There's been a lot of discussion about how lib the newer Star Trek shows have been compared to the episodes of older series like DS9. However, while binge-watching Discovery, I was a little surprised to see capitalism being openly discussed as something hostile to Federation values in a specific scene:
spoiler
I'm talking about the "negotiation" discussion between Admiral Vance and Osyraa, the leader of the Emerald Chain. Osyraa was trying to convince Vance to merge the Federation and the Emerald Chain, who really only planned to use their Federation representative as a proxy for Osyraa and would otherwise continue their current system capitalist exploitation (including slavery):
Osyraa: Hmm. It doesn’t quite taste like the real thing, does it?
Vance: I’ve never eaten a real apple.
Osyraa: Well, how sad. Apples are a thing of beauty. You want to talk about oppression, you should start in your own mess hall.
Vance: It’s made of our shit, you know. That’s the base material that we use in our replicators. We deconstruct it to the atomic level and then reform the atoms. It’s pretty good for shit, and we don’t have to commit atrocities for it.
Osyraa: Well, you’re not being very diplomatic.
Vance: And you’re wasting my time. Are we negotiating or not?
Osyraa: Fine. If the Chain is to unite with the Federation, you need to send the message that our culture is fundamentally valid and ethical.
Vance: And how are we supposed to do that?
Osyraa: By acknowledging that capitalism is already happening within the Federation. When was the last time anyone from around here visited Deep Space 253?
Vance: A while.
Osyraa: 87 years.
Vance: Not by choice.
Osyraa: It’s way the hell out there. But DS253 has been trading with an Emerald Chain mercantile for nearly a century. You need to sanction that trade, and you need to permit the Chain to establish an embassy on the station. That will send a very powerful message.
Vance: Your mercantile exchanges– they traffic in goods that are used for enslavement. Some still have open slave markets.
Osyraa: And I have already submitted a charter amendment to our congress outlawing slavery. And it has enough support to pass. I had to spend a lot of political capital, but it has the support of regular citizens.
Vance: In order for me to sell it to the president, you’d gonna need to step away from the influence you’re exerting on Kwejian and the other 50 pre-warp planets you’ve targeted.
Osyraa: You’re asking very powerful people to give up huge amounts of income.
It's not as overt as Rom quoting Marx, but it is at least nice to see capitalism portrayed as something undeniably negative, and as something hostile to the Federation and its mission.
I'm curious to know what you all though of that exchange, as well as the story arc surrounding it.
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