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Bonfiglio reviews . . .
The Age of Access
(by Jeremy Rifkin) Jeremy Rifkin is president of the Foundation of Economic Trends based in Washington, DC. Since 1994 he has been a fellow at the Wharton School of Business Executive Education
Program where he lectures CEOs and corporate managers on new trends in science and technology as they impact on the global economy, society, and the environment. In this book he discusses the "network economy"
by focusing on its chief attribute: access.Access is the new conception of wealth. During the industrial era, wealth was about ownership and the accumulation of physical property. Now, wealth is seen as access to
information, resources, clients, and markets. Consumers, for example, buy access to wealth through auto leases, home rentals, memberships, and other kinds of service relationships. Businesses buy access to wealth by
belonging to a network. Markets, the heart of industrial capitalism, remain, but they play an increasingly diminished role because intellectual capital (e.g., concepts, ideas, and images) has more value. "Wealth is
no longer invested in physical capital but rather in human imagination and creativity" (p. 5). Business relationships are not between buyers and sellers but rather between suppliers and users. For example, a car
company hires a paint company to paint its cars rather than employ its own painters. In this way, the paint company is depended on for quality and innovation in the painting function of car-making. If another company
can do the job better (e.g., quality of paint, efficiency, better on-time delivery, lower defect rate), the former company is dropped, and the new company becomes the supplier. Having access to innovation and technology
provides the paint company with wealth. It is contracted as a supplier. Having access to information about the best paint company for its cars provides the car company with wealth. The main reason for the change from
ownership to access is because the ownership of physical property prevents a company from keeping up with the world of continuous technological upgrade and innovation. Having access to the most up-to-date computer
software is more valuable than owning the latest program—which will soon be outmoded. This is why businesses are selling off their real estate, shrinking their inventories, leasing their equipment, and outsourcing their
activities. They are trying to release themselves from as much physical property as they can because they find it more cost-effective to contract for what they need. Consequently, relationships between suppliers and
users is the key to survival in a highly competitive global marketplace. As a result, companies are engaging in strategic alliances and agreements with each other. In other words, companies aren't selling products to
one another. Instead, they are pooling their resources and sharing them with each other. This practice creates a more extensive supplier-user network, and it establishes the opportunity for longer-term relationships.
Relationships in a highly volatile, complex, and ever-changing global marketplace are important because they create a flexible, yet dependable system for doing business. Rifkin predicts that the impact of the network
economy on society will be fourfold. First, there will be a shift from industrial production to cultural production. For example, companies are producing "cultural experiences" rather than industrial goods and
services (e.g., theme parks and cities, global travel and tourism, destination cities). Second, the nature of employment in the agricultural, manufacturing and service sectors is changing as human labor is replaced
with more and more automation. Even the lowest paid workers in China will eventually be replaced by technology. Third, people are changing the direction of their lives from a work ethic to a play ethic. Festivals,
the arts, social movements, spiritual and fraternal activities, and paid-for personal entertainment represents the commodification of play. This is different from the commodification of work which had to do with
marketing capital resources. Fourth, human consciousness will change, and a new type of human being will emerge as a result of the network economy. This arising "dot-com generation" will be more theatrical
than ideological. Access will be a way of life where being connected is more important than owning stuff. Personal freedom will be understood more as the ability to be included in mutual relationships than in possessing
and accumulating goods. Rifkin offers an interesting exposé on the structural changes of the emerging network economy brought on by the pursuit of access through technology and cyberspace. He meticulously outlines the
impact of this economy on culture, local communities, and individuals and posits that our society will be faced with the political dilemma of the "digital divide" between the connected and the disconnected.
What will result, he predicts, is a new social contract about who is and who is not included. "Restoring a proper balance between the cultural realm and the commercial realm is likely to be one of the most
important challenges of the coming Age of Access" (p. 12). |
Bonfiglio Brief:"Rifkin offers an interesting exposé on the structural changes of the emerging network economy
brought on by the pursuit of access through technology and cyberspace. He meticulously outlines the impact of this economy on culture, local communities, and individuals and posits that our society will be faced with
the political dilemma of the "digital divide" between the connected and the disconnected." |
