Jacque Fresco Rethinks the New World Order
Interview by Tristan Shaw and Everest Fernandez.
What does the future hold? Will oppression, war, poverty, hunger and greed ever be confined to history? Or are we stuck with them forever?
For many thousands of years we have been apt to regard ourselves as perennial surfers of the cutting-edge. After all, in our minds at least, “now” has always been after “then.” Throughout history we’ve believed that we know a whole lot … about a whole lot. But are we, as a species, a lot more primitive than we conceive ourselves to be? Maybe we are no more than evolutionary juveniles, just learning how to walk, and suffering from a particularly nasty bout of toddler tantrums? Are we ever going to learn to just play nicely with each other, share our toys, and get along?
Urban Garden Magazine meets Jacque Fresco, a 93 year old futurist, social engineer and brainchild of “The Venus Project.” Fresco says that the sustainability of life on this planet is beyond his opinion. It is axiomatic. And he’s developed a plan to achieve it. But can we get our heads around it in time?
Jacque Fresco
Born March 13, 1916.
Invented systems for noiseless and pollution free aircraft- Invented a new aircraft wing structural system, patented by the US Air Force
- Designed an electrostatic system for the elimination of sonic boom for Raymond De-Icer
- Created a boundary layer control and electrodynamic method for aircraft control that dispenses with ailerons, elevators, rudders, and flaps
- Created a three-wheel automobile consisting of only 32 parts
- Designed “The Aluminum Trend House,” a prefabricated house designed and developed for Mike Shore and Earl Muntz, 1945
- Designed and developed another prefabricated aluminum house for Major Realty Corporation in collaboration with Aluminum Company of America
- Developed numerous components and systems for architectural construction
- Developed equipment ranging from three-dimensional x-ray units to electronic surgical instruments for the medical field
- Developed a technique for viewing three-dimensional motion pictures without the use of glasses
- Designed and built a wide variety of reinforced concrete structures
UGM: Can you briefly describe what The Venus Project is all about?
The Venus Project: housing design
JF: Yes, I can do that. I feel that if you want a world of peace, a world without poverty, hunger, war, prisons and police, what you must do is declare all of the world’s resources as a common heritage of all the world’s people. Prior to the organization of the United States of America, the states were separate, and used to fight each other over territorial boundaries. Once the states merged together, the militia disappeared. This is the only way the Earth will avoid the same kind of problems we have today. You must declare the Earth as a common heritage of all the world’s people and all the resources of the Earth shared by all the world’s people; anything less than that will result in the same problems over and over again. We must remove all the artificial boundaries that separate people and maintain a population that’s in accordance with the carrying capacity of the Earth. If we fail to do that, and exceed the population the Earth can support, there is going to be poverty, riots, and territorial disputes. Do you understand that?
UGM: I understand what you are saying. But who is going to make this declaration – the President or the First Lady?
JF: No, the Venus Project is different than any political system. It has nothing in common with socialism, fascism, capitalism, or communism.
UGM: Sharing all the world’s resources equally among the people – sounds a lot like communism doesn’t it?
JF: Communism uses money. Communism has bankers. Communism has armies and navies, and a government with an elitist structure. The Venus Project doesn’t have any of that. So look into The Venus Project before you judge it or hand a name to it – it’s socialistic, it’s communistic. This is a device used to discourage you from thinking along new lines.
UGM: But isn’t it impossible, or very difficult, to free yourself from the known? For instance, it will be a tall order for most people to envision a world without money…
JF: I understand that. Only when it hits them, when they lose their houses, their jobs, then they will start looking for something else. Right now, they all don’t give a damn.
“What’s in it for me?” is the type of society you live in today – where everybody profits off each other. It’s a very crude and primitive system. We are not civilized yet. But you never become civilized, it’s a constant input in which people grow continuously. There are no final frontiers, no utopias, and no ideal city. If I designed a city that was the most efficient, it’s the most efficient for what I know up to now. But the city that I design will be a straitjacket to the children of the future. They will design their own cities. Rather than established, we need an emergent society that allows a constant state of growth and change. And the public has to embrace social change, intellectually and emotionally. If you fail to do that, you are making more problems for the future.
UGM: But how is the Venus Project going to emerge? What will it emerge from? The illustrations that will probably accompany this interview may look like a fantasy world to many people. The Venus Project feels like the letter ‘Z’, whereas we are at letter ‘A’ or ‘B’ or ‘C.’ This begs the question ‘How?’ How do we get from here to there? How do we change our monetary system, for example, or should we just wait for it to collapse?
The Venus Project: geothermal energy
JF: I think I can answer that. The monetary system is failing all over the world. But our government here in America has given the money to the banks and the people that have created the problem. They keep the money that is set aside for education, food, pensions and have given it to the “free-enterprise system” – the system that caused the problems in the first place. That tells you who runs the show. It is never the public. Here is how to get from here to there. The monetary system is going to collapse, people will lose confidence in their elected leaders, and then they will look for something else. Things were so bad in Russia, people were treated so poorly, that they threw out the existing government. And when the public gets angry, if enough people tend to fight for what they call the support of The Venus Project’s plans, I think we can pull out of the problem. I don’t know if they will do that or not. I’m not psychic; I have no power at all. It depends on what you do and what people do. If you don’t understand The Venus Project look us up on the website: www.thevenusproject.com. There are all kinds of questions and answers. But don’t project your own values into it. It’s not a scientific culture run by scientists, and there is no technical elitism or any other kind of elitism. That is a projection by people that know nothing about it.
UGM: So, let me get this straight: the world is currently run by bankers and corporations. Is the Venus Project putting the world in the control of computers or computer programmers?
JF: Not exactly that. See if you can consider what I say. In the early days a pilot would look down out of an airplane and he would say, “I’m about a mile high.” Today with Doppler radar you can get the exact amount of feet off the ground. No human can do that. But it’s not a machine takeover. We are assigning machines decision-making where humans cannot make decisions. For example, milk cartons are filled by machines automatically; no human can move that fast. No human can do the type of production that automation can. About nine months ago machines where able to handle 1,000 trillion bits of information a second. No group of humans can do that. So in order to set up a system that can work, it has to be connected to industry, transportation, agriculture, and integrated into a holistic system that works for the benefit of all people. The machines do not control people. They only maintain production and distribution of goods and services. People live whatever lifestyle they choose to live.
UGM: So you are proposing that we defer all decisions to machines? Isn’t that danger….
The Venus Project: automobiles
JF: You know there are some roboticists that are afraid that machines are going to “take over.” The machines have no feelings. If you work on a computer on Saturday and Sunday, it doesn’t ask for a day off. It doesn’t say, “You can’t work me all the time!” because they don’t have feelings. Machines don’t want to take over. They don’t want to run people. This is a human projection and a human attribute. It’s humans that make war and drop bombs on cities. It’s humans that hurt one another. The machines don’t hurt anybody. This is a bunch of stupidity that comes from Hollywood. They make movies about the future that show robots choking their designers. They show movies of the future in which machines explode, take over, kill people and use laser weapons to burn cities – this is all done by people, not machines.
UGM: Is the Venus Project a democratic system?
JF: Have you ever known a democracy? You ask the public whether they voted for the Vietnam War. Of course they didn’t. Did you vote for the space program? Of course not. Did you vote for the design of highways, or the capital city? No. People do not participate. That’s an illusion. In the future you will participate if you have the ability to do so.
UGM: In whose opinion?
JF: If I base all decisions on existing resources, if we live in accordance with the carrying capacity of the Earth, that is not Fresco’s opinion. Fresco makes no opinions. If you want a world without war, you cannot have separate nations controlling most of the Earth’s resources.
UGM: There seems to be widespread anxiety, or perhaps misunderstanding, concerning the emergence of a one-world government. Are you not proposing a “New World Order?”
JF: Yes. But the “New World Order” most people are afraid of is the one where business people are in control. The world I’m talking about is one which raises every human being to their highest potential. And to do away with the money system, which is the basis of all corruption. We just need to make things available to people. We have more than enough resources to do that. If you consider the cost of World War II: the money, the ships sunk, the lives lost, the cities bombed … we could have housed everyone on Earth, built hospitals all over the world, wiped out the slums and poverty all over the world. So how stupid can you be?
UGM: So globalization isn’t such a bad thing after all?
JF: Again, when you use that term in this society, it means that the business world is in charge: bankers in charge of all things on Earth. But when I talk of “globalization” I mean that all nations share all the Earth’s resources: a resource-based economy. There are more than enough resources to take care of all human needs. As long as we manage the population to be in accordance with the carrying capacity of the environment, we will have no problems. If your population exceeds what the land can support you are going to have territorial disputes, arguments, invasions, and a need for armies.
UGM: Let’s look at the root cause of the wars going on right now. Oil and energy. Lots of people are talking about the current energy crisis. How does the Venus Project address this? It seems that the Venus Project is in favor of a lot of industry, transportation, and agriculture. How is this feasible in a world depleted of most natural resources? In short, how will you satisfy the massive energy requirements of the Venus Project?
JF: Okay … the oceans of the world have tides traveling in and out. We can put turbines down under the water and get all the power we need. We can harness power from temperature differentials in the ocean. We can get power from the solar system and from wind. There is geothermal power: the natural heat under the earth. According to volcanologists, we have thousands of years of heat available under the Earth. Just that alone can take care of all the world’s needs. The real energy crisis is the shortage of brain power in government.
UGM: Can you describe how food will be produced in the Venus Project?
JF: Where we don’t have arable land we will need to use hydroponics. We need farms on land and in the sea to put back the necessary ingredients we use to fertilize plants. You cannot keep taking life out of the ocean without considering the entire marine cycle, and maintaining it. Once we learn to do that, we can overcome most shortages. You know the shortages have to do with ingenuity. When America formed the blockade in World War II and prevented Germany from getting rubber from Sumatra, they invented synthetic rubber. So our problems are technical, not political. 100 years ago politics was great, but today it’s obsolete. Politics is a system that does not work.
UGM: So you want to nourish plants with nutrients from the sea? Kind of like aquaponics?
The Venus Project: mariculture & sea farming design
JF: Mariculture, the planned cultivation of marine crops and fish farming communities, can be designed to support more than one type of marine life. A mutually supporting symbiotic relationship can be sustained while emulating natural conditions as closely as possible. A wide variety of aquatic plants may be cultivated in multiple layers and suspended by cables in underwater fields adjacent to the cities. In some instances, the tops of plants could be harvested automatically, leaving the roots and lower third of the plant to grow new crops without replanting. These floating ocean platforms would be equipped with solar-operated desalinization plants, which would extract fresh water for hydroponic farming and other uses. Upwelling can also be harnessed to extract deepsea nutrients to supply aquaculture farming. Of course, any attempt at aquaculture or mariculture would be subject to international monitoring of ocean farms. This provides fish farming complexes and introduces the most advanced principles of poly-culture, which maintains the reproduction and natural balance of species. Every precaution would be taken to avoid disrupting or spoiling the spawning grounds that have sustained the human race for centuries.
UGM: Isn’t it your vision to use technology to free man from servitude and repetitive tasks?
JF: Absolutely – we can automate all the boring and dangerous jobs! We want to free people so that they can go back to school and study whatever the hell they want to study! Art, music, playwriting, travel, whatever they want to do. They can study a profession they feel they want to do, whatever they want to realize. They are not put in pigeon holes where they’re carpenters, plasterers, construction workers: all that was good in the past but it’s irrelevant today.
UGM: And I guess the same goes for bankers. Can you explain the big problem with our current money system?
JF: First off, the Federal Reserve System is not federal. It’s a private institution. The word “federal” gives people the illusion that it’s an agency of the government. The Federal Reserve has nothing to do with money; it has to do with the exploitation of people. When nations seek the competitive edge, it means they don’t give a damn about people. The United States would not outsource if they liked their people. They would keep them employed. They would never send soldiers to war. They would try to bridge the difference between nations. War kills a lot of people, civilians and soldiers. Think of all the ruined cities and museums…
UGM: The question was our current money …
JF: Yes, and war has always been big business! War is the selling of warships, of selling destruction. If we had a real, healthy nation, assuming we did, there would be no war. Because we would conscript all the war industries so no one makes a buck out of war. When you conscript the lives of people and put up their lives to defend the country, you should have no profiteering during war.
UGM: So the money system seems to be the root of many of our problems.
JF: That is right.
UGM: And yet so many people are dependent on the money system. They don’t know how to produce their own food.
JF: You are right. I would say they depend on it. They are trapped.
UGM: So isn’t monetary reform, rather than abolition, a more realistic next step?
JF: None of those systems would work. You don’t need money, or coupons, or energy certificates. What you need is the production of abundance and making it available. Patchwork will not do. You know … guaranteed insurance, medical insurance, none of this solves the fundamental problem. You cannot patch up a society like ours. It has to be complete change. If you don’t want war and poverty, or any suffering, then you need to redesign the culture based upon scientific scales of performance.
UGM: Can you elaborate on your plans to build an experimental city?
The Venus Project: skyscraper design
JF: The first city will be a planning center – where we plan and test the validity of the Venus Project’s proposals. We’ll see how well it operates. And if the city begins to work well, we will invite people from all over the world as guests to stay in that city. And if they like it, after two or three weeks, they will build three in Russia, three in China, build them all over the world and then merge them together. You can’t do it at once. You have to have a transitional period where you gradually phase out the monetary system, meaning just a few years, it won’t take that long. So people have to like the Venus Project, understand what it’s about and not have fear that it’s a machine takeover, or a group of scientists running things.
UGM: Doesn’t somebody have to run things?
JF: Scientists are just as stupid as other people. The proof is that when war comes they align themselves with their governments. They don’t say “I would like to hear all sides of the story.” Scientists, too, are patriotic. They are victims of culture just like everybody else.
UGM: So you are saying that the Venus Project must be precipitated by a fundamental change in our cultural values. What role do you see the Internet playing in this change? Are you at all concerned by governmental attempts to control and regulate the Internet?
JF: They will always seek that power. If governments get control of the Internet, you can say goodbye to freedom. They would like to take over and privatize everything if they can. They are very stupid and ignorant people. They are not well read. Talk to politicians; ask them how to solve problems like bridge erosion. Ask them how to solve the problems of automobile accidents. There are more people killed in accidents than wars. They have no idea how to solve problems. We live in a very primitive system that was designed thousands of years ago, which will not work whether you’re a Democrat or a Republican, it does not matter. They are all inefficient; they don’t know how to operate the Earth.
UGM: [sighs]
JF: Look, I don’t like what I’m saying. I’m sorry, I wish people were rational beings and could move in the appropriate direction. But they’re not brought up that way. When I talk of governments I’m saying that all the world’s governments are basically corrupt. The professions such as lawyers and judges will be considered criminal in the future. Even the Supreme Court judges will be considered criminals. We train people in business. We train them in parasitic professions that really don’t serve the well-being of people. Advertising, business, investment banking: all of those do nothing for people, so those professions will be outgrown – not eliminated, outgrown in the future. Once people admired King Solomon: he had a thousand wives, today he would be arrested as a bigamist. So all the things that you think are right and normal are only normal to your culture, which is very primitive.
UGM: So where do we go from here?
JF: You know very shortly we are going on a global tour. We have been invited to most countries to present the Venus Project. Magazines all over the world today are running the Venus Project without adding their two cents to the article. The United States is the only country that has not run magazine publications, radio television shows, on the Venus Project. Maybe they have a fear that the Venus Project might cause the population to turn around. According to Peter Joseph of the Zeitgeist Movement, which is the participatory directive of the Venus Project, 50 million people are now aware of the Venus Project.
The more people know about the Venus Project, the smoother the transition. I’m sorry to say that the transition will be painful. It will not be smooth. The more people that know about it, the more that sustainability will become normal to the future. If you don’t talk to your friends about it, if you don’t present the Venus Project, nothing will happen. It does not depend on Peter Joseph and I. We have no power at all. It depends on what you do about it. So try to find out more about the Venus Project before you judge it.
UGM: Thanks for giving us the opportunity to publish and distribute this interview throughout the U.S., Canada and the U.K. – and, of course, on the Internet.
JF: Thank you for the privilege.
What is The Venus Project?
- The end of monetary exchange.
- Creation of sustainable city systems.
- Replacement human labor with machines.
- Utilization of science as a methodology.
- Cessation of national boundaries.
“The Venus Project presents a vision not of what the future will be, but of what it can be if we apply what we already know in order to achieve a sustainable new world civilization. It calls for a straightforward redesign of our culture in which the age-old problems of war, poverty, hunger, debt, and unnecessary human suffering are viewed not only as avoidable, but as totally unacceptable. Anything less will result in a continuation of the same catalog of problems found in today’s world.”
Find out more at: www.thevenusproject.com
See also: www.thezeitgeistmovement.com
WTF?
Isn’t this communism?
Communism falls short of ending war, poverty, hunger, or crime. It also has no real relationship to the Earth and its resources. The Venus Project is a scientific approach to social concern.
What will people do?
People can work boring jobs if they like. Nobody is going to force you not to work boring jobs. But maybe, just maybe, people will want to finally enjoy life without being subservient to a job.
Isn’t this idealistic and contrary to human nature?
Isn’t human nature just human behavior? If human behavior can’t be altered … wouldn’t we still be living in caves? People’s behavior is not pre-determined.
Will machines rule the world?
We can graciously thank Hollywood for this intelligent idea. Machines don’t have desires or motives. It is humans that control the machine and determine its use.
“The day that hunger is eradicated from the earth, there will be the greatest spiritual explosion the world has ever known. Humanity cannot imagine the joy that will burst into the world on the day of that great revolution.” – poet Federico García Lorca
Huh? There’s nothing in here about how the reality of people living in such a city would be. Not everyone wants to be a painter or sculptor, and carpentry can be an art. A lot of people enjoy the work they do, and how would this city promote responsible use of resources? Why would the change to this reality automatically eliminate the dark side of humanity? Too many questions unanswered or not even touched on. I agree that governments don’t usually have the interests of “the people” in mind when they take action, but I would think small-scale (though widespread), grassroots solutions might be better.
Great that you have questions.
If you seek you will find the answers.
Too many say just that this can’t be done… not asking how.
You can google it or find the info you need at the Venus Project and Zeitgeist Movement.
I believe small-scale would be better then today’s system, but we need high efficiency to feed all humans.
Example: you have drought in a place, then you need a global response. (Huge storage in Greenland and Antarctica might do the trick?)
A great interview with a man who has probably forgotten more than the average person will ever know.
Though immediate reaction might be to question his logic, in all reality we can likely use him to calibrate our own.
@wavechild
The answers to those questions can be found at http://www.thezeitgeistmovement.com
There is a FAQ there, with answers to all kinds of questions. This interview does not cover everything, it is too short.
These are common questions, WAVECHILD. Please dig a little deeper.
“Not everyone wants to be a painter or sculptor…”
This is true, and all the more reason to transition away from a monetary based economy. Why? Because there is greater pressure for individuals to fill these roles in a monetary system in order to make money to survive. In a resource based economy, like the one Fresco advocates, there will be complete freedom in this area. Nobody will paint or sculpt unless they want to. They will do it simply because they love doing it, not because they have to do it to survive.
“Carpentry can be an art.”
Sure can, and nobody is going to prevent anyone from doing it.
“A lot of people enjoy the work they do.”
Exactly.
To many people, payment is secondary. If all necessities are provided in abundance, these people are likely to continue on in their line of work without demanding compensation. People like astronomers, biologists, chemists, doctors, teachers etc. etc., do what they do because it is their passion. These individuals will flourish in a resource based economy, where the stress of survival is eliminated.
“How would this city promote responsible use of resources?”
See the FAQ page on http://www.TheVenusProject.com for a summary of how resources will be allocated. It is question #48.
In short, humans won’t directly determine resource allocation. Resources are to be distributed autonomously based on need.
With that said, how will responsible use be ensured? We would have to investigate the sociological root causes of such misuse of resources and evolve out of it. Materialistic values would need to be outgrown. They are a product of the capitalistic system and carefully researched advertising campaigns intended to manufacture demand, but have nothing to do with “human nature.” There is a tremendous amount of anthropological evidence of this if you are willing to look. Alternatively, look up “The Century of Self” on youtube. It really boils down to cultural values.
There are so many other ways I could go with that, including technical safety measures, but I apologize as I am trying to be brief. This topic is discussed frequently. See FAQ #88 for how to counter “the problem of excess.”
In a society of abundance, people will cease to hoard material possessions, if they can be acquired wherever they go. It will become a burden to own. This is discussed in the Zeitgeist Movement Activist Orientation Guide as well, beginning at the bottom of page 67. Examples are used.
I’m also reminded of a quote from Fight Club when Brad Pitt’s character discusses the burden of ownership. “The things you own end up owning you.”
“Why would the change to this reality automatically eliminate the dark side of humanity?”
Money, and the pursuit of it, is at the root of most of society’s problems. Consider the connection to crime rate. The famous Merva-Fowles study found a strong statistical correlation between unemployment and crime. The study surveyed, I believe, 30 major metropolitan cities over the course of a decade.
It found that a 1% rise in unemployment led to a:
6.7% increase in homicides;
3.4 % increase in violent crimes;
2.4 % increase in property crime.
Money doesn’t even serve a worthy incentive to creative productivity. It narrows focus and inhibits creativity. See Daniel Pink’s lecture on TED Talks (can be found on youtube). He goes over several studies establishing this fact.
Competition is another sociological issue that needs to be addressed. There is plenty of evidence demonstrating that competition is not inevitable “human nature,” and furthermore, there is a tremendous amount of evidence that shows that competition is actually extremely detrimental to progress, happiness and social conduct. For more on this topic, read “No Contest: The Case Against Competition” by Alfie Kohn, which cites a ton of studies spanning the decades on this topic. Much of the book is available for free on Google Books.
The point is, you need to take a sociological stance. A scientific one. Nobody is born evil, they are merely reflections of their environment. Change the environment, change the people.
Wow, this man is brilliant. I started reading some of the links posted above for The Zeitgeist Movement and I can’t believe how much sense it makes.
This is what we need to bring about real change in the world!
I read the the FAQ at the Zeitgeist movement and I still don’t see it. I guess it just doesn’t make sense to have a huge centralized thing when there are low-tech solutions that we are already capable of implementing, which we wouldn’t have to spend all our time doing (like permaculture, for example). Reading through the FAQ, I couldn’t picture a role for people. I get what they’re trying to say, I just don’t see it as being suited to humans.
Not to say some ideas aren’t great- I believe it’s true that the way we manage our resources now is destructive, and it also seems obvious that our governments don’t have our best interests in mind. Still, I think there are better, more realistic solutions. This one is a tad in the realm of fantasy for me.
Some simple steps we can take to towards creating a new, sustainable and humane society right now:
1) Stop supporting the corrupt Federal Reserve Banking Cartel. Put your money in a local savings and loans or credit union.
2) Get off the electrical grid as much as possible. Use solar or other sustainable energy sources.
3) Don’t participate in (or let others close to you join) the military.
4) Don’t vote democrat or republican. Vote for an independent candidate since both major parties are controlled by the same powerful corporate powers.
5) Stop watching and reading mainstream and commercial media and programming.
6) Join the movement!
om
Only Information is centralized. Production and distribution is as local as possible.
I think I would become an astronaut and astronomer.
I would like to congratulate everyone who is working hard at sincerely improving the world we live in. There are many great ideas and visions that are being shared, and nonetheless a positive change is underway.
There are two things which I would like to ask, and apologies if they have already been asked before and answered elsewhere.
1) What does the movement think of Genetically modified organisms and cloned beings in both the food scenario and otherwise ?
2) Does the movement advocate the idea of use of surveillance cameras within the system ?
Many thanks to whoever would like to answer or point me to an answer on these two.
Best wishes.
@ PEPPI
Important questions indeed.
1) The Zeitgeist Movement (TZM) does not advocate GMOs. I would add, however, that TZM avoids fighting case-by-case symptoms that stem from a profit driven society. GMOs are a symptom of a much broader problem, i.e. the profit motive and how our society continues to reinforce aberrant behavior.
2) TZM does not advocate use of surveillance. Again, surveillance is a sign of inefficiency in any social system. A true functioning society wouldn’t need such measures.
If we take a big step back and view modern day problems through the lens of science, we can realize the root cause of many issues and thus have a clear perspective on real social change. This is the most valuable understanding TZM advocates.
Hope that helps.
- Tristan
“If governments get control of the Internet, you can say goodbye to freedom. They would like to take over and privatize everything if they can”
That doesn’t even make sense. If the government takes something over it is the opposite of privatized. The Internet runs on privately owned networks. That’s a good thing. If it was publicly owned it would be censored and slow. Can you guys not see how screwy this guy is? He’s going to build a world without money? This guy is nostalgic for his teenage years when communism was untried. LMAO!
And YES I looked at the website. Let’s see…
“To transcend these limitations, The Venus Project proposes we work toward a worldwide, resource-based economy, in which the planetary resources are held as the common heritage of all the earth’s inhabitants.”
Repackaging Communism for a new generation of idiots.
“The current practice of rationing resources through monetary methods is irrelevant, counter-productive, and falls far short of meeting humanity’s needs.”
Needs are dynamic. Nothing could meet everyone’s needs at all times. But NO SYSTEM has lifted more people out of poverty than free market capitalism. That’s because you have to create wealth in order to make wealth. Everyone gets richer. Evidence: Poor people in our country have cell phones video games and new cars.
“Simply stated, a resource-based economy utilizes existing resources – rather than money – to provide an equitable method of distribution in the most humane and efficient manner. It is a system in which all goods and services are available to everyone without the use of money, credits, barter, or any other form of debt or servitude.”
Money has so many advantages over this type of system I couldn’t list them all but there is a reason we don’t trade wheat for barley anymore.
“To better understand a resource-based economy, consider this. If all the money in the world disappeared overnight, as long as topsoil, factories, personnel and other resources were left intact, we could build anything we needed to fulfill most human needs.”
Money exists because it solves obvious problems like not being able to carry 10 tons of sugar with you. Instead you would have a pocket full of gold coins. If that got too heavy you would deposit it in a bank for a small fee, and you would carry the receipts with you which you could give to others as a medium of payment. Oops paper currency.
“It is not money that people require, but rather free access to most of their needs without worrying about financial security or having to appeal to a government bureaucracy.”
CAN’T SOMEONE ELSE PAY FOR IT? Yeah that’s what people really need.
“Change the environment, change the people”
Give people a life without necessity and you will create legions of buffoons capable only of demanding what others produce.”In a resource-based economy of abundance, money will become irrelevant.”
This guy actually thinks Star Trek is real.
“We have arrived at a time when new innovations in science and technology can easily provide abundance to all of the world’s people.”
And how did we “arrive” at all these innovations? Oh that was the free market. The one that uses money.
“It is no longer necessary to perpetuate the conscious withdrawal of efficiency by planned obsolescence, perpetuated by our old and outworn profit system.”
Profit is an information system which tells entrepreneurs where demand is outstripping supply. Where profits are being made, competitors will create more supply. The result is we don’t run out of what we need and we don’t have to go far to get it. Profit, or I should say, the freedom to pursue profit, literally saves lives every minute of every day. This guy is a complete ignoramus.
“The aim of this new social design is to encourage an incentive system no longer directed toward the shallow and self-centered goals of wealth, property, and power. These new incentives would encourage people toward self-fulfillment and creativity, both materially and spiritually.”
So you want to eliminate the system which has provided the most opportunity of any system ever devised in history and give communism another chance. Also your cities are ugly.
That’s life sometimes if you’ve time to reflect everybody knows the wealthy remain wealthy the poor remain poor. that’s life been like that 100s years, People are happy to not ask questions just act normal,sheep. Nothing will change till every individual thinks the same and that’s impossible people are people but us humans feel the need to label other peolpe?= not sure why, and how do you measure success/wealth. Think Prince Charles,William born into a family who.. well are/have they or any politician ever lived our lives. Yet they have the right to judge us. impose laws We shouldn’t judge but we do,we should learn by our mistakes but often there repeated. The definition of insanity is repeating behaviour knowing to be stupid. Money isn’t as important as people think its just paper,but without that paper you wont eat.get far. They say money is at the root of all evil, I now believe it makes the world go round. the odd person is evil;greedy. Stop spending what you don’t have, live within your means. Id bring back national service as behaviour is learned and the youth has a whole generation of “kids” growing up in a poor environment with (bad) parents for role models. Good and bad habits are a big influence. The problem can only get worse with a widening gap between the rich/poor. Kids nowadays are a world apart..not knowing right from wrong. Education is the answer. Unfortunately state schools compared to private are again worlds apart. Children adapt quickly and hopefully good will prevail over evil.
Ben O sounds like a very angry and frightened person who resorts to mocking, name calling and misrepresentation of the issues rather than serious consideration and debate. This is always the approach of people wanting to keep the status quo, but it won’t work forever. Those suffering are beginning to demand changes and laughs and insults will not deter them from causing change. So it’s not a matter of if you want change, Ben O, but rather what kind of change? Instead of dragging your feet, come and help.
Greenfinger, I agree that future generations will always be the best resource for change, but that doesn’t mean we can’t get started now. If we don’t make an effort now, the children won’t even be aware that change is needed.