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The Venus Project
Okay, I've heard some people mention it...
What the hell is it? Can someone explain it and maybe give it a Marxist analysis?
Utopian socialism basically. I think the plan goes like this:
1. Build cool city where technology is so advanced people don't have to do anything and everything is shared in common and there is no law.
2. Open it up as a theme park so everybody can see the glory of the Venus Project.
3. People see glory of the Venus Project so the whole world turns into a bunch of these cities.
Did I mention the cool technology and how everything is powered by green technology?
We claim to live and die equal, the way we were born: we want this real equality or death; that’s what we need.
And we’ll have this real equality, at whatever price. Unhappy will be those who stand between it and us! Unhappy will be those who resist a wish so firmly expressed.
The French Revolution was nothing but a precursor of another revolution, one that will be bigger, more solemn, and which will be the last.
-Gracchus Babeuf
Take from it what you will.
http://www.thevenusproject.com/
"We are free, truly free, when we don't need to rent our arms to anybody in order to be able to lift a piece of bread to our mouths."
- Ricardo Flores Magón
"I am resolved to struggle against everything and everybody."
- Emiliano Zapata
It was narrowly defeated in the North American Civil War of 2036-2044 fought between the Venus Project's autistic cyborgs and the Anarcho-Stalinist Resistance Collective after one of the cyborgs was captured and reprogrammed to be JS-1000, The Stalinator.
Seriously though, it's just another technocracy thing except American and crypto-right wing with ties (via membership) to 9/11 truth and Ron Paul.
"So what if we fail? We are for world revolution!" - Molotov summarizing Trotskyism.
100% Stalinist
100% Anarchist
This is a project to build an environmentally friendly theme park that a bunch of bourgeoisie scumbags can play around in.
Explain?
I'd say they're technocratic utopian socialists who lack a class perspective and have no plan for revolution. Essentially they want to destroy capitalism and implement a gift economy so I don't think they're too bad.
Because of their associations with the 9/11 truth movement, and conspiracy theories. Also, the zeitgeist movement/venus project (remember, they're the same) was pro-Ron Paul in the 2008 election.
Put capitalism in a bag of rice.
Some of our friendly neighborhood technocrats were/are involved with this all this through the technocracy organization EOS.
http://www.eoslife.eu/
Search "Venus Project."
RED DAVE
I'm sure they are, I've never really understood how technocracy fits in with the revolutionary left.
Put capitalism in a bag of rice.
Essentially they are all about extremely high tech computerized machines running every aspect of production - it would result in a high-tech technocratic intelligentsia running society as a kind of new class since they would be the only ones who knew how to build, repair and operate their Venusian "savior-machines".
"If conquest constituted a natural right on the part of the few, the many have only to gather sufficient strength in order to acquire the natural right of reconquering what has been taken from them." The Nationalisation of the Land Karl Marx
"To belittle the socialist ideology in anyway, to turn aside from it in the slightest degree means to strengthen bourgeois ideology." What Is To Be Done? V.I. Lenin
Neither do I. We have had huge threads about this, one of which resulted in the most prominent technocrat around here taking his leave.
http://www.revleft.com/vb/technocrac...ht=technocracy
RED DAVE
- Leon Trotsky
I believe this is a far better position towards technocracy then Troll Dave's "ZOMG THESE ARE CRYPTO FASCISTS, BAN BAN BAN!!!!111".
I agree with A Revolutionary Tool in post 2 though that the Venus Project itself is really quite utopian socialist. Coming up with grand schemes to change the world is hardly a new idea. It exactly doesn't tackle the whole problem of the basic problem within our society - capitalism - and how to go from here to that society. That said, the Venus Project can give us good ideas and inspiration to get an idea of how communism is going to look like.
I think, thus I disagree. | Chairperson of a Socialist Party branchMarxist Internet Archive | Communistisch Platform
Working class independence - Internationalism - Democracy
Educate - Agitate - Organise
To me, after watching some of their videos, seeing the Jacque's guy's architectural plans, and mulling over it, it seems like the Venus project is an infrastructural engineers' or technicians's movement. Just seems like they are out of touch with the the actual struggle of the working people and more concerned with physically designing a Utopia with high tech machinist's running society and propagating "9/11 Truth" conspiracy theories. IE Turning the role of the vanguard over from the working classes to engineer technocrats (who seem pretty petty bourgeois, if not altogether bourgeois) is against the interests of the proletariat.
"If conquest constituted a natural right on the part of the few, the many have only to gather sufficient strength in order to acquire the natural right of reconquering what has been taken from them." The Nationalisation of the Land Karl Marx
"To belittle the socialist ideology in anyway, to turn aside from it in the slightest degree means to strengthen bourgeois ideology." What Is To Be Done? V.I. Lenin
First of all, I have never asked for Technocracy or any individual to be banned, so get you facts straight.Originally Posted by Trotsky
Second, Trotsky was not dealing with Technocracy as a political movement but with a set of ideas. After he wrote the above, Technocracy developed some decidedly fascistic tendencies. In addition, its entire theory of capitalism, including its analysis of capitalism as a "price system" rather than as a system of commodity production, and its absence of any political agency, places it very far from revolutionary politics. Read the threads. There's a lot more.
The essence of socialism is workers control of the economy on a national and global scale. Any resemblance between utopian ideas and revolutionary socialism is practically an accident.
And what is being ignored is the unsavory political connections of the Venus Project. How about some commentary about this?
RED DAVE
The Venus Project and the Zietgiest movement are utopian socialists, very similar to the very first socialists who were almost always technocratic, they have no class struggle idea's really, i suppose the cloest socialist ideology would be something like Parecon or Star Trekism
True, they are linked to Ron Paul, NWO conspiracy theories and the 9/11 truth movement (the latter I am undecided on), I can also imagine some of them being member of the american militia movement.
I would just like to point out that automated production is not technocracy. It would seem that Trotsky is talking about automation (a core component of technocracy) and not technocracy as a movement/political theory.
Put capitalism in a bag of rice.
What is right wing about thinking that 9/11 was an inside job? There is a whole portion of the right wing who promote an agenda behind it but then you have many on the left who also support the "truth" campaign George Galloway is one that springs to mind and I've heard many people defend him on here. I haven't actually seen the first zeitgeist film apparently it had loads of conspiracy type stuff but they seem to have left that behind them now. As for Ron Paul I don't really know much about him except he wants to ban abortion but hasn't he also spoke out against centralized banking? I think that's why they supported him.
When did ending capitalism and introducing a gift economy become crypto right wing? Did I miss a meeting or something?
They're technocrats who reject the class analysis, not lack it.
Its what always happens when political parties in the US fear of being red baited.
"We're not socialists, this is different".
9/11 truth is the domain of the populist right in the us. Not to mention it's flat out nutty. Ron Paul radically defends property rights (he seeks to repeal civil rights legislation in the name of property rights), he opposes centralized banking in favor of privatizing the federal reserve (this obviously anti-socialist) and wants to return the country to the gold standard.
The zeitgeist fils were also academically dishonest.
Put capitalism in a bag of rice.
