Is “Star Trek” Is A Communist Space Tyranny’s Idealized Vision Of Itself?
Recently, I got persuaded into joining Netflix, and I’ve been watching the old STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION, DEEP SPACE NINE, and VOYAGER episodes. I rather like STAR TREK – the show is at its best in the episodes that involve a lot of ray guns and adventure and derring-do, and at its worst when it gets preachy.
Like, with some episodes, I think the writers picked up a giant hammer labeled MORAL and attempted to whack the viewers over the head with it.
But STAR TREK is, if you look at it long enough, somewhat sinister.
In fact, I have a pet theory that the Federation and Starfleet are actually a brutal Soviet-style tyranny, and STAR TREK is the propaganda films the Federation produces to glorify itself. Like, you know how the old Soviet Union used to crank out terrible movies and novels where the clean-cut Communist hero would outwit and defeat the terrible capitalists and reactionaries, and everyone would live happily ever after? Those films and novels in no way, shape, or form reflected life in the real Soviet Union – the brutal secret police, the constant material shortages, the pervasive censorship, the economic stagnation, and the constant repetition of lies that buttressed the entire structure. I wonder if, on a meta level, that’s what STAR TREK really is – propaganda films put out by a tyrannical Federation and a brutal Starfleet to promote themselves.
But, you say, the world of the Federation is a utopia! No hunger, no poverty, no racism, no crime! (Which is, of course, how a communist space tyranny would portray itself.) What evidence do you have that the Federation is a brutal dictatorship?
First, the lack of money. Both Captains Picard and Kirk regularly tout that the Federation has no money, that the use of money withered away sometime in the 22nd century. Humanity, they say, has evolved, and instead of working for mere material gain, mankind now works to better themselves and others. This sounds very noble and nice.
But who decides “what betters mankind?” There’s no set definition. Like, if I decide I want to better mankind by skipping work and sleeping in (I’m not using energy or gas, after all), who is to gainsay me? Or does the government decide what is best for mankind? Governments, traditionally, have not been very good at this. The Soviet Union liked to argue that it was working for the betterment of mankind by fomenting worldwide Communist revolution, and look how well that worked out.
For that matter, there appear to be no private companies in Star Trek. So where does Starfleet get all its cool stuff? When the US government builds an aircraft carrier, it buys a lot of stuff from various contractors – it buys parts, uniforms, guns, bullets, food, medical equipment, and so forth from various suppliers. But there’s nothing like that in Star Trek – Picard doesn’t use a phaser Starfleet purchased from Discount Phaser, Incorporated.
That means Starfleet is building its own ships and supplies, and since there are no private companies in Star Trek, that means the Federation is controlling the its entire economy like an old Soviet-style command economy. After all, people choosing to work for the betterment of mankind is well and good, but what if you need five thousand photon torpedoes to blow up some invading Romulans right freaking now? You could wait for some people to decide to build those torpedoes own their own for the betterment of mankind (and the launchers and the ships and to train as crews) or you could tell them to do it right freaking now. And if they refuse, you put them in prison…or you shoot them. Just like the Soviet Union!
Of course, a counterargument to that is that the Federation has replicators and transporters, which can produce unlimited quantities of food, and therefore the Federation has no need of money. Except where does the energy come from? It would make sense for the Federation to have some sort of basic social safety net (replicator rations or whatever), but who builds the replicators? The power plants? Especially since there are no private companies to build stuff, and therefore the government has to do it all. Presumably building a replicator is at least as difficult as maintaining an HVAC system, and as any facilities manager will tell you, finding a good HVAC engineer is really hard and expensive. (If you own a home, you’ll find this out yourself the first time you have to replace your furnace.) A good HVAC engineer, a good plumber, and a good electrician can all make excellent money. So if the Federation has no money, what motivates the scientists, the engineers, and the technicians who maintain the infrastructure? Especially if they could just kick back and live off the public replicator rations? The answer is either coercion, or that the technicians receive special privileges, like old Communist Party officials who got to shop in special stores unavailable to the public.
Second, atheism appears to be the official religion of the Federation. The Federation isn’t just secular, it’s atheistic. Practically no Starfleet officers or Federation officials appear to have any religion whatsoever, and those groups outside the Federation that do have religious tendencies (like the Bajorans in DEEP SPACE NINE) are treated as children to be tolerated until their superstitions can be educated away. However, on Earth as of this writing, there are something like two billion Muslims, one billion Christians, and one billion Hindus, many of whom are actively engaged in producing children and educating them to become new Muslims, Christians, and Hindus.
So what happened to all those religious people?
The official answer of the Federation government would be that humanity evolved past the need for religion once it attained spaceflight. But that seems very unlikely. Throughout history, the overwhelming bulk of humanity has always been religious in some way or another. Judaism is over 3,000 years old, Christianity is 2,000 years old, Islam is 1,400, and during that time all three religions have seen countless governments, massive social changes, and drastic technological improvement. Yet they keep on going. If the Vulcans landed in Times Square tomorrow, the response wouldn’t be “Aliens! Mankind is no longer alone in the cosmos, and must now evolve past the limited superstitions of old.” No, the response is more likely to be “Aliens! Quickly, bring them Bible pamphlets!”
So what did the Federation do with all its religious members? One possibility is that religious people are sort of an underclass, (somewhat) like Muslims and Christians in contemporary China, and the Federation simply refuses to acknowledge their existence and tries to use social pressure and ostracism to shut them down. Another, more ominous possibility is that the Federation is actively engaged in liquidating its religious populations, like contemporary North Korea or the Cheka (and later the NVKD) under Lenin and Stalin. In either case, both are definitely the actions of a repressive government.
Third, Starfleet officers frequently claim that humanity has “evolved” – that mankind has evolved past the need for money and beyond racism, poverty, and war. Picard, in particular, makes several grand speeches to this effect (and no one gives a grand speech like Patrick Stewart). But what, precisely, do they mean by “evolved?” Evolution is usually defined as the gradual change of inherited characteristics over several generations. So did that mean humanity developed an anti-poverty organ? Or maybe a anti-racism lobe in the right hemisphere of the brain?
No, what Federation officials mean by “evolved” is that they hold a specific set of political and social positions – the Prime Directive, egalitarianism, and so forth. This is exactly like the concept of the New Soviet Man the Communists used to promote – the idea that adopting Communists beliefs would create a new brand of man dedicated to the good of the world. In practice, the adoption of Communism tended to produce totalitarian nightmares that gradually degenerated into economically stagnant authoritarian states. So when Starfleet officers talk about mankind “evolving” – they only mean that people are “evolved” if they hold a specific set of political and social beliefs. One wonders what the Federation does with people who do not hold the proper beliefs.
Fourth, there’s the idea of Starfleet as an organization devoted to deep-space exploration and the advancement of science. Frequently Starfleet officers remark that Starfleet is not a military organization. Yet for a non-military organization, Starfleet vessels have an astonishing array of weaponry – Jean-Luc Picard’s Enterprise had the firepower to render a planet uninhabitable. Making “First Contact” with an alien species in such a powerful warship would go a long way in making sure that alien species took a favorable view of the Federation and its interests. And for a non-military organization, Starfleet is remarkably effective at winning wars when necessary, especially since non-military organizations (other than terrorist cells) tend to suck at winning wars.
Finally, there are indications that the Federation is starting to crack up towards the end of the STAR TREK series. Namely, the Federation is starting to run into things vastly more powerful (and potential far nastier, if the Federation is really a Communist space tyranny) than itself. Historically, when confronted with unavoidable reality (whether foreign conquest or economic meltdown), Communist states tend to either collapse or mutate into something else. And the Federation ran into powerful enemies that almost destroyed it on multiple occasions – first the Borg Collective in THE NEXT GENERATION, VOYAGER, and FIRST CONTACT. The Borg don’t care about economics, diplomacy, or governments – they simply assimilate biology and technology to make themselves more powerful. Ideology, as the Borg would say, is irrelevant.
Then while still weakened by the Borg attacks, the Federation ran into the Dominion in DEEP SPACE NINE. The Dominion seems to be a straightforward fascist authoritarian state built around its Founders’ belief in their own racial superiority. The Founders aren’t genocidal, but they are chauvinistic - they believe lesser species are chaotic, and must be controlled and brought into the order of the Dominion. The Dominion also appears to have a vastly superior economy than the Federation, since the Dominion is able to field substantially more powerful fleets and weapons than Starfleet.
The Federation wins both wars, but barely. And if STAR TREK is actually a propaganda broadcast, and it portrays the Federation almost losing both wars…how bad must have the situation really been? Reading between the lines, it seems that the Federation is on the verge of collapse by the end of the Dominion War – and if it really is a Communist government, would it be able to recover from those kinds of hammer blows? Especially since the Borg and the Dominion (neither of whom were destroyed, just defeated) will probably keep on coming?
All this is supposition, of course. I don’t think STAR TREK is actually a secret Communist plot, and I doubt it adheres to any ideological viewpoint other than generic mid-20th century American liberalism. (That said, I do think DOCTOR WHO is the better show, with a better grasp of human nature. Which is amusing, since the title character isn’t actually human.)
Nevertheless, it is fascinating to wonder if the Federation actually is a Communist tyranny – and STAR TREK the propaganda broadcasts it puts out to glorify itself. It would be entertaining to read a book or watch a film that is a subversion of STAR TREK, showing what the society of the Federation is really like.
-JM
