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  • Hello, my name is Franky. I work also with

  • an organization called The Zeitgeist Movement as you already know.

  • I would like to welcome everybody

  • from far and wide; everybody did come. Thank you very much.

  • I would like to take this opportunity to especially thank

  • the teams of The Zeitgeist Movement.

  • Teams meaning the Linguistic Team, the Web Team, the Technology Team,

  • the Activism Team and also the Project Team that

  • coordinated this project.

  • The whole German chapter did a great job

  • with establishing this event within a month.

  • I would like to thank everybody personally.

  • Good to see you here.

  • I think Peter Joseph doesn't need any introduction.

  • I think everybody here knows who he is.

  • So, short and precise: thank you.

  • I hand the microphone over to Peter.

  • [Sustained Applause]

  • You can turn this mic off since I'm not going to use it.

  • Ah, so it's the other mic.

  • How's everybody doing? [Audience in unison] - Good!

  • I really appreciate you all being here.

  • I want to thank Franky and the Berlin team

  • for moving so fast; it's really phenomenal.

  • Having put on many events myself over the years, it's not an easy task.

  • I'm always reminded when I travel these days,

  • that The Zeitgeist Movement is truly a global phenomenon at this stage, right?

  • No matter where any of us end up on the planet,

  • you don't have to go very far to find friends who share similar values

  • in this pursuit of a better world.

  • The title of this talk is "Economic Calculation

  • in a Natural Law/Resource-Based Economy (NLRBE)."

  • For the past five years or so

  • The Zeitgeist Movement has put out quite a bit of educational media

  • with respect to its advocation,

  • and the learning curve has been rather intense.

  • There's been a tendency to generalize

  • with respect to how things actually work technically.

  • This is the contents of this presentation.

  • In Part I and two I'm going to refine

  • the inherent flaws of the current market model

  • regarding why we need to change

  • along with relaying the vast prospects

  • we now have to solve vast problems,

  • improve efficiency, and generate a form of abundance

  • that could meet all human needs.

  • The active term which has gained popularity in the last couple years

  • is called "post-scarcity,"

  • even though that word is a little misleading semantically as I'll explain.

  • In Part III, I'll work to show how this new society

  • generally works in its structure and basic calculation.

  • I think most people on the planet know that there is something

  • very wrong with the current socioeconomic tradition.

  • They just don't know how to think about the solution,

  • or more accurately, how to arrive at such solutions.

  • Until that is addressed, we're not going to get very far.

  • On that note, in a number of months, a rather substantial text

  • is going to be put into circulation, available for free

  • and also in print form or download form

  • at cost (it's a non-profit expression).

  • This will be finished hopefully by the first of the year

  • and will be the definitive expression (in the condensed form)

  • of the Movement, something that's been long overdue.

  • It's called "The Zeitgeist Movement Defined" and it will serve as both

  • an orientation and a reference guide.

  • It will have probably over a thousand footnotes and sources.

  • Once finished, an educational video series will be put out

  • in about 20 parts to produce the material along with a workbook

  • to help people who want to learn how to talk about these ideas because

  • we basically need more people on an international level

  • to be able to communicate, as I try to do.

  • It's a very important thing, and I think the future of the Movement

  • rests in part on our capacity to create a well-oiled

  • international educational machine with consistent language

  • coupled with real design projects and their interworkings.

  • Part I: Why are we even here?

  • Is this type of large-scale change-

  • what the Movement advocates- really needed?

  • Can't we just work to fix and improve the current

  • economic model, keeping the general framework of money,

  • trade, profit, power, property and the like?

  • The short answer is a definitive "No,"

  • as I'm going to explain.

  • If there's any real interest to solve the growing

  • public health and environmental crises at hand

  • this system needs to go.

  • Market capitalism, no matter how you wish to regulate it

  • or not regulate it, depending on who you speak with,

  • contains severe structural flaws

  • which will always, to one degree or another,

  • perpetuate environmental abuse and destabilization,

  • and human disregard and caustic inequality.

  • Put another way, environmental and social imbalance

  • and a basic lack of sustainability both environmentally and culturally

  • is inherent to the market economy, and it always has been.

  • The difference between capitalism today and say, the 16th century

  • is that our technological ability to rapidly accelerate

  • and amplify this market process

  • has brought to the surface consequences which simply couldn't be understood

  • or even recognized during those early primitive times.

  • In other words, the basic principles of market economics

  • have always been intrinsically flawed.

  • It has taken just this long for the severity of those flaws

  • to come to fruition. Let me explain a little bit.

  • From an environmental standpoint,

  • market perception simply cannot view the Earth

  • as anything but an inventory for exploitation.

  • Why? Because the entire existence of the market economy

  • has to do with keeping money in circulation

  • at a rate which can keep as many people employed as possible.

  • In other words, the world economy is powered by constant consumption.

  • If consumption levels drop, so does labor demand,

  • and so does the available purchasing power of the general population

  • and hence, so does demand for goods as money isn't there to buy them.

  • This cyclical consumption is the lifeblood

  • of our economic existence.

  • The very idea of being conservative or truly efficient

  • with the Earth's finite resources in any way

  • is structurally counterproductive

  • to this needed driving force of consuming.

  • If you don't believe that, ask yourself why

  • virtually every life support system on this planet is in decline.

  • We have an ongoing loss of topsoil, ever-depleting fresh water,

  • atmospheric and climate destabilization,

  • a loss of oxygen-producing plankton in the ocean

  • (which is critical to marine and atmosphere ecology),

  • the ongoing depletion of fish populations,

  • the reduction of rain forests, and so forth.

  • In other words, an overall general loss of critical biodiversity

  • is occurring and increasing.

  • For those not familiar with the critical relevance of biodiversity,

  • billions of years of evolution

  • has created a vastly interdependent biosphere of planetary systems.

  • Disturbing one system always has an effect on many others.

  • This, of course, is no new observation.

  • In 2002, 192 countries in association with the United Nations

  • got together around something called "The Convention on Biological Diversity."

  • They made a public commitment to significantly reduce this loss by 2010.

  • And what changed eight years later? Nothing.

  • In their official 2010 publication, they state:

  • "None of the 21 sub-targets accompanying the overall target

  • of significantly reducing the rate of biodiversity loss by 2010

  • can be said definitively to have been achieved globally."

  • "Actions to promote biodiversity receive a tiny fraction of funding

  • compared to infrastructure and industrial developments."

  • (Hmm, I wonder why?)

  • "Moreover, biodiversity considerations are often ignored

  • when such developments are designed.

  • Most future scenarios project continuing high levels of extinctions

  • and loss of habitats throughout this century."

  • In a 2011 study published which was in part

  • a response to an general call to isolate and protect certain regions

  • to insure some security of this biodiversity,

  • found that, even with millions of square kilometers of land and ocean

  • currently under legal protection, it has done very little

  • to slow the trend of decline.

  • They also made the following highly troubling conclusion

  • combining this trend with the state of our resource consumption:

  • "The excess use of the Earth's resources or overshoot is possible

  • because resources can be harvested faster than they can be replaced.

  • The cumulative overshoot from the mid-1980's to 2002

  • resulted in an 'ecological debt'

  • that would require 2.5 planet Earths to pay.

  • In a business-as-usual scenario, our demands on planet Earth

  • could mount to the productivity of 27 planets by 2050."

  • And there's no shortage of other corroborating studies that confirm,

  • to one degree or another, we are indeed greatly overshooting

  • the annual production capacity of the Earth,

  • coupled with pollution and collateral destruction

  • caused by industrial and consumer patterns.