The Venus Project advocates a global Resource Based Economy, which would eliminate the use of money in exchange for goods and services. This idea has many finer details, but let's leave that aside for now. Opponents say it is impractical, and supporters say it is necessary. I believe it's inevitable, one way or another.
To make my case, I will start from the days of when trading rice for blankets was commonplace, and when this system, bartering, became impractical.
Storing bartered goods became difficult. This was due either to the fact that items were perishable or simply because storing them was a challenge. One only has a limited amount of space, of course. Coupling the problems associated with limited storage space with the even more difficult task of storing and preserving perishable goods, it became clear that a new system had to be devised to make life easier on early consumers. This was how money arrived into the picture and proved to hold many benefits. Gone were the days of having to store physical goods and worrying about perishable items. Imagine how revolutionary this must have been. But before it was implemented, it must have had it's share of criticisms, some of which could have been "What if someone loses their money?" or "What if someone steals another person's money?" and of course "What if someone does not have the money to buy what they need?" With all of these issues in mind, the cultures still decided to implement the monetary system. And as we can see, these issues, which were likely addressed by someone during that time, still exist to this day. These problems have not been solved, and now we arrive at a point in time it's becoming clear that we cannot use this system forever. We must evolve and move forward as we have in the past. This is likely how barter was invented, and later removed and replaced by a monetary system. These systems were designed to help adapt with the changes in human life. There was a time when money was very useful and practical. But now it's time to move forward. But with what? Well, Jacque Fresco presents us with a system called a Resource Based Economy, where money and credit would no longer be used. It recieves it's share of criticisms and it will definitely have it's share of flaws as well, but no system is going to be perfect, as we can see with the monetary system. It was flawed from the beginning, but the civilizations still went ahead with it. Some problems that are present today existed in the past and will continue to exist in the future, no matter what system we are using. That's no reason to not move forward. A new system is going to eventually going to replace this one. History has shown that when a system stops working, another one will eventually take it's place. So what will come next? What do you suggest?
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