Star Trek often catches a lot of flack from the American Right for portraying a Socialist space utopia. Certainly there is a vast, far reaching central government, and the human race is indeed portrayed as enlightened beyond self-interest. But should Star Trek be totally thrown out for its political philosophy? I believe there’s more to redeem it than to condemn it.

Humanity is constantly portrayed as completely altruistic in the Star Trek universe – it has evolved to the point that selfishness is no longer necessary. Indeed, those interested in personal gain are often portrayed in a less than flattering light. As a sidenote, only replicator technology would allow the utopia of the Star Trek universe by eliminating scarcity of most things – the show is hardly based in economics, but the fundamental importance of the replicator to the Starfleet economy is usually neglected (I suspect the technology was put in for another purpose, coincidentally the necessary technology to sustain their economy). Nevertheless, there are still devious Capitalists – mostly harmless, but sometimes a deadly nuisance. Star Trek is obviously not friendly on the surface to Libertarian ideals.

But there is a more fundamental theme to Star Trek, one that is by all accounts completely commendable: a strong commitment to individualism. Though Starfleet is indeed a Socialist utopia, it is not always a perfect one. One of the most common themes of all the series is the captain’s deliberate defiance of a direct order, and saving the day by doing so. Successwise, captains have a vastly better track record than Starfleet, illustrating extremely well the knowledge problem of centralized government (though Starfleet never does seem to learn to back off the regulations. Often times one gets the impression that they’re just suggestions).

Star Trek is in fact rather schizophrenic in its attitude towards its utopia. It is generally good and enlightened, though often misinformed, having to be corrected by intrepid Enterprise captains. Occasionally though, the writers let Starfleet embody every problem of tyrannical government, making the captains not only occasional rulebreakers with exceptionally good judgement, but outright traitor-heroes. The story of Insurrection, for example, puts Starfleet stopping barely short of genocide, forcibly relocating an eternally youthful race to another planet where they would eventually die. The crew of the Enterprise has to renege, fight against Starfleet, and save the Ba’ku. And there is never a bit of moral ambiguity in their decision.

Where the original series and The Next Generation have these themes implicit in the actions of their captains, Voyager states them explicitly. How many times throughout the Seven of Nine rehabilitation subplot did Janeway lecture Seven on the virtues of individuality? She’s even been known to lecture the Borg Collective on the evils of collective consciousness. They’ve been called a race “as close to pure evil as any race we’ve ever encountered” – where the defining feature of that evil is their collective consciousness, their forcible homogeneity.

So Star Trek promotes a Socialist utopia with a strongly individualist culture? Star Trek has always had a moralizing component to it. Though their stereotype of Capitalists could be called unfair, their utopia could be excluded from the moral, thanks to the replicator. Heck, if we eliminated scarcity, why not have a Socialist utopia? It’s the best of both worlds: universal opulence without the servility that is for now inevitable in Socialist attempts to promote it. With the moral component of its political structure falling to the consequences of simple economics, the strong individualist themes of the show commend it far past its unfair stereotypes condemn it.