Trekonomics

By: Manu Saadia

Narrated by: Oliver Wyman

Length: 8 hrs and 16 mins

Publisher's Summary

What would the world look like if everybody had everything they wanted or needed? Trekonomics, the premier book in financial journalist Felix Salmon's imprint PiperText, approaches scarcity economics by coming at it backward - through thinking about a universe where scarcity does not exist. Delving deep into the details and intricacies of 24th-century society, Trekonomics explores post-scarcity and whether we, as humans, are equipped for it. What are the prospects of automation and artificial intelligence? Is there really no money in Star Trek? Is Trekonomics at all possible?

©2016 Manu Saadia (P)2016 Audible, Inc.

Critic Reviews

"Manu Saadia has managed to show us one more reason, perhaps the most compelling one of all, why we all need the world of Star Trek to one day become the world we live in." (Chris Black, writer and coexecutive producer, Star Trek: Enterprise)

An Amusing & Practical Analysis of Fictional Ideas

What does Oliver Wyman bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

Oliver Wyman reads this dissertation as if it was his own. Breathing life into non-fictional works can be challenging, even with help from the author’s writing style and/or subject matter. Oliver makes listening to rather bizarre and abstract ideas of Star Trek and economic theory (at least to those uninitiated) enjoyable. Well done.

Any additional comments?

I‘m mainly writing this review in reaction to a peculiar bevy of negative assessments on Amazon and Audible. Much of this book is presented with a literary “wink” from the author. I mean, it’s a deconstruction of a fictional economy from a beloved science fiction franchise, that culminates in addressing whether such an imaginary system of wealth could be realized in reality. On those merits, it delightfully excels. If you enjoy Star Trek, there are a variety of things in this book for you.

30 of 33 people found this review helpful

A lively discussion of the economics of Trek

We don't ordinarily think much about the economics of Star Trek when watching an episode or a movie, but when we step back from the stories themselves, it's a pretty interesting question. How does the Federation's economy work? Although there are references to a currency called simply "credits" scattered through The Original Series, that's later retconned to "just a figure of speech." As explicitly stated in Next Generation and Deep Space 9, the Federation operates without money.

How does that work? Can it work?

Saadia says yes, it can work.

The Federation is a post-scarcity environment. They have more than enough food, shelter, clothing, and what in our time are "luxury goods" to go around, and no need to manage their distribution by means of money. This is true in the time of TOS, but even more true by the time of Next Generation, with its replicators able to produce as many of anything at all as may be wanted, as long as the raw matter exists.

There's no need for anyone to be short of anything, whether they work or not.

Yet everywhere we look in the Federation, we see people working hard at a variety of professions and occupations. Mainly, of course, we see Starfleet officers and crew, but also diplomats, scientists, scholars, and artists. We also see dilithium miners, entertainers, and Picard's family of vintners. There are lawyers and craftspeople and the pleasure workers of the pleasure planet of Risa. Sisko's family runs a famous, popular restaurant in New Orleans.

Why are all these people working, when they don't need to?

Not for money, but for reputation, for status, because they enjoy it, and to make life better. Freed of the necessity to struggle for the basics of survival, humans, as well as other intelligent, social species in the Federation, compete for status and the approval of their peers.

Saadia also looks at the problems. Other cultures don't necessarily adopt the same money-free socio-economic system. The Klingons do use money but clearly place a higher value on honor and reputation; this may be why an alliance between the Federation and the Klingon Empire was eventually possible. We don't really know what the Romulans do.

The Ferengi are full-on rapacious capitalists of the most extreme kind.

There are also still luxury goods, though of a different kind--experiential goods, like Risa, or the Sisko restaurant in New Orleans, or Picard wines. Any replicator can provide wine; only the Picard vinyards can produce, say, the 2340 vintage of Picard wines, and only so many bottles of that. Next year's vintage will be different, in ways that can't be fully predicted in advance. Only so many people can be seated and served in the Sisko restaurant on any particular evening. A less obvious point: Only so many people can work at Sisko's for the experience of making and serving fine food.

In Saadia's discussion of all this, he shows a breadth and depth of knowledge of both economics and science fiction. I was impressed that in discussion the antecedents of Star Trek's post-scarcity economy and the replicator, he mentions not only more well-known writers and works, but also George O. Smith's "matter duplicator" from the Venus Equilateral stories. A discussion of Mr. Data and the uneasy status of artificial intelligence in the Federation includes not just Asimov's sunny early view of robots and the rise of automation, but his later, darkening views on the subject, that robots and artificial intelligence could make humans too safe and comfortable, leading to the stories that eliminate robots from the future of his future history.

The Federation is a near-utopia, and Saadia makes a reasonable case that we can get there--even without the replicator--and indeed that we are already on our way. He also notes, though, that the transition from one type of economy to another is never easy; it is generally brutally hard on a large proportion of the population. We are already producing more and more goods and services with fewer and fewer people. There is less work for people to do--and so, in the midst of plenty, in the richest society on Earth, we have people unable to afford even the basics, because there is simply not enough work available for them to earn those basics.

This is a lively and fascinating discussion, touching on things I've worried about myself, as well as the considerable potential upside if we make this transition successfully.

Highly recommended.

I bought this audiobook.

6 of 7 people found this review helpful

Should be Mandatory reading for everyone.

It is rare that I make it a point to spread the word of a book.
In this case, it should be necessary for anyone wanting to be a politician to read this, for if we don't make changes, our current economy will be our downfall. And this book shows us how to avoid it. I cannot recommend this book enough.

19 of 24 people found this review helpful

Shallow on examining trek universe economics

Interesting as a trek fan, but little deep dive into its economic. More of a social commentary and history of star trek than a conjecture of how the universe would function post scarcity.

24 of 31 people found this review helpful

Shallow discussion of random topics

I would love to read an in-depth discussion of the effects advanced technologies (such as Star Trek's replicators) would have on an economy and a society. Trekonomics isn't that. The first couple of chapters take a stab at it, but if you spent five or ten minutes thinking about the topic on your own, you'd probably end up with something more detailed.

The rest of the chapters seem to pick random topics from economic theory, or random episodes of Star Trek, and discuss them at a similarly shallow level.

2 of 2 people found this review helpful

I really wanted to like this

The concept is fascinating, the narration is great, and the result is entirely underwhelming. There are moments of greatness but they are few and far between. The concept is sound. There must be a right way to ponder the economics of Star Trek in depth. I'm not sure in what way that would be exactly, but this isn't it.

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

IF you are a serious trekki

Then and only then read on. It also helps if you a intimate with the genre as other science fiction references run throughout the book. I am the former but not the latter thus did not finish the book as it was overload for me.

3 of 4 people found this review helpful

Trekonomics

Interesting look at the utopia of Star Trek. What is a world where money is unnecessary and there is no need to work. What Star Trek misses is the human condition of pride envy hate and love an the outcome of greed jealousy and mental conditions that bring about the evil that makes mass murder and enslavement possible. Can you really talk these things out of existence. The hope in Star Trek is its selling point.

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

Boring

The book makes the odd good point, but in general it is quite boring and is just the writers opinions of science fiction.

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

it was adequate for the daily dead price

The book pretty much preaches about how the federation supposedly works and privides vauge guide lines on how we can copy the fictional paradise. To say this books actually deals with the economics of startrek is a bit of a reach. That said i think most treckys will like it.

There are a few issues though. There are a handful of modern political jabs i felt wrre entirely inappropriate. Also, would it have killed the narrator to watch some clips to understand how various characters and places should have their names pronounced? Finally, i think the author came to the wrong conclusions about how the federation operates. The examples he uses to declare the federation is an internally cashless society can easily be used to suggest it is only humanity that is cashless whial everyone else does use some sort of currency, namely gold pressed latnum.

2 of 3 people found this review helpful

Interesting concept but not as good as anticipated

Author spent less time talking about actual episodes of Star Trek where economics are referenced and more time philosophising about society. Would be fine, but became very repetitive.

Narration was okay but some very common Trek character names were mispronounced.

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

great! I recommend it!!

very good!! its very interesting to set what the future of humanity might look like