FAQ108 What is TVPs stance on personal possessions? Ownership and possession are methods fostered within the monetary system for very specific reasons. It promotes their use as a tactic to sell as many products to each individual as possible. When you can’t afford to purchase the product, there is the option of going into debt in order to acquire it, as long as you have the standing to pay back the needed loan with interest. These methods are promoted to maintain and perpetuate the monetary system. Even if you acquire a certain amount of wealth to possess the things you need, there is always the need to acquire more to keep up with those of higher wealth to maintain greater status. Those who own more and acquire greater opulence are more admired and reinforced with greater success and worth in this money-based society. It creates an atmosphere that encourages individuals to strive toward more and more material gain and accumulation as a form of measurement for ones self-worth and value. Essentially, the more possessions one achieves, the more value they have. This is true within today’s society because the more ability or money they have to purchase more possessions, the more control they gain over the environment and other people. Others become indebted through jobs or their time & energy to those who have the wealth just so they can acquire money to get the possessions they need. A Resource-Based Economy does not value people by their ability to acquire, possess and accumulate material objects. In fact, it is not part of the equation at all. It is a right of every person to be able to have access to the necessities of life, which include all of the goods and services that a highly productive and technologically advanced society can achieve. There is no need for constantly purchasing goods as the need for money is no longer relevant and the perpetuation of society does not depend on the need to buy products. There is also no need to coerce the public through psychological advertising or emotional appeal, making people feel inferior if they don’t have the latest often-worthless product. When one analyzes the current need of having a job in order to acquire the money to purchase these possessions, we begin to realize that it is not the job that we need or want, as we are taught to believe, but more precisely it is the access to the products that job will potentially provide. It is not that we need to possess objects. What we really need is to have the use of products when we need them. This is achieved through access centers within every city. Goods would be acquired from central distribution in the cities and are also available on call or near the location of need or interest. One can simply have access to what they need when they want it. You can think of this as being similar to the public library of today. For instance, if you are at a ski resort, you don’t need to lug a pair of skis and other equipment with you as you travel there and back. Instead, the highest quality skis are available for you and everyone else on site, and can be returned there whenever you are finished with them. Since there is no ownership but access, there is also no need to make things intentionally so they wear out and break down to perpetuate a ‘market’. Since there is common heritage of all resources, you can think of this as everyone having access to everything, and only of the highest quality, so the durability of all products would be made to last. This would finally permit society to conserve significant resources, reduce waste to a minimum and enable more to be produced to assure that there is enough for everyone’s use, thus conserving energy, resources, and consequently protect the environment, as we would no longer be plundering the planet for resource for the perpetual need to sell and maintain today’s planned obsolescence approach. This would also mean that you would not have to work for years to acquire the goods you need to live; there is no need to insure them, to maintain them, have bars or safety devices installed at your home to protect them, or have to replace them. You can understand how ownership is really burdensome and a tremendous waste of our finite resources. To summarize, it is far more humane & life supporting to use a system based on universal access, for it dramatically lowers waste and redundancy, eliminates envy, status hierarchies and all of the ramifications of a lack of self-worth that goes along with that, while increasing efficiency and resource management to enable everyone on the planet to have access to the things they need in order to have a dramatically higher quality of life.
Posted on: Fri, 13 Jun 2014 05:07:06 +0000