Rob Star’s New World Musings

 
Commentary

As the sun shone in Minehead last week for the second day of the Bloc Weekender, I found myself in one of the sites fine public houses (they’re actually really shit, but they seemed amazing at 11am with the sun shining!), discussing the meaning of life, the universe and everything with a rag tag bunch of misfits. How we got on to the subject of Jacques Fresco and The Venus Project U’m not sure, but for me just the fact that I was talking about these concepts with people who I barely knew shows that they are in peoples consciousness and for me that means they are only a step away from reality. Anyway, I digress, so who is Jaque Fresco and What is The Venus Project…

Jacque Fresco was born in 1916 and is a self educated social engineer, industrial designer, author, lecturer, futurist, inventor and creator of The Venus Project.

A major theme of The Venus Project, is the concept of a resource-based economy that replaces the need for monetary economy we have now, which is “scarcity-oriented” or “scarcity-based”. Fresco argues that the world is rich in natural resources and energy and that with modern technology and judicious efficiency the needs of the global population can be met with abundance, while at the same time removing the current limitations of what is deemed possible due to notions of economic viability.

He gives this example to help explain the idea:

“At the beginning of World War II the U.S. had a mere 600 or so first-class fighting aircraft. We rapidly overcame this short supply by turning out more than 90,000 planes a year. The question at the start of World War II was: Do we have enough funds to produce the required implements of war? The answer was No, we did not have enough money, nor did we have enough gold; but we did have more than enough resources. It was the available resources that enabled the US to achieve the high production and efficiency required to win the war. Unfortunately this is only considered in times of war.”
Fresco states that for this to work, all of the Earth’s resources must be held as the common heritage of all people and not just a select few; and the practice of rationing resources through monetary methods is irrelevant and counter-productive to the survival of human civilization. Check the website for his own explanation of how we can really benefit from not being constrained by the illusion of money…

The Burning Man Festival in the Nevada Desert is a great modern day example of this idealistic situation in action, having witnessed it first hand it is an amazing example of how, given the right conditions, people will work together to ensure everyone has enough resources and it really does work. Could this be a blueprint for the future of humanity? It certainly seems like a viable alternative to where we’re at right now!

How can we still be living in a world where a government of one country can still kill innocent civilians of another in the name of war with no comeback? As we move further and further towards a Global dictatorship, surely we need to pull our heads out of the sand and look to a more humane alternative, that benefits the many rather than the few…

Is it a utopian dream or our only option? At the age of 94, Jacque will probably never see his dreams become a reality, but as he says… It is not enough to criticize society without offering a workable alternative.

Rob Star