Contemporary Authors

• Trekonomics: The Economics of Star Trek Inkshares (San Francisco, CA), 2016

• Amazon - https://www.amazon.com/Manu-Saadia/e/B01BPYP400/ref=dp_byline_cont_book_1

  Manu Saadia was born in Paris, France, where he fell into science fiction and Star Trek fandom at the age of eight. He studied history of science and economic history in Paris and Chicago. His work on Trekonomics has been featured in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Financial Times, The Wall Street Journal, and Business Insider. He also appeared on the panel “The Amazing Economics of Star Trek” along with Paul Krugman at New York City’s Comic Con in 2015. Manu Saadia is a contributing writer for Fusion.net. He lives in Los Angeles with his son and his wife.

• Fusion - https://fusion.net/author/manu-saadia/

  Manu Saadia
  Manu Saadia, the author of Trekonomics, hails from Paris, France. He lives in Los Angeles where he helps tech startups get off the ground. His first and only passion is the future.

• Whatever - http://whatever.scalzi.com/2016/05/31/the-big-idea-manu-saadia/

  The Big Idea: Manu Saadia
  MAY 31, 2016 JOHN SCALZI26 COMMENTS

  In the future, we will have space travel and transporters and tribbles… but will we have a robust and coherent economic system? And if so, what will it look like and how will it actually function? These are the questions that Manu Saadia has asked, and in his book Trekonomics, attempts to answer.

  MANU SAADIA:

  As you may have heard by now, Star Trek turns 50 this year. Over the past 50 years it has become an integral part of our lives. It is a signpost in popular culture, a legit, iconic piece of Americana.

  As a result, everything has been written about Star Trek. You’ve got books on the physics of Star Trek, the religions of Star Trek, the philosophy of Star Trek (my favorite: The Wrath of Kant), Trek fandom, Gene Roddenberry William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, etc, etc. Star Trek is a literary genre in and of itself.

  I’ve read a lot of these books over the years. After all, I am a dedicated fan. Yet, I couldn’t find a book about the economics of Star Trek. For some bizarre reason that crucial aspect of Trek, perhaps its most singular, had not been covered. To paraphrase the other franchise, this was the book I was looking for.

  So there it is. Plumbing. That’s the big idea behind Trekonomics. Plumbing. You can’t see plumbing, you take it for granted, you barely notice it. Yet plumbing is absolutely essential to life in modern society, real or imagined. Economics is the plumbing of Star Trek as much as it is the plumbing of our world. It is what gives them both their unique, distinctive shapes. It is what makes them work.

  We all know that there is no money in Star Trek’s 24th century. But it goes far beyond that: in the Federation there is neither hunger, poverty nor any of the economic challenges and rewards that make our 21st century lives so interesting. In Trek’s world, what British economist John Maynard Keynes called the “economic problem,” the necessity to work to sustain ourselves, has simply gone the way of the dodo.

  In the book I examine three questions: first, how does economics actually function in Star Trek’s universe? Second: is Trekonomics internally consistent? And thirdly, is it even remotely possible or is Star Trek just another cheesy SJW communist Kumbaya in space?

  The C- or the S- words are the elephant in the room when it comes to Trek. Let’s dispose of that once and for all. No, Star Trek is not a communist utopia in space. It is not communist (or socialist) because communism was an economic and political response to Keynes’ economic question – how to best organize and distribute scarce resources. In an over-abundant world such as Star Trek’s, a post-scarcity world, the issue of ownership is moot. It’s very much like Iain Banks’ Culture. Why would you want to own the means of production when the value of the things you produce has converged to zero? Or, in other words, when a replicator can make any gizmo at will, there’s very little point in trying to corner the market on gizmos. Besides, there are much more rewarding things to do with your existence – mapping stellar gaseous anomalies, studying new life and new civilizations, being the captain of the flagship, boldly going etc…

  To my great surprise, Star Trek’s economic ideas are remarkably consistent. The show does not break much of what we currently know of economics. Furthermore, it turns out that elements of Star Trek’s speculative political arrangements already exist in our own world – namely, the practice of making some technologies and services free and available to all without restriction, as public goods (think Wikipedia or the GPS). This strongly suggests that post-scarcity is as much a political decision as it is a matter of technological progress. That being said, as Paul Krugman wryly observed at NY Comic Con, what may hold us back on our way to a Trek-like utopia is the human propensity to remain stubbornly unhappy.

  Speaking of unhappiness – throughout the years, whenever I got depressed I would usually sit down and watch a few episodes of Star Trek so as to get transported to a better and happier future. Star Trek always had a therapeutic, reparative, function in my life. But not just that: I am the kind of guy whose marriage vows were ‘live long and prosper,’ and who inserted ‘live long and prosper’ in his son’s birth announcement. While I do not usually cosplay, you could say I am a Trekker for life.

  This book is a love letter to Trek, if a bit on the wonkish side. It is an attempt to demonstrate that Star Trek’s optimism, so often derided if not summarily dismissed, rests largely on its economic premise; and that said economic premise is the opposite of naive or crazy. I believe that Star Trek truly fulfills philosopher John Rawls’ famous thought experiment on the veil of ignorance: what kind of society would you design if you did not know in advance what would be your place or position in that society? Chances are it would look like the Federation’s utopia, sans the spaceships and the aliens.

  That is the value of Star Trek in our world. That is why it has endured for 50 years. That is why it still matters today. Live long and prosper, indeed.

• Serious Wonder - http://www.seriouswonder.com/economics-star-trek-conversation-trekonomics-author-manu-saadia/

  THE ECONOMICS OF STAR TREK: A CONVERSATION WITH 'TREKONOMICS' AUTHOR MANU SAADIA
  BY B.J. MURPHY
  As a lover of science fiction, and equally a writer of science and technology, there’s no other sci-fi TV series Star Trek Trekonomicsthat I can think of that influenced and inspired me more than Star Trek. From its radical optimism to its various philosophical thought constructs built into each episode, Star Trek challenged, and ultimately changed, the way I envisioned the future.
  Now, nearly 50 years after the birth of Star Trek, I decided to speak with Manu Saadia, author of his upcoming book Trekonomics. Currently available for pre-order on Inkshares (which you can use Bitcoin to purchase), Trekonomics is Manu’s attempt to help people better understand why the universe of Star Trek is subjected to such a radically optimistic background – that is, to understand the economics behind Star Trek!
  “Star Trek does not owe its enduring popularity and its place in our collective imagination to its aliens or to its technological speculations. What makes it so unique, and so exciting, is its radical optimism about humanity’s future as a society: in other words, utopia.” – Manu Saadia
  Manu Saadia Star Trek
  Manu Saadia, author of Trekonomics
  Hello Manu. It’s a pleasure to finally speak with you. Let’s start this off with a question of what it was about Star Trek that caught your interest to the point that it convinced you to write a book about that fictional universe?

  Hey B.J. The pleasure is mine. Like most things these days, the idea for the book originated online. Back around November 2013 writer, VC and online marketing guru Rick Webb published an essay on Medium on how the economics of Star Trek would work in real life at some point in the future. This launched a larger online discussion with people like Matt Yglesias (then at Slate) and economics professor Joshua Gans chiming in. As a fan of the show and a lifelong student of science fiction, these were the kind of stuff that had been bouncing around in my head for a long, long time.

  Later that year I was having a beer with my next door neighbor. He is not just any neighbor though. His name is Chris Black. He was a writer and co-executive producer on Star Trek: Enterprise. He wrote some of the most gripping and thoughtful episodes of the series (“Carbon Creek” for instance).

  So we got to discuss the economics of Star Trek, and whether he knew of a book about the topic, given that everything has been written about Star Trek: religion, philosophy, political science, physics etc. etc. Star Trek writers are the #1 fans of the show. They stay current with the scholarship. Chris mentioned an old book by David Gerrold, writer of “The Trouble With Tribbles,” and one of the greatest scifi masters of his generation (he hosted the Hugos this year). Beyond Gerrold’s, Chris couldn’t think of any substantive book out there that tackled the in-universe economics of Star Trek. So in a nutshell he said ‘why don’t you write it?’ (Not his exact words but you get the idea).

  That’s for the anecdote.

  The most serious part is that I was a bit dissatisfied by the tenor of the online discussion Rick had started. To his credit he was really trying in earnest to make it work with the policy tools we have now, today. My problem with that approach to the economics of Trek is that it is almost too pragmatic. It is definitely worthwhile and ultimately more correct and potentially fruitful – but on some level it shortchanges the show’s vision. I wanted to take Trek at its own word: where Trek said ‘no money’ then why not try to figure out how that would actually work. Let’s try to make the effort of taking Roddenberry’s and the writers’ and producers’ intent seriously. Especially because Chris had told me that, yes, maintaining the integrity of Roddenberry’s social and economic vision was a huge part of the show’s writing process. The main Starfleet characters could not have petty conflicts precisely because they lived in a world of satiation and economic safety, from the time they were born. Their psychology was fundamentally different from ours because of that. This was really important and enforced in the writers’ room. These were foundational parameters of the show if you will.

  Incidentally, that is one of the reasons I’d always been fascinated by the Star Trek: these people all seemed unburdened and happy and rational. This was really an effect and a function of their (fictional) social context. Economics was the only way to explain why Picard and his crew are so damn perfect. In more ways than one, you cannot really make sense of Star Trek, and make sense of your own love of the show, without understanding its economic underpinnings.

  So there you have it. That is why I wrote the book. It’s a contribution to fandom lore, a way to give back to the community and the people that have nurtured me throughout my life. It is an acknowledgement and a tribute to people like Chris Black, Roddenberry, Robert Justman, Rick Berman, Brannon Braga, Michael Okuda, Dorothy Fontana, David Gerrold, Ira Behr, Ron Moore, etc. etc. It is important to name at least some of them – I am really standing on the shoulders of giants.

  Anyone who has ever truly watched Star Trek would notice that one of the most prominent features of its “techno-optimist” universe was its lack of currency, at least in Federation territory. There are currencies introduced elsewhere outside of Federation control, such as Latinum, but we don’t really see much of that until DS9. Would you say that the currency was instead replaced for rank in the Star Trek universe, since it appeared that people were more concerned in building their rank than they were of their financial stability?

  star trek economyFirst of all, as I explain in the book, the abolition of currency is diegetic. It takes place within the Trek universe’s own chronology. In the Original Series there are mentions of Federation Credits here and there. It’s Nick Meyer and Leonard Nimoy who singlehandedly abolish currency, in STIV: The Voyage Home, at that point Roddenberry had no creative control over the feature films. But he knew a good idea when he saw one. And so he made it into one of the cornerstones of The Next Generation. The absence of currency is kind of the most visible and most immediately striking aspect of TNG‘s Federation. But I think it’s kind of a McGuffin in TV parlance, a narrative misdirection that hides something much more important. It’s not so much the absence of currency in the Federation that really matters, but the absence of work or labor as we understand it today.

  That being said, you have to take the absence of money at face value (so to speak). It means two things:

  First, the Federation does not use money as an instrument for price-setting. If you consider that any market is a way to solve imbalances between supply and demand and that prices serve as information signals, then the only logical conclusion is that Star Trek society does not need the signals embedded in prices. It functions with what is called ‘perfect information’ in economics jargon. Society can match supply with demand instantly, without the imperfect mediation of prices. Is that possible in real life? Maybe. If it’s a matter of raw computing power and continuous sensing abilities, from the producer to the final consumer. I am loathe to extrapolate what pervasive networked computing can achieve in the next 50 years.
  Secondly, the absence of money in Star Trek society is also consistent with a world where most things have no monetary value. Think about it this way: if you have replicators that can make almost anything on demand, from medicine to food to clothing and toys, it’s really hard to conduct any form of purely economic activity which involves constraining supply or extracting monopoly rents on scarce goods. Note, however, that in the hands of the Ferengis, replicators are in effect cash or rather Latinum ATMs – i.e. free money. So this also suggests that, at some point, there was a deliberate political decision, within the Federation, to turn replicators into non-rival, non-excludable public goods. In that sense Star Trek‘s vaunted post-scarcity appears to be a policy choice rather than a natural consequence of technological progress. And therefore you could argue that Star Trek‘s supposed technological optimism is above all political.

  Do you believe this kind of space-venturing, post-capitalist society will be how our own future will develop, economically speaking?

  Personally I go with the show: I think it’s a matter of policy and political choice rather than an issue of technology. It’s equally plausible that we may end up in a world that more closely resembles what Neil Stephenson described in The Diamond Age – where machines similar to replicators exist but the designs, the apps if you will, are controlled by a minority.

  Would you say that you’re hoping your book will somehow inspire people to start thinking about the future in a more Star Trek-ish way – in terms of optimism, philosophy, technology, etc. – or is your intention elsewhere?

  When you write science fiction or about science fiction, you inevitably invite speculation. You try to shift readers’ perspectives. You try to present alternates and prototypes. That is what got me into scifi as a kid. Scifi is the literature of change – that’s how Asimov described it. It may be our best analytical toolbox to understand the world we live in, our own collectively-generated social reality. Our everyday cognitive experience is one of constant change. It’s what Alvin Toffler famously called ‘future shock’ – a state of mental paralysis in the face of an overload of external stimulation. So that is what I am trying to do, first for myself, and hopefully for the readers.

  Also keep in mind that Star Trek is very anomalous in all of science fiction. It goes against the main strain, the post-apocalyptic and the dystopian. Star Trek is anti-Victorian, anti-Frankenstein. It’s very unique (Asimov is the other main proponent of that type of scifi, and Asimov exerted a direct and profound influence on Star Trek).

  So Star Trek deserves a hearing. It can tell us stuff about the world that we rarely hear from science fiction and popular culture in general. It can help us to better understand our own condition, which I believe is above all determined by how the market economy functions. I have no real agenda beyond that.

  I mean in truth I am fairly pessimistic about our prospects. For instance, the challenges of managing global negative externalities such as CO2 pollution are largely intractable. It’s the kind of problems of global governance that cannot be solved without adverse effects to many, many people and economic and State actors. We are probably in for a rough ride, and even more so for those of us who did not have the luck to be born in a rich and democratic country.

  On a personal level, I also wrote the book to fight off fear and depression. It is very unlikely we will avoid 3 degrees of warming in the next century. That means Miami and Bangladesh, among others, will be under water. Wiped out. Global warming is like nuclear war without the nukes. There’s no technological singularity or trans- or post- humanism that will change that. We can install as many solar panels and wind turbines as we want, and we should! Hell, we may even stumble upon fusion in the coming decades. But the fact remains that we are already on a path to 3 degrees of warming. The weight of the past is already baked into the future. Hopefully we can find ways to mitigate these coming dislocations. And good economic policy can indeed move mountains. But Star Trek? On a good day, I have some hope. But when you spend time researching these things, there are very few good days.

  In many ways, we’re heading towards a Star Trek future. Most of that universe occurred in the 24th century, but a lot of the technology we saw in that universe has either already been created or is in the process of being created within the 21st century! What do you think that entails for our future and how might you envision it for the 24th century – economically, socially, etc.?

  This is something I’ve been wrestling with. I believe the 24th century will look like Deep Space 9. There will be portions of humanity that live in opulent, rational and well-governed political entities. It might not be the U.S., by the way. It is more likely to be located around China, Korea, Japan and the Russian Far East. Say, Khabarovsk and the Sea of Okhotsk – if only because of climate change. And then there will be competing powers, some obsessed with making profits like the Ferengis, other authoritarian like the Cardassians, and others religious fanatics like the Dominion. In a sense, the future may look a lot like the present. Think about it this way: today’s dominant countries are very much the same as 300 years ago. The U.S. come out of England and Northern Europe, and China and India were the biggest economic powers in the world up until the 19th century. If you take the long view, you have to admit that political and economic power have huge inertia. Change over time is very gradual. At least that’s my opinion.

  The other thing is space, the final frontier, etc. I don’t really buy that part: by the end of this century I think it is projected that 80% of humanity will live in cities. There is a reason for that.

  The benefits of urbanization are just too enormous to pass up. Historically, cities and networks of the cities have been the engines of growth and progress. There’s a spatial logic at work here: easy and safe communications between densely populated urban areas foster exchanges of goods, of people, and of ideas. So settling a far away colony on Mars or a bunch of habitats in orbit is not a recipe for prosperity for these space-based outposts. Without fast and reliable means of exchange, I don’t see how these settlements could take full advantage of the network effects and of the endogenous dynamism of Earth’s great cities. As economist Robin Hanson hinted in a famous paper, autarky does not work. It never has and it never will. So maybe we’ll build space elevators like those described by Kim Stanley Robinson in his Mars Trilogy. That is how he disposes of the problem of autarchical development – you’ll notice though that he was very aware of it.

  I think we have enough on our plate already. I think colonizing the solar system might be inspiring as a vision, but it’s largely misguided. The starship is Earth.

  Lastly, as we ask everyone we interview, is there any final advice that you’d like to give to our readers?

  If you’re fascinated by the future, read as much history and economic history as you can. That’s why so many economists are science fiction fans. It’s not about the gadgets or the technology. It’s about the analytical framework – mostly, economics – that allows you to understand how society reacts to technological change. Economics and science fiction have the same objective: extrapolate plausible future outcomes from the empirical observation of present and past social processes. And if I were to give a few names off the top of my head: Braudel, Fogel, Kuznets, Polanyi, Pomerantz, Schumpeter, Smil.

  Photo Credit: Star Trek
  September 1, 2015By B.J. Murphy

Trekonomics: The Economics of 'Star Trek'
Publishers Weekly. 263.15 (Apr. 11, 2016): p52.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2016 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
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Trekonomics: The Economics of 'Star Trek'

Manu Saadia. Inkshares/Pipertext, $22.99 (280p) ISBN 978-1-9417-5875-5

First-time author Saadia has written an amusing deconstruction of the economics of Star Trek and how they illuminate our current financial and social milieu. He identifies the essential feature of the Federation, the TV series' futuristic society, as being its victory over the problem of scarcity. Key to this is the replicator, a machine that can create anything, from food to weapons, out of pure matter. As a result, resources are endlessly abundant, currency has been abolished, and work has changed from something people do to survive into something people do to better themselves and society and to gain prestige. The book's most interesting section examines negative externalities, "the cost of an activity to a third party who is not involved in said activity," as demonstrated in an episode about the Federation placing limits on faster-than-light travel after discovering it adversely affects a certain alien race. Saadia relates this to the sacrifices necessary to stop global warming and other environmental threats. Like Star Trek itself, the book is about more than spaceships and aliens; it illuminates the present by showing a future to strive for. (June)

• Prescient Sci-Fi
  http://www.prescientscifi.com/trekonomics-manu-saadia/
  Word count: 2445

  TREKONOMICS BY MANU SAADIA

  Posted on October 12, 2016October 16, 2016
  trekonomics

  – By Jacob Foxx –

  There are countless books about Star Trek out there, but if you were interested in reading about the economics of the future, there is only one. Academic and longtime Trekkie Manu Saadia examines the economic system of the United Federation of Planets in his book Trekonomics: The Economics of Star Trek. As a fellow Trekkie and policy nerd, this was the perfect book for me. Well-written, easy to read, and insightful, I highly recommend this book for Star Trek fans, whether hardcore or casual.

  Describing and assessing the economic system of the Federation was not an easy endeavor. Gene Roddenberry was no economist and never sought to lay down, in detail, the political and economic systems of the future. Manu Saadia scoured the TV shows and movies for any discussion on the Federation economic system, including the reboot movies. Saadia’s extensive knowledge of Star Trek served him well. He managed to put together a basic model of the economy, allowing for a thoughtful look at how we will live and work in the future.

  So what economic system do the citizens of the Federation live and work in? In a way, they don’t have one at all. Economics is the study of the allocation of scarce resources. In the future, resources are not scarce at all, negating any reason to study economics. All citizens have free and easy access to food, clean water, housing, household goods, clothing, and anything else they need. Energy, information, communications, and all other high-tech services we pay for today are made so plentiful they are provided for free as public goods. Saadia calls it a post-scarcity society.

  NO CASH? NO PROBLEM
  The most interesting feature of this post-scarcity society is the absence of money. Such a thing would be impossible today. As Saadia explains, the only way that a society could abolish currency is if all basic goods and services were provided for free. Before the advent of currency, citizens had to barter with one another, which requires each party to have something the other wants. That isn’t practical today; most retailers do not want or need anything from a middle class suburban family. Sure, some barter still takes place today but for the vast majority of commerce that takes place, a medium of exchange is necessary, aka cash.

  Of course, if goods and services are being provided without charge, there is no need for a medium of exchange, nor barter. What does that mean? There would be no need for stock markets, Wall Street, currency exchanges, or banks. The entire financial sector would vanish. The Occupy Wall Street Movement would be thrilled!

  THE REPLICATOR
  Who is manufacturing all these goods for free? Is it the government or some altruistic non-profit organization? Neither. Whatever you need can be produced by a magical device called a replicator. These devices are incredibly easy to produce and use. Once a family has one, they never have to step foot in a store again. They are fairly common devices, easy to build or replicate. In fact, it is likely replicators reproduce themselves, which means only one needs to be built to supply an entire population with replicators. No government welfare program or national replicator bureau need exist. The replicator is considered a public good, one provided for free for all, hence no company builds and sells them.

  Saadia compares replicators to the GPS system. President Reagan ordered the military’s GPS to be made available to civilians in response to the shooting down of a Korean airliner. The civilian aircraft accidentally wandered into Soviet airspace, who was already on alert thanks to the US bomber patrols in the region. Had the airliner had access to the GPS system, the crew would’ve realized they were straying into Soviet airspace and avoided the tragic accident. Today, nearly everyone has access to GPS but are charged virtually nothing directly (aside from taxes paid to keep system operating). In the future, devices like the replicator would be made available without charge to all, satisfying virtually all material needs for citizens.

  THERE AIN’T NO SUCH THING AS A FREE LUNCH
  One important note: today when people discuss free public services, they are not really free. For example, when Bernie Sanders promises free college education for all, what he means is it will be free to the student. Someone else will pay for it and it ain’t cheap. Education is an expensive government service. Sadly, such services are often mediocre, or downright garbage. It also isn’t always equally distributed among the citizenry. Some public schools are high quality, while others have abysmal records.

  If a public good or service requires mass amounts of tax revenue to fund, it isn’t free. In the future, the cost (as in time and energy, not cash) of all public goods and services is so tiny, that there is no need for high taxes or vast government bureaucracies to manage them. Until we reach that level of technological supremacy, there ain’t no such thing as a free lunch.

  LIMITLESS RESOURCES
  Obviously we cannot provide things for free in the same way. We don’t have replicators first of all, and second we don’t have limitless raw materials. Replicators require huge amounts of energy, raw atomic material, and information. New technologies could solve the energy and information problem, but there is still the issue of raw materials used by replicators. The magical replicators need matter that it can transform into the desired item for the user. An easy solution to this is interstellar exploration. Earth might not have enough raw material, but the galaxy does.

  That handles basic goods, but what about services? Raw materials aren’t as important. Services require specialized knowledge and skills.The two most important (and expensive) services today are healthcare and education. On the USS Voyager, medical services are provided by a hologram. Most ships and stations have humanoid doctors as well. Whenever they become overwhelmed with patients, they can get the assistance of hologram physicians. Same goes for teachers. While skilled professionals will still need to be trained, a greater amount of their discipline will be automated.

  Today, many people can learn through online courses, with one instructor teaching hundreds, even thousands of students. While not an ideal means of learning, it provides a glimpse of how the cost of what is an expensive service today, could shrink to almost zero in the future.

  TRAGEDY OF THE COMMONS
  One of the problems with providing something free to the public is the potential for overuse, abuse, and freeloading. If you’ve ever used a public bathroom you know the problem. Some people overuse or damage a public good to the detriment of others. The term refers to the small fields in the middle of medieval towns where farmers could let their livestock graze while they ran their errands. If farmers decided to take advantage of the common and let their livestock graze there all the time rather than graze on their own land, the field would eventually become depleted. The over exploitation by a few harms the public as a whole.

  In Star Trek it is clear the tragedy of commons issue is solved. The solution is creating a public good so plentiful and resilient, that it is impossible to overuse. In Star Trek, matter/anti-matter reactors and fusion power plants generate such enormous amounts of energy that no individual could ever deplete it through his use of a replicator. In the commons analogy, it would be like a town common spanning thousands of square miles. Even if every farmer left his cattle there all day every day, they would never be able to deplete the grass on the vast common.

  LIFE IN A POST-SCARCITY SOCIETY: NO MORE KEEPING UP WITH THE JONESES
  Many TV commercials use the sales tactic known as “keeping up with the Joneses.” The idea being that your generic neighbor, the Joneses, have a new consumer product, say a big screen HDTV and you must have it too. You wouldn’t want to be the family on the block with an inferior television. What would your neighbors think? Luxury goods brings status and prestige in our consumerist society.

  The tactic pits consumers against one another in a race to procure as many luxury items as possible, all for the sake of impressing one another. Expensive consumer goods,whether they be TV or designer clothes, are largely status symbols. People like to have them because it conveys to others that they are wealthy, successful, and can afford to spend disposable income on such items. A blue collar worker drives a Toyota Corolla, while a 1 percenter drives a BMW. Both are cars, but only one is a BMW.

  Well, in the Federation there is no cash, nor is there any point in joining a race to procure luxury goods. Everyone has equal access to them thanks to the replicator. In other words, BMWs for all. Consumerism would collapse, along with the advertising industry.

  Some of the dialogue in Star Trek implies that no one bothers trying to acquire wealth or status symbols. Saadia argues that such a utopian fantasy isn’t realistic. Humans can be jealous of one another and compete for things other than money. Popularity, professional recognition, prestige, and physical attractiveness are just some examples of how we measure ourselves against one another. Abolishing money would eliminate one but not all sources of envy.

  STRIVE FOR FULL UNEMPLOYMENT
  If nobody has to work to pay the bills or put food on the table, what do we do with ourselves? Unfortunately, the picture we see today isn’t pretty. There are two stereotypes of the unemployed. Individuals who live off their already accumulated wealth are largely seen as spoiled brats, wasting their treasure on recreation and excess. Then there is the stereotype of the welfare recipients who refuse to look for work, instead spending their government checks on TVs, beer, and expensive clothes. Are they what a post-scarcity society would look like?

  Star Trek does not depict a society of spoiled brats or lazy freeloaders. Federation citizens do not take advantage of all the free stuff to sit around and do nothing. They find meaning and purpose in productive and noble pursuits. It seems all of humanity will see life as an endeavor to find meaning. Victor Frankl, author of the book Man’s Search for Meaning, becomes the most influential thinker in the future. Today, most follow the Sigmund Freud’s “will to pleasure” instead.

  So, if nobody has to work, will we all shift from the will to pleasure principle to the will to meaning? Gene Roddenberry’s vision of the future is one where humanity doesn’t bother wasting their existence chasing pleasure, but Saadia believes that is overly optimistic. Inevitably there will be spoiled brats and slackers who won’t bother searching for meaning.

  HOW DO WE BECOME THE FEDERATION?
  The final chapters of Trekonomics discuss how we can become the Federation. Unfortunately, Saadia doesn’t have much to offer here, nor does Star Trek. Gene Roddenberry was not an economist, and never intended for Star Trek to be a “how to” guide on human civilization becoming utopia. It was about the utopia itself, after we have overcome all our problems and plagues of today. Saadia acknowledges this fact but still unfairly criticizes Star Trek for creating an unrealistic path to utopia.

  There is one anecdote from the Star Trek timeline that gives a hint of how Earth became a utopia. In the movie Star Trek: First Contact, the crew explains to Zefram Cochrane that first contact with an alien race changes everything. Humanity is galvanized to pull itself up from the dirt and put an end to war, poverty, and prejudice. Saadia mistakenly concludes it is the FTL warp drive that changes humanity. This completely misses the importance of first contact with an alien species and the impact of cultural and technological exchange that followed. As it is explained in the movie and in certain episodes on TNG, when we learned we were not alone, it created a powerful new imperative to unite as a civilization, an endeavor we are struggling to achieve today. The minor differences between human cultures become insignificant once we discover there are entirely distinctive civilizations out there.

  Saadia’s critique is made worse by the fact that he fails to propose any solutions of his own with any detail. He writes, “In a nutshell, that is Star Trek’s romance of social democracy. The Federation can maximize the welfare of everyone, regardless of origins, talents, or appetites, because it has made the decision to make most services and products available as public goods.”

  In other words, we just need to follow the principles of social democracy and we’ll get there. That is not the message I got from the first eight chapters of the book.

  Throughout the book, Saadia makes it pretty clear technological innovations is what made the Federation’s post-scarcity society possible. We did not just decide to be a post-scarcity society. It is as if these technologies are going to innovate themselves, we just have to “decide to make stuff free.” As explained above, public goods aren’t free and cannot be free without technological breakthroughs. It seems to me, developing those technologies ought to be our primary goal, not policy decisions.

  CONCLUSION
  While the final chapters are problematic, the first eight chapters are fascinating and worth the price of the book. Trekonomics is a great read for Trekkies, casual fans, futurists, and anyone with any interest in economics.

  Jacob Foxx is the Editor of Prescientscifi.com and author of two novels: The Fifth World and the sequel The Fifth World: The Times That Try Men’s Souls. When he is not reading or writing science fiction, he works as a regulatory affairs consultant for small biotech companies in Raleigh, North Carolina.

  This entry was posted in Reviews and tagged automation, capitalism, Captain Picard, economics, science fiction, social science fiction, space travel, Star Trek, Trekonomics. Bookmark the permalink.

• American Micro Reviews
  http://www.americanmicroreviews.com/trekonomics-the-economics-of-star-trek-by-manu-saadia
  Word count: 580

  TREKONOMICS: THE ECONOMICS
  OF STAR TREK BY MANU SAADIA
  PIPERTEXT PUBLISHING COMPANY, 2016; 265 PP
  REVIEWED BY JORDAN WILLIAMS

  One of the main innovations of the Star Trek TV and film series of the ’80s and ’90s was the introduction of the “replicator.” Replicators are machines that essentially perform alchemy for citizens of the United Federation of Planets. They’re designed to rearrange the subatomic particles that permeate the universe into specific forms of matter upon request. Program a replicator with the molecular structure of a pizza and you’ll have free pizzas for life. The material abundance represented by this fictional invention is central to Manu Saadia’s claims in his new book, Trekonomics: The Economics of Star Trek.

  Saadia insists that the invention of replicators would render our contemporary notions of conspicuous consumption irrelevant. In his view, showing off one’s possessions is a meaningless gesture if anyone can replicate identical ones in the blink of an eye. He claims that replicators have a civilizing effect on Federation citizens, whom he characterizes as selfless, practically indifferent consumers. For example, he observes that people rarely struggle over “custom-made, unique goods” in the Trek universe, even if those goods are allegedly “highly coveted.” Saadia argues that the limited supply of such goods has no impact on consumer demand due to the economic principle of “local nonsatiation.” In other words, time spent pursuing one finite commodity is time a Federation citizen could spend choosing from a practically limitless supply of alternatives. This is one of a few instances when Saadia’s economic analysis, though logically viable, becomes less than compelling.

  One evening, while reading this book, I gave in to a craving to watch an episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. In the opening minutes of “Chimera,” Chief Engineer Miles O’Brien realizes he forgot to pick up a gift for his wife while away at a conference. Miles turns to Odo, who is admiring the jewelry and chocolates he’s brought back for Major Kira, and says of the chocolates, “I’ll buy them from you.” The prevalence of replicators apparently does nothing to mitigate Miles’s worry over disappointing his wife. What’s more, Odo, who has an abundance of souvenirs, still insists on giving the chocolates to Kira. After all, they’re her favorite kind.

  The fact that this brief exchange flies in the face of one of the main principles that Saadia lays out in Trekonomics is no major flaw. He acknowledges that Star Trek demands “an explicit buy-in, a leap of faith, from the audience.” A generous reading of this book, which is technically non-fiction, will allow Saadia the same leeway. Saadia ends up fashioning himself a sort of economic apologist for Star Trek in a way that can be frustrating. Some of his observations about the Trek universe can be challenged with counter-examples from the franchise’s numerous TV episodes, movies, and books. But with a leap of faith, it’s possible to look beyond the specific texts in the canon and imagine the everyday lives of Federation citizens with easy access to replicators, transporters, holodecks, lifesaving medical technology, and faster-than-light warp speed travel. Saadia’s invitation to readers is to share his fascination with the potential effects of the end of scarcity on Earth’s societies. In our current political climate, I imagine that many will find that invitation hard to resist.

• New York Times
  https://takingnote.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/07/10/a-star-trek-future-might-be-closer-than-we-think/?_r=0
  Word count: 572

  A ‘Star Trek’ Future Might Be Closer Than
  We Think
  By Anna North July 10, 2015 11:10 am
  Set against some of the biggest sci­fi franchises of the last five years, many of
  which imagine the future as a wreckage in which the strong prey relentlessly upon
  the weak, “Star Trek” can seem kind of quaint. After all, the show, especially in its
  second and strongest incarnation, “The Next Generation,” takes place in a time
  when, essentially, everything has worked out.
  But it is precisely this quality that interests Manu Saadia, the author of
  “Trekonomics,” a forthcoming book about the economics of the “Star Trek” universe.
  The book, which grew in part out of conversations between Mr. Saadia and his friend
  Chris Black, a former writer for “Star Trek: Enterprise,” will be sold through the
  publishing platform Inkshares. It examines “Star Trek’”s “post­economic” system, in
  which money no longer exists and anything you want can be made in a replicator,
  essentially for free.
  When everything is free, said Mr. Saadia, objects will no longer be status
  symbols. Success will be measured in achievements, not in money: “You need to
  build up your reputation, you need to be a fantastic person, you need to be the
  captain.” People will work hard to reach those goals, even though they don’t need a
  paycheck to live.
  Felix Salmon, a senior editor at Fusion whose imprint at Inkshares will publish
  “Trekonomics,” says not everyone would strive for greatness in a post­money
  economy. In general, society might look more like present­day New Zealand, which
  2/2/2017 A ‘Star Trek’ Future Might Be Closer Than We Think ­ The New York Times
  https://takingnote.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/07/10/a­star­trek­future­might­be­closer­than­we­think/?_r=0 2/2
  he sees as less work­obsessed than the United States: “You work to live rather than
  the other way round.”
  In a time of rising inequality and stagnating wages, a world where everyone’s
  needs are met and people only work if they feel like it seems pretty far away. But,
  said Mr. Saadia, a post­scarcity economy is actually far more within reach than the
  technological advances for which “Star Trek” is better known. Warp drive isn’t
  coming any time soon, if ever, he explained, but wealthy retirees today already live
  an essentially post­money existence, “traveling and exploring and deepening their
  understanding of the world and being generally happy.”
  If productivity growth continues, he believes there will be much more wealth to
  go around in a few hundred years’ time. Whether those gains will be distributed
  equally is an open question. But for Mr. Saadia, “Star Trek” offers a way of imagining
  what would happen to life and work if they were.
  The function of science fiction, he said, “is not so much to predict the future,”
  but “to provoke a critical reflection on the present.” And maybe understanding
  Trekonomics can help us consider what it would take to bring about a world where
  technological advances allowed everyone to lead comfortable and meaningful lives,
  rather than enriching a lucky few. If nothing else, it’s a great excuse for watching
  “Star Trek.”

• Gizmodo
  http://gizmodo.com/we-can-learn-a-lot-from-the-economics-of-star-trek-1780009476
  Word count: 706

  We Can Learn a Lot from the Economics of Star Trek

  Jennifer Ouellette
  6/02/16 3:00pmFiled to: STAR TREK
  313
  19

  Live long and prosper. There’s a lot we can learn from the economics of “Star Trek,” according to a new book.
  This year marks the 50th anniversary of the hugely popular sci-fi franchise Star Trek—arguably one of the profoundly influential fictional series of the last century. It’s also the 500th anniversary of Sir Thomas More’s classic work, Utopia, offering his vision of an ideal society. For Manu Saadia, that’s a fitting coincidence: “The world of Star Trek is an economic Utopia.”

  Saadia is the author of a new book, Trekonomics: The Economics of Star Trek, the first release from the new imprint Pipertext, founded by finance journalist Felix Salmon. Saadia uses this fictional world to explore a provocative question: What would the world look like if everybody had everything they wanted or needed?

  A native of Paris, France, Saadia fell in love with science fiction in general, and Star Trek in particular, when he was eight years old. After studying the history of science and economics in both Paris and Chicago, he decided to leave academia and become a writer. But his passion for Star Trek has remained a constant. Spock’s signature greeting, “Live long and prosper,” was even incorporated into his wedding vows.

  Hundreds of books have been written exploring every possible aspect of Star Trek, from the physics, religions, and philosophy, to political science, and history. But when Saadia tried to find a good analysis of the economics of this fictional world, he came up empty. So he decided to write the book he would want to read on that topic.

  Part of the economics of this fictional world of the future no doubt stems from the ingenious technological innovations in the Star Trek universe, from the transporter and tricorder, to the holodeck and the crew’s handheld communicators—not to mention warp drive and antimatter-powered engines. Creator Gene Roddenberry often found inspiration in real-world science, and his fictional inventions inspired generations of scientists and engineers to create real-world versions of those 24th-century technologies.

  But Saadia wanted to explore deeper questions about the underlying economic theory, not just market supply and demand. As he writes in his introduction to Trekonomics:

  What really matters, and what makes Star Trek uniquely utopian, is the social distribution of these impressive technologies. What distinguishes the United Federation of Planets is not so much that they invented the replicators, these magical machines that can produce almost anything on demand, but rather that these replicators are free and available to all as public goods. Think about it this way: if the benefits of replicators, monetary or otherwise, only accrued to those who own and operate them, then Star Trek would not be Star Trek.
  That’s not to say the world is perfect, though:

  The world Star Trek built raises multiple economic problems. For instance, what happens to innovation and scientific progress without the hope of financial rewards? Similarly, how can a society where all is freely available avoid the tragedy of the commons, the trap of resource depletion caused by unchecked over-consumption? Star Trek does not shy away from these questions. Several episodes of the show deal openly with the challenges of organizing and regulating its own utopia.
  Frankly, as Saadia points out, the idea that machines would relieve human beings of the drudgery of work is a very old idea—dating back at least to the Industrial Revolution, if not further. We already have a certain degree of economic prosperity, for instance, it’s just not distributed evenly around the globe. And the notion of a minimum living wage for all is actually being discussed seriously in this year’s presidential election.

  In that regard, “Star Trek’s utopia is nothing more than the world that awaits us on the other side of that great social metamorphosis,” Saadia argues, “provided that we decide to distribute our newly acquired freedom evenly and that we avoid boiling our planet.”

• Space.com
  http://www.space.com/33624-trekonomics-star-trek-book-no-money-universe.html
  Word count: 698

  New Book 'Trekonomics' Investigates Challenges of a No-Money Universe
  By Elizabeth Howell, Space.com Contributor | August 5, 2016 03:23pm ET
  MORE
  New Book 'Trekonomics' Investigates Challenges of a No-Money Universe
  "Trekonomics" (Pipertext, 2016), by Manu Saadia, explores the implications of a no-money society like that in "Star Trek."
  Credit: Pipertext
  Money isn't a factor for many of the "Star Trek" crews. As Captain Jean-Luc Picard explained in "Star Trek: First Contact": "The acquisition of wealth is no longer the driving force of our lives. We work to better ourselves and the rest of humanity," he said.

  On the surface, this appears to be a utopia. So many people today labor under student debt, mortgages and an uncertain pay flow from employers. To remove money from the equation would make things easier for everybody, right? Or would they simply get bored?

  Manu Saadia, author of "Trekonomics" (Pipertext, 2016)
  Manu Saadia, author of "Trekonomics" (Pipertext, 2016)
  Credit: Pipertext
  Manu Saadia — a Los Angeles resident who advises startups for a day job — tackled the tricky issue of a no-money society in his new book, "Trekonomics" (Pipertext, 2016). He fully admitted in his book that there are many things humanity does just for the love of it; his own book, for example, was not done for economic reasons. But there would be some interesting implications if an entire society followed that philosophy, he said. [The Evolution of 'Star Trek' (Infographic)]

  Saadia told Space.com that he wishes "Star Trek" would show more of Starfleet's ordinary citizens, and not the "1 percent" who live on spaceships. That's because he's interested in what a typical person would do in the "Star Trek" universe, he said. Would they just relax? Further their education? In a moneyless society, people would need to be more accepting of those who prefer to do little, he said.

  Even Captain Picard and subsequent captains presented a writing challenge for "Star Trek," Saadia added. "The pursuit of material things is no longer the main driver in society, so it's hard to tell stories about people who live in bliss," he said. "That was always the problem, and the villains have to come from the outside. ... It's hard to find villains from within 'Trek' society."

  Seeking new risks

  There are some exceptions to the no-money rule, which applies for all crews after James T. Kirk's in the first series, in which people still used "Federation credits" to buy things. Saadia's book has a whole chapter on the Ferengis, money-loving aliens who enjoy pursuits like gambling. (The Ferengis are portrayed in detail in "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine," the television series after Picard's.) And money is needed to deal with certain aliens outside of Starfleet.

  But in a universe with no money, there are some open questions. Is there private property in "Trek"? How do people show value, if not in the accumulation of wealth and things? What is the meaning of something "belonging" to you if it cannot be easily "resold"?

  "One of the avenues for achieving the good life, when it's no longer being a captain of industry, then you want to be a captain of a ship," Saadia said. "You want to explore, do science, advance stuff and share it — and become somebody of great reputation."

  Saadia said he supposes that being a Starfleet officer could be an avenue to take risks in a society in which most of the risks are gone. "Why would you want to lock yourself up on a spaceship and go face the Borg? Why would anybody want to do that? It turns out there are some people who want to do that."

  For Saadia, the book project was a culmination of 15 years of wanting to write a book about economics in "Star Trek," a poorly covered topic compared to the franchise's technology, politics and even philosophy, which numerous books have covered.

  "To get [a book] through, you need a passion and an interest in it that supersedes financial payoff. That's kind of like 'Star Trek,'" he said.