Resource Based Economy - What Is It?

[hclasalle]

This documentary, "Resource Based Economy" asks the question that is being posed by Jacque Fresco

"If automation and machinery was so technologically advanced as to relieve human beings of labor, there would be no reason to have a job or to have money at all"

The repercussions of this question are many - and it reminds me of the automation of cashiers at Dominicks and other major supermarkets which has replaced about 18 jobs for each store, doing 24/7 what requires three full-time employers. These are jobs that will never return. This way, although they make a huge profit in our neighborhoods, they dont have to invest in job creation in this jobless age.

But anyway, the question is being framed from the perspective of the need and the inevitability of human liberation from wage slavery as this continues, and the 'resource based economy' movement argues that it is possible and doable to create a society free from wage slavery where the idea of human labor is entirely reassessed.

I think this goes to the heart of what Occupy is trying to accomplish, long term, and there should be teach-ins and debates about this idea of resource based economy. I'm not entirely sold on this: I think the most we can hope for is numerous oases of society free from wage slavery and living without money while others may choose different ways of living. But I do believe that this discussion on what alternatives exist to what we have now, needs to happen on an international level and that the ideas of resource based economy should be part of that. Here's the video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pxr51DrzdrE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UbckIPBh6xA

When industry takes on machine, instead of shortening the workday they downsize, you lose your job. So you have a right to fear machines. - Jacque Fresco

Animal labor, for instance working crops or transporting humans, has been almost entirely replaced by vehicles. Now human labor is going through the same process. The documentary argues that about 90 % of current human labor will eventually most likely be phased out in favor of machines, which have a much higher success rate for industry due to accuracy and efficiency of machines.