- We live in a world of perpetual warfare and crime and corruption.
Protest after protest, that continue to go perpetually. It seems that we need a different approach
How does The Venus Project approach this?
- If you really wish to bring an end to war, poverty, hunger, and most crimes,
what we have to do, eventually through education,
is declare all of the earth's resources as the common heritage of all the world's people.
I see that as the only means. So, this is what we have to strive toward.
I don't say this can be accomplished in one swoop. It's a slow process of education.
- Why do you propose such a radical change?
- Well, I would like to see an end to war, poverty, unnecessary human suffering,
and I can't see it within a monetary-based system
I see a constant repeat of the same series of events: war, poverty, recession…
- Is monetary economics at the root of the problem and can it be fixed?If it can't be fixed, why not?
- Frankly, within this system, in order to survive, you have to submit to the methods of this system.
A lawyer is not out there to help you always. There is money in it for the law firm.
In other words, the motivation is not what you would call based on human concern.
It's based on the bottom line.
The motivation in most industries, the bottom line is profit, not the betterment of humanity;
and they would feel that that is a by-product of this system. I don't believe that.
It's that the rules of the game were invented so many years ago,
they no longer fit the economic circumstances of the times.
What we would like to do is update our system, so that it fits the new technology.
- Would the election of people with higher moral content solve the problem?
No, because even if we succeeded in electing people of unquestionable moral character,
if we ran out of resources, there would be lying, cheating, stealing, and artificialities.
It isn't moral character that we need. It is the intelligent management of the earth's resources.
The real future depends on our ability to solve scarcity problems,
overcome those problems through our own creative ingenuity.
- What is a resource-based economy, and how does that compare with a monetary-based economy?
- In a monetary based economy, we use money as a medium of exchange.
Now, money doesn't represent our capacity to produce.
It just represents a method designed hundreds of years ago and established within the system.
In the monetary-based system, it's wealth, property and power, and that is the main directive.
Now, today we say "How much will it cost?" That is not really the question.
The real question is "Do we have the resources to build that kind of project?"
Yes, we do. "Do we have the money? " No, we don't.
but we have more than enough resources available to build anything we want to build.
If you have difficulty with that, consider this:
Suppose all the money in the world disappeared tomorrow morning.
As long as there are farms, water, building materials, we can build anything we want to build.
It isn't money that people need; it's access to resources.
In other words, it was necessary, a hundred years ago, to use a monetary system for the distribution of products.
Today, we have the technology to make those things available. What are we chiseling off each other for?
A resource-based economic system does not use money, barter, trade, or any of the older systems that were prevalent.
It's based on designing a culture that fits in with the carrying capacity of the world's resources.
Anything else other than that will not work.
It's like sending people to the moon without water, without food, operating on the assumption that the moon will provide.
It has to be based... All science and technology must be based upon resources.
Without resources, whatever planning you do, if you don't have the resources, is invalidated.
So, the resources must coincide with the industrial potential.
- How does that offer a different approach to our society?
- It would change the basic outlook of people.
There will be no such thing as unemployment, no such thing as war, no police, no prisons, no banks, no money;
but people would have access to new housing, education, health care,
and all of the things we don't have access to today without putting out a great deal of money.
- If I read you correctly, no money, no credit, no borrowing, no debt, no bartering?
Where is the incentive?
- No war, no territorial disputes, crime reduction by about 90%,
the end of fear of economic deprivation or losing your home
or illnesses which you can not afford economically to take care of.
All that comes to an end. If that isn't a good enough incentive, I don't know what is.
A lot of people are brought up to believe that money is the driving force that generates incentive.
It also generates incentive for corruption, embezzlement,
taking care of your brother-in-law, unfair practices, racial discrimination.
I'm saying that, yes, money does produce incentive, but it also produces all the other factors, which are generally left out.
I would say the people we remember in history are not the people who made a buck or made a lots of money.
They are people that have given their lives to benefit the lives of other people without financial gain.
I'm saying, the real people that we admire are the people who did public works,
not because of the monetary incentive. I'm afraid of people that do things for money. I don't feel secure about it.
- What about 'human nature'?
I think that environment shapes values and behavior.
Genetics, to a certain extent, set the propensity, but they do not give us a value system.
Genetics is not responsible for greed, bigotry, racism, prejudice. All that is learned.
If you don't alter the condition that generates that, I don't see a solution.
What The Venus Project advocates is the redesign of our culture, so that those conditions no longer exist.
- What about scarcity? Can that be eliminated?
Do we have enough resources to satisfy the growing population in the world?
Yes, today we have more than enough, and it is incontestably proven that we have more than enough.
It's just that the ways we manage our resources are wasteful.
We change the design of automobiles every year, so people will buy new cars.
We change the spring fashion, the fall fashion, the winter fashion, so you will buy things and constantly be involved in purchasing things.
So, we will engineer, innovate, and make newer things designed not to wear out and break down
- What does The Venus Project represent?
One world working in one direction,
the intelligent management of resources, and upgrading the standard of living for all the world's people
with profits to none and service to everyone.
- So how do you envision a transition into this type of system?
If you keep bringing in machines and replacing human beings,
the majority of people throughout the world will not have the purchasing power to buy goods or services.
This will bring an end to the old monetary system.
I would see economic collapse as the only system that would bring people around to say:
"Gee, I see that the people I've elected into political office are not competent enough to get us out of this problem,"
and they will be looking for other possible alternatives.
The more people know about it, the more likely that it may be installed.
The Venus Project does not say "This is what the future will be." All it says is "This is what the future can be.
And that is what The Venus Project has to offer:
the methodology of how to achieve a higher standard of living for all the world's people
without the creation of the uniformity or standardization, or subservience to an elite form that manages government.
- What problems stand in the way of us implementing of this type of transition?
- Traditions, habits, indoctrination, propaganda.
We are all propagandized to accept our system as the best system.
We are all given stories about the culture, our cultural history, and which has left out the detrimental aspects.
All societies tend to support the dominant values of that society.
There is no such thing as an 'objective society'.
If there were, you couldn't have German scientists,
American scientists, British scientists, Dutch scientists, French scientists working in serving their government.
Real science has no allegiance to government. It only has allegiance to methodology.
So, this is not a loyalty to the Fresco system, or loyalty to The Venus Project. I'd be against that.
You have loyalty to the Earth and all the people that live on it.
- Who decides what the future will be?
- I don't think anyone ought to decide what the future will be,
but we ought to decide where we wish to go and what kind of world we wish to live in,
and do we have the facilities and resources to build such a world?
he answer to that is "Yes, we do have the ability and resources to build such a world."
There is no way for you to make it on your own. Either we think globally or we perish individually.
We Welcome your criticism of The Venus Project
We welcome the participation of everybody and the contributions.
We have no idea of what the ideal society would be, nor do we entertain such views as Utopia.
We feel that all systems will constantly change to whatever conditions are necessary to fit the needs of the times.
We have no fixed blueprints, so we invite participation, and we invite recommended changes
because the history of civilization is the story of change.
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