Theos-Talk Archives (June 1997 Message tl00090)

(from an e-discussion)

.Yes indeed, it appears that the price system (that is,
any social system that effects the distribution of goods and services by

means of the exchange of debt tokens, and evaluates commodities
according
to scarcity) may finally be on the way out.

Buckminster Fuller may have had an inkling, but the Technical Alliance
(the forerunner of the Technocracy organization) had it pegged as early
as 1920. Way back then they said you can't keep automating and keep the
purchasing power flowing to the people without creating a huge, bogus
debt structure. AND FOR WHAT? We have maintained it because 1) most of
us
have been kept reasonably comfortable by all the goodies made possible
by
industry ...;  2) we've all been duped into thinking that being in debt
is
just the way it is, and "working hard" is our lot in life (how many
people in the high seats "work hard?") Most of us are in dire need of a
cerebral enema; 3) mostly, we're confused and befuddled by conflicting
value systems. On the one hand, our social progress is measured in
growth
in dollars exchanged; yet every single one of us in this ...system -
. - is working on the basis of getting the "most for your money".
The less you spend, and the more you get, the smarter you are.
Dysfunctional, or what???!!! 4) DENIAL!

The only thing - the ONLY thing - that is going to break through to the
vast majority of the social morons is a cataclysmic crash of their bogus

comfortable lives (that are getting more hostile and insecure all the
time). And then they won't be looking for rational answers. They'll be
coming for them what has. Anarchy will reign, and a military government
will be installed (that is, of course, if the military can even operate
-
their computers will have crashed, too).

The use of the term "resource-based economics" is interesting.
Technocracy called it energy accounting: that is, setting up production
and distribution on the basis of real, physical factors, producing an
abundance for use - not acquisition. Jacque Fresco, who has been likened

to Fuller (please see his Web site) uses precisely that term to describe

his vision of the distribution system of the future.

At any rate, Technocracy outlined a design for a resource-based economy
in 1933. The organization went public in the depths of the Depression,
and most people consider it an anachronism of those times. But its
proposals for guaranteed purchasing power (in the form of a
non-transferrable "energy card") and the replacement of the price system

with energy accounting, form the hub of the design.