…outweigh the needs of the Pelosians:
We have long been on record in our belief that much of the current crisis can be traced back to the baleful influence of rampant Picardism in the diplomatic corps. Ambassador Picard’s conviction that the “European Hegemony” was a lasting model for intergalactic peace has led us into one calamity after another (for this analysis always leaves out of the equation the Pax Americana which made the European Hegemony possible). Picard’s disagreements with the late Governor Worf stretch back to their service on the Enterprise-D and while the younger Worf was often too much of a hawk (or bird of prey, one might say) there can be no doubt that he had the better of the arguments when it came to the Romulans. No doubt he had learned important lessons from his father’s slaughter at the Katyn forest of the 23rd century, Khitomer. Picard, meanwhile, after a distinguished — but by no means perfect — military career became entranced with the 20th-century writings of Warren Christopher. Prior to Picard’s popularization, few remembered who Christopher was. Indeed, it’s been said that people forgot who Christopher was while they were still having conversations with him. A diplomat of no significant achievement in his own time, Christopher’s writings in a fusty privately published tome — Diplomacy: The Forgotten Imperative — nonetheless ensorcelled the former starship captain. Picard’s proposal, directly inspired by Christopher’s writings, to mandate that all phasers be limited to “light stun” deprived federation security officers from using deadly force and as a result untold millions died and billions more were sentenced to permanent slavery to the Borg collective. But all this, too, goes down the memory wormhole, only to pop-up at some later time and place when such memories provide no practical guidance to current affairs, serving instead for conversational fodder at academic junkets to Risa.
Now the Picardians and Pelosians have become natural allies and would-be quislings in the burgeoning showdown with the Romulans. The old adage that the “Prime Directive is not a suicide pact,” means nothing to them. Would that the spirit of James Kirk (contributing editor from 2261 to 2271, we’re proud to say) could be conjured at this moment. Who among us can forget those immortal words, “Praetor Pardek tear down this neutral zone!” What would Kirk think as he watched the Federation appease the Romulans, feeding the targ one limb at a time, as the Klingons say?
Roddenberry’s collectivist future was actually kind of a bleak one.
True, although one does wonder what use money would be used to purchase in a world with replicators, holodecks and (presumably) fusion-based power that actually is too cheap to meter.
It would buy the time of technicians to set up the equipment made in the replicators. Or it would buy time on faster acting replicators. Or energy to power the replicators, since I think the last time this came up, someone pointed out that dilithium crystals couldn’t be made in the replicator. But there’s always scarcity, even when technological improvements change what is scarce.
More to the point, there’s always relative scarcity. If everyone has a holodeck, but some people have the Mark III improved holodeck in which the holowhores — c’mon, you know the major use to which these things would be put — have more life-like moving parts, so to speak, then those with ordinary holodecks will feel poor, and those with the souped up version will feel rich. So there will be envy and ambition, and those with ratty holodecks will offer their labor to those with marvelous holodecks, to earn whatever medium of exchange it is with which you buy better holodecks.
But it could be anything else, too. If everyone lives 200 years in perfect health, then someone will live 300 years in Olympic athlete health, and that will be the new rich, and so on forever.
In 2009 America, I daresay there’s not a soul who by almost any rational material measure isn’t wealthier than Julius Caesar. Even modern poor American has much better food, more amazing entertainment, far better transportation, more leisure time, better fitting longer lasting clothes, more frequent clean showers, a greater freedom from crime and economic dislocation.
The only thing he doesn’t have is (1) greater command over the labor of others, and (2) greater material wealth than everyone else. It’s those two things that define how rich we feel, and since they can never come to equilibrium, there will be rich and poor always.