Sally Kellerman and William Shatner in "Where No Man Has Gone Before"
On this day in history: Filming began on the second television pilot for Gene Roddenberry's proposed science fiction series, Star Trek, on this day in 1965. "Where No Man Has Gone Before" retained actor Leonard Nimoy as "Mr. Spock", who had played the same role in the first pilot, "The Cage", but now featured Canadian actor William Shatner in the lead role as the starship's captain.
I am a Star Trek fan, but I am a little at odds with the economics of the Star Trek universe.
From Ilya Somin:
"The Federation isn’t just socialist in the hyperbolic sense in which some conservatives like to denounce anyone to the left of them as socialist. It’s socialist in the literal sense that the government has near-total control over the economy and the means of production.
Especially by the period portrayed in The Next Generation, the government seems to control all major economic enterprises, and there do not seem to be any significant private businesses controlled by humans in Federation territory. Star Fleet characters, such as Captain Picard, boast that the Federation has no currency and that humans are no longer motivated by material gain and do not engage in capitalist economic transactions.
The supposed evils of free markets are exemplified by the Ferengi, an alien race who exemplify all the stereotypes socialists typically associate with “evil capitalists.” The Ferengi are unrelentingly greedy and exploitative. Their love of profit seems to be exceeded only by their sexism—they do not let females work outside the household, even when it would increase their profits to do so.
The problem here is not just that Star Trek embraces socialism: it’s that it does so without giving any serious consideration to the issue. For example, real-world socialist states have almost always resulted in poverty and massive political oppression, piling up body counts in the tens of millions.
But Star Trek gives no hint that this might be a danger, or any explanation of how the Federation avoided it. Unlike on many other issues, where the producers of the series recognize that there are multiple legitimate perspectives on a political issue, they seem almost totally oblivious to the downsides of socialism." Source
What makes this all strange is that Gene Roddenberry was a fan of one of the greatest defenders of Capitalism, Ayn Rand. "Roddenberry supposedly named Yeoman Janice Rand as a nod to Ayn Rand....In Gene Roddenberry's sci-fi series, Andromeda, there is a colony called 'The Ayn Rand Station' founded by a species of 'Nietzscheans.'" Source
J. Neil Schulman interviewed Ayn Rand for the New York Daily News. In that interview it was noted that "she watched Star Trek and Spock was her favorite character." Source
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