1. A paradigm shift: from market capitalism to a cooperative sharing society.



Part 1: The Truly Amazing History of Capitalism



2 The European Enclosure Movement and the Birth of the Market Economy

3 Capitalism and Vertical Integration

4 Human Nature Through the Lens of Capitalism



Part 2: Zero-Level Marginal Cost Society



5 Extreme Productivity, the Internet of Things, and Free Energy

6 3D Printing – From Mass Production to Mass Production

7 Open Online Courses and Zero Marginal Cost Education

8 The Disappearing Worker

9 The Rise of Prosumers and the Expansion of the Smart Economy



Part 3: The Rise of a Collaborative Sharing Society



10 Shared Comedy

11 Collaborators Prepare for Struggle

12 The Battle Over the Definition and Control of Intelligent Infrastructure



Part 4: Social Capital and the Sharing Economy



13 Transition from Ownership to Access

14 Crowdfunding of social capital, democratization of currency, humanization of entrepreneurship, and rethinking work



Part 5: The Economy of Abundance



15 Sustainable Abundance

16 Biosphere Lifestyle



Reviews



Acknowledgements

Note

References

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Extreme productivity is the enemy of capitalism.

A new economic system called the 'Collaborative Commons' is emerging on the world stage.
This is the first new economic paradigm to take root in the world since the emergence of capitalism and socialism in the early 19th century.
The collaborative sharing economy is already transforming the way we organize our economic lives.
This will create new businesses and millions of jobs throughout the first half of the 21st century, reduce income disparities, democratize the global economy, and establish an environmentally conscious society.

Ironically, it is the extraordinary success of capitalist markets that is triggering massive economic transformation.
Smart companies are constantly striving to introduce new technologies.
To maximize productivity and lower marginal costs of production and distribution, thereby lowering the prices of goods and services and expanding the customer base, while ensuring sufficient profits for investors.
(Marginal cost refers to the additional cost of producing one more unit of a good or service, and is calculated by dividing the increase in total cost excluding fixed costs by the increase in production.) However, economists did not anticipate that some kind of technological revolution would bring about “extreme productivity,” which would cause marginal cost to fall to zero, and at the same time that information, energy, and many physical goods and services would become abundant, prices would approach zero, and market exchange would no longer take place.
Now, a dozen years into the 21st century, that very thing is starting to happen.

Economists, while recognizing the powerful impact of zero marginal cost on the information goods industry, still argue that it will not overcome the "firewall" that separates the offline economy of energy, physical goods, and services from the virtual world (although a growing number of economists are slowly reconsidering this). Now, that firewall is starting to show holes.


The Hottest Business Keyword: Internet of Things

A powerful new technological revolution is slowly evolving, enabling millions (soon to reach hundreds of millions) of prosumers to produce and share their own 3D-printed products and energy at near-zero marginal costs.
The story is that the communications Internet is combining with the nascent energy Internet and the nascent logistics and transportation Internet to create a super Internet of Things (IoT) platform for the Third Industrial Revolution.
This Internet of Things platform is expected to fundamentally transform the global economy throughout the first half of the 21st century.
Billions of sensors are attached to every device, appliance, machine, gadget, and tool, connecting everything and everyone in a dense neural network that spans the entire economic value chain.
Already, 1.4 billion sensors attached to resource flow paths, warehouses, road systems, factory production lines, power grids, offices, homes, stores, and vehicles are continuously monitoring relevant situations and performance, generating big data that feeds into the communications internet, the energy internet, and the logistics and transportation internet.

The distributed and peer-to-peer nature of IoT platforms will allow millions of small businesses (social enterprises and individuals) to collaborate peer-to-peer within a global collaborative commons, establishing horizontal economies of scale while bypassing the intermediaries that drive up the marginal costs of vertically integrated global corporations in the Second Industrial Revolution.
This fundamental transformation in the way economic activity is scaled and organized is a harbinger of the shift in economic power from the few to the many and the democratization of economic life.


▶ Collaborative Sharing Society - A New Paradigm to Replace Capitalism

Currently, approximately 40 percent of Americans are actively participating in the collaborative sharing economy.
Prosumers are no longer just producing and sharing information, entertainment, green energy, 3D-printed products, and vast open online courses at zero marginal cost in a collaborative sharing society.
They are also sharing cars, homes, and even clothes with each other through social media sites, rental and redistribution groups, and cooperatives, at low or zero marginal cost.

Global corporations operating in profit-driven capitalist markets will remain with us for the foreseeable future.
As they become more sophisticated and efficient, they are likely to play a powerful role in the new economic era, primarily as integrated managers of network services and solutions, alongside the collaborative sharing society.
But the capitalist market will no longer reign as the sole decision-maker.
Because we are now entering a world that partially transcends the market and are learning to live together in an increasingly interdependent global shared society.


Smart infrastructure for a new economic era is emerging.

Building the Internet of Things infrastructure for the digital economy of the Third Industrial Revolution will require significant investment from both public and private capital, as it did during the First and Second Industrial Revolutions.
But rejecting these investments and remaining surrounded by the glow of the Second Industrial Revolution—a world plagued by shrinking economic opportunities, slowing GDP, declining productivity, rising unemployment, and a deteriorating environment—is unthinkable.
Because it is clear that all countries will fall into long-term economic recession and a decline in quality of life.

Scaling up the smart digital Internet of Things infrastructure will create new business opportunities in both the market economy and the collaborative sharing society, putting millions back to work, dramatically increasing productivity, and creating a sustainable, post-carbon society.
Investment in infrastructure always creates a multiplier effect that ripples throughout the economy.
The millions of jobs created by infrastructure investment stimulate purchasing power, creating new business opportunities, which in turn lead to additional employment to meet growing consumer demand.
The expansion of the Internet of Things platform also enables typical productivity gains across the value chain, which in turn generates multiplier effects throughout the economy.


The productivity of the Third Industrial Revolution is expected to far exceed that of the First and Second Industrial Revolutions.
We must gradually introduce the Internet of Things platform to accelerate the transition to a zero marginal cost society, thereby ushering in a new economic era that will profoundly impact societal development.
We are now entering a world that partially transcends the market, learning to live together in an increasingly interdependent, global, collaborative, and shared society.