RESULT:

All major economic systems present in early 21st century human culture involved the pursuit of continuous growth through escalating industrialised exploitation of labour and physical resources.

The capitalist economies shared by the majority of Earth’s population were centred primarily on property exchange, motivated by and organised around profit maximisation and facilitated by the existence of currency that assigned tradeable values to goods and services based on levels of scarcity and demand.

In these economies individuals and businesses would accumulate capital through profit - selling goods or services for more than they cost to produce. The power imbalance between those selling their labour and those who extracted profit from the products of labour through their ownership of capital tended to result in steady accumulation of wealth by owners of capital, while at the same time maintaining low labour costs. Low wages required non-owners of capital to work far in excess of the level needed to produce what society needed, to provide individual workers with sufficient wages to subsist.

Economic systems varied in terms of the levels of state intervention (such as the provision of state healthcare, education and infrastructure) that were applied by state governments to address the failure of the free market to meet basic human needs. The level and type of intervention depended on the political ideologies of national-level governments.

The current economic system within the Federation, in comparison, is based around the principle of all sentient life forms being able to meet their day-to-day needs without the necessity of competition over resources or accumulation of wealth. This is largely faciliated though replicator technology that enables most food, drink, clothing and personal possessions to be generated from energy, which - apart from particularly high-energy uses such as warp travel - can be met through renewable sources. What cannot be provided by replicators (such as dilithium and complex biological medical agents) is provided through a centrally planned network, whereby goods are provided to individual planets based on need, in exchange for those planets providing resources in kind based on their ability to sustainably produce them.

The implication of this system for Federation citizens is that they can rely on being able to access what they need without working for it. Work, therefore, is undertaken for social reasons and for the general betterment of individuals and society.

Private property ownership is permitted, the types of which can vary by planet. Onwership tends to focus on property of emotional or social value (such as artisan-produced goods, antiques and family homes) rather than for capital accumulation, as the hoarding of wealth no longer provides any practical benefit to individuals. Currency is generally not necessary within Federation space, although in some remote outposts that rely more closely on informal economies forms of currency are still sometimes used for some types of exchange.