In a further affront to free enterprise and an indication of where Roddenberry et al.’s biases lay, the most prominently featured businessmen were the Ferengi, a caricature so unrealistic as to be useless as an instrument of social commentary. However, they did give us some useful nuggets of wisdom on occasion, like this miniature economic lesson from Nog to Chief O’Brien in the last season of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine:

[T]he Great Material Continuum… It’s the force that binds the universe together. …You see, there are millions upon millions of worlds in the universe, each one filled with too much of one thing and not enough of another. And the Great Continuum flows through them all, like a mighty river, from have to want and back again. And if we navigate the Continuum with skill and grace, our ship will be filled with everything our hearts desire.
—Treachery, Faith, and the Great River
 

It’s quite simplistic, but if you replace “worlds” with “people”, it isn’t a bad starting point for an introductory lesson on economics.

It is fitting that such a good example of the interdependence of all people on each other’s material well-being could be articulated only because Starfleet couldn’t simply buy what it wanted: Nog was explaining to Chief O’Brien why he had to set up a string of barters with two middlemen in order to obtain an item they could trade for what they ultimately needed. With currency, the transaction would be consummated between only the first and fourth parties: Deep Space Nine and the ship that had the part they needed. (Or, since they’re all part of a single military organization, I guess Starfleet could have just ordered the other ship to donate the part to Deep Space Nine, but that would have eliminated half the plot of the episode and cost us a good lesson in Ferengi philosophy.)

Every time I see someone in politics, I seriously think—You know how we’re supposed to be the lunatics of life, people like you and me, anyone in show business…comics, writers, directors, dancers, musicians, announcers, actors, we’re supposed to be the lunatics of life. But you know who is, really, to me? Anyone who gets up in the morning, looks in the mirror, and thinks, “Maybe I’ll lead! Yes! I’ll be the leader! Everyone will be following me!” Serious maniac…seriously unwell people.
[...]
I mean, think about it: any city council in any city in the United States, any school board in any city—does anyone seriously think they mean anyone well?!

David R. Henderson writes about its pro-capitalist, anti-corporatist message, focusing largely on the inconsistent stance that one particular Objectivist, Edward Hudgins, takes:

But I don’t think Avatar is an attack on capitalism. One could leave the movie and have no idea, based on just the movie, about James Cameron’s view of capitalism. And while it did have some clichés (most movies do), I didn’t find it loaded. So what is Avatar? In fact, Avatar is a powerful antiwar movie—and a defense of property rights. For that reason, I found it easy to identify with those whose way of life was being destroyed by military might.

In fact, the defense of property rights in Avatar is so clear that, at one point in the movie, when the bad guys are justifying their war on the grounds that they need “Unobtainium,” I turned to a libertarian friend and said, “This is the Kelo decision.” Recall that the Supreme Court, in Kelo v. City of New London, decided that it was all right to take Suzette Kelo’s property from its low-tech use as a house so that a major corporation could use it for a “grander” project.

Which brings me back to whether this movie was an attack on capitalism. I think not. To the extent that it makes any statement about capitalism, Avatar is a defense of capitalism. Capitalism is based on property rights and voluntary exchange. The Na’vi had property rights in the crucial tree and various other properties surrounding it. Did they own it as individuals or as community tribal property? We can’t be sure, but probably the latter. They had refused to sell the property to the outsiders. There was nothing the outsiders could give them that would make it worth their while. What should we, if we are good capitalists, conclude? That, just as in the Kelo case, the people currently sitting on the land value it more than the outsiders. The land is already in its highest-valued use. Hudgins and Salam could argue that that’s implausible. Surely there would be some finite price that the Na’vi would take in return for the Unobtainium. Maybe, maybe not. But once the Na’vi have made it clear that they’re unwilling to exchange it, that should be the end of things, shouldn’t it?

Then in at least one episode of The Next Generation, Captain Picard explains to some visitor from the past or something that, here in the United Federation of Planets in the 24th century, they don’t use money or do things for personal wealth accumulation; they work for their own enjoyment and for the betterment of human society. Now, Gene Roddenberry created a pretty visionary TV show and obviously founded a spectacularly successful TV/movie franchise, which has produced some amazing television and cinema over the years by attracting some sharp science-fiction-writing minds. But he knew little about sociology and less about economics.

Prices on the market in terms of money, not the absence of both, are a manifestation of the cooperation of mankind. The more people provide goods and services that others need, the more they trade in a peaceful manner according to their subjective preferences, desires, and goals, fulfilling each other’s wants and needs even as they satisfy their own. Prices reflect the subjective relative-preference scales of all the individual people in the economy. Only by the spontaneous and dynamic price system can a large number of people’s desires be known and satisfied by others, cooperatively and selfishly at the same time. Without prices to let customers and businesses know how much of something there is and how much things are desired, no rational allocation of resources can take place. It is not impractical or improbable; it is literally impossible.

(The recent J.J. Abrams movie, which I highly recommend to non-fans and which I don’t need to recommend to current fans, is what reminded me to write this post. There is no economics and not much philosophy or sociology in the movie, so don’t expect the socialist-calculation absurdities to come up.)

Everybody’s talking all this stuff about me
Why don’t they just let me live?
I don’t need permission
Make my own decisions
That’s my prerogative

They say I’m crazy
I really don’t care
That’s my prerogative
They say I’m nasty
But I don’t give a damn
Gettin girls is how I live
Some ask me questions
Why am I so real
But they don’t understand me
I really don’t know the deal
About a brother
Trying hard to make it right
Not long to go
Before I win this fight
…
I can do what I wanna do (It’s my prerogative)
Truly live my life (It’s my prerogative)
I’m doing it just for you (It’s my prerogative)
Tell me, tell me
Why can’t I live my life
Without all of the things that people say
…
What is this, a blizzard, that I can’t have money in my pocket
and people not talk about me? This world is a trip.
I don’t know what’s going on these days.
Got this person over here talking about me, this person…
Hey listen, let me tell you something.
This is my prerogative. I can do what I want to do.
I made this money, you didn’t….

“Now, think about all those people that created them. Technicians, engineers, hundreds of people who will be able to feed their children tonight so those children can grow up big and strong and have little teeny weeny children of their own and so on and so forth, thus adding to the great chain of life. …You see, Father, by encouraging a little destruction, I’m, in fact, encouraging life.”