[robertlagrant]

Star Trek economy is for worlds without scarcity. Given we have scarcity, we allocate finite resources to things we want. If someone does something a lot of people want, they get more money.

Some people get money in other ways (e.g. working in government and being extremely lucky in the stock market) but that seems different.

[pmontra]

By the way, there is always some form of scarcity even in a Star Trek world that can create stuff out of thin air. Do you want a house on that very scenic spot of the coast? There are only a handful of them. Hope that only two or three families like the place.

[robertlagrant]

Quite. Maybe the Star Trek utopia is everyone gets their own Holodeck, and then no one can ever do anything better than you?

[sschueller]

But someone still has the real house at the exclusive beach on that planet. "It's just not the same!" /s

[robertlagrant]

Presumably everyone in the Holodeck will be simulating everyone else as being slightly worse off than them.