Book Review: Trekonomics by Manu Saadka

Trekonomics by Manu Saadka

Let’s make no mistake—Saadka is a fan.  He loves his Star Trek, and knows it inside and out.

But he is also a competent economist, and as such wants to take a closer look at the economics of Start Trek.  He finds many points of interest, including the ubiquitous abundance and absence of both money and work—it is a “post-economic” society.  In many ways, this world is the endpoint of many of today’s trends, though things are not simple.

“The world of Star Trek is an economic utopia.” (p. 4)

It takes a fan to do this book because, as he says, “”there are in fact two distinct Treks.”  The original series (“1.0”) and other early works are not fully formed, while the later series and films are the fully fleshed utopia (“2.0”).  He also traces many of the sources and currents that influenced the shows.

Of necessity, there is a lot of Econ 101 in this book, though application to Star Trek generates some useful perspectives.  His discussion of The Replicator should be required reading for all college students, not just economists.  It’s not abundance, it’s the distribution of wealth that matters.

Now, I had some serious quibbles in places.  The stuff about technology substitution is shallow and unsatisfying to a technologist like me. But most of all, with my own background in social psychology, I flat out disagreed with a lot of his discussion of the psychology of the Federation characters.

He correctly points out that they are, to our eyes, weirdly Roddenberry-ish characters—altruistic, calm, rational, tolerant (not to mention one-dimensional).  Saadka suggests that these characteristics stem from the universally shared abundance.  People who have never seen want are better people, he implies.

“[The Federation characters] are perfect because they can afford perfection. Simple as that.” (p.174)

But everything we know about the very fortunate tells us that the lack of want does not foster mental health or social grace.  Far from it.  The rich are not better people.  And they certainly aren’t mentally or morally better people.

Saadka is particularly off base in the suggestion that, because the replicator can make anything, and anyone can have as much as they want, there will be no “conspicuous consumption”.  If everybody is equally rich, then the rich don’t need to flaunt their wealth.

This analysis, of course, flies in the face of experience.  Conspicuous consumption mostly isn’t to show off to the peasants, it is to demonstrate fine gradations of status among the wealthy.  In a post-economic economy, there will be nothing but conspicuous consumption.  People will work hard to distinguish themselves in any way they can, and consumption is way easier than winning reputation through science or space exploration.

Worse, one of the common forms of conspicuous consumption is waste and destruction.  See, perhaps, the history of whatever is your favorite music group.  It doesn’t matter if all the cookies are free, some people will still want to build a 100-meter tower of cookies and burn it down.  For that matter, someone will decide that smashing replicators is a fun game.  Or hacking replicators to be disassemblers.  Or something equally pointless and destructive.

In short, the supposed psychology of the Federation folks shouldn’t be ascribed to abundance. My own view is that they are a fantasy projection of very “Californian” life style (“write what you know”), which seems utopian from afar, but isn’t necessary so pretty up close.  There is always a Charles Manson lurking in the sunny valley.

---

Quibbles aside, this is a great book.  I mean, Fandom meets Political Economics.  How could I not like it!

You do want to read the chapter about the Ferengis! (Why do my spell checkers not know the word Ferengi?  Tsk!)

The last chapter is probably the best.  For one thing, it is very revealing: for all the fan he is, Saadka is no starry-eyed fool.  He firmly tells us that interplanetary let along interstellar travel and settlement is economically infeasible.  Period.  There is no sane reason to do it, and it is too expensive to be sustainable.  (And, by the way, he believes that the expenses require a Nation state, not just a handful of nerd plutocrats.)

“that useless hellhole otherwise known as Mars” (p. 220)

“Enough already with the space colonization nonsense!  If anything, it is an expression of defeatism….Let us build some kind of Galactic Mayflower and leave this wretched and sinful place. It is as facile as it is misguided” (p. 221)

(Ouch!)

The most important take away is that “post scarcity” is not achieved by technology alone.  It is a set of policy decisions, to make abundance a public good.  I.e., to distribute the (nearly infinite) pie equally to everyone.  Our economy is abundant, but the distribution is getting less equal every year.  To get to Star Trek, we can ride our current technology trends, but we need to dramatically change policies.

“Such a world is far from a guaranteed outcome. While public goods and abundance are spreading, so is economic inequality. We will need need considerable efforts, wisdom, and cooperation to steer society on a new course….” (p. 236)

As Saadka says, “Make it so.”

---

1. Manu Saadka, Trekonomics, San Francisco, Pipertext, 2016.

 

Sunday Book Reviews