Peter Joseph follows up his first Zeitgeist film by tracing what he presents as the root cause of war, poverty, and corruption back to the structure of the monetary system itself. The film walks through fractional reserve banking and the Federal Reserve, arguing that debt-based currency forces perpetual growth and scarcity regardless of who holds political office or which laws get passed. Interviews carry much of the argument, including John Perkins on his years as a self-described economic hit man pressuring developing nations into loans they could not repay. The second half turns to Jacque Fresco and his Venus Project, an alternative built on automation, shared resources, and what Fresco calls a resource-based economy rather than a market one. Joseph stages the case as a diagnosis followed by a prescription, moving from monetary mechanics to a blueprint for a moneyless, technocratic society. It is explicitly a sequel, made as a follow-up to Zeitgeist and a predecessor to Zeitgeist: Moving Forward, and it treats reform through elections or regulation as beside the point.