The Economics of Star Trek

[REPOST: Thanks to Alex Kirtland's reminder that this is a topic of interest for me (but dropped), I decided to repost this December 29, 2007 entry. I think it's quite relevant in this new era of "redefined" patterns of production and consumption. Thanks Alex]

I've been learning about "Participatory Economics" (and trying to figure out how I feel about it, but more on that later) and stumbled across this eye-poppingly compelling image of the future (possible? probable?) in a detailed analysis of the economics of Star Trek:

Every year, in a process running from November 1st to November 30th, Federation citizens indicate, via computer terminal, what and how much of various goods and services they would like to consume in the following year. At the same time, citizens also propose how much work they would like to accomplish in the following year. Briefly, this allows for both "supply" and "demand" to be known, from which is generated a list of prices for various goods and services for the coming year. These prices are generated by publicly accepted algorithms, and other factors, such as the environmental and social cost of producing a good, are factored into the generated prices. Thus prices in the federation reflect the "social opportunity cost" of a good. This is defined as a price that indicates how much society is losing out by producing this good, where it could have produced other goods, and have been less abuse to the environment, etc.

The generation of prices and the submittal of work and consumer desires is an iterative process. In the first round, (ending Nov 14) Individual consumers and workers submit the number of hours they with to work in the next year, as well as the amount of goods and services they wish to consume, from simplified lists of available products. At the same time, neighborhood, regional, national, planetary and interplanetary consumer councils form and submit consumption proposals (For things like swimming pools, more ships for starfleet, terraformation of new planets, etc.). Worker's councils also submit proposals for how much they wish to work, what improvements they would like to make in the workplace, how many of a particular good they wish to produce. All these proposals are then summed up by computer and indicative prices are generated.

Comments

[Alex]

Thanks Gong. Just thinking about the excerpt ....

The premise of the excerpt sounds interesting, but also sounds like version 2.0 of central planning. We might get a better result, but it's still, at it's core, a form of communism. What I find hard to reconcile is the unknowable, and our own human nature. Just like New Year's resolutions, I think it'll be hard for people to predict their future behavior. I may think (hope) that I'll only need 10 gallons of ice cream for the year, but in truth I'll really eat 20. And what happens if you suddenly decide you want to learn the violin, or move to a planet orbiting Betelgeuse?

I suppose allowances could be made for this type of behavior (in the algorithms mentioned), but would the resulting system be more stable than some form of well managed capitalism? And would it take more or less effort to maintain this system.

Anyway ....

~alex

[Brian Collins]

From each according to their ability. To each according to their need.

Hmmn.

This didn't work out so well when Marx tried it, did it?