this post was submitted on 31 Jul 2024

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Is the Federation "Communist" or Socialist? (startrek.website)

submitted 4 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

59 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Hi there, I'm not trying to start a political argument or anything, I'm just curious what people here think about this often repeated claim that the Federation is a socialist or even communist utopia? I know Strange New Worlds did say in dialogue it is socialist but I was wondering if people here think that's accurate? I'm not a communist or a marxist or anything like that, but I've had people who identify as such tell me the Federation basically is communist. So anyway, what's your thoughts?

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[–] [email protected] 0 points 4 months ago (3 children)

The federation tends to let member planets be independent, the federation doesn't come in and be like "we own your planet and we provide for you in return we take everything", so it's definitely leaning socialist.

The main difference is who owns the means of production. In communism, the government does. In socialism, the people do.

Both aim to provide for the population at large and not just benefit to a few rich elites that own everything, but socialism is a bit more robust against tyrannical governments.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 4 months ago

Yeah I'm not a communist primarily because I'm against dictatorship and human rights abuse but socialism sounds more interesting

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[–] [email protected] -3 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

Idk... for good starters, I'd ask ye this

I'd rather ask how it is not capitalist

Is it capitalist and hegemonic

Does this federation have a system of unequal exchange and resource exploitation of one place to another, the core, essentially, with the majority of the federation being an large mass of desperate wage and salary laborers, once self-sufficient peasants, in the resource-rich place of the periphery, under the guise of "investment"?

Does this federation love to lend and privatize foreign economies, and cut social spending, a la IMF, in order to dominate the latter's economy?

Does this federation have a policy of CAPITALIST settler-colonialism, based on classical-liberal style property rights and genocide of the indigenous people?

If this is all merely in the past of class struggles and national liberation movements, and the federation has fought and abolished such forms of exploitation, yay

To check if its communist, in the more modern form {there is such thing as primitive communism}, however:

Does this federation wrecked out any chance of capitalist and liberal restoration, due to past 'authoritarianism'?

Does this federation work without the use of money, any proprietorship, social class, and the force of government, but instead with collective ownership of major assets and modern cooperative values or 'ideology' being casually accepted as the norm, instead of as an old-fashioned ideology or academic subject?

This is to ensure that Communism is dominant, as to be practically 'Communist', in such a federation

Does surplus value, from labor, go into the needs of the people, even in its 'authoritarian' fetus defensive form, instead of going towards any capitalist profit or landlord's rent, or any past economic mode of production?

Note: Personal property, such as watches and purses, do not count as private property, unless you're using it to make into an asset, like a steam engine, to run a metro-train system, or a collection of buildings, to take rent upon

[–] [email protected] -2 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

I would say the Federation is basically a liberal utopia so it's not against being liberal

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[–] [email protected] -5 points 4 months ago

(to my knowledge) they never actually said who controls the means of production. But so called "true communism" is impossible, even in post scarcity, so we can rule that out.

So it's either capitalist or socialist, and in post scarcity societies, there's no real difference.

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