The Age of Access: The New Culture of Hypercapitalism, Where All of Life is a Paid-for Experience - Hardcover

Rifkin, Jeremy

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1585420182 ISBN 13: 9781585420186

Publisher: Penguin, 2000

Synopsis

Identifying and explaining the paradigm shift in American business, the author of The End of Work and The Biotech Century shows how ownership of property is giving way to accessing experiences as the key to power in business. 50,000 first printing.

About this title

Review

He's been called the postmodern Chicken Licken, but it so happens that the sky really is falling down. Jeremy Rifkin pulls the plug on the trend away from property ownership and free public life in The Age of Access: The New Culture of Hypercapitalism, Where All of Life is a Paid-For Experience. As usual, he's a bit ahead of the curve--most of us aren't yet fully immersed in the sea of leased products and packaged experiences that he sees awaiting us. Still, his eerie visions of a world of gatekeepers paying each other for access to nearly every aspect of human life brings a chilling new meaning to the phrase "pay to play" and should spark some debate over our new cultural revolution.

Using examples from business and government experiments with just-in-time access to goods and services and resource sharing, Rifkin defines a new society of renters too busy breaking the shackles of material possessions to mourn the passing of public property. Are we encouraging alienation or participation? Can we trust corporations with stewardship of our social lives? True to form, the author asks more questions than he answers--a sign of an open mind. If property is theft, leased access is extortion, and The Age of Access warns us of the complex changes coming in our relationships with our homes, our communities, and our world. --Rob Lightner, Amazon.com

Review

"One basic economic rule, as Mr. Rifkin points out, has not changed since Roman times: caveat emptor. In the brave new wired world, it will be ever more difficult for the buyer to beware of technology speeding forward in nanoseconds, controlled by global giants." --The New York Times

"Rifkin's vision of corporate capitalism dematerializing into webs of access of networks of 'virtual' power is startling and compelling." --William Greider, author of One World, Ready or Not

Edition details

• Publisher: Penguin
• Publication date: 2000
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1585420182
• ISBN 13: 9781585420186
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 320