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| the zero marginal cost society: The Zero Marginal Cost Society Jeremy Rifkin, 2014-04 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. |
| the zero marginal cost society: The Zero Marginal Cost Society Jeremy Rifkin, 2014-04-01 The New York Times–bestselling author describes how current trends will create an era when anything and everything is available for almost nothing. In The Zero Marginal Cost Society, New York Times–bestselling author Jeremy 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. 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 an Energy Internet and Logistics Internet to create a new technology platform that connects all. There are billions of sensors 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 IoT and making and sharing their own information, entertainment, green energy, and 3D-printed products at 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. |
| the zero marginal cost society: The Third Industrial Revolution Jeremy Rifkin, 2011-09-27 Argues that In just a few years, millions of buildings and even cities will become energy self-sufficient, signaling the end of our reliance on fossil fuels. This transformation is already underway in Europe, where author Jeremy Rifkin serves as EU advisor on a project that will revolutionize the continent's energy supply, with Asia to follow. We even see shades of it in Texas, Colorado, and California, where electrical companies will be laying down parts of the Smart Grid over the next several years. |
| the zero marginal cost society: Smart Europe Jeremy Rifkin, 2018-11-07 A green digital economy could change the future of the Old Continent. The new Smart Europe will be based on three elements: new communication technologies, new sources of energy and new modes of mobility. But the transition will require a transformation of the continental infrastructure. Jeremy Rifkin, advisor to the European Union and main architect of the Third Industrial Revolution, has been promoting over the last few years the importance of this approach, enabling collaboration in vast virtual and physical global networks to create a more ecologically sustainable and equitable quality of life. This is the fourth essay in the Big Ideas series created by the European Investment Bank. |
| the zero marginal cost society: The Green New Deal Jeremy Rifkin, 2019-09-10 An urgent plan to confront climate change, transform the American economy, and create a green post-fossil fuel culture. A new vision for America’s future is quickly gaining momentum. Facing a global emergency, a younger generation is spearheading a national conversation around a Green New Deal and setting the agenda for a bold political movement with the potential to revolutionize society. Millennials, the largest voting bloc in the country, are now leading on the issue of climate change. While the Green New Deal has become a lightning rod in the political sphere, there is a parallel movement emerging within the business community that will shake the very foundation of the global economy in coming years. Key sectors of the economy are fast-decoupling from fossil fuels in favor of ever cheaper solar and wind energies and the new business opportunities and employment that accompany them. New studies are sounding the alarm that trillions of dollars in stranded fossil fuel assets could create a carbon bubble likely to burst by 2028, causing the collapse of the fossil fuel civilization. The marketplace is speaking, and governments will need to adapt if they are to survive and prosper. In The Green New Deal, New York Times bestselling author and renowned economic theorist Jeremy Rifkin delivers the political narrative and economic plan for the Green New Deal that we need at this critical moment in history. The concurrence of a stranded fossil fuel assets bubble and a green political vision opens up the possibility of a massive shift to a post-carbon ecological era, in time to prevent a temperature rise that will tip us over the edge into runaway climate change. With twenty-five years of experience implementing Green New Deal–style transitions for both the European Union and the People’s Republic of China, Rifkin offers his vision for how to transform the global economy and save life on Earth. |
| the zero marginal cost society: The Zero-Sum Society Lester C. Thurow, 2001-04-02 The Zero-Sum Society is a piercing analysis of the social implications of economic policy and a classic work of economic problem solving.--BOOK JACKET. |
| the zero marginal cost society: Postcapitalism Paul Mason, 2016-02-09 “A fascinating set of ideas . . . Politicians of all stripes should take note. And so should the people who vote for them.” —Financial Times We know that our world is undergoing seismic change—but how can we emerge from the crisis as a better society? Over the past two centuries or so, capitalism has undergone profound changes—economic cycles that veer from boom to bust—from which it has always emerged transformed and strengthened. Surveying this turbulent history, Paul Mason’s Postcapitalism argues that we are on the brink of a change so big and so profound that this time capitalism itself, the immensely complex system within which entire societies function, will mutate into something wholly new. At the heart of this change is information technology, a revolution that is driven by capitalism but, with its tendency to push the value of much of what we make toward zero, has the potential to destroy an economy based on markets, wages, and private ownership. Almost unnoticed, in the niches and hollows of the market system, swaths of economic life are beginning to move to a different rhythm. Vast numbers of people are changing how they behave and live, in ways contrary to the current system of state-backed corporate capitalism. And as the terrain changes, new paths open. In this bold and prophetic book, Mason shows how, from the ashes of the crisis, we have the chance to create a more just and sustainable economy. Although the dangers ahead are profound, he argues that there is cause for hope. This is the first time in human history in which, equipped with an understanding of what is happening around us, we can predict and shape the future. “Absorbing and provocative.” —Publishers Weekly “An original, engaging, and bracingly articulated vision of real alternatives. It is sure to spark many vigorous debates, and they are precisely the ones we should be having.” —Naomi Klein, New York Times–bestselling author of Doppelganger |
| the zero marginal cost society: Four Futures Peter Frase, 2016-11-01 It is easier to imagine the end of the world, the theorist Fredric Jameson has remarked, than to imagine the end of capitalism. Jacobin Editor Peter Frase argues that technological advancements and environmental threats will inevitably push our society beyond capitalism, and Four Futures imagines just how this might look. Extrapolating possible futures from current changes the world is now experiencing, and drawing upon speculative fictions to illustrate how these futures might be realized, Four Futures examines communism, rentism, socialism, and exterminism-or in other words, the socialisms we may reach if a resurgent Left is successful and the barbarisms we may be consigned to if those movements fail. |
| the zero marginal cost society: The Empathic Civilization Jeremy Rifkin, 2010-04-12 Global empathy in time to avoid the collapse of civilization and save the planet? One of the most popular social thinkers of our time, Jeremy Rifkin is the bestselling author of The European Dream, The Hydrogen Economy, The End of Work, The Biotech Century, and The Age of Access. He is the president of the Foundation on Economic Trends in Washington, D.C. |
| the zero marginal cost society: Infrastructure Brett M. Frischmann, 2013-01-01 Infrastructure resources are the subject of many contentious public policy debates, including what to do about crumbling roads and bridges, whether and how to protect our natural environment, energy policy, even patent law reform, universal health care, network neutrality regulation and the future of the Internet. Each of these involves a battle to control infrastructure resources, to establish the terms and conditions under which the public receives access, and to determine how the infrastructure and various dependent systems evolve over time. Infrastructure: The Social Value of Shared Resources devotes much needed attention to understanding how society benefits from infrastructure resources and how management decisions affect a wide variety of interests. The book links infrastructure, a particular set of resources defined in terms of the manner in which they create value, with commons, a resource management principle by which a resource is shared within a community. The infrastructure commons ideas have broad implications for scholarship and public policy across many fields ranging from traditional infrastructure like roads to environmental economics to intellectual property to Internet policy. Economics has become the methodology of choice for many scholars and policymakers in these areas. The book offers a rigorous economic challenge to the prevailing wisdom, which focuses primarily on problems associated with ensuring adequate supply. The author explores a set of questions that, once asked, seem obvious: what drives the demand side of the equation, and how should demand-side drivers affect public policy? Demand for infrastructure resources involves a range of important considerations that bear on the optimal design of a regime for infrastructure management. The book identifies resource valuation and attendant management problems that recur across many different fields and many different resource types, and it develops a functional economic approach to understanding and analyzing these problems and potential solutions. |
| the zero marginal cost society: Everything for Everyone Nathan Schneider, 2018-09-11 The origins of the next radical economy is rooted in a tradition that has empowered people for centuries and is now making a comeback. A new feudalism is on the rise. While monopolistic corporations feed their spoils to the rich, more and more of us are expected to live gig to gig. But, as Nathan Schneider shows, an alternative to the robber-baron economy is hiding in plain sight; we just need to know where to look. Cooperatives are jointly owned, democratically controlled enterprises that advance the economic, social, and cultural interests of their members. They often emerge during moments of crisis not unlike our own, putting people in charge of the workplaces, credit unions, grocery stores, healthcare, and utilities they depend on. Everything for Everyone chronicles this revolution -- from taxi cooperatives keeping Uber at bay, to an outspoken mayor transforming his city in the Deep South, to a fugitive building a fairer version of Bitcoin, to the rural electric co-op members who are propelling an aging system into the future. As these pioneers show, co-ops are helping us rediscover our capacity for creative, powerful, and fair democracy. |
| the zero marginal cost society: Think Like a Commoner David Bollier, 2014-03-04 A new world based on fairness, participation, accountability is closer than you think…if you learn to think like a commoner |
| the zero marginal cost society: Taking Economics Seriously Dean Baker, 2010-04-02 A leading economist's exploration of what our economic arrangements might look like if we applied basic principles without ideological blinders. There is nothing wrong with economics, Dean Baker contends, but economists routinely ignore their own principles when it comes to economic policy. What would policy look like if we took basic principles of mainstream economics seriously and applied them consistently? In the debate over regulation, for example, Baker—one of the few economists who predicted the meltdown of fall 2008—points out that ideological blinders have obscured the fact there is no “free market” to protect. Modern markets are highly regulated, although intrusive regulations such as copyright and patents are rarely viewed as regulatory devices. If we admit the extent to which the economy is and will be regulated, we have many more options in designing policy and deciding who benefits from it. On health care reform, Baker complains that economists ignore another basic idea: marginal cost pricing. Unlike all other industries, medical services are priced extraordinarily high, far above the cost of production, yet that discrepancy is rarely addressed in the debate about health care reform. What if we applied marginal cost pricing—making doctors' wages competitive and charging less for prescription drugs and tests such as MRIs? Taking Economics Seriously offers an alternative Econ 101. It introduces economic principles and thinks through what we might gain if we free ourselves from ideological blinders and get back to basics in the most troubled parts of our economy. |
| the zero marginal cost society: How the Poor Can Save Capitalism John Hope Bryant, Andrew Young, 2014-06-02 This book has a simple message for business leaders: you help yourselves by helping the poor. Instead of feeling as if the economy is working against them, the poor need to feel they have a stake in it so they will buy your products and put money in the bank. Supporting poor people's efforts to move into the middle class is the only way to enrich everyone, rich and poor alike. |
| the zero marginal cost society: The Age of Resilience Jeremy Rifkin, 2022-11-01 A sweeping new interpretation of the history of civilization and a transformative vision of how our species will thrive on an unpredictable Earth. The viruses keep coming, the climate is warming, and the Earth is rewilding. Our human family has no playbook to address the mayhem unfolding around us. If there is a change to reckon with, argues the renowned economic and social theorist Jeremy Rifkin, it’s that we are beginning to realize that the human race never had dominion over the Earth and that nature is far more formidable than we thought, while our species seems much smaller and less significant in the bigger picture of life on Earth, undermining our long-cherished worldview. The Age of Progress, once considered sacrosanct, is on a deathwatch while a powerful new narrative, the Age of Resilience, is ascending. In The Age of Resilience, Rifkin takes us on a new journey beginning with how we reconceptualize time and navigate space. During the Age of Progress, efficiency was the gold standard for organizing time, locking our species into the quest to optimize the expropriation, commodification, and consumption of the Earth’s bounty, at ever-greater speeds and in ever-shrinking time intervals, with the objective of increasing the opulence of human society, but at the expense of the depletion of nature. Space, observes Rifkin, became synonymous with passive natural resources, while a principal role of government and the economy was to manage nature as property. This long adhered to temporal-spatial orientation, writes Rifkin, has taken humanity to the commanding heights as the dominant species on Earth and to the ruin of the natural world. In the emerging era, says Rifkin, efficiency is giving way to adaptivity as the all-encompassing temporal value while space is perceived as animated, self-organizing, and fluid. A younger generation, in turn, is pivoting from growth to flourishing, finance capital to ecological capital, productivity to regenerativity, Gross Domestic Product to Quality of Life Indicators, hyper-consumption to eco-stewardship, globalization to glocalization, geopolitics to biosphere politics, nation-state sovereignty to bioregional governance, and representative democracy to citizen assemblies and distributed peerocracy. Future generations, suggests Rifkin, will likely experience existence less as objects and structures and more as patterns and processes and come to understand that each of us is literally an ecosystem made up of the microorganisms and elements that comprise the hydrosphere, lithosphere, atmosphere, and biosphere. The autonomous self of the Age of Progress is giving way to the ecological self of the Age of Resilience. The now worn scientific method that underwrote the Age of Progress is also falling by the wayside, making room for a new approach to science called Complex Adaptive Systems modeling. Likewise, detached reason is losing cachet while empathy and biophilia become the norm. At a moment when the human family is deeply despairing of the future, Rifkin gives us a window into a promising new world and a radically different future that can bring us back into nature’s fold, giving life a second chance to flourish on Earth. |
| the zero marginal cost society: Biosphere Politics Jeremy Rifkin, 1992 A compelling vision of the 21st-century--a brave new world in which the biosphere itself becomes the framework for rethinking personality, politics, and culture. Rich in detail, unafraid of controversy . . . will help shake people's sense of who they are and what their lives mean.--Bill McKibben, author of The End of Nature. |
| the zero marginal cost society: The Past and Future of America's Economy Robert D. Atkinson, 2004-01-01 Anyone interested in American history as well as the future contours of our economy will find Dr. Atkinson's analyses a guide to the past and a provocative challenge for the future. Economists, business leaders, scholars, and economic policymakers will find it a necessary addition to the literature on economic cycles and growth economics.--BOOK JACKET. |
| the zero marginal cost society: Alive at Work Daniel M. Cable, 2019-02-12 Poll after poll has confirmed that an astonishing number of workers are disengaged from their work. Why is this happening? And how can we fix the problem? In this bold, enlightening book, social psychologist and professor Daniel M. Cable takes leaders into the minds of workers and reveals the surprising secret to restoring their zest for work. Disengagement isn't a motivational problem, it's a biological one. Humans aren't built for routine and repetition. We're designed to crave exploration, experimentation, and learning--in fact, there's a part of our brains, which scientists have coined the seeking system, that rewards us for taking part in these activities. But the way organizations are run prevents many of us from following our innate impulses. As a result, we shut down. Things need to change. More than ever before, employee creativity and engagement are needed to win. Fortunately, it won't take an extensive overhaul of your organizational culture to get started. With small nudges, you can personally help people reach their fullest potential. Alive at Work reveals: How to encourage people to bring their best selves to work and use their greatest strengths to help your organization flourish How to build creative environments that motivate people to share ideas, work smarter, and embrace change How to enhance people's connection to their work and your customers How to create personalized experiences that help people feel a deeper sense of purpose Filled with fascinating stories from the author's extensive research, Alive at Work is the inspirational guide that you need to tap into the passion, creativity, and purpose fizzing beneath the surface of every person who falls under your leadership. |
| the zero marginal cost society: More from Less Andrew McAfee, 2019-10-08 From the coauthor of the New York Times bestseller The Second Machine Age, a compelling argument—masterfully researched and brilliantly articulated—that we have at last learned how to increase human prosperity while treading more lightly on our planet. Throughout history, the only way for humanity to grow was by degrading the Earth: chopping down forests, fouling the air and water, and endlessly digging out resources. Since the first Earth Day in 1970, the reigning argument has been that taking better care of the planet means radically changing course: reducing our consumption, tightening our belts, learning to share and reuse, restraining growth. Is that argument correct? Absolutely not. In More from Less, McAfee argues that to solve our ecological problems we don’t need to make radical changes. Instead, we need to do more of what we’re already doing: growing technologically sophisticated market-based economies around the world. How can he possibly make this claim? Because of the evidence. America—a large, high-tech country that accounts for about 25% of the global economy—is now generally using less of most resources year after year, even as its economy and population continue to grow. What’s more, the US is polluting the air and water less, emitting fewer greenhouse gases, and replenishing endangered animal populations. And, as McAfee shows, America is not alone. Other countries are also transforming themselves in fundamental ways. What has made this turnabout possible? One thing, primarily: the collaboration between technology and capitalism, although good governance and public awareness have also been critical. McAfee does warn of issues that haven’t been solved, like global warming, overfishing, and communities left behind as capitalism and tech progress race forward. But overall, More from Less is a revelatory, paradigm-shifting account of how we’ve stumbled into an unexpectedly better balance with nature—one that holds out the promise of more abundant and greener centuries ahead. |
| the zero marginal cost society: Selling the Work Ethic Sharon Beder, 2000 Explores the capitalist culture of work, the respect it gives to the wealthy, and its justification of inequality. In this fascinating social history of the work ethic, the author shows that these values are neither natural nor inevitable. They have in fact been actively promoted by those who benefit most from them. |
| the zero marginal cost society: Who Gets What--and why Alvin E. Roth, 2015 A Nobel laureate reveals the often surprising rules that govern a vast array of activities -- both mundane and life-changing -- in which money may play little or no role. If you've ever sought a job or hired someone, applied to college or guided your child into a good kindergarten, asked someone out on a date or been asked out, you've participated in a kind of market. Most of the study of economics deals with commodity markets, where the price of a good connects sellers and buyers. But what about other kinds of goods, like a spot in the Yale freshman class or a position at Google? This is the territory of matching markets, where sellers and buyers must choose each other, and price isn't the only factor determining who gets what. Alvin E. Roth is one of the world's leading experts on matching markets. He has even designed several of them, including the exchange that places medical students in residencies and the system that increases the number of kidney transplants by better matching donors to patients. In Who Gets What -- And Why, Roth reveals the matching markets hidden around us and shows how to recognize a good match and make smarter, more confident decisions. |
| the zero marginal cost society: The Zero Marginal Cost Society Jeremy Rifkin, 2015 The capitalist era is passing. Rising in its wake is a new global collaborative Commons that will transform our way of life. Jeremy Rifkin explains that intense competition is forcing the introduction of ever newer technologies, in turn boosting productivity to the point where the marginal cost of producing additional units is nearly zero. |
| the zero marginal cost society: With Liberty and Dividends for All Peter Barnes, 2014-08-04 Peter Barnes argues that because of globalization, automation, and winner-take-all capitalism, there won’t be enough high-paying jobs to sustain America’s middle class in the future. Therefore, to survive economically, our middle class needs—and deserves—a supplementary source of nonlabor income. To meet this need, Barnes proposes to give every American a share of the wealth we own together— starting with our air and financial infrastructure. These shares would pay dividends of several thousand dollars per year—money that wouldn’t be welfare or wealth redistribution but legitimate property income. |
| the zero marginal cost society: Essential Prosperity Napoleon Hill, James Allen, Wallace D. Wattles, Joseph Murphy, George S. Clason, Florence Scovel Shinn, Arnold Bennett, Ernest Holmes, Emmet Fox, Peter B. Kyne, William Walker Atkinson, Annie Rix Militz, Russell Conwell, Elizabeth Towne, 2022-11-08 The ultimate collection of books for life-changing success It’s time to stop living your life on the margins and claim the financial success you deserve. Essential Prosperity is a treasury of wisdom that will empower you to move from a life of want—defined by debt, fear, and missed possibilities—to one of true success. You have the power and potential to create the life of abundance you’ve always imagined and Essential Prosperity will show you how. Essential Prosperity includes fourteen life changing books from the thought leaders and teachers whose work has changed the world, including: - The Richest Man in Babylon by George S. Clason - Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill - Power of Your Subconscious Mind by Joseph Murphy - As a Man Thinketh by James Allen - Science of Getting Rich by Wallace Wattles - The Game of Life by Florence Scovel Shinn - The Golden Key by Emmet Fox - The Go-Getter by Peter B. Kyne - How to Live on 24 Hours a Day by Arnold Bennett - Acres of Diamonds by Russell Conwell - Creative Mind and Success by Ernest Holmes - The Secret of Success by William Walker Atkinson - The Life Power and How to Use It by Elizabeth Towne - Prosperity by Annie Rix Militz These experts speak from every background—from self-help and spirituality to finance and business—each of them sharing the secrets to building life changing wealth and prosperity. |
| the zero marginal cost society: The Rare Metals War Guillaume Pitron, 2020-08-04 The resources race is on. Powering our digital lives and green technologies are some of the Earth’s most precious metals — but they are running out. And what will happen when they do? The green-tech revolution has been lauded as the silver bullet to a new world. One that is at last free of oil, pollution, shortages, and cross-border tensions. Drawing on six years of research across a dozen countries, this book cuts across conventional green thinking to probe the hidden, dark side of green technology. By breaking free of fossil fuels, we are in fact setting ourselves up for a new dependence — on rare metals such as cobalt, gold, and palladium. They are essential to electric vehicles, wind turbines, solar panels, our smartphones, computers, tablets, and other everyday connected objects. China has captured the lion’s share of the rare metals industry, but consumers know very little about how they are mined and traded, or their environmental, economic, and geopolitical costs. The Rare Metals War is a vital exposé of the ticking time-bomb that lies beneath our new technological order. It uncovers the reality of our lavish and ambitious environmental quest that involves risks as formidable as those it seeks to resolve. |
| the zero marginal cost society: The Fourth Industrial Revolution Klaus Schwab, 2017-01-03 The founder and executive chairman of the World Economic Forum on how the impending technological revolution will change our lives We are on the brink of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. And this one will be unlike any other in human history. Characterized by new technologies fusing the physical, digital and biological worlds, the Fourth Industrial Revolution will impact all disciplines, economies and industries - and it will do so at an unprecedented rate. World Economic Forum data predicts that by 2025 we will see: commercial use of nanomaterials 200 times stronger than steel and a million times thinner than human hair; the first transplant of a 3D-printed liver; 10% of all cars on US roads being driverless; and much more besides. In The Fourth Industrial Revolution, Schwab outlines the key technologies driving this revolution, discusses the major impacts on governments, businesses, civil society and individuals, and offers bold ideas for what can be done to shape a better future for all. |
| the zero marginal cost society: Entropy Jeremy Rifkin, 1981-09-01 Offers a hard-hitting analysis of world turmoil and its ceaseless predicaments, according to the thermodynamic law of entropy--all energy flows from order to disorder, from the usable to the unusable |
| the zero marginal cost society: The Hydrogen Economy Jeremy Rifkin, 2003-08-25 The road to global security, writes Jeremy Rifkin, lies in lessening our dependence on Middle East oil and making sure that all people on Earth have access to the energy they need to sustain life. Weaning the world off oil and turning it toward hydrogen is a promissory note for a safer world. Rifkin's international bestseller The Hydrogen Economy presents the clearest, most comprehensive case for moving ourselves away from the destructive and waning years of the oil era toward a new kind of energy regime. Hydrogen-one of the most abundant substances in the universe-holds the key, Rifkin argues, to a cleaner, safer, and more sustainable world. |
| the zero marginal cost society: The Mesh Lisa Gansky, 2010-09-23 A simple, powerful idea that's reinventing the way smart, adaptive companies do business. Most businesses follow the same basic formula: create a product or service, sell it, and collect money. What Lisa Gansky calls Mesh businesses throw this model out the window. Instead, these companies use social media, wireless networks, and data crunched from every available source to provide people with goods and services at the exact moment they need them, without the burden and expense of owning them outright. The Mesh gives companies a better understanding of what customers really want. Already, hundreds of successful Mesh companies are redefining how we interact with the people, goods, and services in our lives. These businesses are easier to start and spreading like wildfire, from bike sharing and home exchanges to peer-to-peer lending, energy cooperatives, and open source design. Consider: • ZipCar profits from streamlined car sharing • Kickstarter connects artists with funding from enthusiastic supporters • Music Gym makes finding a recording studio as easy as joining a gym The Mesh reveals the next wave of information-enabled commerce, showing readers how to plug in and profit. |
| the zero marginal cost society: The End of Work Jeremy Rifkin, 2004 The most significant domestic issue of the 2004 elections is unemployment. The United States has lost nearly three million jobs in the last ten years, and real employment hovers around 9.1 percent. Only one political analyst foresaw the dark side of the technological revolution and understood its implications for global employment: Jeremy Rifkin. The End of Workis Jeremy Rifkin's most influential and important book. Now nearly ten years old, it has been updated for a new, post-New Economy era. Statistics and figures have been revised to take new trends into account. Rifkin offers a tough, compelling critique of the flaws in the techniques the government uses to compile employment statistics. The End of Workis the book our candidates and our country need to understand the employment challenges-and the hopes-facing us in the century ahead. |
| the zero marginal cost society: Economics of the Free Society Wilhelm Röpke, 1963 |
| the zero marginal cost society: The European Dream Jeremy Rifkin, 2004 New in paperback comes the national bestseller that shows how the American Dream is languishing, surpassed worldwide by a powerful alternative in the lifestyle of the new Europe. |
| the zero marginal cost society: Time Wars Jeremy Rifkin, 1987 The author surveys Western culture and concludes that changes in civilization take place only with corresponding changes in our conception of time. In the process the author offers persuasive evidence to demonstrate what happens to our species when time is snatched from its biological and environmental moorings |
| the zero marginal cost society: Smart Cities For Dummies Jonathan Reichental, 2020-06-23 Become empowered to build and maintain smarter cities At its core, a smart city is a collection of technological responses to the growing demands, challenges, and complexities of improving the quality of life for billions of people now living in urban centers across the world. The movement to create smarter cities is still in its infancy, but ambitious and creative projects in all types of cities—big and small—around the globe are beginning to make a big difference. New ideas, powered by technology, are positively changing how we move humans and products from one place to another; create and distribute energy; manage waste; combat the climate crisis; build more energy efficient buildings; and improve basic city services through digitalization and the smart use of data. Inside this book you’ll find out: What it really means to create smarter cities How our urban environments are being transformed Big ideas for improving the quality of life for communities Guidance on how to create a smart city strategy The essential role of data in building better cities The major new technologies ready to make a difference in every community Smart Cities For Dummies will give you the knowledge to understand this important topic in depth and be ready to be an agent of change in your community. |
| the zero marginal cost society: Society 5.0 Hitachi-UTokyo Laboratory(H-UTokyo Lab.), 2020-05-29 This open access book introduces readers to the vision on future cities and urban lives in connection with “Society 5.0”, which was proposed in the 5th Basic Science and Technology Plan by Japan’s national government for a technology-based, human-centered society, emerging from the fourth industrial revolution. The respective chapters summarize the findings and suggestions of joint research projects conducted by H-UTokyo Lab. Through the research collaboration and discussion, this book explores the future urban lives under the concept of “Society 5.0”, characterized by the key phrases of data-driven society, knowledge-intensive society, and non-monetary society, and suggests the directionality to which the concept should aim as Japan’s technology-led national vision. Written by Hitachi’s researchers as well as academics from a wide range of fields, including engineering, economics, psychology and philosophy at The University of Tokyo, the book is a must read for members of the general public interested in urban planning, students, professionals and researchers in engineering and economics. |
| the zero marginal cost society: Strategic Storytelling Dave McKinsey, 2014-11-08 Strategic Storytelling is a complete guide to creating persuasive business presentations.Based on intensive study of presentations developed by leading management consulting firms, this step-by-step playbook shows you how to craft stories using proven narrative frameworks, design data-driven slides, and master your verbal and non-verbal delivery. |
| the zero marginal cost society: A Thousand Barrels a Second: The Coming Oil Break Point and the Challenges Facing an Energy Dependent World Peter Tertzakian, 2006-02-09 In 2006, world oil consumption will exceed one thousand barrels per second. The news marks an important change that will have a far-reaching impact on world economies, investments, and business profitability. In A Thousand Barrels a Second, Chief Energy Economist of ARC Financial Peter Tertzakian examines the future of oil and offers insights into what it will take to rebalance our energy needs and seize new opportunities. He answers the top questions asked by business leaders, policy makers, investors, and concerned citizens as we approach the coming break point: Are today's high oil and gas prices part of a routine business cycle, or are there more profound forces at play? Are hybrid vehicles our only solution against high gasoline prices? Is China's growing thirst for energy sustainable? Which government policies work and which do not? Will nuclear power and coal save the day-again? Tertzakian also offers a realistic, informed look into the future of our energy supply chains and how our consumption patterns may evolve, revealing how governments, businesses, and even individuals can meet the coming challenges with better solutions and innovations. |
| the zero marginal cost society: Capital in the Twenty-First Century Thomas Piketty, 2017-08-14 A New York Times #1 Bestseller An Amazon #1 Bestseller A Wall Street Journal #1 Bestseller A USA Today Bestseller A Sunday Times Bestseller A Guardian Best Book of the 21st Century Winner of the Financial Times and McKinsey Business Book of the Year Award Winner of the British Academy Medal Finalist, National Book Critics Circle Award “It seems safe to say that Capital in the Twenty-First Century, the magnum opus of the French economist Thomas Piketty, will be the most important economics book of the year—and maybe of the decade.” —Paul Krugman, New York Times “The book aims to revolutionize the way people think about the economic history of the past two centuries. It may well manage the feat.” —The Economist “Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-First Century is an intellectual tour de force, a triumph of economic history over the theoretical, mathematical modeling that has come to dominate the economics profession in recent years.” —Steven Pearlstein, Washington Post “Piketty has written an extraordinarily important book...In its scale and sweep it brings us back to the founders of political economy.” —Martin Wolf, Financial Times “A sweeping account of rising inequality...Piketty has written a book that nobody interested in a defining issue of our era can afford to ignore.” —John Cassidy, New Yorker “Stands a fair chance of becoming the most influential work of economics yet published in our young century. It is the most important study of inequality in over fifty years.” —Timothy Shenk, The Nation |
| the zero marginal cost society: The Biotech Century Jeremy Rifkin, 1999-04-05 Explores current developments in the fields of biochips, cloning, and genetic mapping. |
I'm a huge fan of xrp and have a lot of faith in it but I'm still more ...
Dec 5, 2017 · All Activity; Home ; XRP ; General Discussion ; I'm a huge fan of xrp and have a lot of faith in it but I'm still more of a fan of money than ripple
What's Ripple's strategy on decoupling from BTC?
Jan 16, 2018 · Something I read on Twitter today was a response to the question - 'Why XRP is down?'. The usual answer was - 'Because Bitcoin is down.' That's 100% true, however it …
I'm a huge fan of xrp and have a lot of faith in it but I'm still more ...
Dec 5, 2017 · All Activity; Home ; XRP ; General Discussion ; I'm a huge fan of xrp and have a lot of faith in it but I'm still more of a fan of money than ripple
What's Ripple's strategy on decoupling from BTC?
Jan 16, 2018 · Something I read on Twitter today was a response to the question - 'Why XRP is down?'. The usual answer was - 'Because Bitcoin is down.' That's 100% true, however it …
