At the Desteni Forum, there has been a lot of discussion about an Equal Money-Equal Wage program that we are placing as part of a Manifesto for Equality. It’s been surprising how much resistance to the idea by what I call the NO MONEY NOW CROWD. They want money completely done away with and somehow divide resources to all the people. Not sure how a “resource-based” economy is preferable to the Equal Money for All approach, but their resistance is pretty strong.
They also make a lot of lazy assumptions.
“Money is bad!”
“Money has to stop now!”
“Check out Zeitgeist and Jacque Fresco and the resource based economy.”
So I did.
After a few minutes of trawling the internet, I came to the Resource Based Economy page at http://www.theresourcebasedeconomy.com/, and found a brief description:
“A resource-based economy is a society without money, barter or exchange, with the awareness that Humanity is One family and where technology, science and spirituality is used to it’s fullest to develop and manage the planet’s resources to provide abundance for everyone in the most sustainable way.” The Resource Based Economy, now rendered as RBE, is technocratic and stateless where somehow people will be granted access to resources which will make our lives great. Namaste!
Sounds good. The “awareness that Humanity is One family” is the point that Equal Money-Equal Wage shares. But we also say that EM-EW is a transitory stage before we can implement a money-free society. According to the RBE site:
“It is a concept where value no longer is measured by money, but rather by the joy we feel, the contributions we make, and the development we take part in.”
Yikes! Something is beginning to smell a little fluffy and precious. Then I look further down the post and see this:
“RBE was first brought up by Jacque Fresco with The Venus Project, started in Venus, Florida, USA. It was taken further by Peter Joseph through the Zeitgeist Movement, that now has over 300 ooo members all over the world. “Zeitgeist” means “the spirit of the times”. The Zeitgeist Movement is not a political or religious movement, but rather a grassroots movement for “applied spirituality”. Meaning that we seek to implement on this planet the core values of all the worlds religions and spiritual movements, like Oneness, unity, equality and freedom for all people.”
A point to make here is that no religious concept where “Oneness, unity, equality and freedom for all people”exist! And by “applying spirituality” you’re applying deception, because spirituality has never had an effect on bringing “oneness, unity, equality or freedom” to this world. It has actually done the opposite – bringing division, dissent, inequality and enslavement! We shall not base equality and oneness on a spiritual foundation. It shall be based in Common Sense and what is the best for all, or nothing.
Moving on. The next section on the RBE site takes on money. Thus, money is “obsolete.” It rightly complains about the profit-motive, the bullshit greed, debt and scarcity and the growing ranks of the impoverished. ”We don’t need money.” Why? Because money makes us do bad things. We lie, cheat and steal because of money. We have to work crappy jobs to survive while a few profit from our wage slavery.
So the RBE solution?
Have machines do everything. Seriously. Quote: “The day to day decision making can largely be computerized and be based on need and our input, with highly developed, self maintaining and self producing machines and robots.“
How will these machines be built, maintained and produced? I have no idea. Neither do the RBE crowd. The RBE is an idea, a conceptual theory like anarchism, with many questions to be asked on how resources would suddenly be available for all.
I was not satisfied with the RBE page, so I looked up some more sites to see if there was any mention on how the RBE would be practically installed. I found references to Zeitgeist, the Venus Project, and 2012. I found a site called, Zeitgeist PDX which gave a less fluffy definition by the “RBE Foundation” :
” a resource based economy is a social system that integrates abundance, resource availability, progress, scientific decision making, personal responsibility, cooperation, peace, sustainability, knowledge, freedom, justice, equality and unity of humankind.”
“Integrates abundance?” Is Esther Hicks behind this?
I had to break off my search due to other things that required my attention, but I will continue investigating the RBE -Zeitgeist-Venus Project monster to see how it stacks up with our Equal Money-Equal Wage principle. Should be interesting.
Filed under: Posts , 2012, anarchism, Desteni, Equal Money, Equality, money, poverty, RBE, resource, scarcity, survival, sustainability, Venus Project, Zeitgeist
