replicators, which supposedly eliminate all economic scarcity. If resources are completely unlimited, the argument goes, it doesn't matter if they are used inefficiently. But as I pointed out in [8]this post, there is in fact economic scarcity in the Star Trek universe, because not everything can be replicated (e.g. - power sources for starships and replicators themselves). Moreover, the Federation and other nations in that universe wage war over the control of planets and other assets, which implies that they can't be replicated either. It's also worth noting that replicators seem to be a government monopoly in the Federation, at least on Earth (I don't think we ever see a privately owned replicator owned by a human Federation citizen). If resources in the Star Trek world really were completely unlimited, most of the series would make no sense. There would be no point to colonizing new planets and the characters could get out of any tight spot simply by replicating anything they might need. References 1. http://reason.com/news/show/133384.html 2. http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=NmM4Zjg3YjlmZDI5OTZkNmRmNDg4MTRhMmE4MjM0ZmQ= 3. http://www.startrek.com/startrek/view/series/ENT/index.html 4. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_Star_Trek#22nd_century 5. http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2009/05/the_present_and.html 6. http://www.michiganlawreview.org/archive/104/6/Barton.pdf 7. http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/20TH.HTM 8. http://volokh.com/posts/1190182117.shtml _______________________________________________ Volokh mailing list [email protected] http://lists.powerblogs.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/volokh
