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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Beleriphon" data-source="post: 7913462" data-attributes="member: 27847">The Federation is a post scarcity society, in part due to replicator technology. They do use "money" internally in the form of Federation credits. Most member worlds use currency in some form or another, and all of them are pegged to the Fedaration credit, which means they have an easy means of trade between each other and other cultures.Recall from the TOS that Kirk tries to get people to sell him, I think dilitium, but they wont accept money they want food. Uhura was able to buy Tribbles with some kind of currency. In a post-scarcity society you can still have currency, but it doesn't buy you necessities it buys you luxury. Thus Picard sells the wine because it is a luxury good, and why anybody can replicate win, you need to trade something for a Chateau Picard 2386. The easiest thing to trade is currency.Riker in TNG acts confused about being paid to be a Starfleet officer, which seems odd. I suspect the actual intent is that he's telling the person he isn't in Starfleet because it pays well, but because he wants to be doing Starfleety things. Riker knows what gold-press latinum is, and even haggles with Quark over it some of the cross-over episodes.So on Earth, the only reason people live the way they do is because they choose to do so.</blockquote>