Star Trek and politics

In June/July 2025, I re-watched the “Star Trek” movies and have a few thoughts on “Star Trek” and politics:

1. The franchise follows a brand of idealism common in fiction, which includes ideas like money and attempts to earn money being harmful. However, unlike most other such works of fiction, it presupposes a change in human nature—humans have (allegedly) grown more enlightened. In contrast, other works and real-life attempts usually show a great ignorance of actual human nature.

   To my recollection, there is no true explanation for this change given, but, depending on what that explanation is, very different interpretations are possible. Most notably, a constant failure of the (real-life) Left is to ignore human nature or, worse, try to bend human nature through indoctrination and manipulation. A typical Communist-as-envisioned society, e.g., hinges on the voluntary cooperation, the voluntary hard work, the voluntary self-sacrifice, the voluntary whatnot, of the population—a society of Boxers. Actual Communist societies are invariably faced with the facts of human nature and fail miserably—often after attempts to force the population to the “correct” behaviors through indoctrination, threats, and outright violence.

   Depending on the aforementioned, unknown, explanation, the world of “Star Trek” could, in some regards, be viewed as a Communist-as-envisioned society that has somehow been made real (but only “in universe”, of course; and, cf. below, not necessarily on closer inspection).

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   Side-note:

   An interesting thought is the possibility that, as with many historical social changes, it is not humans that have changed but the circumstances. Notably, if production per year and capita had grown sufficiently much to allow more-or-less anyone to lead a life according to his own taste, be it as a slacker, a researcher, a member of Starfleet, whatnot, this might have made money, the drive to earn money, jealousy towards others, and similar, far lesser factors in life—maybe, even to the point that money could be abolished.

   Of course, this (even as speculation, let alone a more far-fetched practical suggestion) would require a very great amount of growth relative today—and chances are that Capitalism is the best way to achieve that growth. A Soviet-style planned economy certainly is not it. (With reservations for what AI and other computing breakthroughs might achieve, but they, too, are a change of circumstance and not of human nature.)

   I also stress that if money could be abolished, it does not follow that it should, as a world without money, even one with an exceptionally high yearly production, is likely to work worse than one with money. Consider factors like allocation of resources, which is very hard to get right without signals from prices and use of money, the likelihood that some inferior replacement currency rises to take the place of “regular” money (cigarettes have been popular in settings like prisons and POW camps, e.g.), and that money also has uses like “unit of account” (abolishing money might then require finding a unit of account that is simultaneously satisfactory in that role and not what amounts to money by some other name).

   From another angle, doubts can be raised as to how enlightened or pseudo-enlightened the humans of “Star Trek” actually are and how much of the claims are wishful thinking: For instance, various forms of ambition abound—often, for better; often, for worse. Just as with money, the devil is often in the details and an ambition to earn money is often better than, say, an ambition to become the captain of a ship. Money earning done right (also cf. below) tends to bring wealth to others, while competition for captaincy is usually a zero-sum game—my gain is your loss and vice versa. In fact, it is often worse than a zero-sum game, because intrigues and whatnot cost time and energy, can harm third parties, often bring someone less suitable for the post to the post, etc.

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   Side-note:

   However, even a Communist-as-envisioned society is unlikely to work that well, because it is too likely to put a damper on ambition and dedication to new inventions, too unlikely to lead to even semi-decent allocation of resources, and similar. The exact details might vary depending on the exact tenets of the society at hand, but consider e.g. the idea that “he who does not work shall not eat” and apply it to an inventor trying to make a ground-breaking discovery (as with Zefram Cochrane below). If a society simultaneously sticks to this idea and considers the inventor’s activities non-work, he might have the choice between starving in the hope of a sufficiently timely breakthrough and relegating his work to off hours—even when he, in a Capitalist society, might have had the savings to screech by or could have worked a part-time job for his food and whatnot. (While the “work” above might well require a full-time effort to be deemed acceptable.) Ditto in variations where research and inventions might be acceptable work, but the Party deems his particular attempted invention unworthy of the effort or sees his chance of success as too low.

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2. However, there is another society much more alike Communism as it actually is—the Borg. (If exaggerated in the other direction relative the Federation.) Non-Borg are forcefully assimilated and turned into drones, mindlessly serving a collective, with minimal choice and minimal free will, with neither “liberty” nor “pursuit of happiness”—and with “life” of a type that is better described as “existence”, because it is not a true life at all.

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   Side-note:

   However, if we look at the UDHR distortion of “life, liberty, and the security of person”, it can be argued that the individual Borg have a fairly large amount of security, which shows how little value there is to that. Indeed, a society like that of the USSR might have seen relatively more of security than of life and liberty, and with pursuit of happiness something that was done out of sight and with great obstacles raised by the government.

   To boot, in such cases, life is often contingent on not insisting upon liberty. (“Give me liberty or give me death!” / “Sure. Now, would you prefer hanging or the firing squad?”)

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   The Borg, tellingly, is actually one of the greatest enemies of humanity and, arguably, the main antagonist of the “Next Generation” era. More, it is often individualism, individual action, and/or defiance of e.g. orders from Starfleet that bring human victory, undermining even an interpretation of Communism-as-envisioned fighting real-life Communism. For instance, “First Contact” shows Picard and the Enterprise defy an order to stay away to return in the nick of time and turn the tide in a fight against a Borg cube—after which most of rest of the movie shows individual actions and heroism in the successful fight against a Borg attempt to alter the timeline to the detriment of humanity.

3. A similar theme is present in many cases where the Borg are not relevant. Consider “First Contact” and Zefram Cochrane, whom the heroes encounter in a time-travel scenario. He is a great and individualistic inventor, whose work on the warp drive indirectly brought about the first contact (hence the name of the movie) with the Vulcans and, ultimately, the flowering and idealistic society of which the heroes are so proud. Cochrane, however, was not only mostly a lone genius (one of very many in the franchise), but was also driven by a wish for money—he wished for money, worked hard to get it, and, as a consequence, left humanity with the warp drive and all that came from it. In this, he is an almost Randian figure and a textbook example of how Capitalism done right can bring great benefits to the masses—not just (real or alleged) greedy Capitalists. (As to “almost Randian”: Complications like excessive alcohol consumption and a wish for money for the specific purpose of early retirement might stand in the way.)

   Indeed, much of the franchise deals exactly with remarkable individuals (heroes, geniuses, idealists, fanatics, whatnot) going at each other, with comparatively little focus on the big picture of, say, the Federation vs. the Klingon Empire. More often it is the one ship vs. the other, the one captain vs. the other, or similar. In many cases, as with e.g. Khan and Kirk, the antagonist is not even part of a larger entity. (The protagonists of Starfleet are part of such an entity almost by definition, making the symmetrical claim impossible, but they are often unable to draw on its resources, in conflict with it, disobeying its orders, or similar. One movie, “Insurrection”, goes as far as putting such conflict in its very name.)

   Likewise, various great accomplishments of a more peaceful nature usually (as with Cochrane) go back to individual genius. Data, e.g., was not the pinnacle of a long “official” research program, but the culmination of the life-work of an individual scientist. The Genesis project, so important for a few of the early movies, was driven by a small group of visionaries. (Possibly, as little as one, in the form of the elder Dr. Marcus, or two, in the form of the elder and the younger Dr. Marcus, but I would have to revisit the material to speak with certainty.) Etc.

4. An interesting alternate take by many others is that “Star Trek” would reflect a Fascist society. However, in as far as the society is viewed as Fascist (or Fascist-as-envisioned) rather than Communist-as-envisioned, it merely gives further proof of how small the differences between such groups are on topics that matter, and how Fascism is best viewed as a Leftist ideology (or that the Left–Right scale is dangerously misleading; see any number of other texts).

   The only obvious aspect that might make a Fascist interpretation more likely is the military setting and potentially militaristic implications. However, militarism (let alone the military) is neither a defining characteristic of Fascism, nor the sole domain of Fascism. Moreover, there is more to the world than Starfleet and a series focusing on a part of the military might give a very incorrect view of overall society with regard to e.g. militarism (while one focusing on farmers, even in the same society, might not). In the overlap, it might be worthwhile to ask, instead, whether society as a whole is highly regulated, based on a “yours is not to question why” mentality among rulers, or similar—but was, say, the USSR less of an example than Mussolini-era Italy? (Ditto in comparison with some other countries/societies described as “Fascist” on a more debatable basis, e.g. the Franco-era Spain.)

   Moreover, more strongly militaristic societies (notably, the Klingon) are typically depicted as less successful in non-military regards than the human, which makes the militaristic angle the weaker. (The Borg could be an interesting special case, but is hard to treat, because the extreme collectivism and anti-individualism would remain even absent a militaristic angle, while e.g. the Klingon are more individualist in their militarism.)

5. Looking at the TV series, we have the Ferengi, which could be seen as caricature Capitalists, and are in stark contrast to the ideals claimed by the heroes.

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   Side-note:

   My recollections of the TV series are less fresh in my mind, and do not include “Deep Space 9”, which, by reputation, might be the most Ferengi-heavy series. (I have tried to watch it on two or three occasions but never made it out of season one.) Unsurprisingly, they do also not include the post-Abrams series and fan-fiction works.

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   However, the main problem with the Ferengi is not a wish for profit—but the means used to gain profits. This includes ruthlessness, trickery, and dishonesty that deviate from Capitalism-as-envisioned in a similar manner to how the Borg collective deviates from Starfleet/whatnot.

   Such problems, if rarely to that exceptional degree, do exist among real-life Capitalists, and Capitalism often misses the ideal as much as Communism does. However, Communism that misses the ideal collapses, while Capitalism still works reasonably well (at least, with an eye at areas like economic growth, social mobility, and the ability for anyone to get rich).

   More interestingly, the Ferengi qua caricature Capitalists demonstrate a common family of misunderstandings and/or misrepresentations of Capitalism, e.g. in that greed would be the defining characteristic of Capitalism. It also parallels a common Leftist double standard, in that e.g. Communism-gone-wrong, even for the umpteenth time, is decried as not being “real” Communism, and that promises are made of success the next time that Communism is tried, regardless of the consistent past failures. This while Capitalism-gone-wrong is unambiguously seen as “real” Capitalism by the Left. (In all cases, with some reservation for what is honest Leftist opinion and what is Leftist propaganda, defamation, misrepresentation, or whatever might apply to the case at hand.)

6. Outside the main topic, two re-iterations of points made elsewhere (and, likely, repeatedly):

   Firstly, Spock’s “the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few” (reservations for exact phrasing) is used to justify his own sacrifice for the lives of the others. This is more a matter of heroism than Leftism. A Leftist take would use the same type of reasoning to demand that others sacrifice their lives (or, in another setting, e.g. money) for some greater good, as if Spock had demanded that “and, therefore, you, Scotty, must now enter that chamber and save the rest of us”. (To boot, the Left often has a disconnect between the actual needs of the many and what Leftist leadership claims to be the needs, often making similar “reasoning” nothing more than a rhetorical trick to push an agenda.)

   Secondly, as with all works of fiction (that I have encountered and can recall) that draw on diversity as a source of success, this success is not rooted in e.g. racial diversity or diversity of “gender identity” (much unlike the current Left and its nonsense about “diversity is our strength”). Instead, it is rooted in actual differences in abilities and whatnots, while a factor like race is mostly important through the indirect effect on such abilities. Greater effects are usually achieved through individual variations within a racial group, e.g. in that Scotty (white man) is a magician with engineering tasks, while Kirk (white man) has a profile of excellence in command and fighting. Where inter-racial factors become important, they tend to do so through variations that are far greater than between human races. To boot, many of the apparently inter-racial factors might be partially inter-cultural instead, as with the Vulcan focus on logic.

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   Side-note:

   I use variations of “race” throughout for consistency and easier comparison with Leftist diversity claims. More apposite terminology for comparisons between humans and non-humans in “Star Trek” would otherwise use variations of “species”.

   For the purposes of the current discussion, characters like Data and the Doctor (“Voyager”; not “Doctor Who”) can be viewed as included under “race” in a very extended sense or be treated analogously using some other term of differentiation.

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