Recently we mourned the passing of Leonard Nimoy, the actor most famous for playing Mr Spok, in Star Trek. It got me thinking about the way Gene Roddenberry, the creator of Star Trek, imagined an entire society, the Federation, where money had become obsolete. There is simply no need for it. Replicators make any kinds of goods that people could wish for, including food, so there is no scarcity. There is no need to hoard anything if you can just press a button whenever you want something. What work still needs to be done that can't be done by machines, is done for its own enjoyment and for the betterment of the common weal. I guess there might be some people in this utoptian future who were too lazy to work, but so what? What harm would they be doing in such an abundant society? Most people prefer to have something useful to do. It makes you think.
It is obvious to many people apart from me that the way we have organised our world is not sustainable and cannot continue. All this grubbing after money and destroying things in the process is no good. But what is the alternative? What has to change? Some people would have trouble even imagining a world without money unless, of course, they are Star Trek fans. But believe it or not, not only is it possible to do without money in the real world, it is the normal and natural way to live. People have lived without money for far longer than we have lived with it. Cash money is quite a recent innovation. Not that long ago most people had little use for it. Everything was made, grown, hunted or traded. Imagine a world where people had enough of everything; food, decent shelter, whatever tools they needed, but no more than they needed. Imagine a world where there was no such thing as a billionaire? Do you think that would be a better life or a worse one than the lives we live now?
It's not strictly science fiction either. Robots and replicators are already being used to make things and do jobs that people used to do. Nanobots are no longer just a fantasy. Money these days is virtually meaningless anyway as governments just print more if they want and nobody bats and eye. As our governments flail about trying to come to terms with the mess that has been created by the 1%, maybe it is time to have a major rethink about the role of money in our society and indeed, the role of 'work'. Instead of trying to fix new problems using old fashioned remedies, and giving the unemployed, the homeless, the sick and the poor a good kicking at every opportunity, perhaps we need to think a bit more imaginatively? I don't have the faintest idea about how the transition away from money would be made and what the obstacles would be, but it's a nice idea to think about, isn't it?
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