Incidentally, Napster is vicious parasitism off musician's creative work. There used to be fines against some of the napster users. I'm not sure what the system is now, but the napster system as it started should have been dealt with by the courts via fines against some of its users.
It’s coming. Technological Socialism will change the world. Not necessarily for the better, but it will happen.
Older people work hard for big houses, big cars, jet skis, etc. The younger generations are happy with a small apartment, a smartphone, gaming console, and laptop. That’s why the free market message not only doesn’t appeal to them; it actually turns them off.
omg the abundance of cheap/free goods, which free people up to do other things, the horror. We must put a stop to this!!
The inherent dynamism of competitive markets is bringing costs so far down that many goods and services are becoming nearly free, abundant, and no longer subject to market forces.When I can get my new Mercedes for free and drive to my free beach house with free fuel. Then I will be convinced.
Rifkin doesn’t see the future as usual.
Mass customization will be the outcome. Instead of cheap mass produced identical goods, the near zero cost of basic production married to high bandwidth interactive communication will lead to value added services thru the process of customization.
And it will be capitalist. That’s how new services will be built on low to zero cost infrastructure, like Linux platforms, like self replicating 3 D printer bots.
Everything up to now has followed this pattern. Rifkin is a Bolshevik nostalgic still confused by capitalist development, which he misunderstands since it appears formless to him.
The old joke about Communism still applies.
Technocrat: "Mr. Smith, you have been approved for a brand new automobile."
Mr. Smith: "Great, when can I expect delivery?"
Technocrat: "In about 15 years...would you prefer morning or afternoon delivery?"
Mr. Smith: "Better make it in the afternoon...the plumber is coming in the morning."
...except at the NYT where they still charge for online subscriptions....
Wait until we make everything at home with 3D printing ... :-) ...
This is hilarious. Rifkin mistakes cheap things for free, and the destructive creation of capitalism for the destruction of capitalism
When you start with false assumptions, it is hard to come up with correct conclusions.
Rifkin has never had a clue. He is desperate to come up with a reason for the long overdue failure of capitalism.
More software, education and designs are free. Entertainment can and should be cheap for the wise and frugal. Less expensive, older manufacturing methods can be used to produce any one of many items for a profit (see prices and costs). Many regulations will fall for lack of business revenues and subsequent lack of government revenues (for lack of manufacturing that generated more real revenues).
Some government-connected special interests dislike these natural, free market changes and are looking for ways to enforce more consumerism and legislate more fee hikes and regulations against healthy, productive activities (small building, manufacturing, etc.) while projecting their socialist tendencies on their enemy (American consumers unable to spare more money for non-essential purchases).
Too bad. We’re steeped in government and consumer debt, unwilling to legalize real production enough everywhere to allow new, small operations for new ingenuity (building, manufacturing, etc.). That’s the way of current paradigm, and it’s not being directed from the bottom. It’s being directed from the middle and the top (the more influential constituents and constituent groups) with concerns for extinct property values and concerns against new competition.
The lessons economics were thrown out the window long ago. The rules are the same, as we will find to our dismay.
From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 :
technocracy \tech*noc"ra*cy\, n.
government by technical specialists.
[PJC]
From WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006) :
technocracy
n 1: a form of government in which scientists and technical
experts are in control; "technocracy was described as that
society in which those who govern justify themselves by
appeal to technical experts who justify themselves by
appeal to scientific forms of knowledge"
I see that Rifkin has crawled out from under his red rock again. He’s like a marxist vampire. No matter how many stakes we drive thru his dead heart, he keeps coming back like Mayor for Life Marion Barry of DC.
Several of us exposed Rifkind’s fraudulent “Peoples Bicentennial Commission” of 1976, Frank Watkins in his masterful testimony/expose’ before the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee and my study for the American Conservative Union’s Education and Research Institute, among others.
Then Rifkin changed its name to the “Peoples Business Commission” and tried to con businesses into contributing to his anti-free enterprise marxist group, with some success.
Later he founded the “Foundation for Economic Trends”, another marxist-oriented BS organization which got a lot of legitimacy in the dumbassed and duped mainstream press, such as the New York Times (aka the Red and Gray Duped Lady”).
Now he’s a big leftist environmentalist fraud, a sort of Al Gore before there was an environmental wacko named Al Gore.
I know why this BS was published in the New York Times. It is so full of leftist psychobabble BS that in order to read it, one has to go over to the UN and get a gaggle of translators to work on making any sense of it.
Oh, and what about that pro-Hanoi “National Committee for A Citizens’ Commission of Inquiry on US War Crimes in Vietnam”? One of the best microcisms of the “Hanoi Lobby” re who was involved, that you cold find in 1970/71 (including Hanoi Jane, Noam Chomsky, psychopath Ralph Schoenman, the wife beater, communist operative Dave Dellinger, and many from the future Peoples Bicentennial Commission. USSF, and Citizen Soldier, among others.
Rifkin is like an partially treated jock rash. He just keeps coming back in a new form and is a real pain in the ass.
And the mainstream media treat him like he’s Viagra, not a red rash.
The author hasn’t been watching the full cycle of all the “free” stuff. With the internet, many start providing beta versions of apps/etc. for free and collect data to enhance the product. Once they are comfortable that they have a truly marketable product, the freebees stop. Others (Malwarebytes, etc) offer toned-down versions for free, but the real hope is that the free version will want folks to take the next step. “Free” is mostly transitory.
The inherent dynamism of competitive markets is bringing costs so far down that many goods and services are becoming nearly free, abundant, and no longer subject to market forces. While economists have always welcomed a reduction in marginal cost, they never anticipated the possibility of a technological revolution that might bring those costs to near zero.In a previous thread, Sherman Logan pointed this out. I didn't respond when he asked me, because I wanted to think about it. He's got a point; what happens when you eliminate scarcity? Technology has already made music go post-scarcity. Modern economics of any flavor haven't dealt with post-scarcity yet.
Older people work hard for big houses, big cars, jet skis, etc. The younger generations are happy with a small apartment, a smartphone, gaming console, and laptop. That’s why the free market message not only doesn’t appeal to them; it actually turns them off.My parents have this huge house. 30 rooms. 2 acres, 1 in front and 1 in back. It costs them tons on upkeep. They have to hire people left and right to take care of it; none of us children can help them because we don't have the time.