gold pressed latinum

Haha yeah... but also...

• The Ferengi are heavy coded as greedy space jews.
• Klingon is a weird spin on Japanese feudalism.
• Borg are communists.
• Romulans are opportunist vulture capitalists.
• Vulcans are an idealist logic collective.

But you make a great point in that money is necessary if only to interact with alien races. How do you trade with an alien race if you don't have the currency that they trade in? It's heavily assumed that there basically is zero economy and different factions don't trade with each other, which is a bit ridiculous, again refusing to open up the story to that kind of impossible complexity. They didn't even bother creating "Space Credits" like so many Sci-Fi shows have attempted before it.