Abundance for all through elimination of money?

Utopia or more?

The incredible project of a american architect,

who is convinced, he has found a way out of the economic- and financial crisis.

- Welcome to Newton

Recalling the news of the past years

two ever repeating core topics keep reccurring

on one hand the financial and economical crisis

poverty, unemployment, everybody running short on money

and the environmental crisis on the other.

How long will our planet keep enduring us?

We could ask ourselves:

Does it have to be like this,

are there alternatives and if so, which?

A american architect proposes a radical cut.

Since 40 years Jacque Fresco is working on an counter model

that shall provide abundance for all.

Of course, such promises must always be handled with care.

But as long as we do not have any alternatives to offer,

good ideas are always in demand.

Decide, if the architect's Venus Project would be one of those good ideas.

The Venus Project

is a plan for social change that is feasible.

It works towards a peaceful and sustainable global civilization

where human beings, technology and nature coexist.

For the initiator it outlines an alternative to strive for

where human rights are not only paper proclamations

but a way of life.

Jacque Fresco calls for a straightforward redesign of the culture

in which war, poverty, hunger, debt and unnecessary human suffering are viewed not only as avoidable

but totally unacceptable,

because its becoming increasingly obvious

that the problems we face today will continue in the future.

The Venus Project's research center

constructed by Fresco and Roxanne Meadows

is located in Venus, Florida.

Here the two try to understand the causes of the problems in society.

Where do these problems actually originate?

When money is used

to regulate and distribute resources for profit

people and nations will seek advantage at any cost.

They do this by maintaining a competitive edge

or through military intervention.

War represents the supreme failure of nations

to resolve their differences.

From a strictly pragmatic standpoint

it is the most inefficient waste of lives and resources ever conceived.

Over 100,000 companies feed at the Pentagon trough.

But the big money goes to a handful of huge corporations.

For those who profit by the military-industrial complex,

it is a windfall, money-making opportunity.

If the profit were taken out of wars

do you really believe we would have them?

(Jacque Fresco) If they draft you into the army to serve this country

you put up your life for this country

they should draft all the war industries:

every cannon maker, machine gun maker

automobiles, jeeps, warships - all drafted,

so they're on the same basis of pay as the army.

Then it's real. But if you make millions selling warships

and machine guns to the army, then it's corrupt.

If I had my way, if we had millions of men in the army

I'd send them to school to become problem solvers

how to get along with other nations.

That's what we have to do, not kill.

Soldiers are just killing machines; they're trained to kill.

Social and environmental problems remain insurmountable,

as long as only a few control the majority of the world's resources

and profit is more important than the welfare of the people.

Excessive profiteering leads to aberant behavior

which is widely spread today.

Some people assume

that we simply need more and better laws,

in order to solve our problems.

We have many laws, thousands and thousands,

they are just broken constantly.

You can predict the shape of the future and the values if you know

the trends of events in the ocean pollution, the scarcity of arable land.

If you watch that degrading system grow

I can predict the riots and killing and assassination.

Human behavior is really generated by the surrounding environment.

If there's a scarcity, say of water,

it is prized and its price is high.

Let's discuss scarcity as a system.

Suppose it rained gold for about 3 days, gold dust.

People would go out and shovel it in, fill their cellars, the attic,

every drawer in the house. They'd throw out their clothing.

If the rain kept up for a year so that gold was all over the place,

people would sweep it out of the house,

take their rings off, throw them away.

And so human behavior undergoes change to that condition.

There's only a policeman in front of something

that people have need for, and don't have access to,

so you put a guard there.

But if lemon trees, orange trees and apple trees, grew all over the place,

you couldn't sell it.

If you landed on an island that was so abundant with resources,

you had 10 people, there were a thousand fish for every person

if you wanted it, there were 10 times the amount

of breadfruit and bananas

money would not come into existence. Private property would not come into existence.

If the island was big enough:

there were 10 people, there were 8000 acres

no one would give a damn about staking out this particular area.

So, we'd better take care of the environment, we'd better take care of one another

and we'd better educate people to the highest possible levels of our ability

in order to have a society."

For Fresco Earth still has enough resources for everyone.

Our practice, to ration these with high prices,

is outdated and counter-productive to our survival.

Today we have the most advanced technologies available.

These could create a world

where everything is available in abundance,

without slavery and debt.

But how could that be possible?

There is not enough money on this planet

to provide housing and food for everyone -

and certainly not enough to achieve these ambitious goals.

At the same time there are more than enough resources

to satisfy the needs of all people -

they must only be managed intelligently.

Jacque Fresco envisions a solution that he calls

a Resource Based Economy.

It is a socio-economic system,

in which all goods and services are available to everyone

without the use of money barter, credit, debt or servitude of any kind.

An economic system

which is unlike any social system

that has gone before.

Fresco arrived at this direction

through 75 years of study and experimental research.

Jacque Fresco: "A Resource-Based Economy operates on the basis

of available resources and makes those resources

available to every human being on earth

free of charge, without a price tag.

We have today more than enough resources to build a far more advanced society.

I'm not talking about limited handouts so that people just get by.

I'm talking about a very advanced civilization.

We have the resources, we have the technology,

all we have to do is apply it.

A social system can be designed

so that all can live fully and constructively

if the powers of science and technology are directed

toward human and environmental concern.

and overcoming the artificial scarcities

of our debt-based monetary systems.

All people, regardless of political philosophy, social customs or religious differences

ultimately depend upon the same resources:

clean air and water

arable land

medical care

and a relevant education.

The human species is a single family and the world is home to everyone.

Neither nations nor people can co-exist

separately any longer.

Jacque Fresco: "No more separate nations,

so that anyone can go anywhere.

Before the states joined together,

they used to stake out their territory.

They used to fight, they had militias. They would fight:

"This is our territory!" "Oh no you're intruding!"

When all the states joined together,

the government worked out the lines of the states and they agreed.

That was the end of territorial disputes.

If you want the end of war,

you must declare the Earth common heritage."

Our entire infrastructure must be redesigned

and operated as coherent, integrated, total systems.

This means we must consider our entire global community as one unit

that includes everyone and plan accordingly.

Only in this way can we use our technology

to overcome resource shortages

provide universal abundance and protect the environment.

Therefore, a global survey is first needed

to assess exactly what we have.

This would inventory our physical resources, personnel

production centers and the needs of people.

This enables us to determine the amount of goods and services needed.

For instance, where is the arable land to grow crops?

How many people are in various locations

and what is the state of their health?

This would determine

where hospitals are built and how many.

The key to achieving abundance and a high standard of living for all

is to automate as much as possible in the shortest period of time.

Our problems and their solutions are technical, not political.

Most problems can be solved

when technology and the methods of science are used to serve all people,

not just a select few.

Jacque Fresco: "What is it that you want? You have to ask yourself.

I want to live in a world where I don't have to fear

that my children will go into another war

"Do you know how to build that kind of world?"

"No I don't."

How do you go about building?

You call upon the various divisions of science bring them together and say:

"These are the problems we'd like to solve."

A scientific government doesn't mean that scientists rule or control people.

It means they have better means

for building transportation systems better means for cleaning the air,

they have the best means for restoring the oceans that we know of to this day."

Computers can serve the needs of everyone

when cybernation is ultimately integrated into all aspects of this new and dynamic culture.

One can think of this as an electronic nervous system

extending into all areas of the social complex.

Their function would be to coordinate a balance between production and distribution

assuring there are no shortages or overruns.

It's all just talk unless there is a technical plan

to organize and use resources

to accomplish abundance for all.

What follows are some of the many approaches The Venus Project provides for the entire social spectrum.

Today, more than half our population lives in cities that are polluted

dangerous and waste energy.

Jacque Fresco(1974): "What we have to do is design a city as a living system

as an organism, as a university

that all the cities of the future will be university cities

that grow, that continue to exchange ideas.

The city will have a built-in transportation system so there are no accidents

and no unthought out areas of technology.

Medicine, botany, agriculture, the total system: one planning system.

It is actually better to build newer cities from the ground up than to restore and maintain old ones.

Fresco uses a systems approach to designing new cities. They're desirable and pleasant places to live.

The notion that intelligent overall planning

implies mass uniformity is absurd.

Cities would be uniform only to the degree

that they would require far less materials, save time and energy

and be flexible enough to allow for innovative changes

while preserving the local ecology.

Jacque Fresco: "If we design our cities

to meet human needs,

you don't have most of the problems that are prevalent today.

In the central dome you have childcare

schools, dental care, medical care.

In the production and design of the cities

we work out 1/8th of the city system and then we reproduce it

instead of having architects design each building and each structure