Future Society Flashcards
[The Transfer from Ownership to Access]
is on the transfer of ownership to access. The automobile is the perfect metaphor for the capitalist paradigm. Therein freedom is defined as being enclosed in one’s autonomy with the ability to move about at will. But this is being replaced in the sharing economy of the Commons, as car sharing is becoming increasingly common. Here freedom is defined as the right to include others. He cites voluminous statistics on the growing use of sharing which in turn if drastically reducing car ownership, thus reducing inefficient use, emissions and traffic congestion.
Sharing is also extending to other good and services, including clothing, housing, tools, toys and skills. It turns out with the economic downturn many are questioning why they needed so much stuff in the first place. It lies dormant most of the time and has put them in dire debt. People are becoming aware that they can reduce their debt while making use of their possessions by sharing, which in turn makes them feel part of a community instead of locked away in their enclosed spaces of home and car. They realize the were “sold a bill of goods” (233) that does not add to their happiness. “Reducing addictive consumption, optimizing frugality, and fostering a more sustainable way of life is not only laudable, but essential if we are to ensure our survival” (237).
The change to a Commons is seriously affecting advertising. This is the industry that got us to buy into over-consumption in the first place, equating it with success. The industrial revolution’s increased production and wages led to surplus goods and disposable income, so advertising quickly set about to mate the two in a happy marriage of accumulating stuff to feed our enclosed egos. But per above we are shifting away from this and sharing our stuff and reconnecting with each other. Communicating about our stuff directly with one another has reduced the need for depending on advertisers. We now depend far more on each others review of goods and services, since we trust the opinions of peers not bent on selling us something. The rise of Craigslist and Angie’s List are examples of this growing trend. And indicative of people taking responsibility to do their own fact checking and peer review on information instead of just accepting an ad on corporate media.
There was also a section on how the Commons is affecting medicine. Therein is 3-D printing’s ability to ‘grow’ human tissue using one’s own living cells to prevent rejection. So far they’ve achieved the creation of some liver tissue and a human kidney. They expect that growing organs and specialized tissues will be commonplace within 10 years.[7]
THE HISTORY OF CAPITALISM P I
The author makes it clear that ‘free market’ is not synonymous with ‘capitalism;’ The latter requires the former, whereas the former doesn’t require the latter for free exchange of private property. He spares some time to illustrate the birth of the market economy that started during the feudal system in the later part of Middle Ages. This is a period when land was a common and serfdom was existent in the form of Tenancy Agreement between peasants and feudal landlords. The feudal notion of property relation meant it was never exclusively owned but rather divided up into spheres of responsibility of proprietary obligation conforming to “Great Chain of Being” theology.
The Enclosure Movement that started in England from the sixteenth century turned firstly ‘land’ into ‘real estate,’ giving ownership to individuals for the first time in history and secondly, ‘serfdom’ into ‘free labor’ making both available and possible for exchange in the marketplace. The author emphasizes the emergence of this new ‘private-property’ regime as a key drive in the passage from feudal life to the modern market economy. Also, he pays attention to water and wind mills as important energy source along with the invention of print and asserts they were the key driving forces that altered the existing economic paradigm and social construction into the new one, the Capitalism.
The convergence of print and renewable energies had the effect of democratizing both literacy and power, posing a formidable challenge to the hierarchical organization of feudal life. The synergies created by the print revolution and wind and water power, along with steady improvements in road and river transport, sped up exchange and decreased transaction costs, making possible trade in larger regional markets. – from The Rise of The Market Economy, Chapter 2. The European Enclosure And The Birth of The Market Economy, p.4
A scenario of extreme productivity:
Intense competition forces the introduction of ever-leaner technology, boosting productivity to the optimal point in which each additional unit introduced for sale approaches “near zero” marginal cost. In other words, the cost of actually producing each additional unit-if fixed costs are not counted-becomes essentially zero, making the product nearly free. If that were to happen, profit, the life-blood of capitalism, would dry up. (p.4)
Capitalism and killing the biosphere
And he points that what brings everyone’s interest together is ‘restoring the health of the biosphere community that has been devastated from the capitalism market economy.’
While the enclosures, privatization, and commercial exploitation of Earth’s ecosystems in the capitalist era has resulted in a dramatic rise in the standard of life of a significant minority of the human race, it has been at the expense of the biosphere itself. […] The enclosures of the land and ocean Commons, the fresh water Commons, the atmosphere Commons, the electromagnetic spectrum Commons, the knowledge Commons, and the genetic Commons has severed the complex internal dynamics of Earth’s biosphere, jeopardizing every human being’s welfare and the well-being of all the other organisms that inhabit the planet. […] The real historical significance of the Free Culture Movement and Environmental Movement is that they are both standing up to the forces of enclosure. By reopening the various Commons, humanity begins to think and act as part of a whole. We come to realize that the ultimate creative power is reconnecting with one another and embedding ourselves in ever-larger systems of relationships that ripple out to encompass the entire set of relationships that make up the biosphere Commons. – from A New Commons Narrative, Chapter 11. The Collaboratists Prepare For Battle, p.224
[The Great Paradigm Shift from Market Capitalism to the Collaborative Commons]
he discusses how monopolies intentionally thwart competition and innovation so as to maintain their stranglehold. But he claims entrepreneurs will find a way around it and end up forcing competition with better tech and price reductions (6). Larry Summers 2001 paper acknowledges the emerging information economy was indeed moving to near marginal cost, but Summers didn’t propose something like Rifkin, instead recommending “short-term natural monopolies” (8).
Recall Summers was Obama’s pick for Director of the National Economic Council. His policy suggestions were well in line with his promotion of “natural monopolies,” as his resume attests. And we’re seeing exactly this economic philosophy at play with FCC Chairman Wheeler’s proposed pay-to-play rules, where the ISP monopolies will destroy internet neutrality. Recall that Wheeler was another Obama pick, and was a former, and will return to being, a cable and wireless lobbyist. While Obama claims to back income equality and net neutrality he appoints the likes of Summers and Wheeler who make no bones about their support of monopolies. And without net neutrality good bye to Rifkin’s entire plan, which requires it to succeed.[1]
SOCIAL CAPITAL AND THE SHARING ECONOMY
In capitalist system, private property is the defining characteristic. Freedom represented by automobile symbolized the mobility and the ultimate enclosure with exclusivity. The author asserts that, on the other hand, the Internet generation thinks of freedom as the right to be included with others not exclude others. For them, freedom is measured more by access to others in networks than ownership of property in markets. The deeper and more inclusive one’s relationships, the more freedom they enjoy. Freedom for them is the ability to collaborate with others, without restriction, in a peer-to-peer world.
Social capital through the experience of connecting with others becomes the defining characteristic in Collaborative Commons age. And ownership gives ways to access, shaping the Sharing Economy where people share every thing with each other. The author suggests two main reasons for emergence of the Sharing Economy. First, a wake-up call from the Great Recession started in 2008 that people are left with accumulation of “stuff” they barely used and buried in debt to finance it without pay-check. They began to question the value of accumulating possessions that added little or nothing to their sense of happiness and well-being. And the youth coming out of the Great Recession realized that they would not likely enjoy anywhere near the standard of living of their parents’ and grandparents’ generations in the future. Second, people started to recognize that two centuries of industrial activity that had created unprecedented prosperity at the expense of Earth’s ecological endowment resulted in catastrophic climate change leaving their grand children even bigger environmental debt that might never be paid back.
The numerous examples of people’s new economic behaviors of sharing almost every thing and of prospering entrepreneurship in the Sharing Economy are well illustrated across many industry. What’s notable among them are as below.
Health-care Industry
Advertising Industry
Peer-to-Peer Social Lending(Crowd-funding)
Social Entrepreneurship(Profit and Non-profit)
Commons Currencies
New Kinds of Employment (IoT as both a job killer and a source of employment)
[Crowdfunding Social Capital, Democratizing Currency, Humanizing Entrepreneurship and Rethinking Work]
addresses how the Commons applies to other paradigms. After the financial crises other means of banking have been explored, crowdfunding being one. Capital is raised from the general public for one’s project and a specified minimal amount must be raised for the funds to be collected. Companies like Kickstarter that organize the funding get a small cut, as does Amazon for collecting it. There are different forms of investor compensation, from future goods by the provider to shares in the profits to interest on the loan. It eliminates the banks with their usurious interest rates.
Alternative currencies is another expression. Instead of monetary exchange there is social exchange. Goods and services can be exchanged in labor time banks. One provides a good or service to another and his time is updated to a database. When that provider needs a good or service he can look up another provider and use his stored labor to obtain that service. Some of these banks do not differentiate the type of service or expertise level but others do, so not all types of time deposits are equivalent. Some even keep the time banks confined to their local or regional community, thereby keeping it ‘in the family.’
The build-out of the IoT infrastructure will create a lot of new jobs in the short to mid-term. Granted when fully implemented it will have little need of jobs to maintain it, but in the interim there will be plenty. Of course many will need to be retrained to tackle the new tech, but that of course can be handled by the sort of commons education previously discussed. All of which will “give birth to a new economic order whose life force is as different from market capitalism as the latter was from the feudal and medieval systems from which it emerged” (269).
[A Biosphere Lifestyle]
is a recap of the historical eras. In forager/hunter societies our empathic drive was limited to one’s family and tribe in mythological consciousness. We then moved into agricultural civilization where empathy was extended to one’s religious family in theological consciousness. Next up was a steam-powered civilization that extended our empathy to those in our nation states and an ideological consciousness. Next was mass electrification and an extension of empathy to larger associations based on cultural, professional and technical affiliation via psychological consciousness. And now we are entering the commons via the internet and emerging IoT, our empathy extending to all humanity as well as the environment via biospheric consciousness.
He notes that all of the above still exist in each of us with different emphases as well as culturally is various degrees depending on context. There are also regressions and progressions depending on a variety of factors. But overall there is an unmistakable trajectory of greater empathetic embrace. And this is not some transcendent, ever-more abstract worldview detached from our basic empathetic connections. Empathy is what keeps us grounded in this body and this world as we acknowledge that this life is finite and we all die.
Somewhere around the shift from ideological to psychological consciousness we realized this via our existential crises. As we move into biospheric consciousness we use death to remind us of how precious and fragile life is in all its manifestations and take responsibility for better stewardship of that life knowing it will end. Whatever relative immortality there is lies in our contributions to a progressive biospheric culture in which we participate. And if that shift reaches enough of us in enough time then that culture just might survive the environmental devastation wrought by capitalist consciousness. That of course remains uncertain. The path ahead is being laid and it’s now up to us to walk the talk, or more than just individuals will die.
In the Afterword Rifkin expresses mixed feelings for the end of capitalism. He appreciates the entrepreneurial spirit that animated it. He thinks that it is in fact the so-called ‘invisible hand’ and disagrees with Adam Smith that it involves pure self interest devoid of public concern. Such a spirit is driven by a need to create newer and better products and services to serve the public, which of course also serves one’s own financial interests. And that capitalism was an appropriate and efficient response to the energy-communication regime of the times.
The irony is that the entrepreneurial spirit played out to its logical conclusion in creating products approaching near zero marginal cost. This Trojan horse was inherent to the system all along and created its own downward spiral toward extinction. That along with the other downsides inherent to the system, like creating monopolies, not sharing the wealth with workers and exploiting natural resources to the point of possibly disastrous climate change.
Granted the complete demise of capitalism is a long way off, it being mixed with the Commons for some time to come. The former will slowly subside as the latter rises. The second industrial revolution emerged when the first was in full swing. It took 50 years for the second to be the major economic system. It will likely take another 50 for the third revolution to be the dominant player. But the writing is already on the wall. It’s here now and here to stay, so perhaps it’s time to get with the program?” (http://www.integralworld.net/berge7.html
Internet age and the changing world
The Internet Age is the world we’re living in. The internet is such an indispensable part of our life. How far has it transformed our reality since it was first introduced in 1990? And how far will it bring us to the future? And how fast? Can the change it will bring be asserted as even to the extent of the Revolution?
According to the author, the answer is Yes. To what extent? Up to the eclipse of the Capitalism. And new-born economic behaviors by human race evolving around the Collaborative Commons. A very daring and courageous assertion. By the time you finish this book, you may find yourself persuaded to believe that you are at the edge of the new paradigm that’s fast approaching.
The author is doing a great work for his persuasion for this challenging argument by weaving such diverse subjects as history, economics, physics, theology, philosophy, technology and entrepreneurship with numerous cases from various (maybe almost all) industries from the past and the present.
[The Comedy of the Commons]
] starts with a historical overview of commons governance structures. They have been criticized by conservatives due to the free rider syndrome. If property is held in common for grazing, for instance, the free riders will abuse the system and bring ruin to the land because of self-interest and overgrazing. Interesting argument for a capitalist. But a history of the commons shows that self-interest was indeed the exception rather than the rule, and obeying self-governing rules for the public good was the rule.
While such historical examples are generally from the feudal era, commons governance still exists in some communities today. These are democratically run in local communities where public resources are managed with definitive protocols including punishments. Since the members live in the communities they are keenly aware of the natural limitations to grazing, forestation, soil degradation and the like so manage their resources sustainably. From a wide survey of such commons governance 7 key principles were held in common (see 162 for the list).
Following are other examples of application to contemporary society. The public square was considered a shared resource for meeting, celebrating, sharing and the like. This now manifests in social media sites. The commons is also now expressing through the free genetics movement, which is trying to preserve our genetic heritage from being enclosed and privatized by big biotech. And which is just another addition to the emerging P2P meme in RE, 3-D printing, education, music and so on.
Also of note is that both Clinton in the US and Blair in the UK were part of a trend started by Reagan/Thatcher to sell off the commons to the highest private bidders via deregulation (163-64). Both of the former were held to be ‘integral’ leaders by Wilber.
Zero Marginal Waste
“A powerful new technology platform is developing out of the bowels of the Second Industrial Revolution, speeding the central contradiction of capitalist ideology to the end game. The coming together of the Communications Internet with a digitalized renewable Energy Internet and automated Transportation and Logistics Internet in a seamless twenty-first-century intelligent infrastructure-the Internet of Things(IoT)-is giving birth to a Third Industrial Revolution. The IoT is already boosting productivity to the point where the marginal cost of producing many goods and services is nearly zero, making them practically free and sharable on the emerging Collaborative Commons. The result is corporate profits are beginning to dry up, property rights are weakening, and an economy based on scarcity is slowly giving way to an economy of abundance.” – from Changing The Economic Paradigm, Chapter 1. The Great Paradigm Shift From Market Capitalism To The Collaborative Commons
[The Last Worker Standing]
on work highlights that automation, robotics and computer programs are taking over much of the workforce and replacing human labor at an accelerating pace. He gives countless examples which are all true. However I question when he dismisses that many job losses are due to relocation to cheaper labor markets like China (124). There is no question that it is valid. It’s true that even China is slowly taking up the automation process, and that they will eventually replace their own cheap labor with such tech. But right now cheap human labor far outweigh it and is a direct reason for many US companies to ship manufacturing and textile jobs thereto. Most of Walmart’s products come from China and why they make such huge profits.
Near the end of the chapter he talks about deep play replacing hard work, the former more concerned with social capital. He thinks this will come about when we are all empowered to be prosumers, both creating, consuming and sharing value as well as products. That may be, but in the meantime millions have lost their jobs and millions more will. We can social network all we want, and create/share intellectual/spiritual value all we want, but we might starve in the process without income. I guess that’s one way to solve the current labor problem.
He also does not analyze another factor caused by both automation and shipping many jobs overseas. Big businesses like Walmart and McDonald’s have driven wages down for what few existing jobs are still available. With 3 people for every job we take what we can get to feed our families, like it or not. Meanwhile those very same businesses are reaping record profits and just don’t want to share the wealth. They’d rather see those hard-working folks have to get food stamps and other social welfare programs that cost society rather than pay them a living wage. Sure, things look rosy in Rifkin’s future society but right now not so much. He doesn’t deal with what we need to do now to address these problems of capitalism in the interim. I’ll take Reich, Sanders, Warren and Krugman for that job.
Common:
A common is a shared resource managed by a community who creates rules to make the resource durable. The resource can’t be monopolized by one or a group of individuals, it has to be as opened as possible. The resource is not private or public, it’s a third thing: a common. (www.wikipedia.org)
The Internet of Things(IoT):
The Internet of Things is the network of physical objects that contain embedded technology to communicate and sense or interact with their internal states or the external environment. (www.gartner.com)
According to the author, the Internet of Things will connect every thing with everyone in an integrated global network. People, machines, natural resources, production lines, logistics networks, consumption habits, recycling flows, and virtually every other aspect of economic and social life is linked via sensors and software to the IoT platform, continually feeding Big Data to every node-business, homes, vehicles-moment to moment, in real time. Big Data, in turn, will be processed with advanced analytics, transformed into predictive algorithms, and programmed into automated systems to improve thermodynamic efficiencies, dramatically increase productivity, and reduce the marginal cost of producing and delivering a full range of goods and services to near zero across the entire economy. (p.14)
[The Courtship of Capitalism and Vertical Integration]
is on the first two industrial revolutions, which required vast amounts of capital to build its infrastructure. It also required vertical integration of huge organizational structures with top-down hierarchical control which he calls not coincidentally “rationalization.” I suggest that this is the rationalized Great Chain hierarchy[3] we saw from the feudal era, where due to public education we entered the formal rational mode. All of which also saw the emergence of the legal rights of individuals.
On p. 55 Rifkin notes that while greed, deregulation and corruption certainly plays a part in what capitalism has become, he also asserts that this structure was a natural process for this sort of communication-energy-consciousness regime that provided a general increase in the standard of living for all. It’s what Wilber calls the dignity and disaster of the era. For now I simply note that in the emerging Commons era the capitalist structure has reached the point where its disasters outweigh its dignities. And, as Rifkin said, its own impetus for ever-increasing productivity at lower marginal costs has made itself near obsolete.
