Encounter at Farpoint Station seems like it will have very little bearing on my research, aside from the curious fact that Dr. Crusher seems to purchase a bolt of clothe while shopping. Curious enough that a Star Trek officer would go shopping in the first place, but even more curious is that all she says is to "charge it" to Dr. Beverly Crusher.
My guess: The Federation has a fund meant for encountering races with capitalist economies. Either all officers have a right to that money, and only have to report what they buy for the sake of record, or in fact Star Trek officers earn some money and only use it outside of the Federation.
However, I only guess these things because I know later on in the series, it is specifically said that currency is not used within the Federation. However, one can not know the true intent of the original writers in this episode, and as the first season had a veritable revolving door of writers, it could be that these writers were unable to think outside of economics.
It's clear that the more primitive society of Bandi has an economy more like our present one, for when they are inspecting Farpoint Station and find materials that do not exist on the Bandi planet, they suspect they traded from their vast energy stores to get the materials.
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