Since the Occupy movements started pitching tents and politically motivated fits alike, the rest of the world's been asking, "What the hell do you expect to achieve from sleeping under the stars and smelling like last week's lunch?" Futurist Jacque Fresco and his partner Roxanne Meadows, creators of The Venus Project, are offering one unique, somewhat incredible, and yet undeniably intriguing solution to corporate greed and political corruption.
This Sunday, the thinker, industrial designer, and social engineer is coming to his former home of Miami from his 21-acre research compound in Venus, Florida. He'll be speaking to Occupy Miami, offering the movement one direction to move in: a complete overhaul of the system in favor of a revolutionary -- and stylish -- alternative.
For those unfamiliar with their perspective, Fresco explains that the Venus Project is a broad-based philosophy aimed at moving the world away from everything from money and politics toward more freely shared resources.
"The Venus Project is concerned with the future, concerned with unemployment, war, the terrible relationships we have with other countries. The Venus Project offers a possible solution to most problems," he says. "All the world's people should share all the world's resources."
Fresco says his biggest problem with American democracy is that politicians are elected by special interests to keep the status quo.
"They are elected to keep things as they are," he says.
The project wants the whole world to share resources and equalize social constructs without using money. Sound crazy? Fresco believes it can happen.
"We have to learn to live in accordance with a caring capacity of the earth's resources." Meadows adds that the monetary free-enterprise system is innately flawed. "This system gives you your values, your judgment of right and wrong, almost always to support the existing system."
That explains why you want a Birkin bag and fancy pregnant goats' milk cheese from Siberia. The system promotes scarcity, and scarcity is sexy but not sustainable.
A "resource-based economy," the couple believes, would end many social problems. Price tags are the enemy.
"We're not interested in an established culture, we're interested in an emerging culture," Fresco says. "It's not about creating a utopia, but about creating a culture and economy the best way that we know how at this point."
To further their research into the idea, the pair have already built ten edifices on land they've purchased in Venus, Florida -- a remote outpost on U.S. 27 near Lake Okeechobee. They've built bridges, landscaping, and ponds, as an example of "what people could have within a resource based economy."
The website shows their crazy, futuristic, out of this world Jetson-ready designs for cities. Construction may not have begun on these hyper-modern villages just yet, but maybe the little community at Occupy Miami will be convinced this is the answer, roll up their sleeves and get to work on your next apartment.
Learn more about The Venus Project at the Occupy Miami site at Government Center, West Lawn Fountain on NW 2nd Street and NW 2nd Ave. on Sunday, Nov. 20 at 4 p.m.