Star Trek’s Socialist Utopia

We admit to being loyal fans of the Star Trek series. Though much of the storyline centers around encounters with other species and epic galactic battles, the portrayal of how society on earth has evolved 300 years from now is the premise for this article. We couldn’t help but do a comparison between what is portrayed in Star Trek as a near perfect realization of a socialist society on earth with what is being promised as the outcome of the “Green New Deal”. The resemblance is uncanny. We’re almost convinced that Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez and her cohorts had to have watched several Star Trek episodes before taking pen to paper. We know this is a little whimsical, but it is, as Spock would say, “fascinating”.

The concept of Star Trek was created by Gene Roddenberry 55 years ago in 1964. What could’ve influenced his imagination for how earth’s society would evolve 300 years hence? Given that he was born in 1921, his formative years were smack dab in the middle of the implementation of the original “New Deal” introduced by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Rodenberry was an impressionable 24 years old when FDR left office in 1945 and those original New Deal policies were entering full swing. Was Rodenberry’s vision of a future society based in part on a forward projection of FDR’s “New Deal”? It would seem reasonable. Would it therefore be that unreasonable that the Green New Deal would follow suit?

In a nutshell, the future society on planet earth as portrayed in Star Trek is almost exactly the desired outcome sought in the Green New Deal. Here’s a brief description of some key societal elements emphasized in the Star Trek series. Income equality has been achieved as the citizenry has dispensed with the concept of money altogether. Healthcare is free and available to all. There is no poverty or hunger, and food production is no longer reliant on farming (thus no methane from cows). There is no obvious work requirement. You can be “unwilling to work”, as was stated in the FAQ sheet of the Green New Deal, and still live comfortably as a member of the society. A life of pure creativity is possible for anyone. There is no pollution or obvious use of fossil fuel. The output of all energy production and transportation is “clean”. Sound familiar?

The Star Trek story line does not ever try to describe exactly how we earthlings managed to evolve our society from its state in 1964 (when Roddenberry created the series) to this perfect future setting. Roddenberry cleverly gets around this elusive problem by imagining the development of several critical technologies¹ that circumvent all the cost and political barriers that throughout history have thwarted the theoretical realization of a perfect socialist society. For example:

Food – Anything you want to eat can be created by a device known as a food “replicator”. This device is not limited to just boring minimal sustenance. It can make any kind of meal you want, no matter how unusual or extravagant. It’s all free and shows no deference to any class of individual or group. They still do cook on occasion in this future, but cooking is portrayed as nostalgic, quaint, and a throwback to earlier times. It is a hobby, not a necessity. A side note – the “replicator” can also make objects other than food and is only limited by extreme complexity inherent in the object to be replicated. For example, it can’t replicate a human being.

Healthcare – Sophisticated medical scanning devices can diagnose just about any illness. The delivery systems for medicines and procedures are quick, painless, and available to everyone. The cost is free because the technology delivering the care can itself be easily “replicated” and like everything else, has a limitless supply of energy to power it.

Language – Automatic, real-time language translation eliminates most all communication barriers between people of different cultures. This technology plays an understated but significant role in equalizing access to services and social opportunities for everyone.

Wealth – Since money has been eliminated there is no concept of wealth as we know it today. Technology plays a big role in this by equalizing the “cost” of producing most items. Therefore, there is no more intrinsic “value” in one item verses another. Original historical artifacts carry the greatest value of all in this society.

Energy – This is the principle topic in the analogy with the Green New Deal. While the Star Trek story line envisions a future without any pollution or use of fossil fuels, it does depict an energy production mechanism very similar to the present day nuclear power plant. The enormous energy released by splitting an atom in a real world nuclear reactor evolves in the Star Trek future into an even more violent energy release when matter reacts with anti-matter. This energy release is so great there is only one substance in the galaxy able to control the cataclysmic reaction and make it usable for energy production – Dilithium crystals. Much like today’s uranium nuclear fuel rods, Dilithium crystals have a limited life and must be replaced from time to time, so they would not qualify as renewable (even in the Star Trek future you must make compromises). And these crystals are so rare (they’re not found on earth) that they are fiercely guarded wherever they are mined on other planets. They are so crucial to providing the necessary power for all the above mentioned technology, wars are fought over its possession and protection. Sound anything like the treatment of crude oil in today’s world? There is one other energy analogy relating to the Green New Deal that bears mentioning. In nuclear reactors today, great care must be taken with the construction and monitoring of the “containment” vessel where the atomic reaction occurs, else a lot of bad things can happen (evidence Chernobyl). This is the big risk with nuclear power and the root of much of the “Green” opposition against it, including in the Green New Deal, in spite of its “clean” operation. A strikingly similar scenario exists in the power plants of the Star Trek future. God forbid there is any kind of failure in the anti-matter containment vessel inside the reactor 300 years in the future. The resultant apocalyptic explosion makes a “core meltdown” in a current day nuclear reactor look like a firecracker.

Are we heading towards the same Star Trek future of dependence on massive amounts of energy to power our daily lives? It would appear so based on the technological revolution that’s occurred in just the last 55 years since the Star Trek story was created. This is the closest parallel of the fictional storyline with our real lives. The rate of increase in our consumption of energy currently far outstrips any technological possibility of using favored “green” renewable sources to satisfy the need. The power demand is just too great. Denial of this technical fact is the single biggest fallacy in the Green New Deal. Only a drastic change in our lifestyle, resulting in the use of much less electrical power, would fit with a 100% switchover to favored clean renewable energy sources. At present, if the goal is to use only non-fossil fuel “clean” sources for energy production, nuclear power is the only possible way of producing enough energy to meet the demand. Without it, or with its expansion held in regulatory prison, fossil fuels (mainly oil) will remain our primary energy source for the foreseeable future.

All of this raises the very interesting question of how the people of today would choose to conduct their lives in such an idealized socialist environment. For the most part, the Star Trek story depicts human beings all having chosen to pursue worthwhile endeavors in their daily lives even though they aren’t required to do so. They are doing research, learning a new skill, or positively contributing to the society in some other obvious way. If magic were to happen and all present-day humans were instantly transported into this future world of perfect socialism, would the best qualities of humanity immediately spring to the forefront as is depicted in Star Trek and result in an improved society? This is the essence of what the Green New Deal is purporting to achieve within a span of 10 years if all its promises came to fruition. Even if all the technological marvels mentioned above were available to us today to remove the barriers to socialism, we don’t believe most of today’s humans are ready for it. While there are certainly exceptions, many of us could do with a bit more evolution and a lot more enlightenment before we could thrive in that kind of environment. This highlights another fiction perpetuated by supporters of the Green New Deal and socialism in general – that with a perfect implementation of socialist policy goals, people would instantly adapt to socialist style living and harmoniously act in the best interests of the society. While it is portrayed as achievable in Star Trek, in real life it’s only ever been successful in the world of fiction.

¹Advanced communication technology doesn’t have the kind of direct link in enabling socialism as do the other Star Trek technologies mentioned above. However, the small hand-held “communicator” which allowed the Star Trek crew to call and speak with anyone at anytime from anywhere was only a  dream in the mid-1960’s. Smartphones today are the realization of the Star Trek communicator technology and much more. Some current day earthlings use them primarily to text risqué pictures and play Candy Crush. You never know which tech breakthrough is going to happen next or how it will be utilized by society.