[ 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 It appeared that my views about anarchism were out of date.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.