THE VENUS PROJECT

Ridam Dhawan

Imagine a socio – economic system where there is no money, an economy where people are not driven to do things for monetary benefits. An idea so bizarre that would put Adam Smith to shame. It is not capitalism, not socialism, not communism and not even fascism that we are talking about. It is called the Venus Project, a project that offers an alternative socio economic system that promises to solve all our problems.

The Venus Project has been proposed by Jacque Fresco, an American futurist, and a self-described social engineer. The project proposes a holistic social design where technology will be intelligently integrated to maximize the quality of life, rather than simply profits. He also argues that most of our problems are technical and we look for their solutions through political means. According to him, the world has enough resources, money is interference, because it limits our ability and dreams.

The modern society has access to every form of technology. The world has enough resources to supply each person with food, shelter, clothing, education and unrestrained supply of renewable clean energy like geo thermal, tidal, wind, solar etcetera.  In a resource based economy, all goods and services are available to everyone without money, credit, barter or servitude of any kind. In order to make this possible, all the resources on the Earth should be declared the common heritage of the world’s people.The Venus Project would start with a systems approach to city designs, using highly effective construction methods, emphasizing the conservation of resources. The first city would be a fully automated city which would further help in creating other cities. The project aims to create a completely sustainable future, something that all the existing and past economic and political systems have not been able to achieve yet. The aim of the city would be to maximize usage of existing and future technologies, with the sole purpose of enhancing human life and protecting the environment.

The idea is unique and sounds great. It is true that money is the root of a lot of evils. The problem is that the implementation of the idea is almost impossible. First of all, it needs all the nations of the world to come together and form a one world coalition. Second, it requires access to high class technology available in abundance. Third, a world where there is no money may not result in everyone pursuing what they like to. It may result in people becoming lethargic and hence actually lead a decline in standard of living. Fourth, the idea of completely relying on technology is dangerous as technology can be used in ways that can result in complete destruction of the humankind. Fifth, the idea has not been tested on a small scale, hence has no records of success. Finally, the basic underlying element of the idea, is a world without money. It has existed before and it is the failure of that system which actually resulted in the need to use money.

The Venus Project is an idea that appears to be very promising on paper. It is a novel project that clearly indicates the problems of the free markets scenario. The problem is that it has major flaws. The idea has certain underlying assumptions that need to be tested in the real world. The basic need to implement the idea is world peace, which is still a far cry.