This chapter analyses the Star Trek-themed prisoner's dilemma game, and discusses whether rational and well-governed societies, like the idealistic and utopian Federation, can react appropriately when faced with an uncooperative foreign power.
This chapter considers the theories of Elinor Ostrom who discusses methods of solving similar scenarios by using mutually beneficial collective action.
The eighth chapter deals with the Ferengi, an economically powerful alien species in the Star Trek universe, with an economy based on trade and capitalism.
[6] Trekonomics, researched at the UC Riverside library, is largely a thought exercise in classic liberal political philosophy (e.g., doux commerce).
[9] In the Science Advances article, the interdisciplinary team finds that when economic actors are allowed to take on meaningful social identities, these agents adopt a risk-averse, in-group favoring strategy consistent with social identity theory in psychology under conditions of economic decline or rising inequality.
However, little attention is given to how the utopian Federation might address the evolutionary psychology of social identity theory and its consequences for economic and political behavior.
This is important because in-group favoritism (e.g., home country bias[10]) is incompatible with the assumption of orthodox macroeconomics that humans are rational maximizers of individual utility.
This is important because recent research in management has called for renewed attention to the political and economic theory of universal basic income, specifically, both as a response to COVID and as an imperative for racial justice described by Martin Luther King, Jr.[11] An emerging area of interdisciplinary research is the political psychology and economy of optimum currency areas.
As money is canonically obsolete in the Federation, greater scientific attention must be given to the trekonomics of how currency areas might transition to a moneyless mode of operation.
As an institutional innovation, basic income may solve collective action problems caused by social identity (e.g., racism, sexism, or nepotism) in a manner consistent with classic liberalism.
Johann K. Jaeckel writes that Trekonomics presents an unconventional contribution to the long-standing concern in economic thought regarding the impact of continuous automation on the role of human labor in social reproduction.
[14] Philip M. Duclos notes that the book discusses the utopian Star Trek universe, based on Gene Roddenberry's belief that "humans are indeed altruistic and can work together to improve the quality of life".
[1] A New York Times review stated that Trekonomics can help us understand what it would take to create such a world as in Star Trek where technological advances would allow the whole society to lead more comfortable and meaningful lives, rather than the inequality that exists now which enriches only a few lucky people.
[15] Trekonomics has inspired a fan-led Starfleet Party centered on advocacy of universal basic income as a path to the goal of the utopian future of Star Trek.