Let me briefly come back to this video and to Jeremy Rifkin’s ideas:
We are in the middle of a revolution. A fundamental, structural and economic paradigm shift. A transformation of our society.
The CENTRALIZED economic model is coming to an end, productivity is declining.
A SHARING ECONOMY is establishing.
As Rifkin says, the Sharing Economy is “the first new economic system that's entered onto the world stage since capitalism and socialism.”
This is big.
According to Rifkin, it is a “remarkable historical event”.
The new economic model is not based on monopolies, but on planetary interconnectivity.
It is not based on individual ownership, but on access to shared ownership.
Not on capital markets in which individuals exploit the market to their individual benefits, but on networks of people working on common goals.
The Sharing Economy reduces marginal costs and enhances sustainability and productivity.
Terms like freedom, power and community take on new meanings.
The power lies in networks, in the community, therefore power is LATERAL, not VERTICAL.
Rifkin: “Everyone connected can be a potential player, and engage each other directly in social entrepreneurial networks and eliminate many of the middlemen, if you will, and institutions that were the referees in a vertically integrated global economy. We begin to see a kind of a "democratization of economic life," potentially.””
It seems so obvious now that we have to acknowledge in the end that SHARING is the key.
Social platforms like this one are vivid examples.
As Rifkin explains: We share our talents in the community. Our talents can benefit the community and then come back and benefit ourselves.
This corresponds to the social nature of humankind.
According to Rifkin, human beings are “the most social creatures on the planet”.
“Being an island to oneself is death.”
We are currently in a TRANSITION phase.
There are still problems to tackle. Problems of credibility and accountability, for example.
Rifkin takes up the example of Wikipedia.
According to him, Wikipedia works because it evolved into a commons and, as with every commons, there are sanctions, principles of engagement and punishment at work.
Regulation is crucial for such systems to work and develop properly.
Let’s build a good new system, let’s build a platform based on honesty, empathy and fair play!
Feel free to comment!
Cheers
sources: http://www.businessinsider.de/jeremy-rifkin-interview-2017-6?r=US&IR=T
and the video above (found on https://impact.vice.com/en_us/article/bj5zaq/watch-vices-new-documentary-the-third-industrial-revolution-a-radical-new-sharing-economy )