While reading the Economist's christmas special, I came on an article about Marx's continued life in the academic world, even after political Communism has come to a general end. As one would expect from the Economist, they espoused the view that we now know Marx's basic economic views are wrong, that Capitalism at its appex does not set the stage for the revolution and dictatorship of the proletariat. But is that true? Have we reached the end of Capitalism, the point at which we have maximized its productive capabilities? Feudalism lasted 1000 years, and there are 4000 years of history before that, and capitalism has been around only 300 at most. What about the future? which is where Star Trek comes in.
In Star Trek, one of the basic new technologies is matter-energy conversion, which makes the teleporter and the replicator possible. So lets imagine its the year 2350, and the "Home Replicator" has become a reality. Can the modern form of Capitalism survive a world in which any individual with enough capital to aquire one can create any good they demand, wthout the labor, capital, or resources of anyone else? Would this realm of near limitless energy (which one would need to make replicators) invalidate the current economic orthodoxy, or would a form of the Market remain alive, such as selling the patterns to replicate stuff? If so, how long would ownership of a pattern last? forever in the hands of one company? How could it work?
PS:
On the topic of star trek, two separate questions:
How could the Ferengi continue to use species (Latinum) as currency? Why has no unscrupolous (ie. any) Ferengi simply replicated tons of the stuff, thus making it worthless?
Does the Federation ever hold elections? We rarely ever see (even in DS9) the political, civilians leaders of this "federation", only Starfleet Officers. And I have never heard of any of the many crews talk about absentee ballots, the coming or past elections, so forth and so on: do we assume the dictatorship of the proletariat came true?
In Star Trek, one of the basic new technologies is matter-energy conversion, which makes the teleporter and the replicator possible. So lets imagine its the year 2350, and the "Home Replicator" has become a reality. Can the modern form of Capitalism survive a world in which any individual with enough capital to aquire one can create any good they demand, wthout the labor, capital, or resources of anyone else? Would this realm of near limitless energy (which one would need to make replicators) invalidate the current economic orthodoxy, or would a form of the Market remain alive, such as selling the patterns to replicate stuff? If so, how long would ownership of a pattern last? forever in the hands of one company? How could it work?
PS:
On the topic of star trek, two separate questions:
How could the Ferengi continue to use species (Latinum) as currency? Why has no unscrupolous (ie. any) Ferengi simply replicated tons of the stuff, thus making it worthless?
Does the Federation ever hold elections? We rarely ever see (even in DS9) the political, civilians leaders of this "federation", only Starfleet Officers. And I have never heard of any of the many crews talk about absentee ballots, the coming or past elections, so forth and so on: do we assume the dictatorship of the proletariat came true?
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