Jeremy Rifkin on Zero Marginal Cost and the Decline of Capitalism

Check this out, very interesting interview, this has actually made me an optimist about our future

Original: https://www.singularityweblog.com/jeremy-rifkin-on-the-zero-marginal-cost-society/

Jeremy Rifkin is a social activist, economist, futurist and best-selling author of twenty books on the impact of scientific and technological changes on the economy, the workforce, society, and the environment. His books have been translated into more than thirty five languages and are being used in hundreds of universities, corporations and government agencies around the world.

In 2011, Jeremy Rifkin published the New York Times bestseller The Third Industrial Revolution, which captured the attention of the world. Mr. Rifkin's vision of a sustainable, post carbon economic era has been endorsed by the European Union and the United Nations and embraced by world leaders including Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, President François Hollande of France, and Premier Li Keqiang of China. His latest one -- The Zero Marginal Cost Society, 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.

During our 97 min conversation with Jeremy Rifkin we cover a variety of interesting topics such as: near zero marginal cost as the deeply embedded paradox in the heart of capitalism; the dematerialization (i.e. the digitalization) of material objects; The Third Industrial Revolution and the decline of capitalism; how US and Canada are becoming outliers while Germany and China are emerging as the new leaders; Dutch Disease and the risk of being a one-trick-pony-type of an economy; decentralization of power and bitcoin; Rifkin's biggest dream and greatest fear; AI and technological unemployment; empathy and the Turing Test...