[P2P-F] Fwd: The Zero Marginal Cost Society: The Internet of Things, the Collaborative Commons, and the Eclipse of Capitalism

[Michel Bauwens]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: David Week <dew at assai.com.au>
Date: Wed, Apr 2, 2014 at 12:05 PM
Subject: The Zero Marginal Cost Society: The Internet of Things, the
Collaborative Commons, and the Eclipse of Capitalism
To: Michel Bauwens <michel at p2pfoundation.net>, Anna Cicognani <
annacico at gmail.com>, Michi Bier <pach at entelchile.net>


Has the Post-Capitalist Economy Finally Arrived?
http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/7468.html

The Zero Marginal Cost Society: The Internet of Things, the Collaborative
Commons, and the Eclipse of Capitalism
http://www.amazon.com/Zero-Marginal-Cost-Society-Collaborative/dp/1137278463

QUOTE
In The Zero Marginal Cost Society, New York Times bestselling author Jeremy
Rifkin describes how the emerging Internet of Things is speeding us to an
era of nearly free goods and services, precipitating the meteoric rise of a
global Collaborative Commons and the eclipse of capitalism.

Rifkin uncovers a paradox at the heart of capitalism that has propelled it
to greatness but is now taking it to its death--the inherent entrepreneurial
dynamism of competitive markets that drives productivity up and marginal
costs down, enabling businesses to reduce the price of their goods and
services in order to win over consumers and market share. (Marginal cost is
the cost of producing additional units of a good or service, if fixed costs
are not counted.) While economists have always welcomed a reduction in
marginal cost, they never anticipated the possibility of a technological
revolution that might bring marginal costs to near zero, making goods and
services priceless, nearly free, and abundant, and no longer subject to
market forces.

*David comments: Really? Rifkin uncovered this paradox? Marx must be
spinning in his grave.*

Now, a formidable new technology infrastructure--the Internet of things
(IoT)--is emerging with the potential of pushing large segments of economic
life to near zero marginal cost in the years ahead. Rifkin describes how
the Communication Internet is converging with a nascent Energy Internet and
Logistics Internet to create a new technology platform that connects
everything and everyone. Billions of sensors are being attached to natural
resources, production lines, the electricity grid, logistics networks,
recycling flows, and implanted in homes, offices, stores, vehicles, and
even human beings, feeding Big Data into an IoT global neural network.
Prosumers can connect to the network and use Big Data, analytics, and
algorithms to accelerate efficiency, dramatically increase productivity,
and lower the marginal cost of producing and sharing a wide range of
products and services to near zero, just like they now do with information
goods.

The plummeting of marginal costs is spawning a hybrid economy--part
capitalist market and part Collaborative Commons--with far reaching
implications for society, according to Rifkin. Hundreds of millions of
people are already transferring parts of their economic lives to the global
Collaborative Commons. Prosumers are plugging into the fledgling IoT and
making and sharing their own information, entertainment, green energy, and
3D-printed products at near zero marginal cost. They are also sharing cars,
homes, clothes and other items via social media sites, rentals,
redistribution clubs, and cooperatives at low or near zero marginal cost.
Students are enrolling in free massive open online courses (MOOCs) that
operate at near zero marginal cost. Social entrepreneurs are even bypassing
the banking establishment and using crowdfunding to finance startup
businesses as well as creating alternative currencies in the fledgling
sharing economy. In this new world, social capital is as important as
financial capital, access trumps ownership, sustainability supersedes
consumerism, cooperation ousts competition, and "exchange value" in the
capitalist marketplace is increasingly replaced by "sharable value" on the
Collaborative Commons.

Rifkin concludes that capitalism will remain with us, albeit in an
increasingly streamlined role, primarily as an aggregator of network
services and solutions, allowing it to flourish as a powerful niche player
in the coming era. We are, however, says Rifkin, entering a world beyond
markets where we are learning how to live together in an increasingly
interdependent global Collaborative Commons.



-- 
*Please note an intrusion wiped out my inbox on February 8; I have no
record of previous communication, proposals, etc ..*

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