About TZM
Mission Statement
Founded in 2008, The Zeitgeist Movement (TZM) is a sustainability and public health advocacy organization.
It conducts research and activism through a network of regional chapters, public events and various forms of educational media.
The focus includes recognizing that the majority of the modern world’s social problems, including mounting ecological crises and destabilizing economic inequality (oppression, poverty, conflict, corruption, etc.) is not an inevitable outcome of our civilization. Rather, TZM sees these issues as consequential symptoms of an outdated social system.
While common reforms and general community support to improve conditions are of interest to TZM, working to galvanize the population in a move to change the very nature of our social system itself is the goal.
In this, a central criticism has been in addressing the inefficient nature of market-based economics or capitalism itself. TZM concludes that without a dramatic move away from the incentives and structural dynamics of the market system, there is little hope today for further, relevant improvements in the areas of human rights, ecological sustainability and general public health.
Supporters refer to the model promoted by TZM as a “Post-Scarcity Economy”. This model is inferential, derived from modern principles of scientific, sustainable earthly management, along with contemporary findings in social and epidemiological research.
TZM’s interest in change is global.
It has no allegiance to country or traditional political platforms. It views the world as a single system and the human species as a single family. It recognizes that all countries must disarm and learn to share resources and ideas if we expect to survive in the long run. Self-interest must become social-interest and the solutions arrived at and promoted are in the interest to help every human being.
What is The Zeitgeist Movement?
„Founded in 2008, The Zeitgeist Movement (TZM) is a sustainability advocacy group that operates through a network of regional groups, project teams, public events, media expressions and charity operations. TZM's activism is explicitly based on non-violent methods of communication, with the core focus on educating the public about the true root sources of many common personal, social and ecological problems today, coupled with the vast problem-solving and humanity-improving potential, science and technology has now enabled, but yet goes unapplied, due to barriers inherent in the current, established social system.“
- "The Zeitgeist Movement Defined, S. 9"
History of The Zeitgeist Movement
The Zeitgeist Movement (TZM), was founded in 2008 by musician and filmmaker, Peter Joseph. The foundation of the movement was started at the end of his film Zeitgeist Addendum which was a part of the Zeitgeist film series. The film series had gone viral and Peter Joseph had the inspiration to unite a global community to help educate the public on the flaws of the current socio-economic system and promote post-scarcity economics. While Joseph’s film series and TZM are respectfully separate from another, the film series was an inspiration to the movement’s founding. Within a week the movement had gathered hundreds of thousands of volunteers.
The year 2008 was an era of a historical financial crisis, where major banks failed, housing markets collapsed, and unemployment soared. This validated the movement's core message regarding the instability of the current status quo and the importance of root change in society. This was also being echoed by many other activists and movements around at that time. Especially Occupy Wallstreet which rose up in 2011 and was globally protesting against corruption of banks and financial institutions, as well as taking a step for humanity, anti-war and environmental causes. TZM stood together with these other groups on these positions and collaborated at peaceful protests and demonstrations.
TZM’s aims and focus to the public was not merely to protest against wrongs done by those in power or symptoms of a broken system, but to bring hope and solutions to them. To do a root cause analysis and provide a viable alternative. Concepts such as basic human necessities, reducing poverty, supplanting the current social-economic system and alternative economics, namely a Post-Scarcity Economy, are some of the main focuses of what the movement has been advocating and striving for. During the early first 3 years of the movement, TZM worked closely with The Venus Project, which is an institution based in Venus, Florida that helped steer the direction of the movement’s advocacy . The founder, Jacque Fresco, had developed models and hypothetical solutions that influenced Peter Joseph and the movement alike in how to eradicate poverty, wars and having a scientific mindset geared towards the betterment of well being and health of humans and the natural environment.
In 2009, Peter Joseph had begun what would then become an annual conference and symposium called “Zeitgeist-Day”, ZDay for short, where he invited Jacque Fresco to speak to a full auditorium explaining the the purpose of the movement and what its goal are. The rest of TZM was encouraged to also host “local ZDay” events in their area, at the same time the main event was held. This created a distributed, viral event. The ZDay would gain the attention of millions of people around the world have thousands of participants for the next 15 years, involving a range of speakers of various subjects of interest to the movement. Other guests speakers and participants at ZDay events have been Abby Martin, Lee Camp, Dr. Gabor Maté, Birgitta Jónsdottir, Rutger Hauer, John McMurtry and Michael C. Ruppert.
Within the early 2010’s participation in TZM grew tremendously and it is understood that the global newsletter had over 500,000 subscribers. The movement had begun a global network of communication through a forum and a TeamSpeak server which helped keep participants in touch on both on a national and international level. At the same time the movement was also cooperating with other initiatives, such as Open Source Ecology, which is a network of farmers, engineers, architects and supporters building an open source technological platform. In some countries, TZM local groups were assisting in charity operations such as food drives assisting the poor, trash tags, where they would help collect and remove trash from neighborhoods, or assisting elderly people that could not afford a pension or aid from their country. Participants of the movement also took part in the beginning of the Friday for Future’s marches around the world.
There have been many type of flag events from TZM such the Zeitgeist Media Festival and the Zeitgeist European Meetup, which have involved thousands of participants that were interested in how to help better the world and became connected to other like minded people. By the end of the 2010’s, the movement had refined its network structure to become more decentralized to better suit the nature of the movement and its local regions, while also refining its methods of public education and events, but also changing the approach of taking on more hands on projects and community activities. Starting 2017 the movement migrated a lot of the online global community efforts to its Discord server.
Since the span of the global COVID pandemic of 2020-2022, a lot of momentum in TZM was halted due to meeting restrictions. Then after the pandemic the world was enduring a cost of living crisis which made the efforts of many non-profit groups very difficult to carry on with. TZM was also affected and the movement has continued its operations just on smaller scale.
The movement now focuses on strong, local communal actions in striving towards post-scarcity economics.
While The Zeitgeist Movement has changed, grown and evolved in almost 2 decades, its purpose and goals have always remained the same. This is a humanitarian movement that does not wish to see people endure suffering or deal with unnecessary problems. Society is in a system which creates artificial scarcity that prevents them from living happy, healthy lives.
We need to nurture the natural environment, Earth, our home, in order for it to be able to provide for us and future generations. TZM is not advocating a utopia, but common sense in addressing reasonable concerns that affect most people living in the present time. Through lectures, seminars, projects, art and music, the this movement is here to help people never lose hope that it is possible to make a better world for all of us and that we are ready to take the steps needed to get there. It is not a revolution of ideas, technology or science, it is a revolutions of values. The revolution is now.