Even Gene Roddenberry, the originator of the Star Trek franchise and a true forward thinker, foresaw a future without money!
To elaborate, I came across a Star Trek movie from 1996 with a scene that astonished me. It was a discussion between Captain Luc Picard of the Federation starship “Enterprise” and a visitor to the ship from 21st century Earth.
She was asking how much it cost to build the ship and Picard answered, “The economics of the future is somewhat different. You see, money doesn’t exist in the 24th century … The acquisition of wealth is no longer the driving force in our lives. We work to better ourselves and the rest of Humanity.”
Where have you read this before? <nudge, nudge, wink, wink>
I did some research on that scene and learned that from the earliest days of the original Star Trek television series, Mr. Roddenberry made it very clear to his writing staff that “money most emphatically did NOT exist in the Federation, nor did ‘credits’ and that was that.”
However, some inconsistent references to money in the various movies and shows from the Star Trek franchise had cropped up over the years perhaps because some writers found it hard to avoid common money-related expressions to creep into the dialogue. With the “reboot” of the Star Trek motion picture series by JJ Abrams, money apparently had existed in the alternate reality examined by his movies. This suggests that there will always be a tension between those of us who want to do away with money entirely and those who can’t because they don’t want to lose the power that monetary wealth provides.
In the end, it all comes down to which side makes the most convincing argument for money’s usefulness to improve life on this planet.
From my perspective, I’m not “betting” on money to fix this planet’s many ills. It has consistently been on the losing side of history.
