As we discussed in Part One, UBUNTU Contributionism, is a concept and movement being promoted by investigative archeologist and scientific researcher Michael Tellinger, that aims to create a new society which delivers unlimited abundance and does so with the elimination of money.
“At its heart, Ubuntu Contributionism rests on the simple fact that everything created in our world is done by people, not money.”
Yes, we’ve created a system to “compensate” and “differentiate” among people via money, but at the end of the day, people individually and working together, using the earth’s resources, create everything in our existence. Money is a system that we use to “entice” people to provide their labor and intelligence to get things done and provide a medium of exchange of resources. You provide your labor hours for something that you can exchange (money) for some goods or services at a later date. But of course, everything isn’t rosy in our current system:
What are the Pros and Cons of the Money System?
Pro’s
- As a medium of exchange, money is effective in compensating people for goods and services that they produce.
- The pursuit of money produces a desire in people to create new goods and services.
Cons
- Vast inequality of resources between people arises over time, as those with special access or privilege are able to find ways to ensure un-equal distribution of money to themselves.
- Requires people to spend 2/3 of their waking hours doing work. People not free to fully pursue their passions and things that truly make them happy.
- Money causes people to behave in hyper-competitive ways and win-loss scenarios in a continual effort to get more of it.
- Meaning, purpose, and principles get diluted in the continual need to make money to survive and get things done.
- Pursuit of money encourages hoarding of resources, information, and cooperation which all result in a situation of scarcity. Money does not create more, it actually ends up creating less.
What the UBUNTU Contributionism System proposes is a wonderfully abundant society where everyone gives a small amount of their labor hours without compensation, and in return, they can have whatever they like that other people and companies make, because everyone has decided to provide it without charge. The UBUNTU System accomplishes this through a few simple requirements of participants:
- Everyone must choose some profession that represents their “labor of love” which uses a skill they have expertise in or would like to develop expertise in (this would be something you truly enjoy doing – remember, there is no money, and no “career paths” to be concerned about…). Each person is expected to work for around just 3 hours per day in their chosen field. (why only 3 hours? – because without the waste and duplication that comes in for-profit, capitalistic / competition based systems, society collectively would produce much more than it needed with even only that small amount of time).
- Everyone must spend a few hours a week in a task is that is necessary for the collective good of the society.
If you make those two “contributions” – you get to freely have whatever the society produces free of charge. Your time, energy, and love – contributed to the common good in about 18-20 hours per week – is all that is necessary for you to have whatever you like. You would be able to live securely (housing, food, transportation), need for nothing (access to all types of goods and services), and have an abundance of free time to pursue your hobbies, passions, and personal life development objectives (no restrictions or limitations on what you could do, because whatever was necessary for you to pursue your hobbies or dreams, would be provided freely).
How can this be?
Think about your own job – how do things get done? You probably will start thinking of the materials you use in your job. How do you get those things? You pay other people and companies for the goods and services you need to make your product and then you create something that you specialize in, right? Once made, you then add a profit margin to your product cost, and then sell it. [Recognize that throughout the whole process, it is people doing all the work through a vast interconnected system – money gets them to do it, but it is the people themselves creating all the materials, components, and final products – not the money].
Now, picture, if the people and companies where you bought your materials and services, in turn had no costs for their operations – no labor cost, no materials cost, and no energy costs – all inputs were free of charge. Their effective “costs of goods” is zero. They are now able to give their products and services away freely. In an UBUNTU Contributionism society, everyone produces things at zero cost, and is thus able to supply it to others for free. There is thus no need for money. Whatever you need to survive and thrive is provided openly and freely within the system.
A few key questions you might ask are:
- We use the incentive of money for people to get into certain industries and produce certain goods and services. In addition, some of those services may not be so attractive (think garbage collection). Why would people be motivated to keep doing those things if there wasn’t a strong profit motive? MT answers: “The good news about human passion and the variety of things that interest people is, that for every budding Michelangelo or Leonardo da Vinci, there are a thousand crazy young scientists who are equally passionate about chemistry and solving the sewage situation. They know how to turn raw sewage in to compost, clean water, energy and other things we have not discovered yet because it is not financially viable. Once we let these great minds loose and allow them to play in their laboratories they will deliver many great discoveries.” – As we move towards more advanced robotics, artificial intelligence, and other technologies, we should be able to automate many things in society to free up humans to live more expansive lives. See the Venus Project for ideas on how this will come about over the next 30-50 years.
- If people could get things for free, why would they be motivated to do any job? MT answers: “No – the system is called Contributionism, where everyone contributes a few hours per day of their own skills to the community. You have many skills and various passions that you have developed throughout your life. Now you can put them to productive use. The reason why everything is available to everyone all the time is because of this very simple principle. After you contribute your 3 hours per day, during which you perform your “labor of love”, you will still have 18 hours to to sit on your ass and do nothing. In an UBUNTU community this will be highly unlikely, because you will be pursuing many other hobbies and passions – all for free, which access to all the tools you need to pursue such hobbies – just because you have chosen to stay in this community and contribute your labor of love for the benefit of everyone.”
- If there is no profit motive any longer, would everyone have the same amount of “things” and would there be no differentiation in things like the homes people live in, the types of cars they drive, differences in vacations, access to luxury items, etc? MT answers: “There is no land ownership in UBUNTU communities. Everyone has a beautiful home of their own to live in, designed and built for them for free, by the best architects and builders, based on the size of their family or needs. Everyone is allocated land by the community and Council of Elders, based on what they do for the community. Farmers will have as much land as they need to produce whatever it is they are producing in sufficient quantity for their community. Material possessions do not exist because everything is available to everyone all the time. Big mansions and expensive cars are a side-effect of capitalism, only afforded by those with money, mostly to show off their material wealth that separates them from those who cannot afford it. They are status symbols, mere expressions of ego than anything else, causing separation and creating envy with the rest of the problems we are trying to eradicate from our lives…Much of what you may have accumulated in your life will have a different meaning or value to you in a moneyless society where everything is available to everyone. You will have access to infinitely more things that you can imagine at this present moment. You will most likely get rid of all the junk you have been hoarding – knowing that if you need something, you can go get it or simply order it to your exact specifications.”
- If people didn’t have the incentive of making large sums of money, why would innovation of new goods and services occur at the same pace as it does now? MT answers: “This is one of the most misconstrued arguments raised by many. It is impossible for us to make a value judgment on human nature while being trapped in the matrix. We have no idea what human nature is – we don’t even know what it means to be human. We are so caught up in the matrix where most of still deny that we are utterly enslaved by the system. Our perception of humanity is totally skewed by the community we grow up in. Show me a person who will not give their time and energy for something that they truly enjoy. Our values and morals are dictated to us by others with ulterior motives. Our view of the world and humanity around us is dictated by the global media and politicians who promote war and conflict above peace and unity. We are constantly told that people are inherently lazy. We are told that unless we work hard we will never amount to anything. We live with constant stress on so many levels, it is a miracle we can function at all. Most of us do work we hate, but we have to do it just to survive. Deep down people know that they are abused, but they don’t know what to do about it. Laziness is a consequence of capitalism – it is not part of human nature…Maybe the so-called lazy people know instinctively that only a rat can win the rat-race, and and they choose not to be part of that race. Those who say that human nature is to be lazy and confrontational have become clones of the capitalist indoctrination and have forgotten what it is to be human. People are born with natural talents, gifts and passion for different things. Those talents are destroyed throughout our childhood by the education system and society at large. Eventually people forget their dreams and passions and simply take on any job just to survive. Human nature is completely contrary to these characteristics. We are all part of the great creation – our principal nature is to create, to be creative, to give expression to our God-given talents.”
- Why Not Just Fix the Current Money System instead of Going to UBUNTU? – Michael Tellinger addresses this question in many ways in his book. My high level summary of MT’s views are that as long as money is part of the equation, then there will always be someone who has more and someone who has less. Money inevitably leads to a situation of scarcity – there is never enough of it. And, those with particular access, political connections, and accumulated wealth will always find ways to get more money for themselves and leave less for others. Competition and the ethos of us versus them, winners and losers, and less and more will always be present. Yes, we can certainly make the current system “more fair” or socially equitable, or perhaps even “kinder and gentler”. For example, by eliminating the banking cartels and the central banks, we could reduce the “tax” on government money that they impose and return that wealth to the people of the world. We could also introduce new forms of currency such as bitcoin and perhaps even “community-based” local currencies that would encourage people to spend their money in their local communities. But at the end of the day, we would still be left with the same problem of having to put artificial values upon certain occupations and skills and thus resuming the “bidding war” for goods, services, and human resources which would again result in scarcity and high levels of wealth inequality. True, we could agree as a global society to put more “band-aids” on the situation such as higher taxes and forced redistribution of resources, but again, they would be band-aids and temporary measures that never address the true disease underneath – a money driven system that holds people hostage and puts a price on their heads their entire lives. With UBUNTU, everyone, literally everyone, is unleashed from birth to achieve the highest version of themselves they can possibly be during their lifetime on earth. And, to enjoy that lifetime in comfort, safety, and collaboration and harmony with their fellow citizens around the globe.
Michael Tellinger answers around 20 different questions like this in a FAQ section at the end of the book. Please take a look there to get more of your questions answered. In general, I think it is fair to say that the implementation of UBUNTU would certainly require mapping out many different scenarios and contingencies. Once you starting seriously thinking about UBUNTU you’ll start coming up with your own questions.
How does Ubuntu Contributionism work?
First, the Five Point UBUNTU Mantra:
- No Money
- No Barter
- No Trade
- No value attached to anything which makes it more valuable than anything else- because all of our contributions have to be respected and accepted as equally valuable
- Everyone contributes their natural talents or acquired skills for the greater benefit of all in their community.
Migrating from a capitalistic system to a contributions system won’t be easy of course. There would certainly be a “transition” time when aspects of both systems are functioning. However, Michael Tellinger believes that UBUNTU will be most easily implemented at first in small towns:
The first phase will probably be the slow and steady decentralization of the urban metropolitan jungles that evolved as a result of the chase for money, as people lose the desire to keep chasing the money and choose an easy relaxed life in the country….People who are ready to build communities that are self reliant without the ugly influence of money…Strong rural and farming communities with a strong sustainable platform will provide the framework for developing future UBUNTU communities in control of their own destiny.
As a first step, these small towns first appoint a town Council of Elders. This group would make decisions early on as to how to arrange the particular town they were responsible for, what projects would be necessary to undertake, and what beneficial regulations to enact for the benefit of all people.
The emphasis will be to create as many community projects as possible and slowly reduce our dependency on outside produce, materials, and money until we don’t need any money at all. These projects must cover as many diverse skills as possible to allow as many people as possible with as many diverse skills as possible to participate. It has to be a social, industrial, agricultural, scientific and cultural initiative that will potentially include everyone in the community…for now, these people are being used as slave labor by large corporations, government research institutions and the industrial military complex. Their skills and talents have been hijacked by the corporations and we the people get no benefit at all from their genius. In most cases, many of the great inventions are kept locked away, hidden from the global population. This will be reversed as these great minds join the communities of their choice and contribute their talents to the people rather than to corporations. And so, our towns will be filled with the greatest minds in science, medicine, energy, education, recycling, engineering, and agriculture and more to help implement all the proposed plans. Contrary to what we are constantly bombarded with by the media, the solutions to our problems are simple. There are immediate and effective solutions for most of our needs that can be provided very quickly if the people stand together as united communities. – pg. 124-125 Ubuntu
In essence, a small town which decides to go the UBUNTU route, can start to outline how it would provide the essential six resources for basic life – food, water, shelter, energy, education, and transportation – get projects under way for those and start sharing the output of those projects freely among themselves. They can then scale from there as they start developing more advanced capabilities, services, and projects.
Yes, for a time, there will be a hybrid system, where people will have jobs in other towns and use money to augment whatever else they would like to have. It is expected that they will also sell some of their output to non-UBUNTU towns to make money for a while. Ultimately, as they continue to develop new capabilities, services, and products, the town should be able to go completely self-reliant within a UBUNTU non-money based system.
And once one town demonstrates that UBUNTU is feasible, then people in neighboring towns, states, and countries after seeing the benefits of UBUNTU in action will naturally want to implement UBUNTU in their own communities. UBUNTU will thus hit a tipping point and scale up naturally around the globe.
[*Of the six essential resources – the cost of energy is the key expense driver in a capitalistic system and why things cost so much. Everything we do and produce takes energy (electricity, fossil fuels) in order to create it. Over the years, there have been quite a few people who have figured out to create “free-energy” devices utilizing quantum physics principles. Unfortunately, they have been squashed and kept away from the general public – why? – because the people who make a lot of money supplying you expensive energy don’t want you to have it. The good news is that it’s possible and it is coming – once you have it, implementing concepts like UBUNTU will be much easier than we think.]
The hope is that once people in neighboring towns start to see how good the life is in the UBUNTU towns, they desire to convert their own communities to UBUNTU. Ultimately, an UBUNTU domino-effect occurs.
What would be the outcome of a UBUNTU Society?
- No Crime
- No Hunger
- No Homelessness
- No Greed
- No Gluttony
- No Extortion
- No Hording
- No Debts
- No Hierarchy
- No Control
- No Accounts
- No Obstacles to any kind of progress
- Not Utopia – but The Natural Order of Things
Are we Really Free in a Money based Society?
Most of us have grown up thinking that the more money we make, the more “freedom” we will enjoy. As we grow up, the society we view around us reinforces this message. We look around at others and our situation and experience that the more money we have the more we are able to do things and acquire things. Sophisticated structures are set up to constantly give us the message that we should want to acquire as much money as possible so that we can “live” like the images of the people with large amounts of wealth do. We are given “aspirations” and given that no other real alternatives are provided, we internalize those aspirations (to make as much money as possible) as real and sensible. And as we make more money, and experience the material benefits that provides, the message gets reinforced strongly at a subconscious level.
We become completely accustomed to view most of life through the lens of money. We place a dollar value on everything – experiences, goods, and even other people. Anything or anyone that helps us make money is viewed positively, and anyone or anything that causes us to potentially make less money is viewed fearfully.
Furthermore, we are told that since there is “never enough money” for everyone and to get all the necessary things done (like wipe out poverty, maintain and rebuild infrastructure, provide healthcare for everyone), that we must constantly pursue a “growth strategy” – the economy is never big enough. The hamsters must work harder and run faster to get to the elusive goal of enough money for everyone.
Of course as this is going on, some lift up their heads and realize that there is in fact quite a lot of money, but it has magically been accumulating in the hands of a very small group of people. Hmmmm, that’s interesting. We’re told that’s normal, and the “American Way” – we should not begrudge people who have “worked hard”, followed the rules, and smartly figured out “legally” how to acquire vast sums of wealth. Hmmmm, indeed.
The reality is that as long as we have money involved in society, we will always have these distortions. The motivation to have more money than someone else, will always cause people to do things that are not in the best interests of everyone else.
A money based system ironically creates scarcity and not abundance. People don’t freely share resources and information and instead duplication and waste becomes rampant. Ever since the Gutenberg Press was invented, we’ve had proof that it is the open sharing of knowledge and information that accelerates societal development and creativity in all human endeavors. The internet has unleashed the same effect in modern times. But even with the openness and universal access of the internet, it doesn’t overcome the desire of corporations and individuals to closely guard their “intellectual property” as a means to ensure they can extract value (money) from it. Yes, in some ways, the internet has forced upon some industries a version of free or near-free intellectual property sharing (think streaming music and wide availability of citizen journalism).
Most businesses though have been able to stay with their current model of creating products and services, guarding their IP, and competing heavily in the market for the highest price. In some cases, the consumer wins and prices go down. But the consumer also loses by slower product development cycles, less innovation (since insights by one person or company are not readily shared), a focus on disposability of products versus longevity (the need to sell more and more constantly), public companies focused on quarterly profits rather than long-term meaningful contributions to society, and an over-use of earth resources due to all of the above.
What needs to happen for Ubuntu to be a Reality (and scale Globally)?
The one key ingredient would be a significant rise in Global Consciousness. A tipping point in human awareness and understanding that we are all one, interconnected family that at its core, shares one divine source. Our external appearances and personalities are mere masks for the single awareness and consciousness we all share and that intimately connects us all. We would need to realize that there is no “other”, it’s all “us”. Enough of us would have to wake up to the realization that money causes us to go in the opposite direction – us vs. them, winning at all costs, hoarding vs. sharing. If dividing and conquering is the objective, then money is the ammunition to get the job done.
Ubuntu on the other hand, is by its very nature the definition of collaboration, co-creation, and interdependence. A level of consciousness that would radically transform life on planet Earth to one of joy, love, beauty, robust health, and endless creativity.
Can we get there in our life time?
I think so. But clearly a number of things will need to happen to ensure success. We’ve already spoken about a dramatic rise in consciousness. The other key thing is dramatic advances in technology. Michael Tellinger writes in the book of how the UBUNTU System actually frees up scientific collaboration around the globe and brings major break throughs in low cost or free energy, effective health care treatments and preventive services, and robotic and artificial intelligence automation that frees up human labor for more creative pursuits. Many people on the planet have already made major strides in these areas but many discoveries unfortunately have been suppressed and hidden from the public (too much money to be made from the old technologies – no matter what the cost to humanity…).
Michael Tellinger’s work as a scientific researcher has unearthed many of these technologies that ancient civilizations had developed and that we could (re)-Discover for ourselves. Jacques Fresco of the Venus Project has been working in this regard as well. And, lastly, when the truth comes out of Extra and Intra Terrestrial Life in our Solar System – it’s safe to say, “suddenly” we will have access to much more advanced technology than we currently enjoy. In fact, maybe we’ll even get to have those “replicators” that appear in Star Trek and can instantly materialize whatever we choose. Those “break-throughs” will allow us to dramatically change the way we organize our societal arrangements and economies and provide us with many interesting choices.
The near term choices we will need to make will involve alternatives to the current money system being discussed around the world…Most of these, though they implement a fairer version of the system then we currently have, all still have some form of money currency at their heart. But at this point, I have not seen any system like UBUNTU that takes money completely out of the equation (which is not based on Barter, Trade, or the like). UBUNTU Contributionsim appears to me to be the system that very well could be the right long term choice for a truly enlightened society on planet earth that unleashes amazing levels of prosperity, happiness, health, creativity, and technological advancement.
If you’ve read this far, then UBUNTU is clearly something that has sparked a flicker of hope in your imagination. Here are some resources to help in further investigating this wonderful concept:
- The UBUNTU Contributionism Book
- Michael Tellinger has done many videos on his scientific research work on ancient civilizations for Gaia Television. He has also done a couple of segments on an overview of UBUNTU and recently began an 8-part seminar series on UBUNTU Contributionism. If you want to really get to the heart of UBUNTU – these are a great place to start:
- Michael Tellinger on Contributionism – Gaia.com
- Michael Tellinger – Hidden Origins series – segment on Transitioning to Abundance
- Michael Tellinger – Hidden Origins series – UBUNTU Segment One (of Eight) – Introduction to the UBUNTU Movement
- UBUNTU USA Website
- UBUNTU Global Website
~Jay Kshatri
www.ThinkSmarterWorld.com
