Federation does have money.

[Yukaphile]

The Federation is like a Culture Lite society, at least until the 31st century, where they become Time Lord Lite.

[King Green]

BridgeConsoleMasher quit waving your 8ft long lightsaber before you hurt somebody.

[LittleRaven]

Point of order: the Bronze Age civilizations of the eastern Mediterranean had extensive trade networks 500 years before the first currency was invented.

Uhh...one of us is confused. (and hey, maybe it's me!)

We don't know when currency was invented, because the invention of currency predates any surviving writing that we have, but we sure as heck know people had currency LONG BEFORE the bronze age. We have tally sticks that are almost 30,000 years old. If there's evidence of extensive trade networks that predate THAT, I haven't seen it.

That said, I agree with the rest of your post. Money is certainly helpful when it comes to setting up trade, but it's hardly essential, and there's countless historical examples of trade being successful without it.

[Mecha82]

Trade hasn't always been done with currency. In past people have traded with goods like animal skins and for long time in Feudal Age Japan they didn't have currency until they were forced to open up for trade with Western world them having traded with rice before that. Currency has just made trading more convient both within countries as well as between countries.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

BridgeConsoleMasher quit waving your 8ft long lightsaber before you hurt somebody.

Sorry. I meant to ask what part of Star Trek you're talking about.

[technobabbler]

the in-universe explanation is simple----Earth voters keeps flip-flopping between the Marxists and Capitalists in the elections.

[Artabax]

Point of order: the Bronze Age civilizations of the eastern Mediterranean had extensive trade networks 500 years before the first currency was invented.

Uhh...one of us is confused. (and hey, maybe it's me!)

We don't know when currency was invented, because the invention of currency predates any surviving writing that we have, but we sure as heck know people had currency LONG BEFORE the bronze age. We have tally sticks that are almost 30,000 years old. If there's evidence of extensive trade networks that predate THAT, I haven't seen it.

That said, I agree with the rest of your post. Money is certainly helpful when it comes to setting up trade, but it's hardly essential, and there's countless historical examples of trade being successful without it.

700 BC ish gold and silver coins were invented by Croesus of Lydia and coin technology spread through the Known World. 2000 BC ish Hamurabi of Babylon: 80 kilos of barley ~ 8 grams of silver ~ 1 month's wages, they had no coins, so they weighed lumps of precious metal.

Classic Trek used Credits. TNG is all Fed has evolved beyond money. It would have been interesting ifn they had ever bothered to xplain how it works, but NO. It is Gene's Vision TM, it is Prime Directive, bow down and worship.

DS9 Baseball Card, Nog should have asked "So what do you use instead?"
How do Star Fleet eat and drink at Quark's???

I've always wondered who decided Robert Picard could have acres and acres of vinyard in rural France, but Joseph Sisko only gets a medium-sized restaurant in downtown Orleans.

1400 AD ish Platonic Moralists whinged that there were so many Merchants and Artisans who were richer than Aristocrats and yearned that money might be abolished. Fed abolished money to entrench Aristo privilege.

[LittleRaven]

700 BC ish gold and silver coins were invented by Croesus of Lydia and coin technology spread through the Known World.

That's what Herdotous always claimed, but we now know that's not true. We've found coins under Ephesus that are older than the Lydian Lions that until recently were the oldest coins we knew about. But most experts don't actually think coins were INVENTED in Ephesus. Those are just the oldest coins that we've found to date. Coins were almost certainly invented in different times and in different places whenever civilization got to a point where it could sustain them...and the first instance is almost certainly lost to the ages.

[ProfessorDetective]

It's inconsistent. Doylist answer, they didn't really hammer down how things worked in the writers room, which led to inconsistent portrayals of how everything works.

Watsonian, they do have currency, but if you have shelter, clothing, food, water, education, and healthcare provided for you, you're either going to spend the rest of your life eating Cheetos at your house while enjoying the latest holonovel, or you're going to do your darndest to be productive. If out of boredom if nothing else. This is probably why there are so many colonies, people who are tired of being pampered and want to show the universe something they built with their own two hands.

And others just like the idea of the freedom that cash/owning something gives you. Some use this to become rich, others do so for the challenge, others to improve via knowledge, etc. We're essentially talking Norway on steroids. While Quark's bar can't be fully automated(or at least he was too cheap to pay for quality Automated holograms), the bar at K-7 or Ten Forward could, and only had bartenders and waitresses for the pleasure of someone to talk to. And I'm sure most customers wanted to talk to a real Dabo girl, and not some holosuite character.

This actually makes sense in an automated world. Why do we go out, if all our needs are met? For social interaction. We see restaurants, bars, and other places do theme nights in the wake of food delivery and people staying at home. It's for the adventure of it, the new experience. Same way that Keiko is aghast at preparing a meal by hand, the Siskos in the same era make it a proud tradition. The only time we see a janitor anywhere is at Starfleet Academy, which is a necessary part of cadet discipline. The jobs are needed, but not to a large degree or unless you're in the frontier.

As for Jake and his baseball card, Jake probably didn't have an allowance, and wasn't a reporter yet. This is also the same kid who thought living in a place without a replicator for a week was 'roughing it'. I'm sure if Wesley wanted to buy his mom a present, and didn't want it to be replicated(note how Data and Worf are shopping for wedding gifts for Keiko and Miles in a replicator room in Data's Day), he'd have to work to get a little cash as well. Never underestimate the value of authenticity when it comes to the value of old junk.

So, it's likely that there are unpleasant jobs that pay well, but they're few and far between. And people like Keiko own a business because she wanted the adventure of being a freighter captain, and getting her own ship. Otherwise you do so that you don't feel like a lazy bag of bones relying on everyone else's charity and hard work.

Yeah, this was pretty much how I always took it. They're so advanced they only need/use money when dealing with less advanced folks who still use money.