Venus Project: a new socio-economic system for a humanistic future

By Rushan Ziatdinov

The Venus Project is the brainchild of Jacque Fresco and Roxanne Meadows and is situated in Venus, Florida. Fresco was an American futurist, engineer, industrial designer, author and inspiring lecturer. Meanwhile, Meadows is a technical and architectural illustrator and model-maker.

The Venus Project was built as an organization advocating a doable and realistic action plan to change society. Specifically, it aims to strive for a harmonizing civilization across the borders of the globe in a way that is humane and sustainable. In its outcomes, it seeks to serve as an alternative in striving for a world where human rights are put into action in everyday life, and not just written about in credible documents.

The Venus Project has an approach that is innovative and universal, deals with both environmental and human issues, and the whole ensemble of economic ideas in the project is based on research.

The vision of the Venus Project is to promote a society that has never before existed. This aim is based on years of studies and experiments. Among the social changes that the Venus Project aims to bring forth is a society that is free and does not tolerate war, hunger, poverty, environmental irresponsibility, human injustice or debt.

Through the Venus Project, a civilization that is unlike any other is given the potential to be brought into existence. As is indicated on its website, the Venus Project's main goal is to strive for all of Earth's resources to be the primary and universal legacy of all of the people on Earth.

Similar ideas applied to one nation could be found in the 1977 Constitution of the Soviet Union, Article 11, which states that "State property, i.e. the common property of the Soviet people, is the principal form of socialist property. The land, its minerals, waters, and forests are the exclusive property of the state."

Anything less is expected and perceived as a repetitive perpetuation of the family of current problems as experienced by the current inhabitants of the world. To achieve its goals, the Venus Project proposes a striking and unprecedented path for people that requires major shifts to be taken by society.

Fresco believed that the project can go hand-in-hand with the collaboration of science in artificial intelligence and robotics as well as engineering systems that power the highest potential living standards, as told in a Forbes article in 2020. In the same article, Meadows and Nathanael Dinwiddie of the Venus Project claim that a resource-based economy will be the next phase of human evolution.

In a 2017 interview with Futurism.com, Meadows shares her thoughts on the resource-based economy, which is a socio-economic system responsible for providing equitable resource distribution without the typical presence of money, credit or bartering.

In this type of economy, every individual who makes up society has access to goods and services, and money is withdrawn from being given significance. Rather, technical personnel, resources, factories and distribution among others take their places along with people who aim to advance the eradication of undersupply.

Additionally, the Venus Project plans cities that are efficient in energy usage, run by professionals belonging to different interdisciplinary teams and fields tied to different cyber systems who make use of sensors to manage every facet that makes up the city, having real-time data which is important for making decisions for the ultimate good of the citizens as well as for the protection of the environment.

The Venus Project has the unyielding belief that poverty and crime can be fully eradicated. According to Meadows, through scientists and professionals using scientific disciplines to come up with systems that are designed to combat such problems, it can become possible.

The education sector will also experience changes in the Venus Project. Based on Fresco's book, "The Best That Money Can't Buy," the subjects which will be taught and included in the curriculum will be relevant to the ever-innovating culture. Learners will become aware of the importance of mutual interactions among humans, technology and the earth.

The curriculum would largely differ from that of the present, which is a reflection of the current world we dwell in. Also, wouldn't it be wonderful if learners could learn from all of their instructors equally? Such an approach would strengthen learners' systemic thinking and would foster the diversified development of people.

The Venus Project offers a different perspective on what the future might look like if we use what we already know to build a sustainable new world civilization. It is favorable because of its innovative strategies that can improve the earth and humanity. Also, it aims to promote changes that are in no way superficial, but realistic, concrete and humane. The project is set to establish or alter society based on the giving and distribution of resources, eradicating constructed boundaries, and consideration of what is best for the environment.

Rushan Ziatdinov (ziatdinov.rushan@gmail.com) is a professor in the Department of Industrial Engineering at Keimyung University, Daegu.