Video: The Inherent Design Flaws In The "Resource Based Economy" Model

This video is Peter Joseph's reply to Zeitgeist's support for a resource based economy. In this video Jospeh reviews the numerous, very real, and legitimate problems. Those problems are not minor details that can be glossed over or fixed at a later date, they are in fact inherent design flaws which render it unworkable.

In light of the recession and political deadlock it is understandable why the ideas behind a resource based economy are popular. It is easy to support being more sustainable, (radical efficiency, recycling, eliminating waste, etc). It is also easy to support the idea of creating a single system that shares resources. While these and other tenants are admirable, a Resource-Based Economic Model, it is yet another unrealistic utopia. Change is difficult for most and we simply do not have the time for the radical changes advocated by the Zeitgeist Movement.

One of the biggest problems with a resource based economy is the notion of removing the monetary exchange system and eliminating free markets. The free market is an efficient system and our monetary system provides incentives and disincentives that are consistent with human psychology. The failure of pure forms of socialism illustrate that this form of governance does not work.

As laudable as the ideals of a resource based economy might be, we have no time for the radical changes they require. The urgency of the threats posed by climate change mean we must be utterly realistic about creating a sustainable world using the most expedient means at our disposal. To make the changes we need to see in the time we have demands that we work within our current economic and monetary system.

© 2012, Richard Matthews. All rights reserved.

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Video: The Zeitgeist Movement Explains a Resource Based Economic Model

In this video from the Zeitgeist Vancouver Lecture Series, a Resource Based Economic model is explained by Matt Berkowitz. The Zeitgeist Movement was founded in 2008, it is a Sustainability Advocacy Organization which conducts community based activism and awareness actions. The Zeitgeist Movement recognizes that issues such as poverty, corruption, collapse, homelessness, war, starvation and the like appear to be "Symptoms" born out of an outdated social structure. Their defining goal is the installation of a new socioeconomic model based upon technically responsible Resource Management, Allocation and Distribution through what would be considered The Scientific Method of reasoning problems and finding optimized solutions.

This Resource-Based Economic Model is about taking a direct technical approach to social management as opposed to a monetary or even political one. It is about updating the workings of society to the most advanced and proven methods Science has to offer, leaving behind the damaging consequences and limiting inhibitions which are generated by our current system of monetary exchange, profits, corporations and other structural and motivational components.

The Zeitgeist Movement views the world as a single system and the human species as a single family and recognizes that all countries must disarm and learn to share resources and ideas if we expect to survive in the long run. Hence, the solutions arrived at and promoted are in the interest to help everyone on the planet Earth, not a select group.

© 2012, Richard Matthews. All rights reserved.

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Video: A Resource-Based Economy

This 18 minute video is a recording of the TEDx [Portugal] Talk by Peter Joseph. Its focus is a resource based economy which describes a post-scarcity world economy. A resource based economy supports the removal of monetary exchange and is advocated by groups like The Venus Project.

The Venus Project was started by Jacque Fresco with the aim of improving society with a design that he calls a "resource-based economy". The system aims to incorporate sustainable cities and values, energy efficiency, collective farms, natural resource management and advanced automation.

Fresco suggests that in a resource-based economy, resources would be allocated into the goods and services in consumer demand, based on factors of availability, sustainability and technological advancement. The role of money would be phased out; instead, central computers would serve a lineup of goods and services, which citizens could order upon demand. Central computers would serve a variety of goods based on sustainability and the latest technological advances; obsolete, unwanted, or unused goods would be recycled, reduced and/or reused. Resource waste is a burden which the system must eliminate to function efficiently.

A resource-based economy aims to supplant the market economy as the entity to which people turn for goods and services. It aims essentially to take the market out of the market economy, replacing it with automation based on the assumption that machines do not profit and do not maintain an environment of scarcity to gain indebtedness and servitude from the population. Machines would act as the mediator to deliver goods and service to people in-place of the market and the government.

The advance of technology, if it were carried on independently of its profitability, would make more resources available to more people by producing an abundance of products and materials. This new-found abundance of resources would reduce the human tendency toward individualism, corruption, and greed, and instead rely on people helping each other.

A resource-based economy uses existing resources, rather than money, to provide an equitable method of distribution in the most humane and efficient manner. It is a system in which all goods and services are available to everyone without the use of money, credits, barter, or any other form of debt or servitude. And human error will not be left to chance, but compensated by cybernated structures, these will manage the risk to minimize or eliminate the opportunities that allow damage to the functioning of society. Offenders will not be killed, instead they will be re-educated, provided with the pieces of information for them to be altruistic, the integrity of a peaceful sustainable society will hold priority.

© 2012, Richard Matthews. All rights reserved.

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The Cycle of Climate Change Acceptance

Like all major socio-economic revolutions the acceptance of climate change takes time. Although reluctance to fully engage the battle against climate change may seem painfully slow, it is consistent with the theoretical stages in what is known as the cycle of acceptance.

The popular attitude towards climate change, must go through various stages before the bitter truth can be inculcated into the public psyche.

Organizations and individuals who are confronted with facts about global warming have been thrown into a cycle of acceptance. The stages in the process of acceptance are part of a well known process first introduced by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross in her 1969 book, On Death and Dying. The Kübler-Ross Model is commonly known as The Five Stages of Grief, it is also referred to as the Cycle of Acceptance. In essence it involves 5 steps:

1. Denial
2. Anger
3. Depression
4. Bargaining
5. Acceptance

Denial, although a waste of valuable time, is the first step on the road to acceptance. Over the last couple of years we have seen a lot of denial and anger surrounding the issue of climate change, but there are indications that we may be moving towards acceptance.

People are at different stages when it comes to climate change. While some are still stuck in the denial phase, there are others who feel hopeless and depressed due to the slow acceptance of climate change in North America. While many polls indicate that American support for climate change declined in 2009 and 2010 there may be a positive trend beginning to develop in 2011.

Popular support for the issue of combating global warming has languished over the last couple of years, however, according to a May 2011 Yale Survey titled Public Support for Climate and Energy Policies, an increasing number of Americans now believe that tackling climate change should be a national priority.

We are currently experiencing an upswing in a cycle that will entrench environmental issues into the popular psyche.

The Pembina Institute provides policy research leadership and education on climate change and energy issues. Clare Demerse, acting director for climate change at the Pembina Institute’s Ottawa offices, believes it’s only a matter of time before we are all talking about global warming.

“All issues go through a cycle where they are at top and then fall off and that’s where we are now. It will be back up there again.”

However, the amount of time it takes a person or an organization to complete the cycle of acceptance is critical. The longer they take to come to the stage of acceptance, the less likely they are to ever fully complete the cycle, and the less likely they are to make the difficult decisions to deal with the problem wisely.

© 2011, Richard Matthews. All rights reserved.

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The Last Best Hope to Combat Climate Change

With governments unable or unwilling to pass climate change legislation we need to consider how others have successfully faced serious adversity. In the US there is no hope for climate change legislation for the remainder of President Obama's first term and the recent victory of the Canadian Conservatives has shelved government support for a low carbon economy in that country for the next four years.

Due to the fact that we are unlikely to see significant policy and legislative actions, we need to consider other ways of advancing meaningful change.

Perhaps we need to revive the eternal wisdom of well respected leaders like Abraham Lincoln. This is a man who successfully navigated virulent opposition. Lincoln said, "I am a firm believer in the people. If given the truth, they can be depended upon to meet any national crises. The great point is to bring them the real facts."

In our times the provision of the 'real facts' is impeded by the propaganda machines of powerful oil interests and the politicians who are beholden to them. Nonetheless, we must try to move forward, As Lincoln said, “You cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today.” Despite the obstacles we face we must press on,"The probability that we may fail in the struggle ought not to deter us from the support of a cause we believe to be just." Lincoln encourages us from the grave to work tirelessly towards what is right. “To sin by silence when they should protest makes cowards of men.”

Lincoln was one of the greatest leaders in human history and in his day he faced a series of challenges, most notably bloody resistance to the emancipation proclamation. Lincoln's "last best hope" letter to Congress contains some statements that are relevant to the dire environmental crisis we face today.

On December 1, 1862, one month before signing the Emancipation Proclamation, President Lincoln sent a message to Congress in which he said:

"We can succeed only by concert. It is not "can any of us imagine better?" but, "can we all do better?" The dogmas of the quiet past, are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise -- with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew, and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country."

"Fellow-citizens, we cannot escape history. We of this Congress and this administration, will be remembered in spite of ourselves. No personal significance, or insignificance, can spare one or another of us. The fiery trial through which we pass, will light us down, in honor or dishonor, to the latest generation. We say we are for the Union. The world will not forget that we say this. We know how to save the Union. The world knows we do know how to save it. We -- even we here -- hold the power, and bear the responsibility. In giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free -- honorable alike in what we give, and what we preserve. We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last best hope of earth."

Although these words were written almost 150 years ago, they resonate in light of the current environmental impasse. Today our very survival depends on freeing the environment from the slavery of human abuse.

As Lincoln said, “America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.”

© 2011, Richard Matthews. All rights reserved.

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Green Product Design Network

Students, faculty, staff, and business leaders are invited to join the Green Product Design Collaboration Network to invent sustainable products. Their intent is to develop "a different approach to product design."

The Green Product Design Network (GPDN) began with a group of leaders from the University of Oregon with expertise in green chemistry, product design, business and journalism and communication with an interest in inventing sustainable products that can be readily adopted and marketed to our larger society.

The goal is to take ideas from invention to the marketplace in a way that has a more expedient and lasting impact on society.The Green Product Design Network–in accordance with the University of Oregon’s emerging academic plan, and “Big Ideas”–has been selected as one of five key projects that the University of Oregon (UO) is supporting and highlighting as a major strategic initiative for the UO.

On Wednesday, March 30, 2011 The Green Product Design Network held an event titled, Perceptions of Green Product Design and Green Marketing, at the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art on the University of Oregon campus in Eugene, Oregon. The business of green product design was explored through two presentations by Kiersten Muenchinger (UO Product Design) and Kim Sheehan (UO Journalism and Communications) exploring materials, marketing, waste and misconceptions about environmentally-friendly product design.

The Green Product Design Network is confronting challenges related to our dwindling resource base, climate change, chemical contaminants, the viability and success of our financial markets, and the emergence of new technologies. The best solutions to these problems will come from research cutting across many disciplines and from the creation of tailored, multidisciplinary education programs for our students. This is the aim of the GPDN.

Their strategy is to develop a network that is inclusive and taps the potential of the wide range of scholars needed to tackle these large challenges and allows for broader participation than typical Center and Institute structures. In addition, a network structure facilitates open participation from external strategic partners including those from industry, government, and NGOs. Networks are flexible and nimble, even at large scale – there is minimal fixed infrastructure and participation can define membership while project leadership can easily change as focus shifts.

Their Vision involves enhancing synergies to Impact the “Triple Bottom Line:” People, Planet, and Profit. Inventing and marketing profitable products that truly are green. This requires a broad interdisciplinary approach—and the UO is uniquely equipped to provide it. The GPDN provides a unifying theme to leverage strengths in the arts and sciences, architecture and allied arts, business, journalism, and law to provide a systems approach to:

• Improve understanding about how new products affect the environment, our economic structures, and society.
• Invent greener products, materials, and chemicals.
• Discover the best business models and practices to deliver these innovations to society.
• Create meaningful educational programs for current and future generations.The strength of this strategy is that it will enhance synergies between the three pillars of the "triple bottom line:" people, planet, and profit.

Contact Julie A. Haack for more information, go to the Green Product Design Network Website and see their Facebook page.

© 2011, Richard Matthews. All rights reserved.

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