The Venus Project And Resource-Based Economy - Transformation Towards Truly Anarchistic Social System
[ Picture source ]
I was introduced to concept of anarchism in middle of nineties. I was 15 years old. My friend lent me few anarchist zines to read. It was before the internet was properly established, so I found these to be the best sources of information related to this topic. Although my vision of anarchism was very infantile and ignorant at that time, the idea got into me right away and became part of my life philosophy. Following 10 years, with the help of the internet, I had explored this concept even more until I kept bumping into major intellectual riddle - I couldn't figure out how to sustainably reconcile anarchism with the notions of property and monetary system.
This issue kept troubling for many years until 4 years ago someone advised me to read the book "The Best That Money Can't Buy" by Jacque Fresco. While I was reading it, for the first time things started to become clearer to me and I realized that I found the answer to my riddle. Simply, I got it all wrong. It appeared that my views about anarchism were out of date. The answer was obvious - you just cannot reconcile monetary system with notion of property with anarchism. They just do not fit together due to serious differences in core foundations of these systems.
To look for the solutions, I had to start searching outside of the box of monetary systems. I had to shift my conceptualizations towards the future, instead of dwelling upon past and obsolete concepts of money based system. Anarcho-communism, anarcho-capitalism, anarcho-syndicalism - they all circle around notions of money built upon antiquated knowledge.
[ J. Fresco with his designs. Picture source ]
Jacque Fresco is a futurist, social engineer and self-taught industrial and structural engineer.
He offers a complete new and revolutionary social system called Resource-Based Economy. This system offers a completely new approach to redesigning our society. This system does not revolve around notions of money or politics. It, actually completely rejects monetary system political management.
Resource-Based Economy (or Natural Law-Based Economy) means application of scientific method for social and environmental concern. It is a system designed with intelligent management of planet's resources which puts betterment of social well being and natural environment, as priority.
[ J. Fresco with R. Meadows standing in front of The Venus Project. Picture source ]
Jacque Fresco with help of Roxanne Meadows for decades kept on improving this invention by meticulously and extensively exploring and applying numerous different branches of science and engineering related to science of human behavior, genetics, industrial design, structural engineering, architectural design, robotization/automation, cybernetics, socio-engineering, psychology, and many others.
Later Fresco and Meadows founded The Venus Project where they continued their research and promoted the idea of RBE. The project is based in Venus, Florida.
The main focus of the project has been design of completely sustainable RBE city, in which all manual human labor is substituted by machines (automation of work). Everything is managed by supercomputers with human supervision. Each element of the city (factories, recycling facilities, transportation, housing, roads, vertical farms, recreation etc.) is designed to perform specific function. No resources are being wasted for pointless designs.
[ Some of J. Fresco designs and models. Picture source ]
RBE is an emerging and evolving type of system which is constantly being improved and updated. Every time when there is new scientific or technological discovery, the system is being upgraded.
I found RBE to be the first, truly sustainable system in which private property does not exist, because it has no need to. It is a system where abundance of products and services is created through automation and cybernetic management of means of production. Just like in current automated production processes but on large scale.
[ Plan of RBE city. Picture source ]
Because of the abundance, there is no need for anyone to steal or hoard anything. If you need a product, you pick it up or borrow it from distribution centre without any cost. You bring it back when you don't need it on when it breaks down. In similar way like borrow books from the library. Even the houses are abundant and before you build your own new house, you can design it the way you like it. The house is being constructed in very short time using specially designed machines.
[ Spaceship concept. Picture source ]
If you need a transport, then you simply collect a car from the nearest distribution centre. All cars are self driven so when you need to don't need them and abandon them, they drive themselves back to their original location. If there is a need for you to make a journey to a different city, then you have an option of using ultrafast magnetic levitation trains.
[ RBE city transportation. Picture source ]
[ Mag-lev train within RBE city. Picture source ]
Hierarchical structure and leadership does not exist in RBE. Every person is an equal part of the system regardless of age, sex or color of skin. Concept of competition is completely rejected and replaced with cooperation. Sharing and cooperating is an intrinsic part and is rewarded and incentivized. Everyone is working together with others to solve social, environmental, scientific and technological problems. There are no jobs, because every person volunteers. Their contribute to the system according to their individual abilities and aptitudes. For example, some may express themselves better as doctors, while others prefer being an engineer or deep ocean explorer. The incentive to do work comes from the power of being able to contribute to the improvement of social and natural environment. This behavior arrives from understanding that, we all share one environment, so what is sustainable for others is also sustainable for us. This capacity to share and work together is the most powerful motivation. Because there is no employment, everyone has a lot of time for leisure and to pursue many personal goals. People can truly release their creative potential and express themselves with art, hobbies or physical activities.
[ Modular freighter. Picture source ]
We have all required resources, technology and know how enabling us introduce Resource-Based Economy, but we have to remember that we cannot do it straight away. Of course, any social change needs progressive transformation. It seems to me that cryptocurrencies are very valuable technology which could help with this transformation by bridging fiat monetary system with money-free and anarchist social system such as RBE.
The Venus Project recommends building experimental RBE city first in order to use it as large research centre to test and improve the concept. It would be like a big university and scientific hub which is self improving according to emerging nature to reality.
[ Sea city design. Picture source ]
"Introduction To A Resource Based Economy" by The Venus Project
References:
2016 documentary by The Venus Project - "The Choice is Ours".
Fully free to watch for anyone, with subtitles in almost 30 languages.
I will take a seat on the spaceship and don't even care where it is going!
Earth is our one big spaceship floating in the space like "pale blue dot" :-)
True but maybe I want off this little blue dot.....give me a ship, some supplies and blast my ass into the heavens.
I have often felt the same. It would be great to get away from here before it is too late
The Documentaries for anyone who wants to watch them.
Also
Thanks. Second documentary is included in article's references
Oh i don't see it what part? Its a bit of a long read so i also seen the picture references.
It's in references.
Also, there is new recent video by TVP in the end of article before references called "Introduction to a RBE"
Ummm. Zeitgeist had 1 part that was worth watching. That's on money creation. How we create money is bad as money=debt creates poverty. The reason they run a fiat currency where money=debt is to steal resources. That's the basics. My problem with a resource based economy is it seems like we're eliminating the step of creating money out of thin air to eventually steal resources and just giving oligarchs direct control of the resources.
Thanks for your comment.
"My problem with a resource based economy is it seems like we're eliminating the step of creating money out of thin air to eventually steal resources and just giving oligarchs direct control of the resources."
You can't be further from the truth about The Venus Project.
I recommend watching the above videos in the end of article.
The best would be to read the book mentioned above but if you can't then TVP FAQ on their website is very good and comprehensive :-)
Also, The Venus Project has not had anything to do with The Zeitgeist Movement since 2013 when P. Joseph decided to promote TVP ideas. They broke any cooperation in 2013.
It's an interesting experiment.
Have you heard of R. Buckminster Fuller?
He has a book called Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth, and other books to turn weaponry tech into living teach and elevate all our standards of living.
Take care. Peace.
Of course I did. He was one of pioneers of RBE ;-)
Communism + robots. If its voluntary, go for it, but you wont catch me anywhere near this. You should be reading Mises and Rothbard instead of Fresco, hes a likeable guy but he missed economics class.
Hah ok :-)
Excellent article!
Just one minor disagreement,it is not essential IMO to either anarcho-communism or anarcho-syndicalism to integrate the monetary system.
Wikipedia on anarcho-communism:
Anarcho-communism stresses egalitarianism, the abolition of social hierarchy, and class distinctions arising from unequal wealth distribution, as well as the abolition of money and private property (while retaining respect for personal property). Replacing these approaches would be collective production and distribution of goods by means of voluntary association. In anarchist communism, the state and private property would no longer exist. Each individual and group would be free to contribute to production and to satisfy their needs based on their own choice. Systems of production and distribution would be managed by their participants.
And on anarcho-syndicalism:
Anarcho-syndicalists seek to abolish the wage system, regarding it as "wage slavery", and state or private ownership of the means of production, which they believe lead to class divisions. Not all seek to abolish money per se. Ralph Chaplin states that "the ultimate aim of the General Strike as regards wages is to give to each producer the full product of his labor. The demand for better wages becomes revolutionary only when it is coupled with the demand that the exploitation of labor must cease."[159]
I believe that the real problem is that both these philosophies failed because the time was not ripe, the market and state forces were too strong.
And now we need a different model, a post scarcity anarchism, or communalism. A resource based economy is the logical conclusion to post scarcity thinking. But how to make the transition? Obviously technology is at the core of this
I will be posting articles about transition models soon, And I hope you will participate in the dicussion, because I think transition models are urgent.
Very interesting comment. I think that anarcho-communism is the closest to RBE but unfortunately this anarchistic system (as well as the other mentioned above) do not offer logical and comprehensive means and solution explaining how to make such system sustainable. There is very little science there and application of technology. These systems are very scientifically underinformed and in some parts pseudoscientific. They were invented long time ago before we knew so much about human behavior and social engineering. They were invented when technology and science was not as well developed as it is now.
The most important thing in transformation towards RBE is changing current society's value system. The values within our society are primitive and has not changed for thousands of years. They are not up to date with current scientific understandings and level of technology :-)
I'm looking forward to your articles :-)
I've watched that documentary. It's fascinating!
Yes it is very good. I'm glad I'm not the only one into this :-)
Although I am a technologist (Software engineer) and love the benefit to society that all tools bring, not just "hi tech / electronic" tools, I am very skeptical of grandiose projects that seem to elevate technology to the level of a godlike savior.
Take technology like the Internet and blockchains. Like any tool it can be used for good to help people be more free or used for evil to enslave them, for example through surveillance and "big data".
I'm still open to new ideas and new tools but I will not assume an increase in tools and technology will lead to a better world. It is not the tools but rather the intentions within the hearts of mankind that will determine the role technology will play in our future.
James Corbett and Richard Grove have been conducting research and interviews on the subject of "technocracy" which I highly recommend. They both interviewed Patrick Wood, who has done his own research and has written a book about technocracy, it origins and its' evolution going way back over 100 years.
Thank you for your comment and upvote.
RBE is not a technocracy. We cannot debate RBE unless you familiarize yourself with this concept well enough.
I'm not going to ask you to read a book but reading all TVP FAQ on their website is a good introduction. Also those 2 videos in the article are good basic introduction.
Nowhere in TVP it says that technology is a savior. TVP and Fresco clearly say that what need to be changed as priority are human values. It does not matter how advanced science or technology is if we still keep current primitive values which has not changed for thousands of years. One of core research of TVP is fouces on social engineering of human behaviour - application of science of human behavior (human behavioral biology an evolution, genetics, epigenetics, psychology etc) towards redesigning current distorted and unscientific value system towards sustainable one.
https://steemit.com/philosophy/@logic/technophobia-irrational-fear-of-technology-and-it-s-detrimental-consequences-for-our-society
Perhaps as you say I'm not well informed enough about RBE to understand, however the background and history of technocracy was thoroughly discussed by Patrick Wood who made a pretty good case for why RBE and technocracy are nothing more than an agenda (21) being forced upon the world. Are you familiar with Dr. Wood?
I'm open to learning why it is not. You claim it's not but you didn't justify that claim. How is it different? How is it the same? Who decides where a societies' resources should be allocated (who designs the algorithms and by what consensus is that being done)?
I appreciate your reply. I will review the material you linked in it.
No one decides. Like I said, this is CYBERNATED system.
Please familiarize yourself with TVP first. Thanks
Read all FAQ
James Corbett excerpt from: https://www.corbettreport.com/against-utopia/ "Remarkably, even now, long after the 20th century technocrats and their vision of the industrial nirvana have been so thoroughly discredited, after hundreds of years of utopian socialist fantasies have shown to lead to nothing but suffering and bloodshed, there is a new class of technocrats who are rising up to once again offer the masses a technological utopia which will provide for all their needs.
Once again we are being told that in this coming utopia an army of benevolent machines will provide for all our needs. There will be no need for money or property, no need for violence or coercion of any kind ever again. In fact, we are told, this technological revolution will not only transform our society, but human nature itself. Freed from the shackles of want by the machines that will provide for all our needs, humans will no longer be violent or selfish or greedy.
This system, we are told, will be “rational” and “logical.” The machines will know what resources are needed, how to acquire them, and how to distribute them. The machines will be able to calculate our needs and provide for them better than we ever could. The machines will be programmed by scientists, and, we are led to believe, they will always know how many toothbrushes to make.
There is no need to worry about who owns the machines, we are told, no cause for concern about how they are programmed or how they make calculations about things we don’t know. In this utopia, the proponents of this movement tell us, there will be no evil people, no elite class that tries to control others, no one at all who tries to control the system, because human nature itself will no longer allow for it.
Ultimately, perhaps it is not surprising that such utopian fantasies can still attract acolytes."
It was Zeitgheist project and then turned Venus, am I righit?
Interesting...
No, The Zeitgeist Movement and The Venus Project has nothing to do with each other and are not working together, although they both propegate RBE. TZM was founded by Peter Joseph after he learnt about TVP and explored it's concepts.
As good as it sounds, I think a RBE and especially the Venus Project is essentially flawed.
So when you say that anyone can get any product for free, you assume infinite ressources, because anyone could then claim to the have the equal right to possess a spaceshuttle. Who decides about resources allocation, if there are no market prices to prioritize individual needs?
Please familiarize yourself with the work of TVP before making statements from position of ignorance. Read the book or at least whole TVP FAQ first to have some basic understanding of how the system works. It is all well explaained here how limited Earth's resources are managed and how cybernetaed distribution of resources works.
I've read into FAQ and my doubts are even bigger now. I think there will be demand for security and also that the competitive nature of humans can not simply be switched off. But as long as you don't force me into participating in TVP, I'd be interested to see how this turns out :-)
That was quick!
TVP FAQ is so long and comprehensive that you would write a whole book using that material ;-)
Anyway, no one is forcing you to anything. RBE is nto based on force and authority but voluntarism and sharing, as explained above in the article and FAQ ;-)
About human competitiveness. It is not a part of human nature. Being competitive is a learnt behavior. You are not born competitive, compassionate, greedy, empathic, cooperative, jealous. These are all behaviors which are shaped by the environment (biological social and psychological factors). RBE does not provide social conditions to support competitive behaviour. It is all explained int the article above and in FAQ.
Anyway, to understand the difference between human nature and human nurture/behaviour, I would recommend and excellent series of lectures from Stanford University called "Introduction to Human Behavioral Biology" (uploaded on YT).
Also, this presentation relates to it (covers aspect of competition in education):
I, also recommend watching "The Choice is Ours" documentary by TVP.
These series of free magazines is quite decent too:
https://www.tvpmagazine.com/
Security - RBE experimental city may need some security provided by the country in which this city would be located. That depends on the country (and which nations would fund it). When other countries follow and start building similar cities, then they would need to provide their own security until they completely transform to fully RBE society. RBE will not happen at the same time in all parts of the world. Some nations may follow later. In the end we should acquire global RBE with no nationalistic divisions.
To prevent one marauder RBE to be tempted to invade some RBE nation, we could introduce RBE voluntary self defense service in to defend in case of invasion. Where anyone regardless of sex would mobilize to protect under threat.