Wow! Some great insights here for possible future economies. Shifting from a focus on profits and GDP to the social commons and human wellbeing while instilling biospheric consciousness. Definitely a future I want to be a part of.
Bryan Hardy Marx identified this in 1850... Rate of Profit“Rate of profit” is a term introduced by Marx in Volume III of Capital for the ratio of profit to total capital invested in a given cycle of reproduction, or the proportion of value in any given commodity which constitutes profit for the capitalist.In bourgeois economics, “rate of profit” means the proportion of the total capital invested accruing to the capitalist as profit per annum.For a given period of circulation, or cycle of reproduction, the two definitions are equivalent. The circulation time of capital is the time that elapses between a capitalist making an initial investment and when the products are sold and the original capital plus a profit are recovered. This cycle of reproduction is a major factor in the development of capitalism, and much of Volume II of Capital is concerned with circulation of capital and the problems of Realisation.Keeping in mind the distinction between the Marxist and conventional uses of the term “rate of profit”, the following issues are of importance.Surplus Value and ProfitIf a certain quantity of constant and variable capital are invested in a productive process, then at the end of a cycle of reproduction these values will have renewed themselves, but in addition, if the labour power of the employees has used to at least the social average of usefulness, there will a surplus-value.Marx expresses this symbolically: c + v -> c + v + s, where c is the constant capital, vthe variable capital (wages) and s is the surplus value, and the value of every product can be seen as composed of these parts.On the basis of this conception, the rate of profit for the individual capitalist who got into the game of profiteering by investing (c + v) at the beginning of the cycle of reproduction, makes a ‘profit’ of s and therefore the rate of profit is s/(c + v). The individual capitalist is unlikely to see this surplus value in its entirety however, for the landlord, the state, the bank and everyone else will all demand a cut of this surplus: the productive worker must maintain not only “their own” capitalist, but all manner of hangers-on as well.This rate of profit, s/(c + v), which is the ratio which affects the individual unit of capital, is different from the rate of surplus value, s/v.The rate of surplus value expresses the proportion of unpaid labour that workers donate to the capitalist (s) over to the necessary labour time, v, that the workers spend reproducing their own needs, and is paid as wages, or variable capital.Tendency of Rate of Profit to FallMarx believed that there was an historic tendency for the rate of profit to fall as a result of the growing socialisation and complexity of the labour process, and the growing productivity of labour. Each capitalist employs less labour and spends more on machinery and materials to produce the same value. Marx characterised this process as an increasing “organic composition of capital”. Since employing workers is the only source of profit, Marx believed that the rate of profit would fall.The tendency of the rate of profit to fall, Marx believed is one of the main contributors to the historic crisis of capitalism.
+horizon It is incredibly excitement when you listen to a person who can visualize big picture applications evolving from systems we have already mastered in the past but using them in a more efficient way! I absolutely LUV the idea of the standard of Living world wide raising......
Eye opening and super inspiring talk about the story we might want to inform our thoughts with regarding the future (next 20-30 years). Among the points i liked best: Collaborative commons as the engine for development. A new economic model emerging that is characterized as distributed, collaborative, peer directed, and that scales through lateral economies of scale. I really appreciate how he underlines the need to change the narrative/mindsets. For all the logistics/supply chain experts out there, there's also a very interesting and transforming view of the business that deserves pondering upon. He also mentions threats to that emerging narrative (big business, if they can, and climate change), which makes it very realistic. I think i am part of that movement, and hope to do my share of the work to create that world civilization.
"The worker feels vaguely that our present technical power could give abundance to all, but he also perceives how the capitalistic system and the State hinder the conquest of this well-being in every way." -- Peter Kropotkin, _Anarchism: Its Philosophy and Ideal_ (1896)
I find Rifkin's work immensely stimulating and important. I think his ideas become even more useful when tempered by rational skepticism. I found this commentary disturbing but also important to consider- especially for those who are not fortunate enough to be working in one of the fledgling co-operations of the collaborative commons such as Google. The push-back David Appelbaum • 9 days ago I believe Mr. Rifkin is absurdly over optimistic! The amount of political will to implement the level of infrastructure improvements required is not remotely feasible in our polarized political climate. Plus the notion of the Social Commons assumes a highly educated and entrepreneurial population. Given the appalling state of our educational system how are the majority of our people going to achieve the level of self sufficiency required to participate effectively? Moreover under a social commons system the means for truly complex goods and services and the associated wages concentrates wealth and power even further at the top leaving a culture of barter serfs gleaning the digital fields of the mega corporations. Mr. Rifkin's ideas are dangerous in the extreme and do absolutely nothing to correct the extreme social imbalance and dislocation we're seeing now. Whenever prophets speak of the shining city on the hill they never talk about how the plumbing works. We need real practical solutions for bringing dignity, self sufficiency, and security for the majority of our people. Mr. Rifkin does not advance that with his glorious digital future.
Mr David Appelbaum position is one that is bogged down by today's level of engineering. He simply does not understand that technology is exponential because it is feed by ever increasing technology.
Thanks for that comment. No criticism but nobody is actually questioning his speech. I think at certain point he contradicts himself. He says Economics and physics are intertwined and then debunks the "more machines, more productivity" approach, and then he brings the same economic philosophy and just tweaks the algorithm with a third sentence. Adding a third line to machines, productivity and now 'aggregation' isn't going to solve anything, His debunking of physics was followed by bringing in the laws of the universe, which is basically physics, imho, and 2 mins later declaring the problem solved -- the problem that he himself set up mind you! But what I am asking is why go down the same road? Why use the same aggregation framework to move the economy if that has not worked. So will his plan stop the global crisis? To that my answer is that it won't and no amount of grandstanding & showmanship can stop this sinking issue.
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.
Cooperation is the way of nature. Competition is an expensive, man-made delusion. for example: The big players on the Tech market are spending twice as much money for the lawyers and others soldiers of their patent wars than in the technical development of their products. Competition is a waste of energy and talent. What seems to be competition in nature is in reality a cooperation. But it's too complicated for those who do not want to look 2 steps ahead.
+Alfred Mayer Competition is part of nature, too. We all experience it at least in intrasexual competition, which all other competition in society is just proxy for. Men wouldn’t persue a high salary, a successful business if not to raise their sexual market value. Everything and all comes down to this. Competition is very real and very natural. And very useful.
perliva as I said. its only there for people who are unable think two steps ahead :) what you define as competition is a freudian falassy. competition in nature doesnt exist. what exists is elimination and territorial boundaries. there are no 2 male deers fucking the female deers of the same herd together to compete for who will have the bigger number of descendants. but this is analog to what microsoft and apple are doing since 40 years.
The only thing I know is that competition sucks when you're on the losing side. And there's always a loser. You should not try to get secure under government or conformity umbrella to be afraid of the loss. You should not be afraid of suffering. It's educational, but also traumatising. However, cooperating eliminates the suffering and trauma part and gets only the education.
Brillant speach Mr Rifkin, as well as your seminar talk to the European Central Bank in Germany on 27 Jan 2017 and I agree with you fully. Comgratulations! I am a American-Brazilian with 4o years of a multi- displinary scientific and comercial experience, deligently built up studying ( MSc + MBA ) and working in 7 countries ( including USA, Japan and China) and visiting/ dealing, academically and commercially, with about 50 other countries. Have book and scientific papers published and am very hands-on familiar with the cultures and decisions-making thinking minds of the "developed" West, Asia, Australasia and Latin America. I am very conscious of the actual dramatic climate change and have an urge to help changing our current "blind egotistic business-as-usual" track and mind sect. I wouuld love to be in touch with you and hopefully join your team in help carrying your very important and civilization-saving objectives/ teachings, worldwide. Can I communicate with you and share my thougths and 40-year global hands-on experience with you and you team? Kindly contact me @ bluesky10x@aol.com or provide me your contact information. Thank-you kindly.
To everyone wondering how people whose jobs are displaced by the technology, you must realize companies can't simply keep producing even at very low marginal costs of there is no demand for their product. It will all balance out
The robots that these companies use will also enable everyday people and communities to build more robots and so on. What this will lead to is a world of abundance. This will not balance out because simply will not just let things rest they will move onward and up.
It crazy listening to lectures and reading comments to see just how much money is slowing the growth of technology. The need to monetize everything is acting like brakes on our culture. And somehow the vast majority of people think this makes any sense.
E.ON SE is a European electric utility company based in Essen, Germany. It runs one of the world's largest investor-owned electric utility service providers.
+Ron Knox Rifkin's work is contradictory from the very start. I think its on page 7 or 8 he states that entropy cannot be avoided and then on the next page states that sustainability can bring abundance. The rest of the book goes back and forth from there with the contradictions abounding. My book The Singularity and Socialism shows exactly how to get to "utopia" without violating any valid economics or having contradictions abound. www.amazon.com/Singularity-Socialism-Complexity-Techno-Optimism-Abundance/dp/1503034739
Information and technology are negatively entropic. Entropy is the dissolution of heat and order. Information takes post-entropic materials imbues them with order. We do this on a small scale now, but our creation of anti-matter particles using large watt lasers fired over bodies of water, and the forward momentum being made on fusion energy reactors are examples of what our future contributions to the universal entropy balance might look like.
I have done Marxist political economy and Marx identified this in 1850... Rate of Profit“Rate of profit” is a term introduced by Marx in Volume III of Capital for the ratio of profit to total capital invested in a given cycle of reproduction, or the proportion of value in any given commodity which constitutes profit for the capitalist.In bourgeois economics, “rate of profit” means the proportion of the total capital invested accruing to the capitalist as profit per annum.For a given period of circulation, or cycle of reproduction, the two definitions are equivalent. The circulation time of capital is the time that elapses between a capitalist making an initial investment and when the products are sold and the original capital plus a profit are recovered. This cycle of reproduction is a major factor in the development of capitalism, and much of Volume II of Capital is concerned with circulation of capital and the problems of Realisation.Keeping in mind the distinction between the Marxist and conventional uses of the term “rate of profit”, the following issues are of importance.Surplus Value and ProfitIf a certain quantity of constant and variable capital are invested in a productive process, then at the end of a cycle of reproduction these values will have renewed themselves, but in addition, if the labour power of the employees has used to at least the social average of usefulness, there will a surplus-value.Marx expresses this symbolically: c + v -> c + v + s, where c is the constant capital, vthe variable capital (wages) and s is the surplus value, and the value of every product can be seen as composed of these parts.On the basis of this conception, the rate of profit for the individual capitalist who got into the game of profiteering by investing (c + v) at the beginning of the cycle of reproduction, makes a ‘profit’ of s and therefore the rate of profit is s/(c + v). The individual capitalist is unlikely to see this surplus value in its entirety however, for the landlord, the state, the bank and everyone else will all demand a cut of this surplus: the productive worker must maintain not only “their own” capitalist, but all manner of hangers-on as well.This rate of profit, s/(c + v), which is the ratio which affects the individual unit of capital, is different from the rate of surplus value, s/v.The rate of surplus value expresses the proportion of unpaid labour that workers donate to the capitalist (s) over to the necessary labour time, v, that the workers spend reproducing their own needs, and is paid as wages, or variable capital.Tendency of Rate of Profit to FallMarx believed that there was an historic tendency for the rate of profit to fall as a result of the growing socialisation and complexity of the labour process, and the growing productivity of labour. Each capitalist employs less labour and spends more on machinery and materials to produce the same value. Marx characterised this process as an increasing “organic composition of capital”. Since employing workers is the only source of profit, Marx believed that the rate of profit would fall.The tendency of the rate of profit to fall, Marx believed is one of the main contributors to the historic crisis of capitalism.
Assuming a future where we have all embraced the collective commons and we are living in the new economy, who will be living in the waterfront houses? Who has to live where the breeze wafts off a sewerage plant? Not being cynical, just wondering...
Rifkin reminds me of the late Jacque Fresco, who developed a social system alternative called a Resource Based Economy. It is the ONLY well-thought out, detailed alternative social system that can provide a high standard of living for ALL humans and maintain environmental sustainability via intellgent resource management, which is grossly not done in today's capitalist system.
He is right for sure, being that global economics coupled with internet commerce has not yet taken full effect. However, he missed a few points- we can not know when the majority of the world will actually begin to buy online, and what corporations will gain power from it, or what they will do. He also missed the fact that china is the worlds superpower at the moment, and who knows what they will do as they ally themselves with places like russia, another massive power. There is also the great cyber wall of china to be considered- there is control over internet communications and buying to a great degree. lastly, look at the fact that the american dollar is the basis for all currency, and the idea that all three superpowers i just mentioned have plenty of monkeys with guns who can control the people practically on any level. They will still build bombs, too. Nothing I can think of will deter any of those country's from keeping the 12k nukes the world can boast currently- you have to consider the power of companies that cannot sell online, like arms dealers and pharm companies.
I'm replying to your post a year later but I think it's important to say that blockchain technology and the innovations that are developed from it (i.e. Ethereum) will get us ever closer to a post-capitalist, collaborative commons society. I'm excited to be living in one of the greatest transition periods of human history so far. Lets see where the future takes us.
+Bryce How are you defining capitalism? All economic systems are a set of rules. The rules of capitalism are: don't steal or damage other people's private property, and don't break a contract you agree to. It's that simple. All of the spontaneous order that emerges from those rules is a product of those rules. Non-profits are capitalist. Co-ops are capitalist. Open source is capitalist. If it's not owned by the government it's private, and if it's private it's capitalist. Ethereum is especially capitalist thanks to their smart contracts.
The reason for germanys energy companys to go down is not just the self-energy-providing homes. But mainly because of germanys crazy energy reform program, causing nuclear power stations to shut down, in favor of coal and renewable energy production. Since this energy reform started more and more energy is bought from neighbor countrys, which lead to an extreme increase of energy costs. Most of the energy isn t used by homes anyway but by the industry. (Sorry for language mistakes i am german)
@18:45 - Hmm... that prediction about "all the major automakers" coming out with fuel cell vehicles "in the next few years" didn't age well. OTOH, the EV revolution is well underway in December 2019, so the larger point about the changing economy still stands. Interesting talk. EDIT: Btw, it's interesting to note that 2014, the year of this talk, is also when Tony Seba's "Clean Disruption" was published.
So if nobody has jobs to purchase the things hes talking about that will be produced at zero marginal cost how can the companies profit? How can society continue on, unless everything that we buy and sell is free?
Hi guys, I have to say that I have enjoyed reading this book and think it settles many strong ideas that will bring down the current economic system to its knees. However, as a reader, I wanna warn others that in Chapter 14, there is a piece of misinformation regarding Bitcoin creation. In the book is stated that Amir Taaki and Donald Norman are the creators of Bitcoin. But it is not true. As a simple Google search can show you, the creator of this protocol is Satoshi Nakamoto, which is a pseudonym for an anonymous person or group of people. Amir Taaki and Donald Norman created Britcoin, which is based on Bitcoin. I think this misconception must be corrected or demonstrated through the sources listing. Please, share your thoughts.
Javier Martínez Marx identified this in 1850... Rate of Profit“Rate of profit” is a term introduced by Marx in Volume III of Capital for the ratio of profit to total capital invested in a given cycle of reproduction, or the proportion of value in any given commodity which constitutes profit for the capitalist.In bourgeois economics, “rate of profit” means the proportion of the total capital invested accruing to the capitalist as profit per annum.For a given period of circulation, or cycle of reproduction, the two definitions are equivalent. The circulation time of capital is the time that elapses between a capitalist making an initial investment and when the products are sold and the original capital plus a profit are recovered. This cycle of reproduction is a major factor in the development of capitalism, and much of Volume II of Capital is concerned with circulation of capital and the problems of Realisation.Keeping in mind the distinction between the Marxist and conventional uses of the term “rate of profit”, the following issues are of importance.Surplus Value and ProfitIf a certain quantity of constant and variable capital are invested in a productive process, then at the end of a cycle of reproduction these values will have renewed themselves, but in addition, if the labour power of the employees has used to at least the social average of usefulness, there will a surplus-value.Marx expresses this symbolically: c + v -> c + v + s, where c is the constant capital, vthe variable capital (wages) and s is the surplus value, and the value of every product can be seen as composed of these parts.On the basis of this conception, the rate of profit for the individual capitalist who got into the game of profiteering by investing (c + v) at the beginning of the cycle of reproduction, makes a ‘profit’ of s and therefore the rate of profit is s/(c + v). The individual capitalist is unlikely to see this surplus value in its entirety however, for the landlord, the state, the bank and everyone else will all demand a cut of this surplus: the productive worker must maintain not only “their own” capitalist, but all manner of hangers-on as well.This rate of profit, s/(c + v), which is the ratio which affects the individual unit of capital, is different from the rate of surplus value, s/v.The rate of surplus value expresses the proportion of unpaid labour that workers donate to the capitalist (s) over to the necessary labour time, v, that the workers spend reproducing their own needs, and is paid as wages, or variable capital.Tendency of Rate of Profit to FallMarx believed that there was an historic tendency for the rate of profit to fall as a result of the growing socialisation and complexity of the labour process, and the growing productivity of labour. Each capitalist employs less labour and spends more on machinery and materials to produce the same value. Marx characterised this process as an increasing “organic composition of capital”. Since employing workers is the only source of profit, Marx believed that the rate of profit would fall.The tendency of the rate of profit to fall, Marx believed is one of the main contributors to the historic crisis of capitalism.
this makes only sense, if you have all ressources in unlimmited values available for no costs - including work. Else: you need an "orientation point" a "baseline" for calculating the optimal allokation of ressources for maximizing the output based on ... whatever: in a free market economy the demand of the people and their organizations. In a war economy the targeted output is different, but still a measurement is required to optimize the allocation of ressources. Digitalization and the transparency that lives in it will be the killer of capitalism. And CBDC will be the main pillar of the data-driven, ai-controlled new system with optimization of resource allocation and contribution-based gratification. ... as an altrenative we still do have the option of a totalitarian tyranny as a new order ... we will figure it out pretty soon, I guess ... Since the liquidity trap in 2019 things accelarate ...
Great for the Consultant, but sentences such as " even if we get only half of the Internet of Things done" and " .... marginal cost may be (high) but we need to get the cost down ... otherwise why do it " Sadly Ayn Rand has commented famously on University professors leading the charge using Altruism ... Rifkind's ideas are very very poorly formulated here ... maybe it can improve... let's hope so.
Mr. Ritkin's analysis is compelling certainly. However, Anybody can work for free, that does not take brains. Any thing that threatens human survival can't be good or 'successful', as the purpose of physical economics is not merely to come to near zero costs, in providing goods and services or near free labor. Low wage labor inhibits family formation and is the cause of societal, political and government destabilization. Our existential system, the physical economy, must increase employment, the standard of living, new scientific discoveries, that are employed to optimize the rate of increase of the potential population density. I don't know why Mr. Ritkin is so grim on Climate Change. 70% of the Earth is water. Using less energy has never increased the population's standard of living; we're offered 'ways', survival measures, to deal with Wall St. and corporate imposed and induced austerity. The metrics of our 'footprint' on the environment is not helpful if all we're doing is finding the system of compliance, providing the ideology that justifies submission to and enforcement of an fascist economic and population contraction policy. Solar is overrated and we have nuclear 'waste' that can be transformed into nuclear treasure, able to power our economy for the next 1,000 years. Actually we should be in the Fusion economy by now, the Hydrogen Economy at least. The ocean is the source and engine of all natural power, processes and life on our planet and we haven't scratched the surface of knowledge of our oceans. It's the immediate frontier. Man, because of mind and creativity, is the most powerful life force on and in the Universe; actually necessary to all since Man is the only power of development, the planets are depending on. The human population is not a great unsustainable burden on the planet Earth. Human population must grow to increase the population's brain power, facilitating our immediate great endeavor, the Universal Development Plan, planet Earth must be developed by Man, in a symbiotic organization and relationship to the planet, eventually launching the inter-planetary economy within our Solar System, and on to realizing mankind's destiny which is to distribute humanity beyond the Solar System, into the Milky Way Galaxy, throughout the Universe. I just think we're thinking in the small here.
It's proven that a child brings unhappiness to married couples everywhere regardless of class. Not having children is a net promoter of quality of life. Stop spreading inflammatory bullshit
Human population must not grow, we are more than enough people. Automation is stagnant because we don't know what we'll do with so many people who didn't, don't and won't have a job. Ever. And this is the majority of the world population
The only true thing you're saying is that Earth must be developed by Man. Correct. Problem is nowadays the earth is developed by a system of nation states which are captured entirely or mostly by military, secret service, police and corrupt judiciary. This coercive system is armed and will not go away by simply giving up willingly the power. We need to destroy all this system of coercion, educate people to master level and build earth by untraumatised man and woman
“Rifkin cites me in his book, but it is evident that he almost completely misunderstood my arguments in two different ways, both of which bear on the premises of his book.” - Eric Raymond
Lots of accolades below - but he got the basics of peak oil totally wrong. The rest is hot air and has not stood the test of time: flywheels! H2 is part of the answer but there is still a long way to go and Russias despotism will hold us back for a decade.
Rifkin's work is contradictory from the very start. I think its on page 7 or 8 he states that entropy cannot be avoided and then on the next page states that sustainability can bring abundance. The rest of the book goes back and forth from there with the contradictions abounding. He basically greened Keynesian ideas on how to reach the socialist utopia by bringing about the zero marginal productivity of capital. My book The Singularity and Socialism shows exactly how to get to "utopia" without violating any valid economics or having contradictions abound. www.amazon.com/Singularity-Socialism-Complexity-Techno-Optimism-Abundance/dp/1503034739
What will people do as technology continues to destroy more than create jobs? If the vast majority of jobs are done by technology how will those people displaced buy anything? Hence a new economic paradigm evolving beyond capitalism and beyond money.
Good question, different locations will always have value irregardless of the cost of making a home. I don't think anyone can know what this means in advance. Im Hoping, the solutions will simply emerge as they are needed.
This new revolution as people call it will involve automation in other words robotics. The robotic system will be able to build other robotics systems and so on. What will happen is that most of the things you today consider as costing money will in the not so distant future cost pennies. After that products will cost nothing to produce.
The entire concept of a "job," while not referenced in this piece, will probably see a dramatic shift as well. If goods are so cheap, and these are ALL GOODS, then what will a job mean in 10, 20, or 50 years? It's an interesting idea and lends itself to the "eclipsing capitalism" ideal....I'm all for it. I suspect, though, that we will struggle for a number of years with inequality and low jobs...until the collaborative commons eventually becomes ubiquitous.
Pawel Magnowski He said near zero margin cost. When a robot is putting together most all intricate parts of a device and assembling a vast majority of it through Automation and mechanization. That item has virtually no cost to produce that item.
Young people like sharing because their asses are broke as fvck. I hardly find a sentence in this whole talk to agree even a little. Energy internet? Jesus christ, the guy has no clue about the things he's saying, Transporting energy is a huge waste of power, it requiers a lot of metal and those distances are totally impractical, and with no solutions in sights. Recycled plastic is cheap? So why does it need so much government propaganda to get people to recycle it and why there is still literal mountains of plastic garbage near every city and town, that businesses do not see fit to recycle and rather pull more oil out of the ground to package and manufacture their goods with.
How is he defining capitalism? All economic systems are a set of rules. The rules of capitalism are: don't steal or damage other people's private property, and don't break a contract you agree to. It's that simple. All of the spontaneous order that emerges from those rules is a product of those rules. Non-profits are capitalist. Co-ops are capitalist. Open source is capitalist. If it's not owned by the government it's private, and if it's private it's capitalist.
Don't worry. Just because his kind don't know the first thing about how to run the world doesn't mean they won't cause oceans of suffering, strife and oppression by trying like the commies of old. They at least have the consolation of escaping the consequences of their own acts and blaming their victims for their fates afterward.
How can someone make so many wrong claims in so little time. - Chips are not in an exponential curve even before this video was uploaded because you cannot abduct the heat, so you can only parallelize. - The celebrated Europian energy independence after the Russian invasion showed up with > 10% inflation and Europe begging Russia for oil and gas. - New York times make more money now than before with their free-20 or free-3 articles per month. I did not even go through the whole video, maybe there are more examples. Literally hilarious.
6 years ago, I guess they were thinking that climate change will happen around 2060. Hello from 2020, we are in the edge of the disaster. This is what exponential means.
He runs a consultancy which provides all the things you need for enlightenment, only he sells it to the government so you have no say in the matter. Basically an alter furniture and icon seller from the early middle ages.
but what about when human generated content isnt valued? like the arts, sure, but entertainment could be automated post singularity. so long term 'employment' is only raw artistic talent but in a niche market valuing human art not simply creative talent which may, post singularity, be bested by machines.
but his qualifier at the end, 'maybe we only get half of this' seems unnecessary, all we need is the freedom from the electric grid and some amount of space, then we can basically provide a greenhouse and free ourselves from the entire system. if solar roofs and batteries do what it looks like they will do as industries, we wont need jobs because the p[remise of jobs is feeding ourselves and turning on the lights. assuming you own your own space of course. but each person who went that route would be removed from the labor pool so it would balance, one shared economy in cities and millions of independent ones in rural/suburban areas interacting on occasion.
Wow! Some great insights here for possible future economies. Shifting from a focus on profits and GDP to the social commons and human wellbeing while instilling biospheric consciousness. Definitely a future I want to be a part of.
Absolutely love this guy, what an amazing thinker. It gives me so much hope over this current dystonia neo-capitalism brutality we are currently experiencing.
If people listen carefully to these ideas they may get to the point in realizing, this is brilliant. This audience uses the word "never" too much and seems to be looking behind instead of ahead.
It annoys me that this guy is talking about socialism but doesn't seem to realize it because he thinks socialism is when the state does things. I mean for fucks sake the paradox of capitalism he talks about isn't previously undisclosed, it's literally what Marx talked about.
Isn’t the deal with 3D printing (last question) that even though it’s a higher marginal cost than traditional manufacturing, you don’t have to completely reconfigure the manufacturing line to produce a different product? I thought that was the main driver of marginal cost reduction for an entire plant.
Mr. Rifkin does a great job of explaining how our exponential growth of technology has enabled us to move out of the economic systems we've known in the past. Socialism, Capitalism, the Marketplace... NO LONGER NECESSARY. And guess what. Neither is the Monetary System! And this is what now stands in the way of our progression into a sustainable future. How do we create a system that's designed to meet human needs and a healthy environment? What does our natural world demand of us? A "real economy" means to economize, to maximize efficiency. And to get there, we'll need collaboration, not competition. Access, not ownership. Intelligent management of our resources, not perpetual growth and consumption in a fictional money game. Time to let go of the game and focus on what's real. The banking institutions, Wall Street, financial advisers, stock brokers, investment bankers, and on and on... this entire Financial Industry -- which is just an elaborate contrivance, based solely on the movement of money, and contributes NOTHING to what people really need -- is NO LONGER NECESSARY. It has nothing to do with the natural world. It thrives on manipulated scarcity and inefficiency, on consumption and waste. And it will hinder our progress every step of the way. Until people realize this, we may just be fighting a losing battle.
"Monetary System! And this is what now stands in the way of our progression " This is not true. It is the only system that is viable today that enables trade and innovation and what Rifkin proposes as a future will need the monetary system to occur.
bighands69 This is "the only system that is viable today that enables trade and innovation..." Well... this may have been the case in the past. But with our advancements in technology over the past few decades, it is simply no longer true. Especially with innovation. There are many recent studies which have shown that our monetary system, based on competition and financial-incentive, is actually detrimental to innovation and progress. However, when people are put into situations where they can collaborate rather than compete, the result is an increase in creativity and performance. Corporations hoard scientific knowledge for the sake of advantage. And researchers are often made to work on projects where profits take precedence over true scientific intent, another example of how our monetary system impedes progress. If we could only take advantage of our current communication technology, and work in collaboration with EVERYONE who has something to contribute, imagine the speed at which scientific breakthroughs and innovation might occur... free from the restrictions of the monetary system. And trade? The emerging reality of "zero-marginal cost", our ability to make more with less, automated production systems, 3-D printing, etc... these might transform the act of "trade", as we've known it, into something we might call "localized production and distribution". And anyway, trade is just another corrupt mechanism of the money game, where Governments and Corporations collude to rig the game for the benefit of a few. They can manipulate scarcity in order to maximize profits. And they do. They'll take food from poor countries where it's grown (and where people are starving), and ship it to where people have the most money to buy it. In fact, starvation, human suffering, environmental degradation... these consequences are never even taken into account in our monetary economy. They're just an unfortunate result, a "negative externality", inherent to the system.. along with growing inequality, escalating conflicts, the destruction of our ecosystems, and all the rest. Sorry to ramble. But these issues are important. Crucial. Potentially catastrophic. I mean, does anyone really believe -- in a monetary economy built around endless growth and consumption -- that we can pass along a healthy, sustainable planet to our future generations? I don't think there's any way that's possible. Which leaves us no choice...
The reason we have come this far i.e. zero marginal cost society is because of capitalism and capitalism will continue to take us forward as it has done since the beginning of human activity. We have always traded goods and services with each other. It is part of human nature.
An Internet of Light is the pre-telepathic non-biocidal solution, 5G is an Active Denial and Total Spectrum Dominance System. When decentralization is ubiquitous than it becomes its opposite because politics is the elephant in the room. Political power is about control and that can be exercised and automated through control of access. Social Credit Score, eternal Carbon Credit Debt for being alive and breathing, when it's not climate change that we should try and fight, but the mentality which generates pollution, both physical and mental. Temporary monopolies are like emergency governments, the real face of power when the illusion of plurality diversity and freedom from the controlling hierarchy wanes. The perception of lack is a lack of perception. A resource-based economy means you pay for every breath you take, every step you make. Only machines need rules, not humans. Do you need to be governed? Will you accept the mark of the beast? Will that be temporary, too?
03:20 So he is an intellectual. Intellectual’s end products are ideas. Normally they don’t get tested, often enough ending in catastrophes. He is also active for some time now, luckily. In order to value his ideas: *how have his other, older ideas turned out to be? Were they accurate?* Does anyone know?
perliva good question. He has a book about Hydrogen fuel cells and that vision is a bust...they wont work to scale because of physics. The book the End of Work is faring better and in part the UBI crew is banking on it. A book about beef I think is not getting any traction. So 1 for 3 off the top of my head
perliva to be fair I did havs a state of the art beef substitute a couple weeks ago that was pure plant based and it was good. If costs go down or beef goes up then I can see beef use declining - so the jury may is still out on that one
Ok so a quick read on amazon and just based on the book subject matter I say 3 hits, 3 misses and 3 the jury is still out, about a 33% ratio. Not bad but not good
the problem with 'zero marginal cost' is that it's temporary until a premium is incurred to as for something that is invented to redefine quality rather than quantity. The object is scaling is to equalize the burden of production across the broader market size.. This theory is all burdened by the fact that the more people, the more demanding consumption, which competes with the Gates Foundation school of thought and recent dissertation from Michael Moore.
I'm sorry to say that but now in 2021 weekend see that E. ON has been investing in battery storage systems around the world for a number of years, which means when in 2014 video, you said that E-on is going to go yet they do not leave the market but Rise Up in the new Horizons business because they have already be capital and great people behind their business. So Mr Jeremy Rifkin don't make statements we have deep thinking and use your intuition. Anyway altogether you had a great talk delivered thank you very much.
