real utopias

Economic theorist and author Jeremy Rifkin explains his concept of The Internet of Things. Rifkin's latest book is The Zero Marginal Cost Society: Th

A powerful new technology platform is emerging with the potential of reducing marginal costs across large sectors of the capitalist economy, with far reaching implications for society in the first half of the 21st Century.

Jeremy Rifkin's new book, The Zero Marginal Cost Society: The Internet of Things, The Collaborative Commons and the Eclipse of Capitalism, offers what might be termed a third vision of the future. He offers neither a Panglossian utopia nor a "doom and gloom" dystopia. Rather, he offers a serious extrapolations to a possible future built around several widely observed trends that have not previously been connected by those who are tracking them. Most of the major themes are mentioned in the title and subtitle: Declining marginal costs approaching zero constitute the latest development in the creative destruction of capitalism. The many different evocations of the commons in our time point to a future characterized by a civil society of nonprofit organization and "collaborative commons."

The capitalist era is passing... not quickly, but inevitably. A new economic paradigm -- the Collaborative Commons -- is rising in its wake that will transform our way of life. We are already witnessing the emergence of a hybrid economy, part capitalist market and part Collaborative Commons. The two economic systems often work in tandem and sometimes compete. They are finding synergies along each other's perimeters, where they can add value to one another, while benefiting themselves. At other times, they are deeply adversarial, each attempting to absorb or replace the other.