The Federation Is Not Fascist

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The Federation controls everything.

Halfway through the video and we finally get a definition for fascism. The video says fascism is a system of government that controls all aspects of its citizens life. That’s a pretty simple and dumbed down definition of fascism, let’s look at what Wikipedia says…

"Fascists believe that liberal democracy is obsolete, and they regard the complete mobilization of society under a totalitarian one-party state as necessary to prepare a nation for armed conflict and to respond effectively to economic difficulties.[7] Such a state is led by a strong leader—such as a dictator and a martial government composed of the members of the governing fascist party—to forge national unity and maintain a stable and orderly society.[7] Fascism rejects assertions that violence is automatically negative in nature, and views political violence, war, and imperialism as means that can achieve national rejuvenation.[8][9][10][11] Fascists advocate a mixed economy, with the principal goal of achieving autarky through protectionist and interventionist economic policies.[12]"

Now this isn’t an academic definition, this is from Wikipedia, so it’s safe to assume this is a standard definition of what a fascist state is and what it believes. Obviously the Federation doesn’t fall into the definition laid out here at all. The Federation is a democracy, isn’t totalitarian, isn’t focused on armed conflict, doesn’t have a strong dictator figure, and doesn’t condemn violence.

This more realistic definition wouldn’t make for good controversial YouTube video at all, so let’s just accept the definition provided by the video, even if it is terrible.

Now first the video mention Hitler and Mussolini as examples of fascist dictators, which they are. The video plays dramatic music and we see the Starfleet insignia (the video continues to mix up the Federation and Starfleet). That’s some great propaganda work, but the video didn’t bother to tell us who the strong man dictator in the Federation is, because there isn’t one.

The video claims that the federation controls transportation, communication, and the economy of its citizens and therefore controls all parts of their lives and is fascist. So let’s take a look at these three areas of influence.

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First we will look at transportation. While Starfleet does have a lot of ships, so does everyone else. There are numerous civilian transports and ships in Star Trek. The fact that the video makers claim that there aren’t leads me to think they haven’t actually watched as much Star Trek as they claim. Also all governments regulate transportation to some extent, in the United States you have to have a driver’s license, that doesn’t make the USA fascist. The type of restrictions on travel you might find in an actual fascist state are things like needing permission to travel from city to city, that doesn’t exist in the Federation.

Next they claim the Federation is fascist because it controls communication. The video’s basis for this claim is that all the communicators have a Starfleet insignia (again mixing up Starfleet and the Federation). This is simply not true. We see countless regular citizens communicating using their own home computers in Star Trek. You obviously don’t need a Starfleet communicator to communicate in the Star Trek universe.

Lastly is the economy. The video says that because there is no money the Federation is controlling the economy of its citizens. The basic argument is that no capitalism equals fascism. We’re not going to even bother to break down why that’s wrong, but it is. The Federation doesn’t ban money, they just don’t use it. They still have an economy, and economy based on different things that the one we live in today. In the Federation’s economy you’d make a YouTube video to educate or better others, not to try to get some views and clicks and make money for more Mountain Dew.

Beyond every government influencing economies, the Federation isn’t controlling anything. Not having money actually gives the Federation less control over the economy because they don’t control the printing and manufacturing of the coinage.

We also see other races, like the Ferengi, using money in Federation territory. So obviously money isn’t banned, just not needed.

So all of these points have now fallen apart, let’s look at another…

Next: Some of the Star Trek bad guys feel fascist

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