Which is not to say that it is perfect or superior to Earth and the larger Federation’s comparatively egalitarian post-scarcity economy, or even particularly ethical.
However, from what we’re shown, the Ferengi political structure (which is clearly part and parcel with it’s commercial structure) does not, with the one HUGE exception of it’s treatment of women, make use of divisive social issues to distract its work force from the disadvantages of capitalism. Unlike contemporary Western capitalism, everyone on Ferenginar from the wealthiest to the poorest appears to operate from the same transparent, if morally bankrupt, ruleset, and the powerful, importantly, don’t pretend otherwise.
This is a dark but kind of brilliant aspect of the rules of acquisition - All members of society, including laborers, are taught from birth to operate from a position of mutual distrust and can operate comfortably with full knowledge that the person on the other side of the table will disregard all other concerns in order to take complete financial advantage of them, and they will do the same. This bypasses a lot of steps that would otherwise be required in terms of building trust or engaging in any kind of sales or negotiation, although there is likely a lot more onus on each individual to do the calculus on any given business transaction internally to ensure that all of their vulnerabilities are accounted for. The phrase ‘trust me’ must be a complete joke in all contexts.
Furthermore, because greed is not just a social value but a desirable and marketable job skill, the playing field, which is horrific from the perspective of most 24th century humans, may actually be more level than even modern capitalism. There’s evidence to suggest that if even the poorest worker can successfully skim profits without leaving immediate evidence behind, this is almost blameless. Quark knows that Rom shaves the latinum, for example.
This is not a complete theory and I’m sure there are plenty of counterexamples, but mostly I just wanted to gripe that shit is so tough irl right now that even working as a Ferengi waiter seems like a dream by comparison.
And even it’s nakedly racist (“A contract, is a contract, is a contract-- but only between Ferengi”) and misogynistic (“Females and finances don’t mix.”)
What does that say about capitalism?
I mean let’s be clear for most of Ferengi history women were not allowed to own property of any kind - including clothing and some of their business endeavors include poaching endangered animals and literally being slave traders. I mean - I don’t think there’s any indication that Ferengi society was anything more than hyper-capitalist dystopia as a juxtaposition of the Federation socialist utopia. That Rom and Quark are goofy and lovable I think speaks more to how bad every other Ferengi is operating outside of a Federation station.
From the Federation’s perspective the Ferengi are harmless and in this way they may be ethical enough to not warrant confrontation, but at the same time - the Federation does seem to stop them when they’re doing something like slave trading so I think we can imagine that for some people in the sphere of Ferengi influence they’re not so ethical.
On this note, part of me wonders if some of the Ferengi encountered by the Federation early on weren’t already outlaws looking to make profit outside the constraints of Ferengi ethics, such as they are.
This is a question worth asking. As others have pointed out there sort of seems to be clear that the rules are the rules and business rules trump all other rules. The Rules of Acquisition tend to be the Ferengi Alliance’s highest law. It’s both a religious law and a practical one and I think therein is where the problem lies. You can’t make profit outside of the constrains of normal ethics because whatever makes profit is what is ethical to do.
This is why so many contradictory Rules exist in this system. War is good for business and peace is good for business, and neither of these are statements on what is “bad” for business. There’s nothing here that says not to do anything and I think in this way Ferengi ethics largely comes down to there’s no precept that says I shouldn’t do this and I was able to exchange doing it for profit so ultimately it serves a higher purpose.
And since it seems like there is a fair amount of legalize extortion that happens in Ferengi while it might be technically illegal to do slavery, it might be more profitable to do it and therefore on the whole you can come out with an ethical conclusion that is “good” especially if you’re some mid-level Ferengi in charge of making sure that slavery doesn’t happen and you’re able to take a little bit of a kickback.
De facto slavery exists for women in Ferengi society, but the fact that no other apparent slave caste exists along with how quickly Ferenginar’s patriarchy was restructured, if not quite dismantled, I think one possible barrier to an effective slave industry (certainly chattel slavery) is that there would be no concept of a person or group of people who should not be trying to earn profit, and the power structures that exist would not punish an enslaved person who was able to skim profits from any labor or administrative work they performed, nor would it necessarily reinforce their status as a slave if they were able to buy themselves out of their position.
I think Ferengi probably thinks that a person or business can own another person, but I don’t think they can conceive of a person who can’t/ or shouldn’t own anything. This is like how it’s not illegal to attempt to escape prison in some countries - There’s a recognition of the desire to be free.
Now, that’s all a huge problem when Ferengi develop interstellar travel and encounter full-blown slavers like the Orion Syndicate and other criminal elements, because 1) they’ll not only participate in the slave trade for all the reasons you said, but they’ll be really good at it, and 2) they won’t fully understand the power structures beyond wealth which makes enslavement so egregious.
I wonder: Quark’s weapon trading may not have bothered his conscience because of him adopting human ethics, as he feared, but because he was parsing his own ethics with a fuller understanding of the implications of what he was participating in as he was learning more about alien cultures.
As constructed this reads as just a joke, but there’s a hint of an actual argument here. Daystrom Institute requires that all posters explain their reasoning. Could you elaborate?
(Removing the mod hat here)
That is a good point about the power of the FCA, although I wonder how much of an influence they actually have on the most well off of Ferengi society. Certainly they talk a big game, and Quark is terrified when a liquidator shows up, but chances are the guy running the bar down the street from wherever you live would be pretty unnerved if the IRS (or equivalent) sent an agent to their door under similar circumstances. Would Gaila at the peak of his financial powers have found Brunt to be equally terrifying?
There’s also the matter of what the FCA actually enforces. They come down pretty hard on concealing financial records, but mostly we see them show up to make sure that Quark is living up to the Ferengi ideals of being as cruel and exploitative to his customers and employees as possible. That is not an area where the most efficiently sociopathic paragons of Ferengi society are likely to run into any problems, so even if they could be prosecuted for such infractions, in practice there’s nothing there to worry them.
I agree. But there were a few moments where the Ferengi were shown not to behave consistently with the principles they espoused.
They shouldn’t have had any problem with (Edit: Rom) forming a union, for instance. After all, what’s wrong with a little collusion and price-fixing between the sellers of labor?
I guess some hypocrisy is to be expected in any society.
You make a good point. Although it’s not an economic system I’d like to be a part of, at least everyone knows what the rules are, and people expect to be taken advantage of by everyone else.
