This book review was written by Eugene Kernes
“A near zero marginal cost society is the optimally efficient state for promoting the general welfare and represents the ultimate triumph of capitalism. Its moment of triumph, however, also marks its inescapable passage from the world stage. While capitalism is far from putting itself out of business, it’s apparent that as it brings us ever closer to a near zero marginal cost society, its once unchallenged prowess is diminishing, making way for an entirely new way of organizing economic life in an age characterized by abundance rather than scarcity.” – Jeremy Rifkin, Chapter One: The Great Paradigm Shift From Market Capitalism To The Collaborative Commons, Page 9
“The social Commons is where we generate the good will that allows a society to cohere as a cultural entity. Markets and governments are an extension of a people’s social identity. Without the continuous replenishment of social capital, there would be insufficient trust to enable markets and governments to function, yet we pejoratively categorize the social Commons as “the third sector” as if it were less important than markets or governments.” – Jeremy Rifkin, Chapter One: The Great Paradigm Shift From Market Capitalism To The Collaborative Commons, Pages 17-18
Is This An Overview?
Capitalism is transitioning into a different economic system, a different economic paradigm. Capitalism is transitioning into the Collaborative Commons. Markets are transitioning into networks. Ownership transitioning into access. Capitalisms’ internal mechanisms are enabling the transition into Collaborative Commons.
Competitive pressure generates improvements to productivity, that leads to the optimum general welfare. Productivity reduces costs of production, which causes the cost of production to approach near zero. As costs of production approach zero, the price of the products approach zero as well. Products become free, which undermines the profitability motive of capitalism. Capitalism cannot function without profits, therefore there are many industry incumbents who attempt to prevent the reduction in profit by reducing the competitive pressure. But the attempts fail as entrepreneurs find ways to circumvent the incumbents.
Within the Collaborative Commons, everything is connected
through the internet to improve efficient use of natural resources, economic
production, and social life. Sensors
using data that enables analytics that automate systems to further improve
efficiency and productivity.
Caveats?
What is shared are the benefits of the different economic system, while the consequences are not shared. Benefits of data and surveillance on efficiency is shared, but not consequences on mental health of always being surveilled and lack of data security.
There is a claim that capitalism is about scarcity while Collaborative Commons are about abundance. Abundance of Collaborative Commons is based on near zero marginal cost. The problem is that abundance is not absolute, its relative. Scarcity is defined by resources which are more limited. The relative abundance and scarcity of resources changes. Capitalism used the relatively abundant resources, but there were other resources that were scarce. Collaborative Commons is a different system which have different scarce and abundant resources, but scarcity still exists. The scarce resources of the Collaborative Commons have become time and attention.
People might be able to contribute to tasks that they want
to without pay, but they would need to obtain an alternative income to pay for
resources they need to survive. The Collaborative
Commons work is subsidized by work that provides people with an income.
