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{{Infobox organization
|name = The Venus Project
|image = TheVenusProjectLogo.svg
|size = 200px
|motto = Beyond Politics, Poverty and War
|type = ]
|website = {{URL|www.thevenusproject.com}}
}}

'''The Venus Project''' is an organization that advocates American ] ]'s visions of the future with the aim of improving society by moving towards a global sustainable social design that they call a "]". Such a system incorporates ] cities and ], ], ], ] and advanced ], focusing on the benefits they claim it will bring to humanity.

The name of the organization originates from ], where its 21-acre (8.5-hectare) research center is located, near ]. Within the center are ten buildings, designed by Fresco, which showcase the architecture of the project. ''Future by Design'', a film about the life and work of Jacque Fresco, was produced in 2006.

== History ==
]

The Venus Project was started around 1975{{Citation needed|date=June 2011}} by Jacque Fresco<ref name="Forbes-Duranni">Durrani, Noni (2007-10-15). Forbes.com. Retrieved on 2008-12-02.</ref> and by former portrait artist Roxanne Meadows in Venus, Florida, ] Its research center is a {{convert|21|acre|m2|sing=on}} property with various domed buildings of his design, where they work on books and films to demonstrate their concepts and ideas.{{Citation needed|date=June 2011}}

The Venus Project is a two-part business: a ] called "Future by Design"<ref name="future by design"></ref>{{Better source|date=March 2011}} and a for-profit company called "Venus Project Inc./Global Cybervisions Inc."<ref name="venus project inc/global cybervisions inc"></ref>{{Failed verification|date=June 2011}}

The Venus Project was founded on the idea that all of society is fundamentally corrupt<ref>{{cite web |people="] |title=Zeitgeist:Addendum |url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EewGMBOB4Gg |time=0:56:14 |quote="So you see the basis of corruption is in our society. Let me make it clear. All nations then are basically corrupt because they tend to uphold existing institutions. I don't mean to uphold or downgrade all nations, but communism, socialist, fascism, the free enterprise system, and all others sub-cultures are the same. They are all basically corrupt." |accessdate=2001-06-06}}</ref> and that this corruption comes from the use of money.<ref>{{cite web |title=FAQ |publisher=The Venus Project |url=http://www.thevenusproject.com/the-venus-project-introduction/faq |location=Point 6.5 |quote=There is tremendous corruption, greed, crime, embezzlement, and more caused by the need for money. |accessdate=2001-06-06}}</ref> Fresco instead advocates what he refers to as a resource-based economy,<ref name="whatistvp">{{cite web | title=What is The Venus Project | url=http://www.thevenusproject.com/intro_main/whatis_tvp.htm | publisher=The Venus Project | accessdate=2009-03-26 |archiveurl=http://web.archive.org/web/20090427000456/http://www.thevenusproject.com/intro_main/whatis_tvp.htm |archivedate=2009-04-27}}</ref> which is an economy where resources are allocated by a computerized automated system referred to as the Cybernation.<ref>{{cite web |title=FAQ |publisher=The Venus Project |url=http://www.thevenusproject.com/the-venus-project-introduction/faq |location=Point 52. |accessdate=2001-06-06}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=City Systems |url=http://www.thevenusproject.com/en/technology |publisher=The Venus Project |accessdate=2001-06-06}}</ref>

== Aims and goals of the project ==

# Realizing the declaration of the world's resources as being the common heritage of all people.
# Transcending the artificial boundaries that currently and arbitrarily separate people.
# Replacing money-based nationalistic economies with a resource-based world economy.
# Assisting in stabilizing the world’s population through education and voluntary birth control.
# Reclaiming and restoring the natural environment to the best of our ability.
# Redesigning cities, transportation systems, agricultural industries, and industrial plants so that they are energy-efficient, clean, and able conveniently to serve the needs of all people.
# Gradually outgrowing corporate entities and governments (local, national, or supra-national) as means of social management.
# Sharing and applying new technologies for the benefit of all nations.
# Developing and using clean, renewable energy sources.
# Manufacturing the highest-quality products for the benefit of the world’s people.
# Requiring environmental-impact studies prior to construction of any mega-projects.
# Encouraging the widest range of creativity and incentive toward constructive endeavour.
# Outgrowing nationalism, bigotry, and prejudice through education.
# Eliminating elitism—technical or otherwise.
# Arriving at methodologies by careful research rather than random opinions.
# Enhancing communication in schools so that our language is relevant to the physical conditions of the world.
# Providing not only the necessities of life, but also offering challenges that stimulate the mind while emphasizing individuality rather than uniformity.
# Finally, preparing people intellectually and emotionally for the changes and challenges that lie ahead.<ref>{{cite web|title=Aim and proposals|url=http://www.thevenusproject.com/en/the-venus-project-introduction/aims-proposals|publisher=Venus Project}}</ref>

==Resource-based economy (], ], Free goods and services)==
==== The concept of a sustainable cybernated economy ====

In a resource-based economy, resources are allocated into the goods and services in consumer demand, based on factors of ], ] and technological advancement. The role of money would be phased out, instead central computers serve a lineup of goods and services (see ]), which citizens may order upon demand; central computers serve the lineup of goods based on sustainability and the latest in technological advancement; obsolete, unwanted, or unused goods would be recycled, reduced and/or reused, resource waste is a burden the system must eliminate to function efficiently.<ref>{{cite web | title=Resource-Based Economy | url=http://www.thevenusproject.com/a-new-social-design/resource-based-economy | publisher=Venus Project | accessdate=2011-05-29}}</ref>

=== Relation to the market economy ===
A resource-based economy uses machines as labour to deliver goods and services from resource mining to the finished product, distribution centers with drive-throughs for each category that consumers collect and courier home, and there is no cost to them, the cost is the energy and resource used in the process, which fall onto automated machines to regulate, alleviating the workload from consumers.

In the market economy, the one based on the flow of money; labour is required from consumers in sectors of industry to produce goods and services, to manage this there must be scarcity enough to motivate labour, and on needs such as food and shelter that can be kept scarce artificially to maintain a workforce. Those of lavish lifestyle, with the better quality of life, are the ones that manage the labour-consumer market, and as these are the prime vehicles of the market economy, wealth may readily accumulate into their ownership. The most wealthy and powerful hold resources as a bargain-chip to stimulate labour to produce goods and services for society and luxury for the rich and powerful. A dependent relation exists between the worker and the governors that maintains the stability of the market economy, yet simply sustaining the economy may evolve into exploitation of workers, maintaining them at subsistence level while profiting wealth, resource and luxury.<ref>{{cite web|title=The Venus Project-Scarcity, Justice, Transition, Resource Based Economy|url=http://www.youtube.com/user/thevenusprojectmedia#p/u/52/e66jQ-pZYnc}}</ref>

A resource-based economy aims to supplant the ] 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 rationale that machines do not profit and do not maintain an environment of scarcity<ref name="The Venus Project">{{cite web|title=FAQ - 6: What are some of the detrimental effects of The Monetary System?|url=http://www.thevenusproject.com/en/the-venus-project-introduction/faq|author=The Venus Project}}</ref>{{Failed verification|date=May 2011}}<ref>{{cite web|title=Essay|url=http://www.thevenusproject.com/a-new-social-design/essay#the}}</ref> to gain indebtedness and servitude from the population{{Clarify|date=May 2011}}. Machines would act as the mediator to deliver goods and service to people in-place of the market and the government.<ref>{{cite web|title=FAQ - 52: What is the role of Cybernation as Decision Makers?|url=http://www.thevenusproject.com/en/the-venus-project-introduction/faq|quote=}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|title=FAQ- 48: How are Resources Distributed Equitably?|url=http://www.thevenusproject.com/en/the-venus-project-introduction/faq}}</ref> According to Fresco, scarcity is maintained and regulated by the market{{Clarify|date=May 2011}} which leads to an increase in prices,<ref name="The Venus Project"/> and people need to work harder to pay higher prices; labour and wealth distribution is controlled by markets, people cannot always receive goods and services they need. Fresco maintains that although an abundance of resources exists in reality,<ref>{{cite web|title=Resource Based Economy|url=http://www.thevenusproject.com/en/a-new-social-design/resource-based-economy}}</ref> greed and power inherent in the market structure limits access to them. Fresco argues that the world is rich in natural resources and energy and that, with modern technology and judicious efficiency, the needs of the global population can be met with abundance, while at the same time removing the current limits of what is deemed possible because of notions of .

Fresco provides an example of this confusion{{Clarify|date=May 2011}} in the following quote:

:"At the beginning of World War II the U.S. had a mere 600 or so first-class fighting aircraft. We rapidly overcame this short supply by turning out more than 90,000 planes a year. The question at the start of World War II was: Do we have enough funds to produce the required implements of war? The answer was no, we did not have enough money, nor did we have enough gold; but we did have more than enough resources. It was the available resources that enabled the US to achieve the high production and efficiency required to win the war. Unfortunately, this is only considered in times of war."<ref>{{cite web | title=Resource-Based Economy | url=http://www.thevenusproject.com/a-new-social-design/resource-based-economy | publisher=Venus Project | accessdate=2010-07-28}}</ref>

Fresco states that for this to work, all of Earth's resources must be held as the common heritage of all people and not just a select few; and the practice of rationing resources through monetary methods is irrelevant and counter-productive to the survival of human civilization.{{Citation needed|date=May 2011}}

One of the key points in Fresco’s solution is that without the conditions created in a monetary system, vast amounts of resources would not be wasted unproductively.<ref name=autogenerated1>{{cite web | title=Jacque Fresco on Larry King Live (Full - 1974) | url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PN6puH9DYnQ | accessdate=2011-01-28}}</ref> Instead Fresco’s contention is that without the waste of resources on ends that would become irrelevant there would be no scarcity of necessary products such as food and education.<ref name=autogenerated1 />

=== Critical Theory of the Market Economy ===
'''According to Jacque Fresco (unless otherwise stated)'''<br />

Poverty, crime, ] and war are the result of scarcity created by the present world's profit-based economic system. The profit motive also stifles the ] of socially beneficial technology. The monetary system and the processes associated with it, such as labour and competition, damages society and holds people back from their true potentials. The current global economic system will have to see a major crisis before people start to lose the confidence in the monetary system and start looking for other directions.<ref>{{cite web
|url = http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SIhIT_lNLjs
|title= Red Ice Radio - Jacque Fresco & Roxanne Meadows - Pt 1 - The Venus Project
|publisher= youtube.com
|accessdate=2011-01-05}}
</ref>

The advance of technology, if it were carried on independently of its ], 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.<ref name="ZeitgeistAddMovie">{{cite web|url=http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7065205277695921912 |title=Zeitgeist: Addendum |publisher=Video.google.com |date= |accessdate=2009-12-07}}</ref>{{Better source|date=July 2010}} It is now possible to achieve a society in which people would live "longer, healthier, and more meaningful lives."<ref name="Beyond Utopia">{{cite web|url=http://www.thevenusproject.com/a-new-social-design/essay#beyond |title=The Future and Beyond}}</ref>

Fundamental to the project is what Fresco calls a "resource-based economy". Such a system 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.<ref>{{cite web
|url = http://thevenusproject.com/the-venus-project-introduction/faq
|title= Frequently Asked Questions From Over 25 Years
|publisher= thevenusproject.com
|accessdate=2011-01-05}}
</ref> 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. Predatory drives are bred within the individual, in a monetary system, drives as these are conditioned by culture, and combined with a lack (scarcity), these predators will take offensive action against the better-off or helpless whatever the power differentials are; resulting in social consequences like poverty, crime, ] and war, when the root cause is removed (the flow of money) these troubles will vanish. <ref>{{cite web|title=Corrupting Factors, Social Responsibility|url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sSi1SCqa1YY&feature=channel_video_title}}</ref>

His ideas would ].
His ideas stem from his formative years during the ].<ref name="imdb-0870112">{{IMDb title|0870112|Future by Design}}</ref>

=== Transition proposals ===
The proposed was to transition to a resource based economy is as follows:<ref>{{cite web|title=Phases of the transition are expressed|url=http://www.thevenusproject.com/en/the-venus-project-introduction/aims-proposals}}</ref>
* Phase One - build a research centre ✔
* Phase Two - produce a full-length feature film to premiere globally
* Phase Three - construct an experimental research city (test prototype)
* Phase Four - build a theme park

The Venus project makes verbal agreement that all funds raised go back to developing the project, which provide a viable alternative to the market system, for when the market economy falls their solution will provide. As mentioned by Jacque and Roxanne, it is imperative that a motion picture be made before Jacque dies, so that the vision will be readily and easily accessible and apprehensible into the far future. This would continue the cause into building a research city founded on principles laid out by Jacque, establish through years research, experience and experiment.<ref>{{cite web|title=About Donations and how they are used|url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWjNg7i2zNk&feature=channel_video_title}}</ref>

==The Zeitgeist Movement==
{{Main|The Zeitgeist Movement}}
The Venus Project was featured prominently in the 2008 documentary film '']'', as a possible solution to the global problems explained in the first film and first half of the second film.<ref name="ZeitgeistAddMovie" /> The film premiered at the 5th Annual ] in ], California on October 2, 2008, winning their highest award, and it was released online for free on Google video<ref>{{cite web | title=Zeitgeist: Addendum | url=http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7065205277695921912 | work=Video | publisher=Google | accessdate=2009-03-26 }}</ref> on October 4, 2008.<ref>, Press release.</ref> Following the movie, an organization called the Zeitgeist Movement was established to promote the aims of the Venus Project. In 2011, an additional film, '']'', was also released. The movement functioned as the activist arm of the Venus Project, however in April, 2011 they split up.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.thezeitgeistmovement.com/joomla/index.php?option=com_kunena&func=view&catid=229&id=334057&Itemid=100114&lang=en|title=Chapter instructions: April 2011}}</ref>

== See also ==
* ]
* ]
* ]

== References ==
{{Reflist}}

== External links ==
* {{Official website|www.thevenusproject.com}}

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