this post was submitted on 30 Jun 2023
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Karma = Latinum, a currency retcon'ed into a socialist utopia because they couldn't actually deal with the idea of a world without money
The Federation (the socialist utopia you reference) doesn't use Latium, thats usually used by societies (mostly The Ferengi, a commentary on late-stage capitalism) that still barter using currency.
The only retcon is that they decided to make gold "worthless" in comparison.
They're not even consistent on that point either. Quark in this episode declares it worthless. In an episode of Voyager a couple of Ferengi are mentioned to have have tried to steal gold reserves from Ft Knox. And in Enterprise sine 22nd century Ferengi (pre-official first contact which was during TNG) raid the ship and are interested in the gold they think is hidden aboard.
I mean, gold is pretty abundant in space and presumably not that difficult to replicate.
Very handy for electronics due to its conductive properties, malleability, and resistance to rust, though.
They say they don't, but we know they trade with the ferengi, and that federation staff on non-federation worlds received latinum to buy stuff. Quarks isn't handing out drinks for free, for example.
Federation credit is also a thing.
I would have to assume that credits are a largely bureaucratic unit of account that most Federation citizens will never work with or even hear about, but are used by internal departments of the Federation as a means of budgeting the capacity of things like transport ships, industrial replication facilities and shipyards.
This also allows them to function as a de facto currency for trade with outside powers who have achieved warp travel but aren't yet in a post-scarcity state, or as a way of managing resource usage at the edges of Federation space where infrastructure is still developing and resources need to be priorities for that development.
Basically, the Federation doesn't have "money" as an everyday societal phenomenon, but it does retain the economic capacity to issue something usable as currency when the situation calls for it such as during periods of scarcity (whether localised or across the Federation) or when conducting trade with non-Federation entities such as the Ferengi.
Of course they trade (generally with goods and services instead of currency), and when they're involved in planets who aren't part of the federation (like a Bajoran space station) they will allow their citizens to participate in that economy.
You act as though socialism is a autocratic ideocracy instead of a system that seeks to empower its citizens through collective empowerment.