Jacque Fresco

Jacque Fresco (born March 13, 1916) is an industrial engineer, architectural designer, social engineer and futurist based in Florida. His optimistic view and desire to create solutions that maximally benefit the greatest number of people stem from his formative years during the Great Depression. To this day he writes and lectures extensively on subjects ranging from the holistic design of sustainable cities, energy efficiency, natural resource management and advanced automation, focusing on the benefits it will bring to society.

Resource-based economy

A major theme of his is the concept of a 'resource-based economy' that replaces the need for the scarcity-oriented monetary economy we have now. 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 limitations of what is deemed possible due to notions of economic viability.

He gives this example to help explain the idea:

At the beginning of World War II the US 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.

Fresco states that for this to work, all of the 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 counterproductive to our survival.

Earlier work

In 1942, Fresco started the Revell Plastics Company (now Revell-Monogram) with Lou Glaser, although he later left to pursue his other ideas, working variously in aerospace research and development, architecture, efficient automobile design, bare-eye 3D cinematic projection methods and medical equipment design where he developed a three dimensional X-ray unit amongst other things.

Jacque lives in Florida on a 25 acre research centre populated with various domed buildings of his design along with his assistant, Roxanne Meadows, where they write books and produce films with intricately built models to demonstrate his concepts and ideas. As of Wednesday, October 8, 2008, Fresco's property is listed as "for sale by owner."

Bibliography

*"Looking Forward" (1969) co-authored with Kenneth Keyes
*"Introduction to Sociocyberneering" (1977)
*"Sociocyberneering Presents Cities in Transition" (1978)
*"Sociocyberneering Presents the Determinants of Behavior" (1978)
*"Structural Systems and Systems of Structure" (1979)
*"The Venus Project: The Redesign of a Culture" (1995) (World Future Society best seller)
*"And The World Will Be One" (1997)
*"The Best That Money Can’t Buy: Beyond Politics, Poverty & War" (2002)

Films

*"The Venus Project: The Redesign of a Culture" (1994)
*"Welcome To The Future" (2001)
*"Cities In The Sea" (2002)
*"Self-erecting Structures" (2002)
*"Future By Design" (2006)
*"" (2008) [http://www.zeitgeistmovie.com/]

ee also

*Technocracy movement - Jacque Fresco was a member of Technocracy Incorporated for a number of years. There are major differences between Jacque's ideas and that of Technocracy Incorporated though. Jacque is not in favour of the concept of energy accounting for example, and he does not consider himself a 'technocrat'.

External links

* [http://www.thevenusproject.com/ The Venus Project website] where Jacque explains his ideas (film clips from the website can be viewed [http://www.thevenusproject.com/vgallery.html here] ).
* [http://www.futurebydesignthemovie.com/ Future By Design] a film on Jacque by William Gazecki.
* [http://www.myspace.com/jacquefresco Jacque's MySpace Page] where you can keep up on Jacque's life and work.
* [http://www.youtube.com/jacquefresco Jacque's YouTube Videos] where you can see clips of Jacque speaking on various topics.