Imagine that the basic needs of everyone on Earth were taken care of. What would society be like? American futurist Jacque Fresco, who turned 98 last week, has spent his life thinking about this.<\/p>\n
Needs are at the root of capitalism. You have something that somebody else needs; that person has something that you need; you trade these things directly or exchange them for money. You need something you can’t pay for now, so you borrow someone else’s capital and exchange your work for money until you can pay it back.<\/p>\n
If there are no needs, Fresco says, then capitalism has no place.<\/p>\n
Hunter-gatherers<\/span> do not live in a capitalist society. The forces of nature do the work of making the plants and animals grow. The hunter-gatherers simply take what they need and share the rest. They do not have a concept of “work” or “free time” or “vacation” or “stuff”; they just do what comes naturally.<\/p>\n Our future may look like this, only much better, when poverty no longer exists and when machines do most of the work that humans do now.<\/p>\n Fresco argues that Earth’s resources are abundant<\/span>, but that they are either squandered<\/span> as a consequence of capitalism (through waste, redundancy<\/span>, and planned obsolescence<\/span>) or artificially made scarce<\/span> (in order to influence prices and maximize profit).<\/p>\n Suppose some land and ocean were set aside and given an infrastructure that delivered the maximum amount of renewable<\/span> energy possible, he says. Intelligent factories, completely automated<\/span>, could work day and night to produce everything a society needs. There would be no cost because the amount of energy consumed would always be less than the amount of energy available. Everything is recycled, so there is no waste.<\/p>\n Robotic construction systems would be able to build houses cheaply and automatically. Vertical farms<\/span>, maintained<\/span> by robots, could grow food, and high-speed transportation would be available for free<\/span>. Instead of rewarding greed<\/span>, society could emphasize<\/span> the education, health and well-being of everyone.<\/p>\n Fresco believes that advances in robotics<\/span> and machine intelligence will lead to greater and greater efficiency and autonomy. The robots will not rule us, but they will provide for us and take care of their own repairs. In this “resource-based economy”, we will be free to learn, teach, care for each other, and innovate.<\/p>\nThe Venus Project<\/h2>\n