When and Why did the Federation turn Socialist?

Interesting question and comments. [Link]

Peter Suderman gives a positive review to the new Star Trek movie that premiered today, but notes that it focuses more on personal issues than political ones. It will be interesting to see the young Kirk, Spock, and McCoy. But I hope the movie answers an important question about that has always perplexed me about the Star Trek universe: When and why did the Federation turn socialist?

As I explained in one of my most widely read articles, Star Trek's Federation (or at least Earth) is definitely socialist by the time of the New Generation series, and probably the time of the original series that focused on the Enterprise commanded by Captain Kirk. By "socialist," I mean an economy where all large enterprises are controlled by the government, not merely a market economy where there is regulation or a welfare state. Despite Republican rhetoric to the contrary, Barack Obama is not a socialist; but he would be one if he sought to nationalize all major enterprises and abolish the use of money, as Star Trek's Federation seems to have done.

By the time of the original series, the Federation already lacks any currency (which is necessary to run a large-scale market economy), and all large enterprises seem to be government-owned; this is even more clearly the case in TNG. However, Star Trek's future Earth wasn't always that way. In Enterprise, the series set in the period just before the founding of the Federation, we see many private firms still in existence, including even privately owned space colonies and interstellar freighters. And Earth still has currency at that time. Thus, the Federation's transition to socialism probably took place sometime between 2161 (the end of Enterprise and the founding of the Federation) and 2245 (the beginning of Kirk's "five year mission" in the original series). The new Star Trek movie, which covers the days of Kirk's youth, is set right in the middle of the transition period (the early 2200s). So what caused the transition to socialism during that time? Was there a sudden violent socialist revolution, as happened in Russia in 1917? Or was there a lengthy transition caused by a gradual expansion of government until it gradually took over the entire economy? Bryan Caplan points out that the Earth portrayed in the new movie seems to have experienced very little economic growth over the previous two centuries. That suggests a slow transition over a long period of time. The low growth could be the result of gradually increasing government control choking off the private sector.

And from the comments regarding Starship Troopers: [Link]

Brett is right about Starship Troopers. According to Heinlein both in the novel and in later interviews, there were a lot of nonmilitary jobs that qualified one for citizenship. It's just that Heinlein didn't really depict any of them because he wanted to write a novel of future infantry combat and so ended up following military characters. We all forget they're there. Many readers, including Paul Verhoeven who directed the movie adaptation, make it out to be a novel about a militaristic or fascist future society.

Ironically, Heinlein thought he was writing an antifascist novel, in large part because he made government service nonmandatory. Recall that, when he wrote, America had a peacetime draft to maintain military strength against world communism. Heinlein thought the draft was an affront to freedom. So he depicted a society that cultivated volunteers. This society fights and wins a huge war without compelling people to do anything.

In the novel, Colonel Zin (the veteran who taught high-school civics) explains to Rico--but really to the reader--that limitation of the franchise to veterans doesn't actually result in policies any different from what a more broad-based democracy would adopt, because veterans don't actually turn out to differ from anyone else. They are not better people; they just chose once to put the group above themselves. They don't have to keep doing that and can go back to being individualistic. The citizens don't vote for warlike policies.

They don't oppress the noncitizens. Noncitizens can do whatever they want in the future society except vote, enter politics, and hold a very few reserved jobs (civics teacher and police officer come to mind). Rico's dad, for example, is very successful in business. It would never occur to him to become a citizen; it would be a waste of his time and he thinks Rico is lazy and dumb for joining up. Then the bugs kill his wife and he rallies to the colors.

So much for Heinlein. It may be that Heinlein didn't do a good job thinking through the likely development of his society and that Verhoeven et al. are right. It would have been more militaristic and the citizens would have pushed the noncitizens around.

In Star Trek, Roddenberry gives you a sort of cartoon of the future including nonsense like "no money" because he wants you to understand that the Federation and Starfleet are good. You don't have to worry about the characters being greedy or self-interested because these motivations simply don't exist. It is very optimistic science fiction.