Why Jacques Fresco Believed Money Was the Root of All Evil

You may have seen his face online, often paired with a seemingly profound or utterly absurd quote, followed by the challenge: "You have 30 seconds to think about it." The man is Jacques Fresco, and the riddles he posed in his life were far more complex than any internet meme. Living to the age of 101, Fresco was a man of countless, and often contradictory, endeavors. He served in the US Army, designed for the aviation industry, and even briefly worked as a psychologist for children from low-income families, despite lacking a formal degree.

In one of the more controversial episodes of his life, Fresco reportedly joined the Ku Klux Klan with the audacious goal of dismantling its racist ideology from the inside. He hoped to change their views, but he soon realized that such methods were not grand enough to reshape the world—and reshaping the world was his ultimate ambition.

The Venus Project: A World Without Price Tags

Fresco’s life work culminated in the "Venus Project," an organization dedicated to designing a new civilization. The project's primary target, the ultimate evil in Fresco's eyes, was money. He saw the monetary system as the fundamental cause of inequality, a tool for the rich to control the poor from which there is no escape. He argued that the ever-widening gap between classes would accumulate tension until society inevitably destroyed itself.

Consider a simple hamburger. In 1955, it cost 15 cents; today, a similar burger can cost $3 or more. Fresco would argue that in those 70 years, the hamburger itself did not become 20 times better, tastier, or more nutritious. Only its price—and the profits of the corporations behind it—grew exponentially. This echoes the critiques of capitalism penned by Karl Marx: those who own the means of production grow richer, while everyone else becomes poorer.

As children, we might have thought the solution to poverty was to simply print more money. But this leads to inflation, devaluing the currency and leaving the poor exactly where they started. Fresco proposed the opposite: not to create more money, but to eliminate it entirely. His vision was a global social system based on the resources and technologies available to humanity, not on currency.

An Ideal Society: Utopia or Inevitable Reality?

Fresco was a man who lived his philosophy. He famously wore the same shirt for 40 years, a testament to his disdain for consumerism. He was a true cosmopolitan, refusing to pledge allegiance to a single flag as a schoolboy, arguing that the scientific achievements he benefited from were the work of people from all over the world. He pledged his allegiance to the planet Earth.

How could we build this perfect society? Fresco believed the key was cooperation, not revolution. He acknowledged that people are not equal in their talents and abilities, but he saw this as a reason to work together, not to compete. Society, he argued, should function like a single organism. The liver does not compete with the lungs for dominance; both are essential for the survival of the whole. He termed this approach to societal change "sociokinetics."

In Fresco's proposed world, abolishing money would solve society’s deepest problems. Without financial gain as a motive, competition that harms society would cease. With resources and necessities available to all, crime would become pointless. Police, courts, and even politicians would become obsolete. People would work not for a paycheck, but for the betterment of humanity. There would be no waste, as everything would be designed for maximum utility and longevity. Freed from financial anxiety, human health and well-being would flourish.

The Mystery and the Memes

Fresco did not consider his ideas utopian. A utopia, he argued, is a world where everyone is happy—an impossible standard. He did not seek to make everyone identical. Instead, he proposed a system where our diverse needs could be met by making essential resources and technologies common property, much like in Marx's vision of communism. Why should everyone own a personal car, he would ask, when we could have a global network of continuous, high-speed transport on electromagnetic cushions—a system he himself envisioned?

Yet, for all his detailed plans for the future, the Venus Project remained shrouded in mystery. Fresco and his partner, Roxanne Meadows, rarely disclosed the specific technologies intended to build this new world, fearing that corporations would steal their innovations. He published books, participated in films, and gave lectures, spreading his vision of a beautiful future. When asked when this future would arrive, he would often answer with a smile, suggesting that without the implementation of his "socio-cybernetic" systems, collapse was just around the corner.

He claimed his designs included a train that could travel at 3,000 km/h. But how could such a thing be built without money? Fresco insisted the planetary resources were available, but that no one was willing to contribute them for the common good. Ironically, the project had to rely on the very thing it sought to abolish: money, donated by his followers. Yet, as time went on, little was built beyond the project's research center in Florida. Fresco was a futurologist, a brilliant predictor of things to come, but he seemed unable to bring that future into the present.

Today, Jacques Fresco is known less as a world-changing architect and more as the hero of memes. It began with his real quotes, which are logical but so self-evident they border on the meaningless: "If you believe that the world cannot be changed, it only means that you are not one of those who will change it."

From there, the memes grew, parodying his style by attaching his name to absurdly simple or "genius" statements. His image became a punchline, his philosophical seriousness turned into a template for internet humor. Perhaps the most telling meme is a picture of Fresco with a quote that consists of a single word: "Okay."

This connects to the core of his practical philosophy, which closely mirrors the ethics of the ancient Stoics. The Stoics taught imperturbability—the wisdom of not reacting emotionally to things outside your control. When someone insults you, Fresco's philosophy suggests it is better to not respond, to remain indifferent to such blows of fate. By wasting your life reacting to every person whose opinion differs from yours, you won't have enough time left to breathe. Passions and emotional reactions only distract from the important work. Perhaps that is why the memes give us only 30 seconds to think. Just half a minute, before we must get back to working for the sake of a beautiful future.

References

• Fresco, Jacque. The Best That Money Can't Buy: Beyond Politics, Poverty, & War. Global Cyber-Visions, 2002.

  This book is a direct primary source from Fresco himself, outlining the core tenets of the Venus Project. It serves as a comprehensive guide to his vision of a resource-based economy, detailing his critiques of the current monetary system and his proposed solutions through the application of science and technology to social problems.

• Claeys, Gregory. Utopia: The History of an Idea. Thames & Hudson, 2010.

  This work provides a broad historical and philosophical context for Fresco's project. It explores the tradition of utopian thought, from Plato to modern technological utopians, allowing a reader to assess where Fresco's ideas fit within a larger intellectual tradition.

• Marx, Karl. Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844. Dover Publications, 2007.

  The article explicitly compares Fresco's critique of the economy to that of Karl Marx. This foundational text by Marx introduces key concepts like alienated labor and the critique of private property that provide the philosophical underpinnings for the idea that a system based on capital creates inherent inequality and alienation.