[throwaway60707]

IMHO the premise of Star Trek economy is that all needs of an ordinary person can be fulfilled so cheaply it doesn't make sense to meter. The replicator uses a relatively minimal amount of energy. They still need to allocate resources - and even trade them among themselves and with others - but there's no need for an internal currency, they can power entire planets with their antimatter reactors using just a very small amount of fuel. Even the starships that are bending spacetime itself all the time are refueled only very occasionally, synthesizing some food and houses is nothing compared to that.

The only time when their economy breaks is when they're in an active warzone - and frankly, currency as we know it breaks down in a warzone too, you better have some cigarettes, food or weapons if you want to trade.

[krapp]

It's weird that so many other species in Star Trek also have replicators, antimatter, transporters, warp drive, etc. But somehow only humans managed to create a post-scarcity utopia out of it.

[throwaway60707]

At least all the other species within Federation did the same, many of them before the Federation even existed or before humans did it, though many of them got Federation help after they developed the warp drive, thus eliminating the Prime Directive limit.

Then you have the species whose backstory is imperialism or fascism, that control many other species that only have lesser technology. In some episodes, but especially in the books that are considered canon, you can see them influencing (slowing or outright destroying) the development of sufficient technology of their vassals so they remain dependent on the masters.

But the masters themselves (Romulans, Cardassians, Klingons...) have the same post-scarcity economy as the Federation for their "full citizens".

What's interesting is the case of Bajor in DS9, which is developing the post-scarcity utopia after the Cardassians left them in ruins; with Federation help but not too much of it because they want to be independent.

[HelloNurse]

I'd assume almost all Star Trek civilizations have their own "post-scarcity utopia", but it could be incomplete and/or not quite an utopia because of racism (e.g. Romulans), slavery, problematic culture (e.g. Klingon expected lifespan), villains, catastrophes and other Enterprise-level trouble.

Good guys like the Vulcans seem to have only personal and psychological problems, not material ones.