विकिपीडिया, एक मुक्त ज्ञानकोष से

अनुक्रम 1 Preface 2 Part 1: Monetary Economics 2.1 Chapter 1: Mechanisms & Consequences 2.1.1 The Need for Cyclical Consumption 2.1.2 The Abundance of Scarcity 2.1.3 The Priority of Profit 2.1.4 The Distortion of Values 2.1.5 Fiscal Manipulation 2.2 Chapter 2: The Final Failure 2.2.1 Beyond Irresponsiblity 2.2.2 The Ultimate Outsource 2.2.2.1 Summary of Chapter 2: 3 Part 2: What is Relevant? 3.1 Chapter 3: Natural Law 3.1.1 The Scientific Method 3.1.2 Dynamic Equilibrium 3.1.2.1 Summary of Chapter 3: 3.2 Chapter 4: The Means for Social Evolution 3.2.1 Goals 3.2.2 Method 3.2.3 Tools 3.2.4 Process 3.2.4.1 Summary of Chapter 4: 4 Part 3: A Resource-Based Economy 4.1 Chapter 5: Social Cybernation 4.1.1 The Venus Project 4.1.2 Industry and Labor 4.1.3 Government 4.2 Chapter 6: Cities that think 4.2.1 Circular City 4.2.2 Transportation 4.2.3 Lifestyle 5 Part 4: Overcoming Mythology 5.1 Chapter 7: Nature Vs. Nurture 5.1.1 Human Behavior 5.1.2 The Legal System 5.2 Chapter 8: Functional Spirituality 5.2.1 The Religious Ideal 5.2.2 Talk is Cheap 6 Part 5: Taking Action 6.1 Chapter 9: The Movement 6.1.1 Bridging the Differences 6.1.2 Interdisciplinary Teams 6.2 Notes 6.3 References

Preface

The Zeitgeist Movement is the activist arm of The Venus Project, which constitutes the life long work of industrial designer and social engineer, Jacque Fresco. Jacque currently lives in Venus, Florida, working closely with his associate, Roxanne Meadows. Now, let it be understood that Mr. Fresco will be the first to tell you that his perspectives and developments are not entirely his own, but rather uniquely derived from the evolution of scientific inquiry which has persevered since the dawn of antiquity. Simply put, what The Venus Project represents and what The Zeitgeist Movement hence condones could be summarized as: ‘The application of The Scientific Method for social concern.’

Through the humane application of Science and Technology to social design and decision-making, we have the means to transform our tribalistic, scarcity driven, corruption filled environment into something exceedingly more organized, balanced, humane, sustainable and productive. To do so, we have to understand who we are, where we are, what we have, what we want, and how we are going to obtain our goals. Given the current state of affairs, many of which will be addressed in the first part of this book, the reader should find that we not only need to move in another direction…we have to. The current economic system is falling apart at an accelerating rate, with the prospect of worldwide unemployment occurring on the largest scale ever seen. Simultaneously, we are courting the “point of no return” in regard to the destruction of the environment.

Our current methods of social conduct have proven to have no chance in resolving the problems of environmental destruction, human conflict, poverty, corruption and any other issue that reduces the possibility of collective human sustainability on our planet. It is time we grow up as a species and really examine what the true problems and solutions are, as uncomfortable, untraditional and foreign as they might seem.

This work will first present the current economic problems we face, recognizing root causes, consequences and inevitabilities, while then presenting solutions derived from an assessment of what is actually relevant to life and society. Additionally, information will be provided as to how each one of us can help in this challenge, presenting methods of communication and activism that will hopefully speed up the process of transformation.

It is very important that those who begin this work pause for a moment and think about the windows of perspective they have been indoctrinated into. Considering the current vastness of human values and ideologies, coupled with the identification that grows over time with associations to a particular train of thought, tradition or notion of reality, it can be difficult and even painful for a person to revise or remove the cherished understandings which they have considered true for long periods of time. This ‘ego’ association, coupled with the perpetual state of ‘limited knowledge’ each one of us has, will be the biggest hurdle many will face when reading the information presented here. It is time to broaden our loyalties and affiliations beyond the narrow confines of the marketplace, tradition, and the nation-state to encompass the human species as a whole, along with the planetary environment that supports us all. It is time we view the earth as an indivisible organic whole, a living entity composed of countless forms of life, all brought together in a single community.

If nature has taught us only one thing, it is that the only constant is change. There is no such thing as a Utopia. Therefore, in order for us to grow productively as a species, we need to become experts at “changing our minds” about anything and everything. If you choose to approach this material with a conscious attempt at being open minded and objective, we feel the ideas expressed here will realign your vision of the world, yourself, and the future of our human family in a way that is the most productive, humane and effective.

Part 1: Monetary Economics

Chapter 1: Mechanisms & Consequences

Defining our terms:

The term “Economics” is generally defined as ‘the social science that studies the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services’ ^[1].

As of the early 21st century the prevailing mechanism of virtually all economies worldwide is some form of “Monetary System”. A Monetary System uses an intermediary exchange medium, known as ‘money’, as the means for facilitating employment, production, distribution, and the consumption of goods and services. The use of this medium of monetary exchange, as a basis for an economic system, could be termed: “Monetary Economics”.

While virtually no nation on the planet currently uses anything else but Monetary Economic Theory in its country’s operations, certain variations are indeed present. Generally speaking, these variations have to do with the degree by which the system is controlled by the government of a country. The current ‘sliding scale’, moving from more regulation to less regulation, typically starts with “Communism”^{[note 1]} (maximum state control), passes through Socialism (partial state control), and ends at Capitalism (little to no state control). These variations of economic application could be termed “Social Systems”.

The prevailing Social System of the world today is Capitalism. Capitalism, which is often placed under the umbrella of another theoretical concept known as the “Free Market”, is defined as: “an economic system by which the means of production are owned by private persons, operated for profit, and where investments, distribution, income, production and pricing of goods and services are predominantly determined through the operation of a ‘free market’ ” ^[2]

A “Free market” is essentially an unregulated trading orientation where “the prices of goods and services are arranged completely by the mutual consent of sellers and buyers; hence, the market forces of supply and demand determine prices and allocate available supplies, without government intervention”^[3]. The notion of “Free market” has many interpretations and schools of thought. For example, one of the more extreme, yet currently active ideologies is the “Austrian School”, which condones the notion of “laissez-faire” which basically means having literally no state intervention on economic issues at all. In this perspective, “welfare” and other state sponsored ‘social’ programs would be considered inappropriate.^{[note 2]}

Now, general terminology aside, a very relevant attribute of Monetary Economics is the “Theory of Value”. The level of a product or service’s ‘value’ is derived essentially from two factors ^{[note 3]}

1. The scarcity (availability) of the materials used.
2. The amount of human labor required to produce a product/service.

For instance: Imagine the amount of time and effort it would take to create a simple shirt before the advent of electricity and advanced industrial technology. The overall process might be to: prepare the soil -- plant the cotton seed – oversee the growth period -- pick the cotton -- tease out the seed --- spin the cotton into thread -- weave it into the cloth -- and shape the cloth into shirt form.

Given the above scenario, simply from a human labor standpoint, the value of that shirt would be relatively high and likely sold for a price respective of the extensive labor. The cotton seed (component material) value would be negligible as it is produced as a byproduct of the prior harvest, making its scarcity value very low. Therefore, the real value of this shirt comes from the labor involved.

Now, hypothetically speaking, what if this production process required no human labor at all, while the cotton seed/water/sunlight/soil maintained its natural abundance? What would the value of that shirt be then? Obviously, it really wouldn’t have a value at all.

As of the start of the 21st century, Industrial Machines have taken the role of planting and harvesting agricultural products to the effect where one lone farmer can now work 1000+ acres of land on his/her own. The advent of textile equipment, such as the Cotton Gin dramatically reduced human effort, while with the modern use of industrial computerization, we are seeing a constant gravitation to the near full automation of the Agricultural and Textile Industries, among many others. The point is that the position of “Economic Value”, as a seemingly static economic notion, is now being overhauled by this technological influence (increasing ease of production/material abundance), which could, theoretically, eliminate the notion of ‘value’ entirely.

When human labor is reduced/displaced by technology and automation, the assumed ‘value’, which is to equate that ‘labor’ to ‘price’, drops respectively. The ‘value’ of the output would then move to the creation/maintenance of the machinery, which now serves as the role of laborers. Consequently, the more efficient, durable and sustainable these worker machines are, the further the ‘Value’ of the production drops.

The realization is that the pattern of machine automation, coupled with modern innovations that are finding substitutions for “scarce” resources, could lead us into a position where no good or service would require a “value” or price tag. It simply wouldn’t make any theoretical sense. For most, this is a very difficult thing to consider, due to what we are used to experiencing in our everyday lives. Regardless of your opinion, the fact is, the pattern of constant technological improvement coupled with automated machinery can theoretically create an economic environment where the abundance of materials and production mediums are so high and efficient, most humans will have little need to ‘purchase’ anything, let alone ‘work for a living’, in the traditional sense. More specifically, even if machines slowly displaced only a large minority of people, expanding unemployment, the ramifications would be systemic, and the entire economic system would grow more and more unstable and inoperable. This issue will be expanded upon in Chapters 2 and 5. That point aside for now, let’s examine some empirical mechanisms that Monetary Economics, specifically in the context of Capitalism, requires in order to maintain the integrity of the system. In the remaining sections of this chapter, we will discuss the 5 most foundational attributes needed for maintaining the system, the reasoning behind them, and their consequences.

The Need for Cyclical Consumption

The roles of people in a monetary system are basically broken into three distinctions:

The Employee, The Consumer, The Employer (or Owner/Producer)^{[note 4]}

The Employee performs tasks for the Employer in exchange for a “Wage” or monetary payment, while the employer sells a good or service to the Consumer for a “Profit”- another classification of monetary payment.

In turn, both the Employer and Employee function as Consumers, for the monetary payments (“wages” and “profits”) they obtain are used to purchase goods and services relevant to their survival. The act of purchasing goods and services, which is the role of the Consumer, is what allows the Employer to make its “Profit”, while also enabling the payment of the Employee’s “Wage”.

In other words, it is the requirement of perpetual ‘Consumption’ that keeps the Employer in business and maintains the Employee’s job.

Now, it is important to understand that this payment-consumption cycle (or ‘cyclical consumption’) cannot stop, or the entire economic structure would collapse, for money would not come to the Employer, the Employer would not be able to afford to pay his Employee, and both the Employer and Employee would not be able to perpetuate the cycle by being a Consumer.

Consequence:

• 1- Nothing physically produced can ever maintain an operational lifespan longer than what can be endured in order to maintain economic integrity through ‘cyclical consumption’.

In other words, every ‘good’ produced must breakdown in a respective amount of time in order to continue financial circulation to support the players (consumer/employee/employer) in the game. This characteristic could be defined as: “Planned Obsolescence”. Planned Obsolescence can generally take two positions:

• a) Intentional: Deliberate withholding of efficiency so the product in question breaks down.
• b) Consequential: Profit based shortcuts taken in production, usually in the form of cheap materials/poor design, in an effort to save money and create repeat customers. This translates into an inferior product immediately.
  [i.e. = The use of plastics for electronic enclosures is cheaper for the company and the consumer, but the durability of this material is poor in comparison to say, titanium metal, which is much more expensive.]

• 2- The introduction of new products and services must be constant to offset any increased efficiency of the prior generations of production, regardless of functional utility, generating endless waste.

In other words, waste is a deliberate byproduct of industry’s need to keep ‘cyclical consumption’ going. This means that the replaced/obsolete product is expelled, often to landfills, polluting the environment. The constant multiplicity accelerates the pollution.

‘The Need for Cyclical Consumption’, which could be considered the ‘engine’ that powers the entire economic system, is inherently dangerous and corrupt, for the nature of the necessity does not allow for environmentally sustainable practices to be maximized. The constant re-creation of inferior products wastes available resources and pollutes the environment.

To express this from a different angle, imagine the economic ramifications of production methods that strategically maximized the efficiency and sustainability of every creation, using the best-known materials and techniques available at that time. Imagine a car that was so well designed, it didn’t need maintenance for 100 years. Imagine a house that was built from fireproof materials where all appliances, electrical operations, plumbing and the like were made from the most impermeable, highest integrity resources available on earth. In such a saner world, where we actually created things to last, inherently minimizing pollution/waste due to the lack of multiplicity and maximization of efficiency, a monetary system would be impossible, for ‘consumption cyclically’ would slow tremendously, forever weakening so called “economic growth”.

The Abundance of Scarcity

In Monetary Economics, the notion of “Supply and Demand” is a well-known construct, simply denoting that ‘the more there is of something, the less it is worth in respect to itself’’. For example, drinking water was historically a very abundant resource, which didn’t typically require payment for its consumption in a commercial sense. However, as pollution of the water table and city water systems have developed, filtered drinking water is now being commercially sold, often at a higher price than oil per gallon. In other words, it is profitable for resources to be scarce. If a company can convince the public that their product is “rare”, the more they can charge for that product. This provides a strong motivation to keep their items scarce. On yet another level, it should be pointed out that the central banks of nearly all countries also create scarcity within the money supply itself in order to keep pressure on the market system. Bernard Lietaer, designer of the EU currency system points out:

“Greed and Competition are not the result of immutable human temperament…greed and fear of scarcity are in fact being continuously created and amplified as a direct result of the kind of money we are using…We can produce more than enough food to feed everybody…but there is clearly not enough money to pay for it all. The scarcity is in our national currencies. In fact, the job of the central banks is to create and maintain that currency scarcity. The direct consequence is that we have to fight with each other in order to survive.” ^[4]

The ramifications of this abundance of scarcity are nothing but detrimental. If profit can be made as a result of scarcity generated by environmental pollution, then this creates a sick reinforcement of indifference to environmental concern. If companies know they can make more money by having their resources or products remain scarce, how can a world of abundance ever occur? It can’t, for the corporation will be motivated to create the scarcity if need be. In turn, the scarcity created in the money supply itself by the central banks compounds the motivation for us to compete with each other, generating an ethic-less, primitive tribalism with everyone out for themselves, producing human stress, conflict and illness.

The Priority of Profit

A monetary system’s foremost motivating principle is Profit^{[note 5]}, or the acquisition of money through the exploitation of others. All players in the game must, in order to survive, seek out a strategy to acquire income. A “wage” earner seeks out the best possible pay he can get for his services, while the Employer (owner/producer) seeks to constantly reduce costs in order to maximize profit. This is the dominant “mentality” in a Monetary System and those who are in positions of great wealth (material “success”) are often the most ruthless. While many people who favor the profit system will talk endlessly about their “ethical” standards in regard to their practices, history has shown that the priority of profit is actually a sickness which is not only poisoning our personal/social well-being and standards of living, but also the environment on which we rely for virtually everything we need as a species.

However, before we begin with the negative consequences resulting from this ‘mentality’, let us consider what many think to be the good side of this profit priority – “Incentive”.

As the theory goes, the need for profit provides a person/organization with motivation to work on new ideas/products that would sell in the market place. In other words, the assumption is that if people were not motivated by their need to survive through profit, little social progress would be achieved.

First of all, the most powerful contributions to society did not come from corporations seeking profit. Nikola Tesla did not establish alternating current electric power because he was out to make a buck. Louis Pasteur, Charles Darwin, the Wright Brothers, Albert Einstein and Isaac Newton did not make their massive contributions to society because of material self-interest. While it is true that useful inventions and methods do come from the motivation for personal gain, the intent behind those creations typically have nothing to do with human or social concerns, for detached self-interest and survival are really the true motivations.

Profit interest almost always comes before human concern, and a simple glance at the cancer causing preservatives in our foods, the planned obsolescence of nearly everything manufactured, along with a health care industry that charges $300 for a single antibiotic pill, will indicate that ‘Profit Based Incentive’ is actually detrimental, for the true incentive is not to contribute to society in a meaningful way, but merely to exact wealth from it in any way possible. Profit is actually a false incentive. Problems in our monetary based society will only have a resolution if profit can be made from solving those problems.

Consequence: The psychological/sociological ramifications resulting from the priority of profit are of grave proportions when it comes to the conduct of human beings. In fact, an entire structure of imposed control has been created in order to deal with the never-ending problems associated with the need for survival by way of gain/profit/income - The Legal System. While non-monetary related crimes, often born from ego, jealousy, emotional deprivation and other psychological issues are currently a problem, the frequency of non-monetary related crimes are nothing in comparison to the crimes committed that are motivated by the acquisition of money and property. In fact, if we define “Crime” as ‘Corruption’ and define “Corruption” as “Moral Perversion; Dishonesty”, then an entirely new perspective comes into play, for, if you look closely enough, you will see that nearly every act of strategic monetary gain is corrupt by its very construct…it is just accepted as ‘normal’ by the conditioned culture to whatever degree is deemed tolerable by consensus.

For example, when you go to the grocery store and buy a box of cereal, 9/10 times the amount of cereal occupies only 60% of the space within the box. This ‘advertising strategy’ as the producing company would call it, is actually just a blatant, wasteful lie. The advertising agencies, with all of their tactics of social manipulation, are likely one of the most corrupt institutions on the planet. Sadly, we have been conditioned to call it ‘promotion’ or ‘strategy’ instead. More on the social distortion created by advertising will be presented in the “Distortion of Values” section of this chapter.

Now, to put the spectrum of monetary derived corruption into a workable perspective, we will divide this aberrant behavior into 3 classifications: General Crime – Corporate Crime – Government Crime.

General crime, as derived from the pursuit of money, ranges from petty theft to illegal sales to fraud to violent robbery. This byproduct of the monetary system is often not given the thought needed to understand its source, for many tend to dismiss these “criminals” as some kind of social anomaly, rather than relating their basis to the need to survive. The inherent stress and other side effects associated with deprivation are also overlooked.

The ‘Merva-Fowles’ study, done at the University of Utah in the 1990s, found powerful connections between unemployment and crime. They based their research on 30 major metropolitan areas with a total population of over 80 million.

Their findings found that a 1% rise in unemployment resulted in: a 6.7% increase in Homicides; a 3.4 % increase in violent crimes; a 2.4 % increase in property crime.

During the period from 1990 to 1992, this translated into: 1459 additional Homicides; 62,607 additional violent crimes; 223,500 additional property crimes.^[5]

If you were to take a well-to-do, ethical, ‘stand-up’ person, strip them of their wealth and resources and drop them into a poor city with nothing but the shirt on their back, there is a very high probability that this person will begin to lie, cheat and steal in order to survive. It is no surprise that the poorest neighborhoods in the United States maintain the highest crime rates. A person born into a deprived environment, with little resources, poor education and few opportunities for work will do what they need to do in order to live. The point here is that economic depravity (scarcity), not so called genetic “criminal tendencies”, creates this kind of aberrant behavior.

Corporate Crime, which is almost always exclusively profit related, takes many forms: Planned Obsolescence; Market Manipulation; Outsourcing; Price Fixing; Monopolistic Collusion; Labor Exploitation and Governmental Collusion are just a few to note. From Enron’s deliberate shutting down of California’s Power Plants to boost its Energy stocks ^[6], to the Bayer Corporation’s knowing distribution of HIV tainted drugs^[7], it should be clear to most people that corporate crime is constant and often times more insidious than “General Crime”, for the repercussions tend to affect very large groups of people.

The “Corporate Criminal’s” need to secure a business’s profitability is no different in basis than the “General Criminal’s” need to survive. While the latter typically commits crimes to live, the former commits crimes to further secure their positions of power, lifestyle and wealth. It is based on fear. The notion of “Greed”, which manifests from a perpetual insecurity derived from the fear of losing what one has, serves as the motivating factor for most corporate crimes. It is like a gambling addiction. The more you get, the more you want. This neurosis is perpetuated/reinforced by the social stratification that the monetary system creates, for there is a never-ending progression of “luxuries” available as one’s purchasing power increases (i.e.: mansions, yachts, limos, diamonds, land, etc). More on this will be addressed in the next section: “The Distortion of Values”.

Government Crime is one of the more complex and difficult forms of conduct to consider, for perception of government is highly modified by the prevailing values this “ruling class” perpetuates through society, via the mass media and traditional jingoism. In other words, if we look back at the horrors of Hitler, many often forget that many of the German people also maintained the anti-Semitic value system, propagated by the regime through pamphlets and broadcasts. The same can be said for the US Invasion of Iraq, which was fueled initially by public support, simply because of the hate and fear of so called “Islamic terrorists”, generated by the attacks of September 11th 2001. That being said, let’s put aside our traditionalized values of loyalty and “patriotism” and take an objective look at what government within a Monetary System actually is and represents.

First of all, all members of government must be paid a wage and all projects they devise must have funding. This money apparently comes from “Taxes” imposed on the public, or loans from banks or other governments. Taxes are generated through ‘commerce’ or ‘income from commerce’, while loans must be paid back with money manifested in some way either through more commerce, more loans, or more taxes, theoretically.

The central role of government is the invention of regulatory legislation to handle the functioning of society. Idealistically, the broad interests of the public would be the first priority of government. Unfortunately, as history has shown, this is not, and has rarely been, the case. Rather, government as we know it is actually a ‘parent’ corporation to all the other corporations working within the country’s economy. This, of course, makes sense for the value of any nation is really determined by the state of its economy. This means the government has a ‘”Vested Interest” in the economic state of its nation, most specifically an interest in those within its own class - the rich upper class. “Vested interest” or a person or group having something to gain or lose by a governmental decision is a two way street. A politician can gain monetary ‘contributions’ from a company he favors in his rulings, while the company thus gains from the rulings made in favor of itself. Lobbying and Contributions in America constitute Billions of dollars a year and this money is given entirely under the pretense of putting the donating parties “agenda in action”.

While the examples of government and corporate collusion are vast, ranging from the passing of untested pharmaceuticals by the FDA, to the oil lobby’s success in reverting the California Zero Emissions Law which forced the clean running ‘electric’ cars into reclusion, the greatest monetarily derived crime of government is its use of War for the benefit of it corporate/financial constituents.

In the words of Two-Time Congressional Medal of Honor Recipient, Major General Smedley D. Butler:

“War is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small "inside" group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes…

In the World War [I] a mere handful garnered the profits of the conflict. At least 21,000 new millionaires and billionaires were made in the United States during the World War… The Sixty-Fifth Congress, reporting on corporate earnings and government revenues. Considering the profits of 122 meat packers, 153 cotton manufacturers, 299 garment makers, 49 steel plants, and 340 coal producers during the war. Profits under 25 per cent were exceptional. For instance, the coal companies made between 100 per cent and 7,856 per cent on their capital stock during the war. The Chicago packers doubled and tripled their earnings.

And let us not forget the bankers who financed the Great War. If anyone had the cream of the profits, it was the bankers. Being partnerships, rather than incorporated organizations, they do not have to report to stockholders. And their profits were as secret as they were immense. How the bankers made their millions and their billions I do not know, because those little secrets never become public – even before a Senate investigatory body.”^[8]

World War II, The Korean War, Vietnam and now Iraq and Afghanistan are no different. Accelerated industrial creation, military contracts, reconstruction contracts, energy/resource acquisition (theft), high interest austerity driven World Bank and private bank loans for post war economies, and even drug trafficking by the CIA^[9], are just a few of the highly profitable mediums.

The motivation for war is three fold. 1) Industrial Profit, maximized for the elite 2) Resource Acquisition (theft) 3) Geopolitical Alignment to increase the ease of further industrial profit and resource theft.

This is one of the greatest sicknesses caused by the need for wealth and power. Government, with its team of brainwashed assassins on hand, is involved in the ultimate form of self-preservation, and as long as all the resources of the world remain ‘hoarded’ for the interest of a few, this pattern of War will never end.

Now, the above classifications of “corruption” are only a generalized grouping. Vast nuances of human behavior in everyday life are also very much poisoned by this mechanism for profit; dishonesty, ranging from the ‘art of negotiation’ where two business people compete with each other for their own self-interest, with an inherent disregard for the other, to the disharmony built into the employer-employee relationship, where one wants to maximize labor to reduce hourly wages paid, while the other seeks to maximize time spent in order to gain more income.

The bottom line is that The Priority of Profit sets up an ‘us against them’ duality mentality, for, within the monetary system, there has to be a buyer-seller; a worker-employer; a client-owner; a have-have not. Given this reality, each party is forced to enable conditions that are most profitable for them, therefore strategic edges are always sought and thus a constant battle is always raging. We are constantly at war with each other in order to live. This battle creates little over time in the way of sustainable human progress, and the sick, polluted, distorted world you see around you is the result.

The Distortion of Values

Our Beliefs and Values are shaped by culture. While there is a genetic basis to certain human attributes and behaviors, the knowledge we have and the way we think about and act upon that knowledge is fundamentally an environmental phenomenon.

With that in mind, the monetary system requires a form of communication to inform the public of what a company has made available for sale. This form of communication is termed ‘advertising’. The characteristic of advertising is ‘promotion’ and promotion is a manner of communication, which, generally speaking, creates a bias in favor of the product in question. In other words, advertising’s job is to entice…or in more direct terms – manipulate the consumer into purchasing a product. This manipulation takes many forms, but one of the most effective is the manipulation and/or exploitation of the viewing audience’s “values” - what he or she finds important.

However, before we go any further, it needs to be pointed out that the mass consumption patterns currently seen in the United States and elsewhere were not always the case. America originally was founded, to some degree, on a kind of Protestant work ethic, where thrift and savings were dominant values. However, by the early 20th century, a concerted effort by the business community set out to distort these notions and mold a new army of impulsive, perpetually dissatisfied, status conscious consumers. Advertising agencies switched their arguments from utilitarian ones to those gauged for emotional appeal and status. Consequently, today the average American consumes twice as much as he or she did since the end of WWII.^[10]

Now, one of the most powerful forms of ‘value manipulation’ comes from re-associating a person’s identity to a particular ideal. Patriotism and Religion are classical examples of this, for through indoctrination at an early age, a person is often conditioned to feel a close personal connection to a country or religion, hence conditioning that person to want to support the doctrines, unconditionally.

Another example of this is the concept of “fashion”. Fashion takes many forms, from the clothes people wear to even the ideologies they perpetuate. To illustrate how successful the commercial industry has become in manipulating the values of human beings for their own gain, many people today can be seen walking around wearing certain commercial articles, merely for the purpose of expressing a company’s brand, contriving some kind of apparent social status or “stylistic expression” from them. Signature “Tommy Hilfiger” shirts, trade marked “Prada Bags” and flashy Rolex watches are examples of products where the utility or function of an item has lost total relevance, with importance now derived by what the item “represents”.

Sadly, what these people often do not realize is that they are nothing more than walking advertisements for the respective company, plain and simple.

The “status” or “expression” really exists entirely in the conditioned ‘value projections’ of that person, and if enough people become manipulated in the same way, a “trend” emerges, which further reinforces the delusion by way of collective identification. These trends can become so powerful, that those who do not adhere to the fad, might be deemed “outcasts” and be ostracized.

Now, ‘Vanity’ aside, we must also examine the distorted values created in the form of mentalities and worldviews. This constant need of self-interest often spreads like a cancer into other psychological areas, creating and reinforcing such neurosis as “Greed”, “Jealousy” and “Ego”.

Greed is likely the driving force of the monetary system’s perpetuation, beyond just survival. Due to the inherent stratification of goods and services (and hence standards of living) available to those with more and more purchasing power, the human being is groomed to perpetually want “more” material wealth, for the “more” seems to go to infinity. The result is a culture which doesn’t have a concept of balance, or a sense of what is actually important, or “enough”. Advertising compounds this by its constant depictions of “the possibilities”, often making people question their own self worth because they do not “have the best things in life”, etc.

Jealousy appears to begin cultivation at a very early age, perhaps when the school teacher would praise the student who would make high marks, and scold the student who didn’t, making that student feel envious of the person who made the high grade. Regardless of its origin, a classic tactic of advertising is to exploit this neurosis by using the media to depict a person with something that you do not have, making you feel as though you need to have it in order to be “equal”. This is very similar to greed, with the exception being that people grow to despise others for what they have, creating social tension and often conflict.

Ego is often defined as ‘a feeling of superiority to others’. This distortion takes essentially two forms:

1. General superiority based on wealth class / or position in the social hierarchy
2. Arrogance regarding one’s creative contribution, demanding prestige, acknowledgement or other “rewards”.

The latter, for many, almost seems “natural”, for people today love to “take credit” for their ideas and inventions. This has a strong reinforcement in the monetary system, for when it comes to making a “profit”, one is literally being “rewarded” and “acknowledged” for their personal inventions and actions. This further compounds the propensity for a person to demand credit for what they do, even if it has nothing to do with money.

It should be pointed out that no human really “invents” or creates anything on his or her own. Every idea and creation that has emerged has been done so based on the contributions of prior generations’ work, environmental influences and/or peer feedback. As Isaac Newton once said: “If I have seen further, it is only by standing on the shoulders of Giants”^[11]. His point was that he built his research, and hence discoveries, upon the work of many other great scientists who lived before him. His credit therefore is not only his, it goes to the whole body of scientific discovery that he had learned and worked with.

This form of Ego has no position when a person understands that ALL inventions and creations are actually collaborations developed serially, one way or another.

Now, as for the former distinction of Ego noted above (“General superiority based…”) this is a class oriented disposition which, on one level, is a psychological means to make one feel better for having more than another human. A wealthy person walking down the street finds it much easier to dismiss a homeless person, by saying “he is just a lazy bum”, as opposed to recognizing him as a victim of culture. On another level, blind elitism, in the form of a kind of ‘class based racism’ leads people to dismiss those with less purchasing power as simply being “inferior” or “undeserving”, for the social stature, education and lifestyle afforded by this elite, is vastly out of reach for those without similar purchasing power, therefore creating gross differences in culture.

In the end, our values are based on what works and helps us create easier, better lives. If we live in a system that rewards competition, unenlightened self-interest, corruption, vanity and arrogance, then these are the values that will constantly be perpetuated in society. While many people give lip service to ‘honesty, caring for others and humility’, it is easy to see why these qualities do not prevail, for the system of survival in society today does not support or reinforce them.

Fiscal Manipulation

Currency used today is called “fiat”, which means its value comes essentially from government decree. In other words, there is nothing “backing up” the value of the currency other than perhaps the sweat of laborers who exchange their services for the currency. Many years ago, most currencies were on a ‘gold standard’ which provided a pseudo-empirical basis for the value of a currency note, but this was still entirely arbitrary, for the source of value was simply shifted to this raw material called “Gold”, which also has no intrinsic value in and of itself. The ‘value’ of any material is relative to its scarcity (supply) and demand, and these attributes are always in flux and hence unstable.

This so-called “supply and demand” equation also applies directly to Monetary Value. Value within the fiat system is derived from how much money is in circulation within an economy. Just as with any natural resource, the more money that is in circulation, the less each unit of fiat currency is worth. When less money is in circulation, it makes each unit worth more, respectively. This phenomenon is called “Inflation” and “Deflation’’, generally speaking.^{[note 6]} Very simply, if new money is pumped into an economy, without regard for the current demand for goods and services, the prices in the economy will eventually rise as the value of the currency becomes worth proportionally less. This is an “Inflationary Effect”. However, if the new money is quickly put to use in the creation of new goods and services, while there exists a demand to purchase those products, it can be introduced into the economy without a substantial inflationary effect. For example, if there is a demand in the market for new homes, and the government injects 1 billion dollars of new money into the economy, and all that money is put to use for creating these new homes, which are then bought, the inflationary effect is minimal.

The increase in the supply of money available in an economy is called Monetary Expansion, while a decrease in the supply of money is called Monetary Contraction. When both of these forces are in play, you tend to get a cyclical trend, called the “Expansion and Contraction Cycle”, also known as the “Business Cycle” or the “Boom and Bust Cycle”(more on this below). Generally speaking, the Expansion period is usually associated with so called “Economic Growth”, for more money is being put to use and often more jobs are created. Conversely, the Contraction period is often called a Recession or Depression, for money is drying up and hence there is less money to put to use, so jobs are lost and companies fail.

The concept of “Economic growth” is typically defined as: “the increase in the amount of the goods and services produced by an economy over time”. The GDP (‘gross domestic product’) measurement system, which basically compares the ‘income’ and ‘output’ of an economy in a certain time period, is commonly used to gauge this so called “Economic Growth”.

Now, before we go any further, let it be noted that the whole idea of Economic Growth, as it is traditionally interpreted, is nonsense with respect to true human development. There is no such thing as true economic growth in and of itself, for the underlying mechanism is based almost entirely on the amount of liquidity (money) in the system. In other words, if I counterfeit 100 million US dollars and give it to you to start a business (you don’t know it’s counterfeit) and you buy and fix up an old building, hire a team of employees and start to produce a product that the public buys, this would be considered an ‘expansion’ of the economy. You have invested in real estate – increased the employment rate – and created new products that others buy, therefore exciting the circulation of currency (the ‘consumption cycle’).

Now, what if it was found out that all that money you had was counterfeit, and the whole operation was shut down? This would be a ‘contraction’ of the economy, for the money thus vanishes; your employees would be laid off, the building foreclosed upon, and the production halted.

Given the above scenario, one should ask: What was the real growth? If the increase (expansion) in the supply of money can result in the creation of jobs and production, while the decrease (contraction) results in the loss of jobs and production, what exactly was the point?

To understand this more clearly, we need to look at how money is created and regulated by the government and/or its central bank. For this example, we will use the United States and its central bank- The Federal Reserve.

As noted above, the ‘expansion and contraction cycle’ is a cyclical pattern, which has to do with the infusion and relinquishing of money in the system. This pattern is largely controlled and manipulated by the Central bank (Federal Reserve) by way of Interest Rates. An Interest Rate is a fee charged to a borrower for the use of an amount of money. This fee is based on a percentage of the amount borrowed.

Since all money in the US economy and nearly every other economy in the world is created out of debt through loans^[12], the speed by which money comes into existence depends on how much a person is willing to pay in interest to acquire that loan. The Commercial Banks base their interest rates on values set by the Central bank.

For example, in America the “Prime Rate” is the lowest interest rate charged by banks to their most creditworthy customers. This rate is based on what is called the “Federal Funds Rate” which is dictated by the Federal Reserve.

Now, it is not the scope of this book to dissect the complex, jargon filled methods used by the banking system. However, the important point here is to understand that the Federal Reserve has the power to influence the interest rates of all banks. This translates into the power to control the amount of money being borrowed, and hence the amount in circulation.

When the Fed lowers its interest rates, so do the commercial banks and credit (borrowing) becomes less expensive. When the Fed raises its interest rates, credit becomes more expensive. In a low interest environment more people are likely to borrow money, put it to use, and create so called “economic growth”(Expansion). In a high interest environment, less can afford to borrow money, less is put to use and economic growth slows or reverses (Contraction). This is all the so-called “Business Cycle” is, and the Federal Reserve, through its use of interest rate manipulation, can “throttle” the expansion and contraction of money at will, to a certain degree^{[note 7]}.

Why does the Fed need to control this? To understand this, you need remember that (1) all money is created out of debt (loans), and (2) the increase in the supply of money can lead to Inflation.

If the money supply was allowed to constantly increase (expand), it is simply a matter of time before the market becomes saturated with excess liquidity stifling the resulting economic growth. This will then lead to Inflation, depreciating the value of the currency, raising prices. Likewise, outstanding debt is directly proportional to the money supply, so the more an economy ‘expands’, the greater the debt that is created. This sets up an inevitable systematic crisis for the money needed to pay the interest charged on the loans does not exist in the economy outright^{[note 8]}. Therefore, there is always more outstanding debt than money in existence. Once the debt grows larger than a person/company can afford, defaults begin (often in a systematic way), loans slow and/or stop and the money supply begins to contract. This particular scenario of debt overpowering and nullifying expansion could be termed “financial failure”, very simply.

Now, before we go any further, we need to talk about Debt more specifically. It needs to be clearly understood that debt itself is also a very active tool for social control, but not in ways most would consider. In a Monetary System, the whole structure is based on human participation. The structure is always hierarchical, so those at the top of the pyramid always benefit more than the majority at the bottom. Therefore keeping people motivated to be employed and fearful of losing their jobs and thus subservient, is a positive circumstance for those at the top. A person, who “needs” a job, is more likely to take a lower wage, and less likely to cause problems.

One of the most reliable ways to get people to work and maintain subordination is to put them into debt. A person in a lot of debt is going to be much more submissive to the system, than a person who has no debt. This mechanism of “Debt Slavery” is little talked about, for most simply do not even think about it. Every dollar in existence theoretically has to be paid back to the banking system and in order to pay that money back, it must be “earned” by the indebted parties, usually through the form of “wage” or “profit”, hence requiring human service/servitude.

This issue is compounded by the reality that there is always more outstanding debt than money in existence (due to the interest charged), making the public’s attempt to “break even” within the system futile. There will always be more debt to pay back, ensuring the slavery of the masses.

Now, in the next chapter, we will continue our analysis of the financial system and its policies to point out how the repeated failures of the system are built right into the very structure of it, one way or another.

Chapter 2: The Final Failure

Beyond Irresponsiblity

David Walker, former US Comptroller General and chief of the GAO, warned before the 2004 election that if large economic changes were not made, by 2009 the United States and its taxpayers would not be able to afford the interest payments on the national debt ^[13]. A study authorized by the US Treasury in 2001 found that in order to keep servicing the debt at its current rate of growth, by 2013 income taxes would need to be raised to 65% ^[14].

If the United States cannot afford to pay the interest on its debts, that would be the final stage of economic collapse and hence result in a total textbook bankruptcy. The systematic crisis would in turn likely spread to the rest of the world, due to the financial/commercial interconnections inherent.

How did this happen? Why is the US national debt $12,250,000,000,000 as of Jan 2009? Of the 203 countries in the world today, only four (!) do not owe others money. The collective external debt of all the governments in the world is now about 52 trillion dollars ^[15] and this number doesn’t include the massive about of household debt in each country

The whole world is basically bankrupt. But how? How can the world as a whole owe money to itself? Obviously, it’s all nonsense. There is no such thing as ‘money’. There are only planetary resources, human labor and human ingenuity. The monetary system is nothing more than a game… and an outdated and dysfunctional one at that.

Those in positions of social power alter the rules of the game, at will. The nature of those rules is guided by the same competitive, distorted mentalities that are used in everyday “monetary” life, only this time the game is rigged at its root to favor those who run the show. For example, if you have 1 million dollars and put it into a CD at 5% interest, you are going to generate $50,000 a year simply for that deposit. You are making money off of money itself… paper being made from other paper … nothing more - no invention - no contribution to society – no nothing.

That being denoted, if you are a lower to middle class person, who is limited in funds, and must get interest based loans to buy your home or use credit cards, then you are paying interest to the bank, which the bank is then using, in theory , to pay the person’s return with the 5% CD! Not only is this equation outrageously offensive due to the use of usury (interest) to ‘steal from the poor and give to the rich’, but it also perpetuates class stratification by its very design, keeping the lower classes poor, under the constant burden of debt, while keeping the upper classes rich, with the means to turn excess money into more money, with no labor.

That reality aside, there are other games in the system which have worked for decades, but are just now starting to bloom into the inevitable mathematic disasters that should have been anticipated 100 years ago.

- The ‘Boom and Bust Cycle’ (aka - “The Business Cycle”) - Surface definitions of the “Business Cycle typically read: “the recurring fluctuations in economic activity consisting of recession and recovery and growth and decline” ^[16] However, this says nothing about the cause of the fluctuation. While there are various theories on the cause, it seems most economists tend to shy away from the ‘elephant in the living room’… and that is the powerful effect Monetary Contraction (money removed) and Expansion (new money added) have on the Business Cycle.

When money is added to the money supply, that money is then typically put to use for some reason. Very often these reasons include starting a business, buying a home, investing in the stock market, etc. This application of money often translates into so called “economic growth”. Credit Expansion, in the form of personal and business loans, is really the hidden force behind economic growth. This is basically the ‘Boom’ period of the Boom and Bust cycle. If you examine prior trends of economic expansion in the United States, you will find a lockstep correlation to the expansion of credit. (ie. 1990-2000 stock market bubble)

Unfortunately, money cannot be added into the economy infinitely, for the Debt and Inflation caused by the expansion will eventually overcome the “growth” benefits. This is due to the reality that new money is always needed to cover the outstanding debt, largely due to the need to pay back the interest on the loans (which does not respectfully exist in the money supply).

What this means is that after a period of growth (boom) with the economic indicators now pointing towards a weakening economy, a choice can be made by the financial regulators/government to either:

1. Continue the expansion by infusing even more money, often by lowering the interest rates (such as the ‘prime’ or ‘discount’ rate) or by simply moving large sums of money to certain sectors (such as the 2008 700 Billion dollar bank bailout). or
2. Let the contraction (recession) run its course, raise the interest rates, and bring the economy back to some kind of equilibrium, thus preparing it for another expansion. ^{[note 9]}

As far as history is concerned, the pattern has been to do both, basically with the idea being to “ease” the recession by increasing liquidity. The reasoning is simple. It is politically unpopular for the ruling class to have unemployed, poor citizens. This can lead to contempt for the leadership and perhaps revolution. Therefore, there is always the game of placating the public with false security in order to avoid the truth coming out about the inherent dysfunctionality and corruption of the Ponzi scheme known as the Monetary System. ^{[note 10]}

Now, the result of this “easing” of the contraction simply delays the inevitable and since the US Government has “eased” virtually every contraction we have seen in the last 70 years by infusing more money into the system, a “Doomsday scenario” awaits…the “big contraction”… and it might be happening at the time of this writing.

Figure 1 below is the idealized business cycle, moving about a constant mean, with peaks as the “boom” and troughs as the “bust”:

But considering that money has always been strategically injected into the system when contraction occurs, the ‘mean’ path is actually ascending. Figure 2 below is an idealized depiction of what has actually been happening for the past 70 years and what could be in store as the “big contraction” looms.

As of March 2006, the US Government stopped reporting M3, which is the total amount of money in the economy in virtually all forms. What is the reason for this? - they don’t want the public to realize how much money is being pumped into the system. Figure 3 below shows M3 up until they stopped reporting it.

Regardless of the discontinued reporting by the Fed, secular economists have been able to track the components of the M3 independently^{[note 11]} and what has been noticed is that since 2006, M3 has grown from about 10 trillion to 14.5 trillion by the end of 2008, a near 50% increase in less than 3 years.(Figure 4).

How far can we go? At this rate, by 2015, the money supply will be about 30 trillion dollars.

Now, just because money is being pumped into the system does not always mean economic expansion is occurring. This is a critical point. For instance, one of the hallmark indicators of economic expansion is the creation of jobs. Figure 5 below shows the US unemployment levels, including the SGS^{[note 12]} which takes into account those non-working Americans who are not currently counted as “unemployed” simply because the period of acknowledgment has ended.

While official government agencies reported that unemployment was around 7% at the end of 2008, deeper research reveals it is actually closer to 18% of the US population. More on the reasons for this reality will be addressed in the next section. (The Ultimate Outsource), but for now let’s simply use this information to understand that the current infusion of money into the money supply is not having an effect in the current financial crisis. As noted earlier, money cannot be added into the economy infinitely, for the Debt and Inflation caused by the expansion will eventually overcome the “growth” benefits. This is what is now happening and no intervention (bailout) to “ease” this crisis is likely to work.

Why? -Mainly because the debt levels are too high. Total debt of the US government plus its citizens was about 53,000,000,000,000^[17] in 2007(Figure 6). This is insane when you realize that in 2007 the total US money supply (M3) was only about 12,000,000,000,000. Are we going to now inject over 40 trillion dollars into the US economy to cover this? No- because not only would this create trillions in new debt, it would likely cause hyperinflation on a grand scale. From a different angle, the GDP of the US in 2007 was only about 14 trillion!^[18]

Right now (2009) it is deflation and inflation, occurring at the same time, with deflation, in the form of contraction, winning. Money is vanishing faster than it can be put in, to put it loosely. While the system itself sets up this inevitability on its own, the chain of events for the current collapse seemed to start with the rampant speculative bubble in the housing market. Once that crashed, the Derivatives market, (which is holding values that exceed the GDP of the entire planet many times over^[19]) which gambled on those home mortgages, became “toxic” due to the foreclosures. This triggered the failure of the investment banks; along with the failure of the commercial banks following; which leads to the failure of corporations that require credit; inevitably arriving at the laying off of the work force itself. This systemic crisis is global, due to the international nature of the Financial Markets, which is why the countries in the western world are now seeing similar economic problems as America.

However, please note that even though it seems as though the housing bubble and “predatory loans” are “to blame” for this crisis, they really aren’t. This failure would have occurred one way or another due to the very nature of the economic system. However, the incredible irresponsibility involved in managing this already detrimental system has greatly exaggerated and accelerated the severity of pending collapse, making the future look very grim if this false structure, known as the “Monetary System”, is to be maintained.

The Ultimate Outsource

Everything described in the preceding section is of great importance in terms of understanding where we are and where we are going within this economic structure. Please note this information is just as relevant to non-Americans as it is to Americans, for the world shares the same basic system and is tightly interlinked.

Now, in response to these problems, very often people suggest ‘monetary reform’ as the solution. These suggestions often consist of: going back to the gold standard; outlawing interest; shutting down the Federal Reserve and giving the power of printing money to the government and letting the government distribute it debt free…etc.

While these reforms and others all pose logical merits, they do not recognize an unstoppable phenomenon that has accelerated since the early 20th century, which has greatly impacted the labor force since:

The replacement of human labor with machines.

At the core of the economic system itself is the mechanism of Labor for Income . Our entire economic system is based on human beings selling their labor as a commodity in the open market. If humans do not have the option to “work for a living”, then the monetary system as we know it is over. No one can buy goods if they don’t earn money. Companies cannot afford to produce if the consumer has no purchasing power. This issue overrides everything that has previously been discussed in this chapter.

As John Maynard Keynes, in The General Theory of Unemployment, Interest and Money disdainfully points out: ”We are being afflicted with a new disease of which some readers may not yet have heard the name, but of which they will hear a great deal in the years to come – namely ‘technological unemployment’. This means unemployment due to our discovery of means of economizing the use of labor outrunning the pace at which we can find new uses for labor.”^[20]

While politicians, business leaders and labor leaders bicker over issues they claim are responsible for the growing unemployment in the world, such as foreign company outsourcing or immigrant labor, the real cause is going unaddressed in the public debate: Technological Unemployment.

In the words of Nobel Laureate Economist Wassily Leontief: ”The role of humans as the most important factor of production is bound to diminish in the same way that the role of horses in agricultural production was first diminished and then eliminated by the introduction of tractors.”^[21]

Since Market Capitalism is built upon the logic of reducing input costs (including the costs of labor) to increase profits, the inclination to replace human labor whenever possible by machine automation is a natural progression of industry. After all, a machine doesn’t need to take breaks, it doesn’t require health insurance or benefits, and it isn’t a part of a demanding Labor Union.

A simple glance at US historical labor statistics by sector shows the pattern of machine automation replacing human labor definitively. In the Agricultural sector, almost all traditional workflow is now done by machine. In 1949, machines did 6% of the cotton picking in the South. By 1972, 100% of the cotton picking was done by machines.^[22] When automation hit the US Manufacturing Sector in the 1950s, 1.6 million blue-collar jobs were lost in 9 years^[23].In 1860, 60% of America worked in Agriculture, while today it is less than 3%.^[24] In 1950, 33% of US workers worked in Manufacturing, while by 2002 there was only 10%.^[25] The US steel industry, from 1982 to 2002 increased production from 75m tons to 120m tons, while steel workers went from 289,000 to 74,000.^[26] In 2003, Alliance Capital did a study of the world’s largest 20 economies at that time, ranging from the period of 1995 to 2002, finding that 31 million manufacturing jobs were lost, while production rose by 30%^[27]. This pattern of Increasing Productivity and Profit, coupled with Decreasing Employment, is a new and powerful phenomenon, with no changes in sight.

So… where have those jobs gone? - The Service Sector. While from 1950 to 2002, the percentage of Americans employed in the service industries went from 59% to 82%^[28]. For the last 50 years, the service sector has been absorbing the job losses from Agriculture and Manufacturing.

Unfortunately, this pattern is slowing fast as computerized automation takes hold. From 1983-1993, banks cut 37% of their human tellers, and by the year 2000, 90% of all bank customers used teller machines (ATMs)^[29]. Business phone operators have almost all been replaced by computerized voice answering systems, post office tellers are being replaced by self-service machines, while cashiers are being replaced by computerized kiosks. McDonalds, for example, has been talking about full automation of its restaurants for many years now, introducing Kiosks to replace the front of house staff, while using automated cooking tools, such as burger flippers, for the back of house staff^[30]. The fact that they haven’t done so is likely a public relations issue, for they know how many jobs would be cut in the event they did automate.

There isn’t one area of the Service Industry that isn’t being affected by computerized automation. In fact, if one was to think creatively about the application of technology that currently exists, but is not yet applied to the service sector, it is easy to see how, almost overnight, the majority of all service jobs could be phased out today, starting with tellers, cashiers, waiters, and phone operators.

Economist Stephen Roach has warned: ”The service sector has lost its role as America’s unbridled engine of job creation.”^[31]

As this transition occurs, where is the emerging new sector to employ all the newly displaced workers? There really isn’t one…at least not yet. While there are many specialized fields emerging in the Information realm, they are extremely limited in their ability to offer anything close to compensation for the vast job loss on the horizon. And while economists struggle to create models to deal with this issue of nearly unstoppable unemployment, ranging from the government subsidization of labor (welfare) to novel notions such as a ‘negative income tax’, most refuse to consider what is really needed in order to prevent total chaos on this planet. The solution lies not in attempting to ‘fix’ the issues that have emerged, but rather it is time we transcend the system in its entirety… for the system of monetary exchange, along with Capitalism itself, is now completely obsolete in the wake of technological creativity.

Summary of Chapter 2:

The Monetary System of the world is nothing more than a game. It has little basis in reality. It emerged thousands of years ago when scarcity of resources was an everyday problem. People back then needed some way to distribute goods and services, while compensating those who worked to create them. This Monetary based Labor System has been a staple of society for so long, that most people can’t even imagine a world without it. Regardless, the mechanisms of the system, both structurally and psychologically, have created dramatic problems for the whole of society, ranging from monetary crime and emotional distortion, to the abuse and exploitation of the planet and each other on vast scales. The world today is really just a series of tribalistic Mafias. The line between organized crime and traditional business is really nonexistent. In turn, the whole world stands at odds with itself, with individuals, businesses and countries perpetually working to defend what they have, while always working to gain more, often by force and corruption. In turn, now the whole world is in debt to itself, owing comical amounts of money, while the very integrity of the world financial structure is on the verge of collapse due to its own shortcomings. However, even with these points denoted, there stands an even more powerful, unforeseen force which guarantees the demise of the Economic system as we know it for good, and it comes in the form of Technological Unemployment. Human beings are being replaced by advanced automation technologies at an accelerating rate, setting up a disaster of unprecedented proportions, for if people do not have jobs, they cannot support the economy by purchasing anything. This reality is the final proof that our current system is now out of date, and if we want to deter riots in the streets and poverty on a scale never before seen, we are going to have to revise our traditionalized notions about how society functions at the fundamental level.

We require a new social system that is updated to present-day knowledge and modern methods.

Part 2: What is Relevant?

Chapter 3: Natural Law

When we step out of the societal complex and examine ourselves and the world from a broader perspective, we tend to find that there is a tremendous amount of noise in the system. In other words, the fundamentals of life have been lost in a sea of social, occupational and financial obligations, many of which are largely artificial. For example, the need for money and income puts the human into a position where choice is often very limited. Usually, the work found for income does not reflect the genuine interests of that particular person, nor the interests of society as a whole. If we were to examine the occupations that exist today, we would tend to find that a great majority of them serve no larger function than the perpetuation of ‘cyclical consumption’. This arbitrariness constitutes a tremendous waste of life and resources. For instance, a person who sells insurance is participating in an occupation that is only relevant to the inner workings of the monetary system, and has no basis in nature in regard to a real ‘contribution to society’. The same goes for stock brokers, traders and anything else that deals with the financial sector. These are arbitrary, vain roles that contribute nothing real to society in the long term. While it will be argued that the role they serve affects people on a day to day basis within the economic system, it is time we really step back and begin to focus our efforts on social issues that are actually relevant to social progress … as opposed to arbitrary jobs conjured up to extract wealth from each other. This is a waste of life. Consequently, the entire educational system in the modern day is nothing more than a cookie cutter processing plant that prepares humans for mostly predefined occupational roles. This element of human life has become so traditionally ingrained, that many falsely consider the nature of ‘having a job’ some form of human instinct. Even parents will ask their kids “What do you want to be when you grow up?” as though there was only one thing. This is disturbing and a violation of human potential.

Now, for the sake of argument, let’s forget about the current modes of conduct in society and consider what is actually real . Let’s pose the question:

What are the near-empirical facets of nature and what do these understandings teach us about how we should govern our conduct on this planet?

Natural Law 1:

Every human needs adequate nutrition, clean air and clean water and therefore must respect the symbiotic environmental processes inherent. Firstly, about 40 percent of the deaths worldwide are now caused by water, air and soil pollution^[32].This is a staggering percentage. How can society take itself seriously when we can’t even keep our most vital life supporting natural resources and processes in good form?! Why are many so-called scientists today working on esoteric interests like ‘black holes’, ‘quantum fields’ and ‘terra-forming’ other planets, when we can’t even take care of ourselves yet!

The fact is, most humans do not understand or consider the interconnectivity of nature and the chain of processes by which our food, air and water currently come about. However, if we examine and learn from these processes, a logical train of reasoning, coupled with suggestive inference, will guide us to more appropriate human behaviors that will help fulfill our needs.

For example, water and air are naturally abundant planetary resources that only require that we, the human population, maintain them and preserve their sources. Sadly, our impulsive, narrow sighted profit system has seen to it that usable water is now approaching crisis scarcity, for Industry continues to pollute the system at every turn. Air, on the other hand, while still very abundant overall, has been heavily polluted in areas of high human concentration, to the effect where in Asia many wear facemasks when they walk around. Of course, polluted air and water lead to countless other problems. In the United States alone about 3 million tons of toxic chemicals are released into the environment a year -- contributing to birth defects, immune system disorders, cancer and many other serious health problems.^[33] In turn, even the source processes of our air and water are being compromised. From acid rain to deforestation, we are seeing a continual breakdown of what used to be a natural, clean abundance.

In regard to food production, we must first note that Industry today goes out of its way to produce the cheapest, most competitive food, while consequently sacrificing nutritional health. For example, a great majority of foods today have what is called “high fructose corn syrup”. This cheap replacement for cane sugar has been proven to increase the risk of Diabetes and other health problems substantially.33 Why do we have it!?…because it is profitable and the public, always being cost conscious, buys it because it is more affordable.

The symbiotic relationship of natural processes has a built in frame of reference, which is assessable by understanding how the world actually works, via scientific investigation. Our behavior should be guided by the priority of seeking the highest optimization of circumstances that preserve and maximize the abundance and quality of our necessities of life. Sadly, this is not happening.

The fact is, our sustainability is under severe threat by the current methods we are using. The monetary system continues to operate with the interest of short-term gain, ignoring the long-term destruction. As Natural Law denotes, we need high quality air, food and water to live, therefore, we must overcome any systems which disturb, or create the propensity to disturb, the symbiotic environmental processes which keep our basic needs in order. If we don’t, the consequences of our violation of this law could put us past the point of no return environmentally - and thus the survival of the human race will be in question.

Natural Law 2:

The only constant is change and human understandings are always in transition. There is no evidence to support the idea that anything we think is true today will maintain its integrity tomorrow. And yes, paradoxically, this goes for everything you are reading here. While certain observed natural phenomena may seem near empirical based on current scientific evidence, the specifics of each notion will always be altered, for our tools and methods of analysis and measurement are always changing and hopefully, improving.

In the words of C.J. Keyser: ”Absolute certainty is a privilege of uneducated minds and fanatics”^[34]

A cursory glance at widely defended historical notions, from the earth being flat to the sun revolving around the earth, teaches us that intellectual change is constant and, in turn, humans must keep as ‘open’ a mind as possible to new information, even if it challenges that person’s sense of identity. It is an unfortunate evolutionary side effect that in modern culture, a great deal of ego is involved with beliefs and values. Religion, for example, tends to hold tight to static worldviews that often reflect an understanding of reality that stretches back thousands of years prior. Due to the very construct of many religious ideas, which tend to threaten metaphysical consequences (heaven/hell) for those who contradict its teachings, many people in the world today maintain these worldviews out of fear, rejecting new information that could help them in their lives, not to mention society itself. Of course, religion is far from alone in this, for it seems most humans tend to want to believe that what they find right and true is empirically correct. This, of course, makes sense, for society today often belittles those who “don’t know.”

Everything we think and “know” are only probabilities and with modern methods of analysis, which have proven to have proactive benefits to society over long periods of time, we can now weigh our understandings and beliefs on a sliding scale, ranging from least probable to most probable, based not on human opinion or subjectivity, but on concrete feedback responses from the natural world.

The Scientific Method

Nature itself has its own set of laws, and it doesn’t have the capacity to recognize or care about what you or anyone else wants to believe is true. Given this reality, it is in our best interest to learn and align with nature as best we can. Walking with the current of the ocean is much easier than fighting against it… and while one could believe with all their heart that they can walk on a ceiling with no physical aides, the Law of Gravity will not allow it.

The best-known method for the discovery and application of the laws of nature is termed: “The Scientific Method”.

The Scientific Method basically has three steps:

1. Recognizing a new idea or problem that needs to be solved.
2. The use of logical reasoning^{[note 13]} to create a hypothesis, considering all information available.
3. Test the hypothesis in the physical world through observation.

The Scientific Method refers to a body of techniques used for investigating phenomena; acquiring new knowledge; correcting and integrating previous knowledge and the application of such knowledge. The techniques used consist of empirical observation methods, (such as measurement), along with reasoned hypotheses and, ultimately, putting those hypotheses to test in the real world to obtain feedback regarding an idea’s validity. All conclusions require testable proof, not just inference or reason. While logical reasoning is important to the unfolding of scientific inquiry, it is still subject to failure, for each one of us is always in a state of limited knowledge.

A classical example of this goes back to Aristotle (384 BC – 322 BC). He hypothesized, through logical reasoning based on what he understood at that time, that a heavy object would fall faster than a lighter object of the same shape and material. He logically assumed that the more weight an object had, the faster an object would fall in a vacuum. However, he didn’t test the idea. Because of this failure to properly use the scientific method, the world had to wait 2000 more years, for when Galileo finally tested Aristotle’s hypothesis…he found Aristotle to be wrong - weight does not determine the rate at which an object falls in a vacuum.

The point here is that it doesn’t matter how correctly reasoned our conclusions might be, they have to be tested. If we throw water onto a wood burning fire, the fire will likely go out. This gives us a certain degree of information that we gain inference from: “Water puts out fire”. While this theory might hold true for most fire scenarios, if you throw water onto an Oil Fire, the oil will quickly float to the top of the water and the fire will spread. Therefore the hypothesis that “Water puts out fire” is not exactly true, and would need to be revised to take this new scenario into account.

The Scientific Method is also an attitude; a perspective. No matter how ‘right’ something may seem,we are going to check it out by observational testing and actually see if it holds validity. In fact, we should to be very skeptical of any claim that cannot be seen or tested in the physical world.

In the words of Stuart Chase: ”[The scientific method] is concerned with how things do happen, not how they ought to happen. Most of us are amateur scientists today, though we are seldom aware of it…The scientific method is not primarily a matter of laboratories and atom-smashers or even meter sticks; it is a way of looking at things, a way of gathering from the world outside knowledge which will stay put, and not go wandering off like the wickets in Alice’s croquet game.”^[35]

The scientific method of inquiry is what has allowed the human species to gain comprehension of themselves and the physical world. For better or for worse, it is what’s behind virtually every advancement that has improved the lives of the human species. While some might debate what constitutes “improvement”, there is nothing else in life that holds a candle to the vast amount of creation and freedom that science has made possible. All of the physical and material benefits humankind enjoys is a product of scientific inquiry. From the electric light, to the cotton gin, to Penicillin, to the telephone, to the Internet…science has continually made what was previously considered impossible…possible. Even the most arcane, traditionally oriented religious believer will usually give in to the world of science and go to a hospital for medical care in an emergency.

However, most in our romanticized world still tend to view science as a cold, heartless medium, while citing distorted human value abominations such as the Atomic Bomb in refutation of the scientific perspective. In reality, science and technology are only tools, and like anything, they can be used for productive or destructive purposes. That is our choice.

Dynamic Equilibrium

“Dynamic Equilibrium” occurs when two or more opposing processes proceed at the same rate. Let’s say, for a simplified example, that you have a small island with a (1) wildly growing annual carrot crop, (2) a family of rabbits and (3) a family of wolves. The rabbits need the carrots to eat and thus survive, while the wolves need the rabbits to eat and thus survive. In each pair, there is an equilibrium that must exist based on the carrying capacity of the island. If there are not enough carrots to feed the current population of rabbits, some rabbits will not survive. If there are not enough rabbits to feed the wolves, some wolves will not survive. If the carrot crop is destroyed by drought, then no one survives.

In other words, there is an equilibrium that exists in the physical world, which dictates, on some level, what the possibilities are for those organisms that utilize the available resources for survival. With respect to our planet, we would call this the “carrying capacity of the earth”.

Due to the monetary system, most materials on the planet are owned by a number of private corporations. These corporations do not honestly reveal their stock, for to do so would have ramifications, financially. Even worse, it is in the best interest of these corporations to perpetuate scarcity as best they can, for scarcity means more value for each unit, and hence, more profit.

The human management of the Dynamic Equilibrium on this planet, which is the most important initial variable regarding the management of society itself, can only come from first understanding what the carrying capacity of the earth actually is. The needs of the human population must be in balance with the resources of the earth.

That being said, what do we know and what can we infer about the planetary sources available?

The fundamental building blocks of human survival in society consist of the following:

1. Energy
2. Industrial/Technological Raw Materials
3. Food, Air and Water

(1) Energy is the cornerstone of society today. It is one of the most critical factors to all social functionality. The availability of renewable energy resources must first be accessed before anything else. Luckily, the results are staggeringly positive. By the early 21st century, a sea of renewable energy sources have been coming to the surface, many with extreme potential, far exceeding the requirements of the current human population. The age of Oil and fossil fuels, along with all the resulting pollution, is coming to a close. There is no reason to burn fossil fuels at all anymore, other than the profit oriented, vested interest which keeps new energy prospects at bay. Remember, the last thing the Energy Industry wants is abundance, for that translates into a loss of profits in the monetary system.

Now, one of the most important energy sources to recognize today is Geothermal Power. A 2006 MIT report on geothermal energy found that 13,000 zettajoules of power are currently available in the earth, with the possibility of 2000 zettajoules being easily tap-able with improved technology.^[36] The total energy consumption of all the countries on the planet is about half of a zettajoule a year^[37], this means about 4000 years of planetary power could be harnessed in this medium alone. And when we understand that the earth’s heat generation is constantly renewed, this energy is really limitless and could be used forever.

Geothermal aside, Solar, Wind, Wave and Tidal energy sources also offer powerful possibilities if harnessed efficiently with technology. The solar radiation striking the Earth's surface each year is more than 10,000 times the world's energy use^[38]. The problem then is not availability - it is the technology to harness it most efficiently. From simple photovoltaic panels that can capture energy into storage batteries for private use, to full scale solar power plants, new technology is constantly emerging which is improving this potential.^[39]

Wind power, while often denounced as weak and impractical, is a lot more powerful than most people think. U.S. Department of Energy studies have concluded wind harvested in the Great Plains states of Texas, Kansas, and North Dakota could provide enough electricity to power the entire nation.^[40] More impressively, a 2005 Stanford University study published in the Journal of Geophysical Research found that if only 20% of the wind potential on the planet was harnessed, it would cover the entire world’s energy needs.^[41]And then there is Tidal and Wave Power. Tidal Power is derived from tidal shifts in the ocean. Installing turbines, which capture this movement, generates energy. Tapping the flow of the Gulf Stream, Icelandic current and other underwater currents can be harnessed. In the United Kingdom, 42 sites are currently noted as available, forecasting that 34% of all the UK’s energy could come from Tidal Power alone.^[42] More effectively, Wave Power, which extracts energy from the surface motions of the ocean, is estimated to have a global potential of up to 80,000 TWH a year.^[43] This means 50% of the entire planet’s energy usage could be produced from this single medium. ^[44]

It is important to point out that tidal, wave, solar and wind power require virtually no preliminary energy to harness, unlike coal, oil coal, gas, biomass, hydrogen and all the others.

The fact is, energy is nothing but abundant on this planet.

The only reason people today think it is scarce, is because of the monetary/capitalist system and its strategic propensity to create scarcity.

(2) The next question is what about industrial raw materials? Can the earth’s supply of raw physical resources, such as wood, iron ore, aluminum and cotton support the world’s population?

Everything you see around you is made of tiny particles called atoms . There are many different types of atoms, each with a special combination of protons, neutrons and electrons. These different types of atoms are called elements. There are currently 118 elements of the periodic table^{[note 14]} , with 92 naturally available in our world (the other 26 are synthetically made) and these elements basically comprise everything around us. The Metals category of elements are the most important, for they only melt at relatively high temperatures; their shape can be easily changed into thin wires or sheets without breaking, and heat and electricity travel easily through them. This makes them very useful for product creation/industrial application. These metals can be found in the earth’s crust and in the oceans, either in their pure form, or more commonly, extracted from minerals. Global Mineral Reserves are currently measured by commercial output production. Sadly, this does not give a clear picture of what is available. While some elements/minerals are vast in abundance, such as Silicon, Aluminum and Iron, others are seemingly growing scarce, such as copper, lead, zinc, gold, and silver.^[45]As far as this author knows, there has never been a complete geological survey of the earth’s minerals/elements, only regional ones. This must be done in the future.

Now, all in all, there are basically 3 components to understanding the carrying capacity of the earth. (a) Knowing exactly what the earth has as far as component elements/materials (b) Where technology is in regard to creating synthetic substitutions for certain elements/materials. (c) How society organizes/manages its use of these elements/materials.

(a) We must have a full survey of all the planetary resources. This will give us key information on how to proceed with our operations. For example, if we have an acre of land that we want to grow food with, the first thing would be to test the soil to understand what type of properties it has. This information would have a direct relationship to what can be grown. This would be the “carrying capacity” of that land, so to speak. From a planetary perspective, this is critical information that has a direct effect on our decision-making.

(b)The difference between today and the past is our increased creative ability, through the scientific method, to solve problems. In regard to scarce materials, finding substitutions is an important field. For example, diamonds have long been considered a highly valued, scarce resource. One application of this strong mineral is as a precision machine-cutting tool. However, now, with the advent of synthetic diamonds grown in a lab, these tools do not require the expensive original. Many industrial materials today now have synthetic counterparts and this medium of scientific problem solving is very active. In fact, the scarcity of any raw material is only as relevant as the amount of work being invested into finding a substitute or workaround.

(c) More important than substitutes and workarounds is the very nature of our usage of the planetary resources. This is really the most important point in the debate regarding the carrying capacity of the earth. As noted before, the world’s people function within a monetary system that rewards scarcity, planned obsolescence, waste, pollution and multiplicity.

Production output in the world today is staggering compared to the past. With the use of technology, we are able to produce more with far less people, faster than in any other time in history. However, due to the profit system, there are tons of manufacturers producing the same things, as they compete for market share. Their items are inherently inferior from the moment they are made, for the producer has limited the quality of the materials they use to cut down on their costs. Since it is a competitive system, the waste is staggering, with precious raw materials being used over and over again in inferior products that end up in landfills. Also, the manipulation of the public by industry into wanting non-utility, vanity based items, has compounded the waste. Remember, the monetary system can only work if there is ‘cyclical consumption’. This leads to resource abuse.

The true cause of scarcity on the planet has less to do with the available resources, and more to do with our wasteful and exploitative modes of conduct. Virtually no regard is given to conservation or strategic use until it is too late. In a sane society, the raw materials of the planet would be accessed, industry would be organized as a whole to produce in relationship to what was available, and each item produced would be designed to last as long as possible, causing reduced industrial output and hence resource preservation.

(3) Now, when it comes to food production and water preservation, the same monetary system problems of pollution, cost cutting processes and scarcity come into play. (Minimizing waste lowers profits. If one has to reprocess waste rather than dump it, this is more costly.) Water covers 70% of the earth’s surface. Technological advancements such as Desalination processes can make fresh water both from seawater and from challenging brackish sources using reverse osmosis. This is yet another example of how technology is just as much a part of resource management as resources themselves. The idea that usable water is scarce is true only in relationship to the limited methods we are currently using, coupled with industrial pollution that goes on daily.

Food production is also expanding within the technological spectrum, creating vast new methods of cultivation. For instance, the earth’s surface is indeed being abused, with its precious topsoil^{[note 15]} being corrupted by indifferent agricultural methods. According to some reports, we are losing topsoil at a rate of 1% a year while the National Academy of Sciences has determined that cropland in the U.S. is being eroded at least 10 times faster than the time it takes for lost soil to be replaced.^[46] Fortunately, scientists have devised a new form of soil less agriculture, called “Hydroponics”. This powerful new medium leaves a sea of options for the human population, not only in compensating for the damage we have caused, but also by expanding the possibility of when and where food can be grown. With hydroponic agriculture, we could theoretically grow food in the middle of the desert with proper irrigation or by tapping down to the water table. Other untapped food production possibilities include suspended multi deck underwater ocean farms as well as air plants. The bottom line is that food production is only as scarce as we decide it is. If we choose to become intelligent and strategic with our production methods, while preserving the environment and taking full advantage of scientific inventions that maximize our food production capacities, reducing wasteful and inefficient methods, healthy food can be as abundant as water itself. The starving children of the world are not so because of a lack of available food. It is their lack of purchasing power, not true scarcity, which causes the needless deaths of millions a year.

Summary of Chapter 3:

The dynamic equilibrium of planet earth in relationship to the human species is not a rigid system. It is up to us to keep things in balance through the intelligent management of the earth’s resources. If this is done correctly, there is no evidence to support that we cannot have abundance for all. The three attributes of management are 1) Knowing the raw materials available 2) proactively working to overcome any deficiency through strategic substitutions 3) Using technology in all facets in order to maximize high quality production, minimize environmental impact and overcome problems in general. Nature has its own laws and it is in our best interest to acknowledge them and align our behavior accordingly. We must be prepared to find out that what we think to be true today will be updated tomorrow. This is the emergent nature of knowledge. We learn from our mistakes. All errors are really gifts, for they can bring us to a higher level of understanding. The Scientific Method, with its basis of logical thought, evidence and testable proof, is the guiding philosophy that has solved problems and improved humanity’s quality of life.

Chapter 4: The Means for Social Evolution

What do we want? How are we going to get there? What tools are required?

Our Values consist of what we find important; our goals; what we care about; what we hold sacred and what we want out of life. Values are not immutable and eternal, yet values pushed upon a person at a young age often have a strong power to perpetuate. Traditional indoctrination, such as nationalistic or religious beliefs, can become pillars of a person’s identity and are difficult to overcome emotionally. The fact is, human values come from the environment. If you were to take a child at birth from a white middle class American family and place him/her in the Middle East with an Arab, Islamic family, that child would most probably grow up speaking Arabic and become a Muslim, holding those traditional values that would have been taught by the family and social culture.

Most of our traditional values were actually set in motion a long time ago. For instance, the Bible says “ You shall earn your living by the sweat of your brow”. What if society didn’t need you to work for money? How could that value hold true? The fact is, values become outdated, just like knowledge and everything else. With respect to the current findings of science, most of the values of society seem to be out of date by thousands of years.

That being said, let’s now stop for a moment and decide what our valued goals are, both personally and socially. The Zeitgeist Movement, along with The Venus Project, has a set of social values and hence goals, which we feel are critical to the sustainability of the species.

Goals

-Clean air and water, nutritious food, material abundance, fast, clean, and efficient transportation, relevant education, public health care, the end of war, personal liberty, an environment that enables us to constantly improve our abilities, human extensionality, reduced stress, and reduced crime.

These social goals are far from complex or irrational. In fact, many will find that both religious and secular philosophers have been poetically attempting to address these hopes for millennia.

Method

Now, with our basic goals denoted, we must then think about the methods to be used in order to accomplish those goals. Unequivocally, The Scientific Method is the most powerful tool we know. Observation, Logic and Testing, have long since trumped superstition, intuition and metaphysics. In the words of Karl Pearson: ”There is no shortcut to truth, no way to gain knowledge of the universe except through the gateway of the scientific method.”^[47] The intelligent use of the methods of science is what has brought us everything that helps us in our daily lives. The application of science to social organization as a whole is the next step in our evolution. (Please see chapter 3 for more elaboration on scientific methodology).

Tools

The material tools that we need to accomplish our goals come from the humane use of Technology. From a simple hammer, to a high tech, fully automated production plant, technological invention continues to ease production methods, while also consistently making what was once deemed impossible, possible.The history of technology is showing tremendous, accelerating development. Coupled with the scientific method of thought, the technological tools currently at our disposal have the ability to dramatically change humanity in ways most would find too fantastic to be true. If you explained a cell phone to a man from the 12th century, he would probably be shocked beyond comprehension at the “magical” instrument.

One characteristic of technology is its ability to constantly defy what is considered possible. In the words of Dr. George Gallup: ”At every point in history, man has assumed that civilization has reached its zenith. He has smugly refused to place himself on the scale of time that reaches thousands and millions of years into the future as well as into the past. Looked at from the vantage point of 8,000 years hence - approximately the period of recorded history - man’s progress up to the present time may appear far less impressive than it does today.^[48]

In the early 20th century, most scientists theoretically agreed that the airplane was probably impossible. However, the Wright Brothers were too busy bolting a gas engine to some wings in their bicycle shop to care about erroneous opinions. Soon after, they defied the authorities and invented the once considered impossible – “flying machine”.

The fact is, when a scientist tells you something is possible, he is likely correct. However, when he states something is impossible, he is likely wrong. Science and technology have continued to defy prior assumptions of possibility, and will continue to do so. It can safely be assumed that whatever the future holds from a technological standpoint, it will likely seem impossible and “ridiculous” from the standpoint of today’s understandings and methods.

Process

Now, coming back to our larger point, the three attributes of personal and social evolution are thus:

                                                                Our GOALS – the METHOD of thought – and the TOOLS to get it done

We define our goals based on what we value, we utilize The Scientific Method to solve problems and to create/test hypothesis, and we harness technology to make the goal a reality. It is important to point out that this generalization is not linear and each part has an influence on all other parts. For instance, our values are often altered by advents in technology, along with the logical reasoning of the scientific method. If a person is brought up with a value system of “helping the poor” and then finds him or herself in an environment where no poor exist, possibly due to technological advancement, this value would have no basis to exist.

In the end, our ever-changing values are the most important attribute affecting our social evolution. The only relevant values are those that work to improve society and those that hinder its development.

Summary of Chapter 4:

Our approach to social evolution begins with our values. Our values are combinations of personal reflections on our acquired knowledge, coupled with the traditionalized, cultural indoctrinations we are born into. As time moves forward, our values change. Sadly, most of the values people have today come from a social system that is largely out of date in terms of its relationship to modern science and technology. The process of accomplishment consists of: knowing what we want (Goals), thinking about the material in the most effective and hence, scientific way (Method), and using our most effective technological instruments to make that goal become a reality (Tools). The valued goals of The Zeitgeist Movement and hence The Venus Project, are to redesign society for the benefit of all humanity, making sure there is enough of everything for everyone, maximizing personal freedom and happiness, while constantly reducing offensive social behavior, or crime. These values can only be accomplished using the intelligent and humane methods of science and the tools of technology. In the next section, we will show how.

Part 3: A Resource-Based Economy

Chapter 5: Social Cybernation

The Venus Project

Industry and Labor

Government

Chapter 6: Cities that think

Circular City

Transportation

Lifestyle

Part 4: Overcoming Mythology

Chapter 7: Nature Vs. Nurture

Human Behavior

The Legal System

Chapter 8: Functional Spirituality

The Religious Ideal

Talk is Cheap

Part 5: Taking Action

Chapter 9: The Movement

Bridging the Differences

Interdisciplinary Teams

The backbone of the initial development of this new social system will come from teams of researchers and technicians working in all relevant fields. These can be called Interdisciplinary Teams.

The first team we are putting together is the "Communications Team." Everything listed above would constitute some action of this team. Anyone who supports this direction should help to inform others. We are all a part of the Communications Team on a certain level.

In turn, more teams will be created that will work in specific areas related to the implementation of a Resource-Based Economy. There are many scientific fields that are needed to solidify the underlying mechanisms of the project. These Interdisciplinary Teams would include research into computer programmiong, city planning, robotics, education, data collection, etc. Please check back to www.thezeitgeistmovement.com for organizational announcements in this regard. If you feel you have a skill that would contribute to this development, please let us know when we begin to setup the teams. A whole section of the website will be devoted to this interaction and focus. As we grow, full conferences will emerge. In time, we will eventually be able to begin the first city, even if it is only a prototype of sorts.

Final Thoughts:
There are many out there who would say that what we are describing here, that is the development of a Resource-Based Global Economy, would never happen. They would typically cite "human nature", the "power elite" or erroneous technical opinions in their defense. This cynicism has no support in view of humanity's technical and social development throughout history.
We have come from a world of extreme superstition, abject slavery and extreme racism and social prejudice, to a slowly emerging world of race equality, scientific ingenuity and emerging values that desire to see humanity benefit as a whole.

In the words of Carl Saga:

"The old appeals to racial, sexual and religious chauvinism, to rabid nationlist fervor, are beginning not to work. A new consciousness is developing which sees the earth as a single organism, and recognizes that an organism at war with itself, is doomed. We are one planet."

We have gone from smoke signals to the telephone to electronic mail sent at near the speed of light. Everything that has once been considered impossible has gradually become possible. The Wright Brothers were told by "experts" that it was impossible to fly... years ago people who talked of traveling to the moon were dismissed and labeled as "Mooniacs." To assume something is 'impossible' in this world is failure of creativity.

If 120,000 people can come together to build a nuclear bomb, as was done with the Manhattan Project in the late 1930s, there is no reason why we cannot come together and use human ingenuity to accomplish incredible social achievements for the betterment of humanity. It is time we unleash our "Weapons of Mass Creation' (WMCs) unto the world. It is time we take responsibility for each other and oursevles. We have the knowledge, means and initiative to devise an entirely new social architecture that can create a world we actually enjoy and flourish in.

Very simply, it is time to grow up.

-Peter Joseph | Roxanne Meadows | Jacque Fresco, February 2009

Notes

1. ↑ Communism is being referenced here in its historically applied form, not the idealized forms which advocate no money.
2. ↑ The evolution, application and interpretation of Economics are staggeringly large bodies of material with endless debate. It is not in the interest of this manual to present a treatise on the whole of Economics. In fact, a partial basis of this manual is to show how, through the advent of Technology and the elimination of Scarcity, 99% of all economic theory is now an outdated and irrelevant practice.
3. ↑ There are also even more subjective forms of value that are demographic specific, where certain “brands” create prices (projected value) not based on tangible human labor or material value, but on the “status identity” of the item itself, as perceived by the consumer culture. This is a less relevant form of “economic value” and will be discussed more so in the section entitled: “Distortion of Values” later in the Chapter. Also, financial instrument values, such as issues traded on the stock market are also irrelevant, in and of themselves, when it comes to actual production and distribution.
4. ↑ There is also the Investor who gives fiscal support to an Employer/Owner/Producer, or trades in the Financial markets for gain. This isn’t relevant to the context for an investor is not required to exist in order for the market system to operate.
5. ↑ For the sake of simplicity, the term ‘profit’ is going to be used here as synonymous with ‘income’ and ‘wage’. While the classical economic classifications separate these notions, these terms simply refer to the acquisition of money. The wage earner ‘profits’ from his work, for it is just income, very simply.
6. ↑ The classic definition of Inflation is ‘rising prices’ (price inflation), while Deflation is ‘falling prices’. However the primary cause of this ‘Price Inflation’ and ‘Price Deflation’ is the increase and decrease in the supply of money (Monetary Inflation). That being said, this is not the only possible cause of these conditions. Over/Under Production itself can influence this as well. There can also be a period of Inflation and Deflation at the same time, such as when a systemic crisis occurs, which contracts the money supply faster than money can be created and put into it.
7. ↑ In the event of economic failure, where debt/inflation exceeds manageability, interest rate manipulation can have little or no effect. More on this in Chapter 2
8. ↑ For those not familiar with this reality, see Web of Debt by Ellen Brown, Chapter 2.
9. ↑ These are generalized, summary examples. It is not in the interest of this booklet to detail all components and attributes.
10. ↑ In a system where money is created on top of money out of debt, with interest charged, creating more debt owed back than is even in circulation- this system is a textbook pyramid scheme. The tool is called the “Fractional Reserve System”. Read Web of Debt, chapter 2, by Ellen Brown, for more about this monetary expansion policy.
11. ↑ http://www.shadowstats.com/alternate_data/money-supply
12. ↑ The SGS Alternate Unemployment Rate reflects current unemployment reporting methodology adjusted for SGS-estimated "discouraged workers" defined away during the Clinton Administration added to the existing BLS estimates of level U-6 unemployment, http://www.shadowstats.com/alternate_data component
13. ↑ ‘Logic’ is hereby defined as: a method of human thought that involves thinking in a linear, step-by-step, cause and effect oriented manner, taking into account as much relevant information as possible, in order to reach a conclusion or hypothesis.
14. ↑ The periodic table is an arrangement of the chemical elements according to atomic number as based on the periodic law.
15. ↑ Topsoil is the upper, outermost layer of soil, usually the top 2 to 8 inches. It has the highest concentration of organic matter and microorganisms and is where most of the Earth's biological soil activity occurs. Plants generally concentrate their roots in and obtain most of their nutrients from this layer.

References

1. ↑ http://wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn
2. ↑ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalism
3. ↑ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_market
4. ↑ Lietaer, Bernard “Beyond Greed and Scarcity”. Yes Magazine 1997
5. ↑ Merva & Fowles, Effects of Diminished Economic Opportunities on Social Stress, Economic Policy Institute, 1992
6. ↑ http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/04/national/04energy.html
7. ↑ http://www.naturalnews.com/News_000647_Bayer_vaccines_HIV.html
8. ↑ Butler, Smedley D., War is a Racket, Feral House, 1935, Chapter 1
9. ↑ Webb, Gary, Dark Alliance, Seven Story Press, 1999
10. ↑ Schor, Juliet, The Overworked American, New York Books, 1991, p. 208
11. ↑ Newton, Isaac, Letter to Robert Hooke February 5th 1675
12. ↑ Chicago Federal Reserve, Modern Money Mechanics, 1963
13. ↑ Al Martin , Protocols for Economic Collapse in America (article) 2008
14. ↑ Ellen Brown, Web of Debt, Third Millennium Press p.368
15. ↑ CIA World Factbook,2009, https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2079rank.html
16. ↑ http://wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn
17. ↑ http://mwhodges.home.att.net/nat-debt/debt-nat-b.htm
18. ↑ https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/print/us.html
19. ↑ Brown, Ellen, Credit Default Swaps: Evolving Financial Meltdown and Derivative Disaster Du Jour , webofdebt.com, 2008
20. ↑ Keynes, John Maynard, The General Theory of Unemployment, Interest and Money, 1931
21. ↑ Loentief, Wassily, National Perspective: The Definition of Problems and Opportunities , June 30th 1983, p3
22. ↑ Peterson, Willis, The Cotton Harvester in Retrospect: Labor Displacement or Replacement? St Paul, 1991, pp 1-2
23. ↑ Kahn, Tom, Problems of the Negro Movement , Dissent, 1964, p 115
24. ↑ “Why job growth is Stalled”, Fortune , 3/8/93 p.52
25. ↑ http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/2002-12-12-manufacture_x.htm
26. ↑ Schwartz, Nelson D. Will ‘Made in the USA’ fade away? Fortune Nov 24th 2003, p. 102
27. ↑ US Weekly Economic Update: Manufacturing Payrolls Declining Globally: The Untold Story , Alliance Bernstein Oct 2003
28. ↑ http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/2002-12-12-manufacture_x.htm
29. ↑ Retooling Lives , Vision 2000 p. 43
30. ↑ http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20030801/1345236_F.shtmls
31. ↑ Interview, 3/15/94 noted in The End of Work (by Jeremy Rifkin), p. 143
32. ↑ http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2007-08/cuns-pc4081307.php
33. ↑ http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2007-08/cuns-pc4081307.php
34. ↑ Fresco and Keyes, Looking Forward , Barnes, 1969, p. 62
35. ↑ Chase, Stuart, Tyranny of Words, Harcourt Brace, NY, 1938, pp.-123-24
36. ↑ MIT, The Future of Geothermal Energy, 2006
37. ↑ Based on 2005 figures, World Consumption of Primary Energy by Energy Type and Selected Country Groups, 1980-2004
38. ↑ http://encyclopedia2.thefreedictionary.com/solar+energy
39. ↑ http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/1637594/research_highlights_potential_for_improved_solar_cells/
40. ↑ "U.S. National Renewable Energy Laboratory”. February 6th 2007
41. ↑ http://www.stanford.edu/group/efmh/winds/global_winds.html
42. ↑ http://www.bwea.com/marine/resource.html
43. ↑ Future Energy Solutions / IEA report, 2003
44. ↑ World Consumption of Primary Energy by Energy Type and Selected Country Groups , 1980-2004, Energy Information Administration, U.S. Department of Energy
45. ↑ http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/383726/mineral-deposit/82165/Geochemically-abundant-and-scarce-metals
46. ↑ http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/348200_dirt22.html
47. ↑ Pearson, Karl, The Grammar of Science, 1911 p.17
48. ↑ Gallup, George, The Miracle Ahead , New York Evanston and London, Harper and Row, 1964, p.ix