Designing the Future

About a month ago, I came across a very interesting e-book called “Designing the Future”, written by Jacque Fresco – a forward-thinking sociologist, who has crafted a very concise vision of a new and better world order.

Fresco begins by giving an overview of the world we’re living in today, accentuating:

• - global warming, climate change, pollution, water scarcity, energy shortages…
• - further widening of the rich&poor gap
• - fewer corporations owning more and more companies
• - the media can’t be trusted anymore as it’s owned by corporations, etc.
  

What does he believe to be the underlying cause for the undeniable state of the world described just above?

Well, according to Fresco, greed and crime are considered by many people an integral part of human nature, whereas he finds greed to be the mere by-product of scarcity.

Scarcity in turn, is the outcome of the monetary system that keeps people, organizations and countries in a perpetual state of debt, and is responsible for the negative consequences of globalization: outsourcing-caused unemployment, environmental degradation, etc.

Fresco calls for a new vision, postulating the concept of a resource-based economy. He argues that the world is rich enough in natural resources and energy, and that solely by using technology we can meet the needs of the entire global population.

In a resource-based economy, “there would be no need for patents or proprietary information since the end goal is not to make money in order to continue working, but to achieve results that are freely and quickly available to the planet’s entire population.”

What else is new in a resource-based economy?

• - Money is no longer the medium of exchange and profit is not the measure of value
• - There is no need for advertising, as all goods and services are freely available to the population
• - Social and environmental responsibility is no longer an outcome of governmental regulation. If people and organizations have resources available to them without a price, then they have no reason to act in a socially or environmentally irresponsible way
  

This vision might sound to some of us utopian, alien or simply “a nice, but an unrealistic idea”. The reason behind may be that we have adhered to the social values of the monetary system for so long, that we are now afraid to question its very fundamentals.

I have no doubt in my mind that a resource-based economy is what mankind should be striving to create in the future.

The most important questions however still remain unanswered:

• How do we shift from the monetary system to the resource-based economy?
• What are the revolutionary and evolutionary changes that need to be brought about, in order for human civilization to move towards this new society?
• And finally, what is our role in this process as individuals – what can we do?
  

What do you think?

It’s interesting that Fresco had most of this vision already designed as back as 35 years ago: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RVOPkGAtt48

For more on Jacque’s work, see: http://www.thevenusproject.com/.

If you want to read the book, click here: http://www.zeitgeistmovie.com/DesigningtheFuture.pdf