The third Star Trek series—Deep Space 9—is set on a distant space station-city. The producers had to be creative with the scripts because they are not visiting “strange, new worlds” all the time. In season 3, episodes 11 and 12, titled “Past Tense” they dealt with—thirty years ago in the mid-1990s, mind you—with the US homeless problem of their distant past, set in our future of late August of the year 2024. The script rings all too true of our present situation regarding homelessness, poverty, technology, and government. Very prescient.
In the episode, three of the main characters fly back to earth to visit Starfleet Headquarters in San Francisco. When they arrive, there is a mishap, and they are accidentally “beamed” back in time by a century to August 2024. Out of time and without proper identification, Captain Sisko and Dr. Basheer are captured and placed in a so-called sanctuary district. Sisko quickly realizes the date and tells Basheer that in the 2020s every major city had a job and homeless problem, and that they are just days away from the famous riots in the sanctuary districts which will spark reform, so they need to be extra careful not to change the future.
The episode is a good reflection of the growing homeless situation in the US, with the official count at 650,000 with nearly 30 percent of the total in California. Those figures are up 12 percent in the last year. The official numbers could be wildly inaccurate. Many of those are in “shelters,” not sanctuary districts, and many of the rest are cordoned off in out-of-the-way and lower-income areas, hidden somewhat from upper income households.
The future sanctuaries are overcrowded and dirty old neighborhoods where the homeless are trapped and victimized. There are people with mental illness and petty criminals in the districts, but most of the trapped population are depicted as normal people and families who fell victim to unemployment. They are given a card that gives them access to food and water.
All of this is reminiscent of public housing and food stamps—SNAP—today. Today, there are over 9 million people in subsidized public housing. There are almost 2 million in actual prisons and the population that has been incarcerated and released is huge, but they are less able to find decent jobs.
The technology tycoons in the episode—representing the California rich people—are portrayed in a particularly unfavorable light. All of this seems reasonably accurate today, but was at least somewhat prophetic and insightful when it was written and aired three decades ago.
The anti-hero is the CEO of a mega-information systems company. Although he admits to liking tattoos, he had his removed long ago to maintain his image and his company’s lucrative government contracts. He admits to being a sellout to humanity in order to protect his valuable government contracts and licenses, but he does aid the beautiful heroine of the Starfleet crew who tries to rescue her mates trapped in the sanctuaries.
Other tech tycoons are also on the dole of government contracts and favors and are portrayed as pretentious, piss-elegant dandies and quaintrelles. Of course, typically we only see the real ones today dressed in uber-expensive denim and t-shirts which, if nothing else, helps protect their image with customers and employees.
In the episodes, the government bureaucrats and security guards try to ignore the realities of the sanctuaries and are “just doing their jobs.” They are portrayed as overworked and underpaid. One young guard is just doing his job, protecting his job, trying to protect his family and keep them out of the sanctuary. When confronted with the horrors and inequities of the sanctuaries, one old fart security guard explains that people just don’t get it and “what good would it do.” A government bureaucrat working at the sanctuary office realizes that the whole thing is wrong, but that any deviations from government protocols could cost her job.
The plot has Sisko replacing the leader of the famous “Bell Riots,” who is killed attempting to help Sisko from being mugged. Sisko assumes Bell’s identity and he and Basheer must thereafter protect the timeline!
The Starfleet crew is instrumental in getting people in the sanctuary to tell their personal stories online—who they were before and how they ended up in the sanctuary. The rioters’ “reasonable” demands include freedom, closing the sanctuaries, and employment by the restoration of the Federal Jobs Act.
Of course, the governor and the government don’t meet any of the demands and instead send in a massive military-type raid into the sanctuary district, killing many of the homeless and their leaders. In the wake of this travesty, we are told that reforms are made, and that homelessness and unemployment becomes a thing of the past. You may recall that the “freedom of want” has been magically eliminated by the time of the first Star Trek series is launched with Captain Kirk and Spock—post 2024.
In the end, at least the tech-tycoon and government employees realize the evils they are causing and participating in. Politicians naturally responded with overwhelming force, but by exposing the horrors and injustices of the sanctuary district policy, the Starfleet crew has swayed public opinion (i.e., ideology) in favor of effective reforms.
In the wake of the military raid, Sisko and Basheer slip out to safety with the help and acquiescence of the old fart security guard. With the timeline secured and reforms on the way, the crew beams back to their ship. Basheer asks: “How could they let things go so bad?” to which Sisko answers: “Good question.”
All of the plot elements are well done, and the two episodes have been recognized with awards for their craft and for social awareness. Here we recognize them for their prophetic insight in terms of the accuracy and timing of these burning social issues. What is missing is any description of the actual reforms that cured the problems of homelessness and unemployment. Like the whole Star Trek genre, the basic condition of scarcity is often overlooked, particularly in the case of issues back on earth.
In the real world, we always have to recognize the issues of scarcity and efficiency. Homelessness is an issue where the more money you “throw at it,” the bigger the problem becomes. The problem of homelessness is increasingly vexing for American society as it reaches critical levels. However, if we recognize scarcity and the role of incentives, a general idea of the reforms can be constructed.
That begins with the realization that homelessness has always existed and can be a lifestyle choice, however, society should not subsidize homelessness, nor stand in the way of people securing housing justly. Furthermore, the homeless should not trespass on private property, and public property should be managed in a similar manner. Here, we should not tolerate a Marxist free-for-all.
There are also specific policies that minimize the negative impact of homelessness on others and maximize the status of the current and potential homeless. I will state these in stark terms for clarity.
First, job opportunities must be the first and highest priority and that involves repealing the whole monstrous collection of government “job protection” and exclusion rules and regulations. Minimum wage laws, licensing laws, taxes on labor, and all forms of government paperwork and reporting requirements need to be abolished.
Second, the criminal justice system needs systemic reform to focus on deterring violent and property crime, but also to discourage incarceration by victimless crime. For example, the prison population has declined in conjunction with the legalization of cannabis, and imprisonment is a leading barrier to employment.
Third, all government restrictions on housing construction and occupancy need to be eliminated, including anything that smacks of restrictions and higher prices, especially anything that has the same effects as rent controls. California has an intense, intricate web of government intervention that negatively impacts housing, restricts supply, drives up prices, and curtails availability, a major contributor to the state’s homeless problem.
Fourth, subsidies to unemployment, particularly welfare programs, need to end and need to be phased out to facilitate individual initiative rather than dependency. Government funding needs to be restricted to helping the mentally and physically handicapped with “carrot-and-stick” policies that facilitate best independence achievements.
Fifth, good weather is a big cause of homelessness, which is a big reason why states such as California have so much homelessness, but another big policy reason for homelessness are policies that subsidize homelessness—a catch-22 factor that stymies good outcomes and only increases the problem over time.
With homelessness less appealing and jobs more readily available, the problem of drug addiction (as well as mental illness) among the homeless can be addressed. Charity-based rehabilitation facilities and half-way housing might be the best approach with which to experiment.
Obviously, politicians and bureaucrats cannot be counted on to solve this problem. Their actions have only made this worse over time. Only with market-based reforms can we ever expect to put the problems of homelessness and low-skilled unemployment, as the title of the episodes suggest, in the past tense.
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