how does one acquire a vineyard?
How does one aquire anything for that matter?
The vineyard could've been in his family for centuries before currency became obsolete.
Food, clothing, medicine can be replicated and so currency for the most part isn't needed. Most things are probably free. I read there was a credit system which allowed people to buy things on planet where currency still exist or if they want to buy something "extra" like a tribble.
Captain Picard explains it best to Lily in the First Contact movie. Humanity works to better itself. If food, shelter, transport, and clothing are free, gone is the largest need for currency or the need to acquire currency. And yes, the Picard family vineyard estate was in his family for centuries.
In Deep Space Nine, federation crew members often pay for stuff at Quark’s bar, I suspect, though not explained on the show, that the federation itself has its own system in which other races and non members can be paid.
That means that no matter how hard you work, you will never have anything but what you inherited from your family. The main way to gather wealth is to inherit or marry it.
That already existed centuries ago. It's called 'Aristocracy'. Star Trek has gone from Classic Liberalism to Modern Woke Neo-aristocratic system.
If Roddenberry could see what they're doing with his franchise...
Roddenberry was the one who created the concept of money not existing in the Star Trek universe. They mentioned the concept a few times in the original series.
Kirk mentioned that they don't need "wealth" or more than the need since greed was a negative concept to them. I think they worked for self improvement and satisfaction.
I find it odd that you and others are unaware that Roddenberry was very liberal and Star Trek was a very radical show. Many episodes had left-wing social commentary like "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield" which preached against racial hatred. He had to fight to have a black person on the bridge of the Enterprise. That's how backward society was in the 60s.
Indeed, quite right.
Creating a system of free access to resources or the means of acquiring them to meet various needs and wants allows a person to pursue other goals without needing to spend time, energy and worry on how to pay for the basics of life. In the Federation a combination of technological advances and high minded social policy makes that possible. New energy sources and what looks advanced applied sciences of particle physics applied to solve or prevent economic shortages is helpful to a range of situations. Replicators are on their way to being practical devices in the real world: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replicator_(Star_Trek)#In_the_real_world
Humans are twisted and would likely use the replicas to make automatic weapons or nuclear bombs.
shareJust like Cuba! The revolutionaries get the nice condos and cars, the 99% workers live in the ghettos.
The Federation are the revolutionarys. Roddenberry's New World economy is the most idiotic thing in Star Trek.
Picard was actually not clear about how currency works in the Federation. While most people don't want for anything, due to replicators, money still does exist out there in the galaxy, just not within the Federation's sphere of influence. If you watch the DS9 series, there were aliens still using "credits" and strips or bars of "gold-pressed latinum," particularly if it involved trade with the Ferengi. Deep-Space 9 was not actually owned by the Federation, despite them sending their own people to manage the place, and it was kind of on the galactic "frontier," where there were various alien societies still recovering from the Cardassian Occupation, as well as still in society development, despite achieving warp capabilities with their starships.
It gets particularly silly if you play "Star Trek Online," because on that, the game does have currency in the form of Credits, Dilithium, Latinum, Marks, and Zen.
Credits, Dilithium, and Latinum exist as currency in the different TV series. The Ferengi represented the "Yuppies" mindset. They were supposed to be greedy money-worshipping capitalists which is why you constantly hear them trying to find a way to make more profit.
Maybe the best way to think about it is in hunter-gathering society terms where currency doesn't exist in order to eat or get shelter. There's cooperation for mutual survival and benefit. There is a type of value system but it's not something that will empoverish anyone if they didn't have it. Maybe it buys extras.
“Imagine a society in which the work week seldom exceeds 19 hours, material wealth is considered a burden, and no one is much richer than anyone else”, gushed Time Magazine in an editorial about the Bushmen in November 1969, “The people are comfortable, peaceable, happy and secure…This Elysian community actually exists... their primitive affluence” depended on far more than just a willingness to make do with having few needs easily met. It also demanded a society in which people cared little for accumulating wealth and in which everyone played an active role in jealously enforcing their fierce egalitarianism.”
The vineyard thing is corny.
Star Trek is a Communist society where people who are good at things get to do those things and people who are great at those things get to be in charge of those things. That's Communism.
In this type of society, there is no need for money because everyone is doing what they want to do and are supposed to do. No one is hording resources, because they don't want to. If you need shoes, you're going to get them and you will not want 50 pairs of shoes because that would be a mental illness.
So, no one would "own a vineyard" because that place would belong to everyone and if you weren't making wine there, that would be a mental illness.
The only reason he could have a vineyard would be because he wanted to make wine for people and is good at it, and Earth had the land to give him.
Collective industries would imply collective ownership and fair access to resources by all individuals. Probably collective enterprises grew up in the wake of the nuclear holocaust in the Trek narrative, and this required reorganising land ownership and acquisitions from former capitalist enterprises and corporate interests. Large tracts of land were then in service for the common good run by local communities and overseen by a legitimate, non-authoritarian regulator from the government to ensure harmony and coordination.
In Trek, to continue with the hypothesis, individuals with inherited land might often be allowed to retain it as long as there was productive use of the land or it could function as a nature reserve to encourage natural environmental values either in the rural sense or wilderness sense in order to break up urbanisation and promote health and peace of mind in communities. Vineyards also could serve as heritage sites or links to the past.
I get it.
However, it would seem like a REALLY major event if a guy was allowed to own something in a world like that.
“you will not want 50 pairs of shoes because that would be a mental illness.”
Have you met my wife?
I imagine there is a credit system of sorts - in the last stages of communism in the soviet union, people had coupons for sugar, rice, etc - because those things were hard to come by. Before that though, to get an apartment - and keep in mind, the apartment was not owned by you, you lived in it, you could trade it (for another apartment in a different area), but you couldn't sell it. In order to get this apartment, there were queues. In Soviet Union, personal connections were very important. If you had good connections with the right people, you could be bumped up in this queue. If you were a war veteran, you were automatically bumped up in queue - and if you were a war veteran, you could also get a phone. In my family, only my grandmother had a phone (from my father's side). In fact, there were only 2 phones in the whole building. Then again, given that so few people had phones, most people didn't have much need to use one, since they couldn't call anyone, other than police in case of emergency. I hear that the higher ups in the military were granted pretty lavish dachas and new cars (which aged eventually - they weren't given new cars often) - same goes for politicians. But even then.... I must admit, the difference between the rich and the poor was pretty small when compared to what we are seeing in the capitalist society of today. Keep in mind, you couldn't really be rich in soviet union - wealth was looked down upon. Famous actors, for example, usually ended up being as poor as anyone else, their wealth was primarily in fame, not money - not like what you are seeing in the hollywood.
I figure, Picard could have used his social credit to obtain anything he wanted - he was starfleet's most decorated officer, but yes - his family's vineyard.... my grand-grandma was also a war vet and she had 'hutor' which is like a bigger version of dacha - she had cows, pigs - it was basically a farm.
Anyways, it's a good question and while I don't know how things were in that universe, soviet union is a possible example of how things might have worked.
shareCurrency is an arbitrary system of trade. Money or no, someone will own the vineyard.
share