Welcome to the first official issue of The Zeitgeist Movement’s Newsletter. I would like to take a moment to review the history of The Movement’s developments during the short period since its inception in late 2008.

As most reading this document already know, The Zeitgeist Movement is a sustainability advocacy organization which is fundamentally built upon/ inspired by the social ideas of Jacque Fresco of The Venus Project. It isn’t the scope of this article to run down the vast and rather complex tenets of The Movement. However, I would like to give a basic overview here. Please go to our website and review our free materials if any of the below is not familiar to you.

The Zeitgeist Movement (TZM) seeks to transition into a new social system, called a “Resource-Based Economy” which seeks to base social organization on Resource Management and Preservation as the initial starting point of all relevant earthly decisions. In turn, we wish to see Science and Technology be used liberally for the greater social good, including the scientific reorientation of Labor, Production, Distribution and hence Industry at large. This can be done through a “Systems Theory” approach to a global technological management infrastructure. “Politics”, as we know it today, is considered outdated in the view of The Movement, for it is an institutional byproduct of ancient folkways of human relations that pre-dates the advent of modern scientific understandings. Politics inherently prefers “opinion” to “fact”. In other words, Government today acts in accord with vested interests, not objective scientific reasoning. This is largely due to the nature of the monetary system and how it has evolved since its early conception.

TZM sees the Monetary System of Open/Free Market Competition as the fundamental cause of the majority of the social problems that exist in the world today, including War, Poverty, Crime, Personality Disorders, Pollution and Violence. While the Monetary/Market system has served an important evolutionary role historically, our organization no longer sees the merit in these ancient, provably unsustainable traditions. The unspoken reality of the Market system is based, in part upon two fundamental flaws. (1) The assumption of infinite resources and hence a system driven by wasteful consumption rather than conservation, and (2) The idea that employment (Labor for Income) for each human being is an empirical possibility, when the exponential increase of technology is systematically replacing human labor through mechanization, driven by the need for employers for reduce their cost basis in order to remain competitive in the marketplace. For more details on this issue, please read “The Profit Problem” printed in this newsletter (soon available from TurismoAssociati.it - n.d.R.TA). In the end, not only does the current economic/production/distribution system pose inherent limitations on our ability to create an “abundance” for all the worlds people, it is leading us down a path towards social failure, foreshadowing a series of crises which are likely inevitable if the current model isn’t adjusted.

As of late June 2010, TZM website has been viewed by tens of millions of people; We have over 412,000 subscribed Members from nearly every country; Over 43,500 Forum Users on the Global Site; We have 46 official country (international) chapters and over 200 subchapters internationally. Our two previous annual event days (Zeitgeist Day), which occurred in Mid March have had sold out audiences across the world, with the prior event day having over 330 events in 70 countries (see zday2010.org). We have had international recognition in both the independent and mainstream media, including the New York Times in America.

Needless to say, we are progressing very well. Just recently we launched an aesthetically driven project which introduces socially conscious media in the community, called the Zeitgeist Media Project (zeitgeistmediaproject.com). Likewise, we have numerous other projects in the works, all geared towards bringing awareness to this new social direction. Let is be known that we are in a preliminary phase in the Movement and increasing awareness is the most important step. After this is done, physical projects and larger, more targeted actions will be taken.

We feel the current problems of pollution, unemployment, depletion, crime, poverty, war and general social instability are likely to continue and grow given the nature of the system and what it reinforces. TZM sincerely hopes that we can begin a move out of our current model before it is too late and that is the central role. The first step then, is mass global awareness of an alternative.

We hope you will join us, if you haven’t already.

Author: Peter Joseph ; Source: The Zeitgeist Movement - Newsletter July 1st, 2010