Post-Capitalism: Rise of the Collaborative Commons

medium.com/basic-income/post-capitalism-rise-of-the-collaborative-commons-62b0160a7048

March 18, 2015

cjdew
Mar 18, 2015

The Revolution will not be Centralized

This article is a follow-up to The Obsolescence of Capitalism: And the

Transition to a Resource Based Economy, which examined the effects of
ongoing social and technological trends on the capitalist economic system,
and the potential for humanity to restructure society and move from a
system of scarcity to one of global abundance. While the previous article
presented a long-term vision for transitioning towards an alternative
Resource Based Economy of abundance, this article will examine the more
immediate conditions affecting society and how, over the coming years and
decades, the capitalist market will increasingly be eclipsed, circumvented
and overshadowed by an emerging Collaborative Commons.

End of an Era

As the disruptive capacities of technological innovations continue to

advance at an exponential rate, it is increasingly clear that the capitalist
economic model is unable to effectively manage resources and distribute
wealth under the conditions of sustainable abundance now being brought
forth. Vast increases in productivity and efficiency will be realized in the
years ahead through an integrated network of smart-products (termed the
Internet of Things, or IoT),accessible renewable energy harvesting
technologies, energy sharing across a distributed smart-grid, the
decentralization of manufacturing through 3D printing, open online
education, the decentralization of finance, legal contracts and governance
through Blockchain applications, and the progressive automation of the
workforce.

Just as John Maynard Keynes prophesized nearly a century ago, “a point

may soon be reached, much sooner perhaps than we are all of us aware of,
when these [economic] needs are satisfied in the sense that we prefer to
devote our further energies to non-economic purposes.”[1] Keynes foresaw
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such an economic state of abundance coming about through, what he first
termed, technological unemployment which, he stated, “[we] will hear a
great deal in the years to come;” the ultimate implication being “that
mankind is solving its economic problem.”[2] Keynes looked expectantly to
a future in which machines had progressed to the point of providing an
abundance of freely available goods and services to humanity — liberating
people around the world from menial labor, debt, and servitude for the first
time.

Ironically, the operating principles of the capitalist marketplace are bringing

us ever closer to this very state, while simultaneously the relevance of the
competitive market is progressively undermined by the same emerging
paradigm. Capitalist logic dictates that the entrepreneurial spirit of a
competitive market will continually drive productivity increases and marginal
cost decreases. Marginal cost — the cost of producing additional units of
product — is the focus, as this is where entrepreneurs and businesses make
their profits in a market-exchange economy (at the margin); and when
marginal cost approaches zero, so too does profit. The effects of near zero
marginal cost can already be seen wreaking havoc across several media
industries, such as entertainment, communications and publishing, as more
and more content continues to be shared and made freely available across
digital, collaborative networks.

The newest technologies of today are now poised to push marginal cost to
near zero across every major sector. As renewable energy harvesting
technologies become more accessible and efficient, individual homes and
buildings will increasingly produce their own renewable energy and have the
ability to share it freely across a distributed digital smart-grid. Alongside the
Energy Internet, a decentralized Internet of Things will connect our smart-
products and optimize efficiencies, both within the home and across the
economy, in real-time. Education is becoming freely accessible through
open online learning environments, such as MOOCs — Massive Open
Online Courses. Digital cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin, are enabling
peer-to-peer finance options for a decentralized age, where instant
transactions of any denomination to anywhere on the planet can be made
with next to no transaction fee and without the involvement of a third-party
(e.g., banks). Advanced robotics, data analysis, and artificial intelligence will
increasingly take the place of humans across all sectors of the workforce.
The automation of wage labor will lead to vast efficiency increases in the
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economy and ultimately liberate humanity from pecuniary tasks for the first
time. 3D printing at scale promises to dramatically increase economic
productivity and sustainability, using one-tenth of the material of traditional
manufacturing, while eliminating the need for long-range shipping and
logistics through the exchange of digital schematics over open networks. As
these technologies continue their exponential rate of growth, an increasing
number of products and services will be produced and exchanged across
an unrestricted and free-flowing lateral Commons at near zero marginal
cost.

Economists such as Keynes have long been aware that the most optimally
efficient state of capitalism is at near zero marginal cost. Through the
inherent competitive drive for lower costs and increased productivity and
efficiencies, near zero marginal cost is an inevitability under capitalist
defined principles. When the cost of producing an additional good or service
is nearly zero, products become available at next to no cost, profits
evaporate and the exchange of property in markets shuts down. Though
this state represents the ultimate triumph of capitalism, it also marks its
obsolescence and passage from the world stage.

As goods and services become more freely available, the sun will begin to
set on the capitalist era. Capitalism is designed to manage resources within
a closed system of scarcity, and it is thoroughly ineffective at organizing the
economic life of a society in which access is valued over ownership,
transparency over privacy, and collaborative co-creation over competition.
The foundational principals and philosophies upon which the capitalist
system is based — private property, wage labor, profit-driven competition
and debt-based finance — are no longer relevant under such conditions.
Empowered and driven by recent technological innovations, a new
economic system is now emerging that is significantly better suited for
organizing a society characterized by sustainable abundance rather than
scarcity.

Technological Disruption

The Internet of Things

The Internet of Things is the foundational intelligent infrastructure of the new

economy — integrating a Communications Internet, Energy Internet and
Logistics Internet into a single IoT operating system. Hundreds of billions of
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consumer products will eventually be connected to the internet and to one
another, feeding real-time data to an integrated global neural network.
Corporations around the world are already beginning to develop and
distribute “smart” appliances and products that are capable of being
connected to the internet and controlled by consumers via Wi-Fi. One of the
most powerful effects of this global network of things will be the
comprehensive energy efficiency and productivity gains across society,
largely afforded by big data analysis. According to Jeremy Rifkin:

“The Internet of Things will connect everything with everyone in an integrated

global network. People, machines, natural resources, production lines, logistics
networks, consumption habits, recycling flows, and virtually every other aspect
of economic and social life will be linked via sensors and software to the IoT
platform, continually feeding Big Data to every node — business, homes,
vehicles — moment to moment, in real time. Big Data, in turn, will be
processed with advanced analytics, transformed into predictive algorithms, and
programmed into automated systems to improve thermodynamic efficiencies,
dramatically increase productivity, and reduce the marginal cost of producing
and delivering a full range of goods and services to near zero across the entire
economy.”[3]

The IoT is inherently designed to be open, distributed, and collaborative,

giving anyone the freedom to utilize this collective data, create applications,
and contribute to increasing economic efficiencies. However, the IoT is not
just about data analysis. One of its defining features is making possible the
transition from carbon-based fuels to renewable energy sources through a
distributed Energy Internet. Taken as the sum of its parts, the Internet of
Things will enable humanity to use less of the Earth’s resources
dramatically more efficiently and, ultimately, aid in re-integrating our species
with the biosphere of the planet.

Aggregate energy efficiency is the “ratio of useful to potential physical work

that can be extracted from materials.”[4]

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 “During the period from 1900 to 1980 in the United States, aggregate energy
efficiency…steadily rose along with the development of the nation’s
infrastructure, from 2.48 percent to 12.3 percent…leveling off in the late
1990s at around 13 percent with the completion of the Second Industrial
Revolution infrastructure. Despite a significant increase in efficiency, which
gave the United States extraordinary productivity and growth, nearly 87
percent of the energy used in the Second Industrial Revolution was wasted
during transmission.”[5]

Further efficiency gains under the current fossil fuel-based infrastructure are
limited, since the technologies designed for this system, such as the
internal-combustion engine and the centralized electricity grid, have few
productivity gains left to exploit. However, studies indicate that, through a
transition to an IoT infrastructure, “it is conceivable to increase aggregate
energy efficiency to 40 percent or more in the next 40 years, amounting to a
dramatic increase in productivity beyond what the economy experienced in
the twentieth century.”[6]

Distributed Renewable Energy

An Internet of Things infrastructure will incorporate an Energy Internet, in

which prosumers (consumers who have become their own producers) are
empowered to share excess energy across an open and distributed IoT
enabled smart-grid.

Initially, smart appliances may increase energy efficiency in the home by

simply communicating with one another to reduce energy use. For example,
this could be accomplished by not operating at peak times on the grid, or
not all turning on at once, or charging an electric vehicle (EV) during the
cheapest and most efficient hours of the night. However, as technologies for
renewable and free energy harvesting (e.g., solar, wind, etc.) become
exponentially more efficient and accessible to the average consumer it
becomes possible for every household to harvest their own free and
renewable energy, and share any excess (which may initially be done by
selling it back to the utility company for a reduction in costs) across a
decentralized smart-grid, or Energy Internet. It is even possible to utilize
EVs as an energy storage device and to distribute this stored energy back
into the grid during peak times.

Numerous sources of clean and renewable energy are already available,

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including: solar, wind, wave and tidal action, ocean currents, temperature
differentials, falling water, geothermal, electrostatic, hydrogen, natural gas,
algae, biomass, bacteria, phase transformation, fresnel lenses, and
thermionics, amongst others. Geothermal energy alone can supply more
than five hundred times the energy contained in all of the world’s known
fossil fuel resources.[7] Additionally, every hour the sun radiates more
energy onto the earth than the entire human population uses in one year.[8]
Harnessing just one-tenth of 1 percent of the sun’s energy that hits the
Earth would give us six times the energy that the global economy now
consumes.[9]

Just as Moore’s Law applies to computing technology, solar and wind

harvesting technologies are now experiencing exponential growth curves of
their own, with geothermal, biomass and hydro expected to follow. For solar
photovoltaic cells, the same “doubling” phenomenon as seen with computer
chips has been observed, and price has tended to drop 20 percent for every
doubling of industry capacity.[10] The price of crystalline silicon photovoltaic
cells has fallen from $60 per watt in 1976 to $0.66 per watt in 2013, while
efficiency of triple junction solar cells has reached 41 percent in the lab.[11]
According to industry analysts, “the harvesting technology for solar and
small wind power will be as cheap as cell phones and laptops within 15
years.”[12]

Within 10 years, it is projected that every building in America and Europe

will be equipped with digital smart-meters that will be capable of optimizing
the efficiency of devices and appliances within the home,[13] as well as
continuously feeding and receiving real-time data from the IoT network. In
the coming years, prosumers will be empowered to harvest and freely share
their own clean and renewable energy across a distributed Energy Internet
on an IoT infrastructure.

3D Printing and the Decentralization of Manufacturing

3D printing is the technology behind the manufacturing model that will

accompany an IoT infrastructure. As with wind and solar harvesting
technology, the development of 3D printers is on an exponential growth
curve where the first “low-cost” Stratasys printer entered the market at
$30,000 in 2002, while today’s entry-level 3D printers start at just $300.
Already, 3D printers are producing a wide range of products, from jewelry
and artwork, to car and airplane parts, human prostheses and bionic
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implants, bioprinted cells and tissue (with the first 3D printed transplant-
ready organ scheduled to be printed in 2015[14]), functioning mechanical
devices (including weapons), to furniture, to full-scale buildings and parts of
infrastructure; even food is now being 3D printed, along with replacement
parts for the International Space Station that are currently being printed out
in zero gravity orbit.

To increase printing efficiencies, companies are currently exploring the use

of abundant and locally available feedstock to create the printer filament.
Mcor recently introduced a 3D printer that uses cheap paper as its
feedstock, and prints out 3D products in full color with the consistency of
wood at 5 percent of the cost. Other such projects include a 3D printer that
uses sand to create glass objects, and the Filabot printer which grinds up
and recycles plastic objects to produce its own filament. Sand, rock, and
virtually any type of discarded waste material have the potential to be used
for 3D construction and in 3D printed buildings. The European Space
Agency has even designed a printer with the potential to use lunar soil as its
feedstock to construct buildings on the moon.[15]

Though 3D printing may still be a niche area of manufacturing, its future

disruptive potential is vast. Of most significance, the designs or schematics
for 3D printed products are downloadable digital files that are able to be
instantaneously shared online to any point on the planet, just as any type of
digital media file. As with other online networks, 3D printing communities,
such as Thingiverse or Youmagine, are doing away with intellectual
property protection and are instead opting for open-source sharing, making
their products freely available for anyone to use and modify. In this way,
printed products can be made instantly available worldwide at a fraction of
the cost and eliminate the need for long-range shipping. Additionally, 3D
printers use just one-tenth of the material of traditional manufacturing,[16]
can print their own spare parts, require very little human labor, and can
create single customized products or large batches designed to order at
virtually the same unit cost and without the need to retrofit an entire
manufacturing facility, giving 3D printing immense advantages in efficiency
and productivity.

3D printing will drive the decentralization of manufacturing as it scales.

Embedded in an Internet of Things infrastructure, anyone on the planet is
enabled to become a prosumer and create products for use or sharing over
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global networks. By allowing anyone and everyone access to a highly
efficient means of production, 3D printing will reduce marginal costs to near
zero for the majority of consumer products while circumventing and
undermining traditional markets of exchange.

Cryptocurrency, Peer-to-Peer Finance and Blockchain 2.0

Though cryptocurrency and its underlying Blockchain may be several of the

newest disruptive technologies (the Bitcoin whitepaper having been
released in 2008, with the currency coming online the following year), their
underlying applications are easily the most widespread (many of which are
only now beginning to be explored), and their ultimate potential for
disruption is likely yet to be realized.

Cryptocurrency, such as Bitcoin, is the mode of financial exchange that has

been painfully absent from an increasingly interconnected world of instant
digital communications. The digital currency is built upon an open-source
protocol (its code is available for anyone to view), is secured by
cryptography, and enables peer-to-peer transactions to take place over a
decentralized global network without the need for any sort of intermediary
third party (e.g., bank, government, etc). Essentially, it is a global
decentralized digital currency, outside the realm of control of any centralized
governing authority or entity.

Cryptocurrency transactions can be instantaneously sent anywhere in the

world, in any denomination, with next to no transaction fee. This
characteristic alone gives cryptocurrency the ability to reinvigorate and
revolutionize the world of micro-payments, micro-lending, and remittance
payments. With digital cryptocurrencies, foreign workers around the world
are able to transfer remittance payments back to their families without
having to pay exorbitant fees, often upwards of $30 USD per transaction,
charged by companies such as Western Union. The micro-lending model,
used to fund startup businesses and humanitarian projects around the
world, has similarly been hindered by high global transfer fees on small
sums and can now be reinvigorated through free-flowing cryptocurrency
transactions.

Furthermore, cryptocurrency presents an opportunity to circumvent the ad-

based revenue model for online digital content creation. Currently, user
created content posted to YouTube, for example, takes in revenue through
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short advertisements that viewers are forced to watch, while the third party
host (in this case Google) assumes a percentage of revenue from each
creator. With the ability to send direct peer-to-peer micro-payments, it is
possible to support content creators directly, without the need for any sort of
third party intermediary. In the same way, small denominations of
cryptocurrency could be attached to social media “likes,” empowering users
to directly support one another for content creation and sharing— further
incentivizing the creation of quality content and online initiatives. Even if just
five or ten cents worth of cryptocurrency is attached to a “like,” if a video has
one-hundred thousand views and half of those people send a five cent
“like,” the content creator will directly receive $2,500 for their content,
without the need for any corporate advertisement or third party fees.

The underlying technology that enables these secure peer-to-peer

transactions to take place over a decentralized network is called the
Blockchain. Cryptocurrency protocols, like Bitcoin, were simply the first
widespread application of this technology. Numerous Blockchain 2.0
applications are now in development, many of which could be used to help
manage an IoT infrastructure.

Smart contracts are computer programs that can automatically execute the
terms of a contract once the agreed upon conditions are fulfilled. These
could include simple transactions such as an online shopping purchase, or
executing the terms of a will. Moreover, as smart devices and products
continue to proliferate across an Internet of Things infrastructure they will
increasingly integrate and register with the Blockchain and be able to be
bought, sold and operated in line with the terms of smart contracts. For
example, a car could be programmed to only operate for its rightful owner,
or a house could be rented out whose doors will unlock via the tenant’s
phone for a pre-determined length of time.[17]

The applications of the Blockchain are far-reaching, and largely beyond the
scope of this article. The final application that will be mentioned here, that
may be useful in a Collaborative Commons, is the potential to decentralize
governance. Over the Blockchain, it is possible to conduct cryptographically
secure and anonymous digital voting across the globe, where a unique
crypto-token could be issued to the pool of voters that could then be used to
cast a digital vote. Given the simplicity of conducting a crypto-vote, it is
possible that democracies could become more secure, liquid, and less
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centralized, such that individuals would be able to vote directly on major
issues themselves, rather than having to rely on elected representatives
who are often under the influence of partisan politics, corporate lobbyists
and politically motivated short-sightedness.

Though cryptocurrency and the Blockchain are relatively recent

technologies, it is likely that both will be integral to the IoT infrastructure and
play a significant role in facilitating and managing the new economy.

Automation and the End of Wage Labor

By now it is no secret that robotics, artificial intelligence (AI), big data,

advanced analytics and algorithms are increasingly replacing human labor.
Between 1997 and 2005, “manufacturing output increased by 60 percent in
the United States while 3.9 million manufacturing jobs were eliminated
during roughly the same period.”[18] Labor that was once outsourced to
cheaper work forces overseas is now being repatriated with advanced
robotics that are cheaper and more efficient than their foreign counterparts.
Beyond manufacturing, logistics is becoming increasingly automated, from
autonomous robots and storage systems in warehouses to driverless
vehicles that are already beginning to be seen on public roadways,
increasing efficiency and decreasing marginal cost at every step of the
logistics value chain. Similarly, many white-collar and service industry
positions are being transferred to machines just as quickly, eliminating the
need for secretaries, phone operators, travel agents, bank tellers, cashiers,
etc. The online retail sector is growing by 15 percent per year and is
expected to double by 2020.[19] With much higher costs and payrolls, it is
likely that many brick-and-mortar retailers will ultimately succumb to their
virtual equivalents.

Professionals and knowledge workers are equally expendable, as advanced

algorithms and AI are increasingly utilizing big data to recognize patterns,
advance hypotheses and implement solutions. Many formulaic news and
sports articles are now being written by AI, which have been capable of
passing the Turing test online for some time, and can be published within
minutes of an event.[20] Professionals from lawyers, to accountants, to
middle managers and marketers — all are facing replacement by innovative
big data algorithms.

The complete automation of the workforce has the ability to free humanity
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from wage labor and for the first time in history allow individuals to pursue
their true passions, free of any sort of debt or servitude. There is no task
that could not ultimately be carried out by machines or managed by
sophisticated artificial intelligence. Computers will eventually be able to
design their own programs, improve and repair their own circuitry, and
update information about the social needs of humanity. Autonomous
machines and self-erecting structures could excavate canals, dig tunnels,
construct bridges and dams, and efficiently build advanced infrastructure on
a global scale. Human participation would consist of selecting the desired
ends.

Over the coming decades, wage labor and the means of production will be
increasingly handed off to intelligent technologies. Simultaneously,
however, the build-out of an IoT infrastructure (which will also contribute to
one final surge of wage labor) will usher in a new organizational model,
characterized by distinct values that can already be seen emerging.

The Collaborative Commons

Throughout history, major economic transitions have come about with the
development of new energy regimes paralleled by new communication
mediums to manage such systems. In the years ahead, the internet will
increasingly be used to manage a distributed renewable energy regime and
automated infrastructure, within a decentralized global Commons.

As disruptive technologies advance and expand, powerful social forces are

being unleashed that are transforming the way in which we view our place
in the world.

“Markets are beginning to give way to networks, ownership is becoming less

important than access, the pursuit of self-interest is being tempered by the pull
of collaborative interests, and the traditional dream of rags to riches is being
supplanted by a new dream of a sustainable quality of life…While the
capitalist market is based on self-interest and driven by material gain, the
Commons is motivated by collaborative interests and driven by a deep desire
to connect with others and share. If the former promotes property rights, caveat
emptor, and the search for autonomy, the latter advances open-source
innovation, transparency, and the search for community.”[21]

One of the defining features of a Collaborative Commons is its distributed

and decentralized nature. As society increasingly transitions to
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Collaboratism, the centralizing nature of both the capitalist free market and
the socialist bureaucratic state are undermined. The once dominant hold of
these economic regimes is circumvented through a combination of
decentralized networks of collaboration and the automation of economic
infrastructure. The very operating logic of the IoT infrastructure optimizes
peer-to-peer exchange across lateral networks while promoting universal
access, transparency, inclusion, co-creation and innovation. An open and
distributed nature is what allows the Collaborative Commons to break the
monopolistic holds of centralized corporations on capitalist markets, and
enable peer-to-peer production to scale across lateral global networks at
near zero marginal cost — for example, the sharing of distributed renewable
energy across a decentralized smart-grid.

On the Collaborative Commons, a new type of incentive is driving creativity

and innovation. The expectation of financial reward loses relevance when
prosumers begin to produce their own products for use and exchange, and
marginal costs approach zero. In the Commons, the expectation of financial
reward is quickly being replaced by the desire to advance the social well-
being of humanity. In other words, “economic welfare is measured less by
the accumulation of market capital and more by the aggregation of social
capital.”[22]

Millions of people are already beginning to participate in a Collaborative

Commons, sharing everything from cars and bikes, to homes and toys, to
tools and skills, and even food, medical data and DNA profiles in patient-
driven health care and research networks, while prosumers are producing
and sharing their own green energy, 3D printed goods, open online courses,
news and entertainment.

Car-sharing is becoming increasingly popular, with memberships projected

to grow from “seven-hundred thousand to fifteen million in less than seven
years.”[23] While car-sharing frees users from the burden of ownership and
operating costs including maintenance, insurance, taxes, etc., it also lowers
the number of cars on the road and reduces carbon emissions. In 2009, for
example, it was found that “each car-share vehicle eliminated 15 personally
owned cars.”[24] With the average vehicle in the United States sitting idle
for 92% of the time,[25] Lawrence D. Burns, professor of engineering at the
University of Michigan and former corporate VP of research, development,
and planning at General Motors, has concluded that “about 80% fewer
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shared, coordinated vehicles would be needed than personally owned
vehicles to provide the same level of mobility…[and] could be more than
70% cheaper.”[26] With the advent of driverless vehicles in the years
ahead, it is likely that the shift in personal transport from ownership to
access in a shared Commons will quicken.

As the IoT infrastructure continues to develop, the collaborative economy

will become increasingly disruptive as it progressively undercuts profit
margins and ultimately drives marginal costs of consumer products to near
zero.

Privacy and Intellectual Property

In an economy that is largely defined by transparency, inclusivity and

accessibility to free-flowing goods across open networks, the layers of past
enclosure are quickly being dissolved.

“For a younger generation growing up in a globally connected world where

every moment of their lives are eagerly posted and shared with the world…
freedom is not bound up in self-contained autonomy and exclusion, but rather,
in enjoying access to others and inclusion in a global virtual public square. The
moniker of the younger generation is transparency, the modus operandi is
collaboration, and its self-expression is exercised by way of peer production in
laterally scaled networks.”[27]

The question then becomes, how to protect certain types of personal

information and data without compromising the transparent and accessible
nature of open networks. The European Commission has already
established several principles which aim to address this issue and help
guide the development of an IoT infrastructure, such that: “it should be
ensured, that individuals remain in control of their personal data and that
IoT systems provide sufficient transparency to enable individuals to
effectively exercise their data subject rights…[and] that no unwanted
processing of personal data takes place.”[28] However, enforcing such
principles over decentralized networks may be easier said than done, and it
may prove that much of the onus for protecting one’s privacy could largely
fall to individuals themselves (e.g., turn off GPS tracking if you don’t wish to
be tracked, use private or encrypted messaging for secure chat, etc.).

In terms of intellectual property, new licensing options have been developed

to protect the collaborative, shareable and “remix” nature of the Commons
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where cutting, pasting, modifying and expanding upon the past works of
others is permitted, and even encouraged. The “Creative Commons” (CC)
license is free of charge for content creators, with which rights such as the
freedom to share the work, to remix or modify the work, to use the work for
purely non-commercial purposes, or a combination of all three can be
attached. Similarly, the “General Public License” (GPL) is a free license that
is widely used for software-specific purposes, whereby the freedoms to use,
study, share and modify the software are granted to the end user. As more
and more content is integrated and registered on the Blockchain, it is
possible for such licenses to be directly programmed into the content itself
and autonomously enforced.

In recent years, Creative Commons licensing has gone viral as companies

such as Flickr, YouTube, SoundCloud and Wikipedia have all adopted CC
content licensing, as well as numerous record labels, public policy networks
and open online education programs. Scientific and research communities
are increasingly abandoning traditional copyright laws and patents, which
often discourage collaboration, slow research and hold back innovation.
Instead, more and more scientists, universities and foundation-sponsored
laboratories are “uploading their research in open-source networks to be
shared freely with colleagues in managed Commons.”[29] Patenting in
general is largely irrelevant in an economy of open abundance.

However, a recent issue has been with the flow of big data that is
increasingly used to recognize patterns, increase efficiencies and generally
solve societal problems. Progressively this data stream is being concealed,
restricted and privately controlled by a minority of centralized corporations
through traditional intellectual property rights and patents. Big data is a
collective information source that is contributed to by millions of individuals
and should be open and accessible for the benefit of all. “Just as
information wants to be free, Big Data wants to be distributed.”[30]

Governance and Management

The term Commons describes a form of governance, and defines the way in
which humans manage the Earth’s resources and make decisions.
Specifically, the Earth’s resources are held in common and their distribution
is collectively managed.

One form of collective management of a common resource has already

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been attempted with the internet itself. The internet is inherently designed to
be an open, universally accessible and distributed network held in common.
As such, a global collective management approach has governed the
principles and standards upon which the internet is developed, made up of
three primary stakeholders — the government, the private sector, and civil
society. A United Nations multi-stakeholder body has been established for
these groups to regularly meet and deliberate on policy, with networked
regional and national bodies around the world to help maintain a more
lateral and collaborative management approach.

Recently, however, this tripartite management structure has run into

problems. National governments are increasingly moving to enact their own
legislations, citing sovereign rights, which threaten to undermine the open
and accessible nature of the internet. The private sector is also moving
away from the collective alliance, instead seeking to gain greater profits
through more centralized control over how content is delivered. Similarly,
large controlling companies on the web such as Google, Facebook and
Twitter are increasingly “selling the masses of transmitted Big Data that
comes their way to commercial bidders and businesses that use it for
targeted advertising and marketing campaigns.”[31] In essence, vertically
scaled profit-seeking corporations of the capitalist era are exploiting a
laterally scaled and distributed Collaborative Commons for their own private
ends. In other words, “companies are operating a social Commons as a
commercial venture.”[32]

As dominant companies continue to expand control over major sectors of

the internet — “Google ‘owns’ search; Facebook, social networking; eBay
rules auctions; Amazon, retail; and so on” — the internet looks “increasingly
like a Monopoly board.”[33] Some advocates contend that as these types of
corporations begin to resemble natural monopolies (i.e., they become an
essential facility by providing a required universal service), they should be
regulated as a public utility in order to ensure transparency and objectivity in
their operations. The major problem with being regulated as a public service
is that potential competition is driven out, thereby, these services become
risk averse, resulting in a deterioration of innovation.

Beyond this sort of tripartite hybrid approach to governance of the internet,

the most applicable model for collective management in a Collaborative
Commons is a cooperative. Cooperatives are inherently designed to
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operate as a Commons, where resources are equally held in common for all
and whose distribution is managed by the collective members. Cooperative
logic is based upon collaboration over competition, equity over self-interest,
and sustainability over endless growth at all costs. The International
Cooperative Alliance (ICA) defines a cooperative as:

“an autonomous association of persons united voluntarily to meet their

common economic, social, and cultural needs and aspirations through a jointly-
owned and democratically controlled enterprise…[further explaining that]
cooperatives are based on the values of self-help, self-responsibility,
democracy, equality, equity, and solidarity.”[34]

Several rules and standards have been formally ratified as the governance
model for cooperatives by the ICA, paraphrased below, to “epitomize the
vision and practice of Commons management:”[35]

· Any individual is welcome to become a member.· Cooperatives are

democratically run associations in which each member enjoys a single vote.
Elected representatives, drawn from the membership, are responsible for
management of the association and accountable to the membership.·
Members contribute equitably and democratically to the capital of their
cooperative. Capital becomes common property and members jointly decide
how it should be used.· Cooperatives provide education and training for
their members.· Cooperatives are expected to broaden the networked
Commons by providing an ever-expanding and ever-integrating space for
collaboration and cooperation across all regions of the world.· Cooperatives
are tasked with promoting sustainable development through the policies and
programs they engage in.

Cooperatives already play a large role across many economic sectors, from
agriculture, to banking and finance, to retail and health care. More than “1
billion people are currently members of cooperatives…[while] more than
100 million people are employed by cooperatives, or 20 percent more
employees than in multinational companies.”[36] In the US, cooperatives
account for “more than $3 trillion in assets, over $500 billion in annual
revenue, $25 billion in wages and benefits, and nearly 2 million jobs.”[37] It
is the coupling of the cooperative model of Commons management with an
IoT infrastructure, however, that will enable more efficient production and
equitable distribution than ever before.

16/31
The cooperative management model offers a means to collectively manage
the common resources produced in a highly efficient Collaborative
economy, both equitably and sustainably. An Internet of Things
infrastructure empowers highly efficient prosumers and distributed
manufacturing models. However, these distributed producers must join
together in sector-specific cooperatives to fully optimize the lateral power
behind them, and to distribute resources in the most equitable and
sustainable manner.

Already, cooperatives around the world are beginning to develop

foundational IoT infrastructures for the establishment of a sustainable
economic paradigm across collaborative decentralized networks. Green
energy cooperatives are progressively generating and sharing renewable
energy across regional microgrids. Germany is now producing “more than
23 percent of its electricity with renewable energy, much of it generated by
local cooperatives…In 2011 alone, 167 new green energy cooperatives [in
Germany] were created.”[38] In Denmark, green energy cooperatives have
transitioned a tiny island community of 4000 inhabitants to 100 percent
renewable energy, where community members were able to join with the
cooperatives and assume an active role in the development and
management of the wind turbines that were built just offshore.[39]

As a potential enhancement to the cooperative management structure for a

decentralized Commons, it is worth noting the very recent development
work being done on Blockchain enabled “Decentralized Autonomous
Organizations” (DAOs). It was already explained how the Blockchain could
be utilized for instant, secure and anonymous crypto-voting, which could
lead to a more liquid democratic process. DAOs, in parallel with crypto-
voting, could play a more direct role in the management structure itself.

DAOs are essentially open-source and autonomous computer programs

that could be used to incentivize and manage participation and resources
across a decentralized Commons, such that “decentralized Blockchain
technologies bring trust and coordination to shared resource pools, enabling
new models of non-hierarchical governance, where intelligence is spread on
the edges of the network instead of being concentrated at the center.”[40] A
DAO can be thought of as a corporation run “under an incorruptible set of
business rules, [and where] these rules are typically implemented as
publicly audited open-source software.”[41] Essentially, the collective
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Commons selects the desired end-goals (and conditions for achieving these
goals), while the DAO would then calculate the most efficient means to
bring about the determined goals with the resources that are available.

Governance and management tasks that are undertaken by elected officials

or corporate boards of directors could in many cases (e.g., the elected
representatives in a cooperative) be handed over to a Decentralized
Autonomous Organization that would manage according to the democratic
will of the Commons, effectively allowing collective communities to operate
in a more decentralized and collaborative manner. As in a cooperative,
becoming a member of a DAO would enable democratic rights to participate
in the management of the DAO and equally share in its collectively
managed resources. Both cooperatives and DAOs flatten and democratize,
or even invert, the traditional hierarchical pyramid of management such that,
instead of a tiny minority dictating actions to the collective below, decision-
making power rests with the collective Commons as a whole.

DAOs largely fit a cooperative framework, but take cooperatives one step
further in terms of decentralization, democratization, transparency and
collective management. Ultimately, DAOs may prove to be an integral
component of managing cooperatives on a decentralized Collaborative
Commons.

As a final point on Commons management, the significance of reputation

systems should be noted. Reputation rankings will play an important role in
ensuring compliance with norms and regulating activities. These systems
are designed to rank an individual’s social capital in the Commons. With the
growth of the Commons, “expect social-capital ratings to become as
important to millions of participants on the Collaborative Commons as credit
ratings were to consumers in the capitalist marketplace.”[42]

From Scarcity to Sustainable Abundance

Build-out and Financing of an IoT Infrastructure

The build-out of an IoT infrastructure will be carried out and phased in over
the next several decades. According to one study, carried out by the Electric
Power Research Institute (EPRI), a US based non-profit energy think tank,
the cost of phasing in a national Energy Internet over 20 years is estimated
between $17 to $24 billion per year, or about $476 billion in total[43] — 
roughly equivalent to the $470 billion annual revenue of Royal Dutch Shell
18/31
for 2011.[44] However, the EPRI estimate is a no-frills approach to the
smart-grid, consisting of smart-meters and power line improvements. When
energy storage and additional hardware components are taken into
account, along with the intelligent communication management
infrastructure to coordinate the flow, storage and exchange of renewable
energy by millions of prosumers — including IT management and big data
feedback nodes — total cost for an Energy Internet is estimated at $1.2
trillion.[45]

According to the initial EPRI study, the estimated energy savings for
consumers that would result from the installation of an Energy Internet is $2
trillion.[46] This savings alone is justification for the up-front infrastructure
costs, however, this figure does not begin to account for the aggregate
energy efficiency gains that result from an intelligent IoT infrastructure — a
rise from 14 percent efficiency to 40 percent, as previously discussed — and
accompanying productivity gains.

Financing and construction of a smart-energy infrastructure is already

underway in many countries, most notably throughout the European Union.
Fourteen countries are currently implementing smart-grids, financed by
slight increases on consumer energy bills with the remainder absorbed by
local, state and federal governments in the form of subsidies, incentives and
allowances.[47] This is the same mode of private/public financing that has
been used to fund national scale infrastructure development in the past.

Energy and utility companies are anxious to profit off of the smart-grid and
have, in the past, sought to force a centralized and proprietary architecture
of control onto the infrastructure. The European Union has already taken
steps to require these companies to unbundle their power generation from
electricity transmission, effectively allowing small energy producers to
connect to the main grid and ensure the open nature of the Energy Internet.
[48] Increasingly, energy corporations seem to be acquiescing to the new
energy reality and are changing their business models as a greater number
of prosumers are encouraged to produce their own green energy by
governments. As more people begin to generate their own renewable
energy, the future income of these companies will “increasingly rely on
managing their customers’ energy use, reducing their energy needs,
increasing their energy efficiencies and productivity, and sharing a
percentage of the increased productivity and savings.”[49]
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Another important platform in supporting many of the new startups involved
in the IoT build-out is crowdfunding. Instead of small startup businesses
having to seek out and pitch ideas to venture capitalist investors, who would
usually assume some percentage of ownership over the company, startups
can now post proposals online and collect small donations from thousands
of individual donors that want to support the project. Crowdfunding donors
emphasize that it is not so much about the money as it is about “being
intimately involved with helping others pursue their dreams and feel that
their small contribution…really counts in moving the project forward.”[50]
Online social lending and crowdfunding are expected to play an important
role in establishing millions of renewable micropower installations as they
become more accessible and demand begins to surge.

To help advocate the benefits of an intelligent energy infrastructure social

entrepreneurs, such as the Cleanweb Movement, are using social media to
“cluster like-minded people together to create lateral economies of scale in
the implementation of energy efficiencies and the introduction of renewable
energy harvesting technology.”[51] Similarly, a US government initiative
called Green Button is encouraging power and utility companies to provide
access to real-time energy usage data that is now available with the
installation of millions of smart-meters. In less than one year, the number of
customers with instant access to their personal energy use data increased
to 31 million.[52] Apps are now in development that will allow users to easily
share and compare this data with friends over social networks and
incentivize increased efficiencies — perhaps ranking user’s homes against
one another or comparing the energy use of different brands of appliances,
etc. More advanced applications are also being created that will allow
people to co-generate and exchange renewable electricity across an Energy
Internet.

In February 2013, the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC)

published a proposal that would create “super Wi-Fi networks across
America, making wireless connection free for everyone.”[53] The plan would
reemploy unused television station frequencies that are capable of
penetrating walls and buildings. This would allow people to make free calls
from their phones over the internet, provide free internet access to homes
and businesses across the US, and could help spur the introduction of
millions of smart devices on a connected Internet of Things. Fundamentally,

20/31
“the harnessing of near zero marginal cost communications to manage near
zero marginal cost renewable energy gives society the critical operating
platform to build out the Internet of Things infrastructure and change the
economic paradigm.”[54]

The Revolution will not be Centralized

With the build-out of an IoT infrastructure a decentralized Collaborative

Commons will continue to strengthen and expand across lateral networks
as ownership gives way to access, competition is superseded by
cooperation, buyers and sellers transition to prosumers, and markets yield
to networks as the marginal cost of producing goods and services drops to
near zero across all sectors of the economy. As this new economic
paradigm unfolds, a hybrid economy will emerge where some industries
based on the Commons will operate at near zero marginal cost, while other
industries will continue to cling to capitalist consumer markets.

Companies such as Uber and Airbnb will attempt to bridge the gap between
the two economies and take advantage of both. However, as truly
decentralized peer-to-peer networks begin to take over at near zero
marginal cost these hybrid companies will not last. Hybrid companies like
Uber, Airbnb and YouTube, while facilitating lateral networks of exchange,
continue to operate around a centralized third-party profit making company.
Truly decentralized networks of exchange on the Commons will allow for
direct peer-to-peer transactions without the need for third-party intermediary
trust or involvement.

In the years to come, an increasing emphasis will be placed on

decentralizing and democratizing everything. Already, Blockchain 2.0
communities are working to decentralize the internet itself, where websites,
social media and stored data would be hosted across a distributed network
rather than on any one set of centralized servers, similar to the way that
Bitcoin operates, making censorship, data loss and corruption a near
impossibility. Decentralized networks essentially eliminate third-party trust,
such that control over the use of personal data is placed back into the
hands of the user and is unable to be accessed or sold without their
personal consent.

In “decentralizing everything” capitalist markets of exchange will be

increasingly eclipsed by collaborative decentralized networks and a
21/31
foundational infrastructure for a Collaborative Commons will be developed
that will propel fresh organizational characteristics and social values in
society.

Universal Basic Income

As previously discussed, big data analysis, advanced analytics, AI and

robotics will increasingly replace human workforces across all sectors of the
market economy as an IoT infrastructure is developed, and the marginal
cost of labor drops to near zero. Transitioning to that point, however, will
require one final surge of mass wage labor to build-out the infrastructure of
the new economy over the next several decades. Millions of workers will be
needed to transition from a centralized fossil fuel and nuclear power energy
regime to a decentralized intelligent network of renewable energies. Millions
of homes and buildings will need to be converted to micropower plants, the
electricity grid will need to be reconfigured into a digital smart-grid,
hydrogen and other energy storage technologies will need to be developed
and installed, and transportation infrastructure will have to be re-configured
to accommodate electric and fuel-cell vehicles. These opportunities will fuel
the growth of “energy-saving companies, smart-construction companies,
green appliance producers…[and] give birth to thousands of clean web app
startup companies.”[55]

As this infrastructure is developed, however, and as automation continues

to advance, an increasing amount of employment in the capitalist economy
will inevitably be handed over to an intelligent automated infrastructure, and
human capital will progressively migrate to the Collaborative Commons.

In order to prevent a sudden and catastrophic collapse of the capitalist

system, a Universal Basic Income (UBI) will be required to stabilize a
transitional hybrid economy as it moves towards a Commons. A UBI is an
unconditional income provided to every member of society, regardless of
age, working status or level of income. The idea is to maintain a functional
market economy that is faced with increasing technological unemployment,
wealth inequality, and a hollowing out of the middle class.

Through a Universal Basic Income, every citizen would be provided with

enough income to cover the costs of their basic needs. Bettering one’s
situation beyond those basic needs is then left to the individual, and in this
way, as numerous studies have proven,[56] would have no meaningful
22/31
effect on incentive to participate in the workforce. Economic activity is also
spurred through the eradication of poverty: more people will be participating
in the market economy, there will be fewer burdens on health care, less
crime, and ultimately an increase in economic productivity and consumption
of resources.

There are numerous methods for financing a UBI, including taxation,

redistributing existing social welfare payments, and revenues from public
resources — such as the Alaska Permanent Fund, which invests 25 percent
of oil revenues and issues yearly dividends to all residents. Any existing
social welfare programs such as unemployment insurance, social security,
Medicare and old age security would all be eliminated and their funding
could be put towards a Universal Basic Income. A 14 percent value-added
tax (VAT) alone on goods and services would yield an annual UBI of
$10,000 for every citizen in the United States.[57] Several less conventional
methods to finance a UBI include instituting a capped maximum income
level, and paying out wages to “virtual” or automated workers which would
go directly into the UBI fund.

Politically speaking, a Universal Basic Income can be viewed as an

investment towards the eradication of poverty, with the aforementioned
economic benefits, paid for with the dividends of progress. In actuality, a
UBI will be required to prevent the sudden systemic collapse of market
capitalism.

Sustainable Abundance

When the cost of producing goods and services shrinks to near zero the
entire operating rationale of capitalism becomes meaningless. Capitalist
markets are based around scarcity and dependency, such that when
resources are scarce they have exchange value and can be priced beyond
what it takes to bring them to market. When marginal costs of production
approach zero “it means that scarcity has been replaced by abundance…
[and] the capitalist system loses its hold over scarcity and the ability to profit
from another’s dependency.”[58] When scarcity is replaced by the
abundance of nearly free goods and services, “products have use and
share value but no longer have exchange value…because everyone can
secure much of what they need without having to pay for it.”[59] Economies
of abundance are already beginning to emerge. In the digital media space,
for example, much of this content no longer has significant exchange value
23/31
but plenty of use and share value across distributed networks.

As scarcity is increasingly uprooted and supplanted by an abundance of

resources across the economy through efficient technologies, a new
economic indicator is required — one that does not measure growth, but
sustainability. While the term abundance is subjective and in the eye of the
beholder, the biocapacity of the planet is not. Sustainability is defined as:

“The relative steady state in which the use of resources to sustain the human
population does not exceed the ability of nature to recycle the waste and
replenish the stock.”[60]

This can be measured by comparing the ecological footprint of a population

to the Earth’s total carrying capacity, or biocapacity. Ecological footprint is
defined as:

“The amount of biologically productive land and water that is required to

produce all the resources an individual or population consumes and to absorb
the waste they generate, given prevailing technology and resource-
management practices.”[61]

This can then be compared with the Earth’s biocapacity, that is:

“The amount of productive area that is available to generate these resources

and to absorb the waste.”[62]

These are all measurable indicators, such that:

“In 1961 our species’ [ecological] footprint was approximately half of the
planet’s biocapacity…By 2008, the ecological footprint of 6.7 billion human
beings alive at the time was equivalent to 18.2 billion global hectares…on a
planet with only 12 billion global hectares of biocapacity available…[meaning
that] we were consuming the Earth’s biocapacity faster than it could be
recycled and replenished. The United States alone, with only 4 percent of the
world’s population, was using 21 percent of the Earth’s available
biocapacity.”[63]

To transition to an economy of sustainable abundance, the disparity

between humanity’s ecological footprint and the carrying capacity of the
Earth must be addressed.

Increasingly, humanity is discovering its true nature — something which

24/31
greatly differs from what we have been brought up to believe. In the 1990s,
mirror neurons or “empathy neurons” were discovered in the human brain,
which allow us to experience another’s feelings as our own. For example,
when we see another person in pain we similarly have a sense of what that
person is feeling and experience an inherent need to help. We largely take
these feelings for granted, but are now discovering that these fundamental
empathic experiences are what make humanity the most social of creatures
and drives our yearning for companionship and social interaction. This is in
stark contrast to the autonomous, materialistic and self-interested picture
that has been painted of human nature for the last several hundred years.

Studies indicate that the millennial generation is the “most empathic of any
generation in history…less interested in keeping up with materialistic trends
and less invested in obsessive consumerism as a way of life…the focus on
helping others is what millennials are responding to.”[64] These findings
coincide with the sharp expansion of a collaborative sharing economy,
where access and use value are favored over ownership, exchange value
and status. In addition to being less materialistic, millennials are also far
more committed to environmental sustainability and stewardship. A 2009
survey conducted by the Center for American Progress found that “75
percent of the Millennial Generation favors a shift out of fossil fuels and into
renewable energies — surpassing all the other adult generations.”[65]

Millennials, more than any other generation, seem to be embracing their

true empathic nature and are realizing that the path to happiness lies in
affection, cooperation and belonging much more than autonomy,
competition and rampant materialism. As such, an economy based around
scarcity and its associated characteristics is much more likely to breed
overconsumption than one based around the characteristics of sustainable
abundance. Millennials are now spearheading the co-creation of “a
shareable economy that is less materialistic and more sustainable, less
expedient and more empathic, [and where] their lives are being lived out
more on a global Commons and less in a capitalist market.”[66]

However, bringing humanity’s ecological footprint into balance will require

more than just curbing the overconsumption of the rich - it will also require
stabilizing the population of the planet through a reduction in the fertility
rates of the poor. In industrialized countries today, the fertility rate “has
fallen to 2.1 children per women, the rate at which children replace their
25/31
parents.”[67] In developing nations, much higher fertility rates and larger
families exist to ensure that enough children will survive to work the land
and provide income for their families.

It is now becoming apparent that access to electricity is the key to lifting

people out of extreme poverty and stabilizing population growth. Twenty
percent of the human race is currently without electricity, while a further 20
percent has unreliable access.[68] The United Nations has now committed
to the installation of renewable energy infrastructure for 1.5 billion
impoverished people, with the goal of making electricity universally available
by 2030.[69] As nations across the planet are empowered to bring
themselves out of extreme poverty through universal access to electricity, it
is expected that fertility rates will stabilize at 2.1 children per family
worldwide by midcentury — marking a slow decline in human population and
an eventual stabilization estimated at roughly 5 billion people, a number that
would allow every person on Earth to enjoy a high standard of living in a
sustainable economy of abundance.[70]

Conclusion

The productive efficiencies and disruptive capacities of new technologies

will increasingly drive the marginal cost of producing goods and services
towards near zero. As traditional markets are circumvented, a new
economic paradigm will progressively emerge that is built upon
decentralized collaborative networks.

An Internet of Things infrastructure will propel aggregate energy efficiency

from 14 percent to 40 percent across society. An Energy Internet will
empower prosumers to harvest, store and exchange clean and renewable
energy across a distributed smart-grid. 3D printing will decentralize the
manufacturing process, opening the means of production to anyone and
everyone, while generating immense gains in productivity and efficiency.
Blockchain applications will eliminate the need for third-party trust and allow
for the decentralization of everything from currency and finance, to legal
agreements, licensing, social media, data storage, voting and governance.

With the development of advanced robotics, artificial intelligence, big data

analysis, and advanced analytics and algorithms, human wage labor and
the economic productive activities of the capitalist era will increasingly be
handed off to intelligent technologies.
26/31
As capitalist markets and wage labor becomes less relevant, an economy
built upon new principles and social values will progressively emerge:
decentralized networks will take the place of markets; access to an
abundance of shareable goods and services will reduce the significance of
ownership and private property; open-source innovation, transparency and
collaborative co-creation will replace the pursuit of competitive self-interest
and autonomy; a commitment to sustainable development and a
reintegration with the Earth’s biosphere will redress rampant materialism
and overconsumption; and the re-discovery of our empathic nature will drive
our pursuit for community engagement and social belonging in a rising
Collaborative Commons.

The foundations of this economy will rest upon the principles of democracy,
equality, diversity, transparency, universal access and sustainability.

If there is an underlying theme to the emerging paradigm, it is the

decentralization of everything.

Further Reading

This article is meant to provide background information and spur discussion

on the decline of capitalism and the economic paradigm that is emerging in
its wake. For a more in-depth investigation into the topics discussed,
Jeremy Rifkin’s latest book, which was used as the primary source material
for this article, The Zero Marginal Cost Society: The Internet of Things, the
Collaborative Commons, and the Eclipse of Capitalism, is highly
recommended.

Donation

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and wish to continue the discussion please share with your own
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27/31
Download

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Contact

Christopher J. Dewcj_dew@hotmail.com

References

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Society: The Internet of Things, The Collaborative Commons, And The
Eclipse of Capitalism, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, p.76.[28] 2013.
Internet of Things Factsheet Privacy and Security: IoT Privacy, Data
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The Internet of Things, The Collaborative Commons, And The Eclipse of
Capitalism, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, p.180.[30] Ibid, 181.[31] Ibid,
199.[32] Ibid, 204.[33] Wu, Tim. 2010. In the Grip of the New Monopolists,
The Wall Street Journal.
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Eclipse of Capitalism, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, p.213.[37] Hazen,
Paul. 2011. Remarks of Paul Hazen — White House Meeting, June 2, 2011,
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http://ncbatest.clickforhelp.com/component/content/article/6-what-we-
do/1087-remarks-of-paul-hazen-white-house-meeting-june-2-2011?ncba-
font-size=medium (Accessed March 14, 2015).[38] Rifkin, Jeremy. 2014.
The Zero Marginal Cost Society: The Internet of Things, The Collaborative
Commons, And The Eclipse of Capitalism, New York: Palgrave Macmillan,
p.215.[39] Ibid, 215–16.[40] Bollier, David. 2015. The Blockchain: A
Promising New Infrastructure for Online Commons, David Bollier.
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29/31
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Eclipse of Capitalism, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, p.258.[43] 2011.
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http://io9.com/how-universal-basic-income-will-save-us-from-the-robot-
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