The age of access : the new culture of hypercapitalism, where all of life is a paid-for experience

Visionary activist and author Jeremy Rifkin exposes the real stakes of the new economy, delivering "the clearest summation yet of how the Internet is really changing our lives" (The Seattle Times). Imagine waking up one day to find that virtually every activity you engage in outside your immediate family has become a "paid-for" experience. It's all part of a fundamental change taking place in the nature of business, contends Jeremy Rifkin. After several hundred years as the dominant organizing paradigm of civilization, the traditional market system is beginning to deconstruct. On the horizon looms the Age of Access, an era radically different from any we have known. Amazon.com Review He's been called the postmodern Chicken Little, but it happens that the sky really is falling. 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 fully immersed yet in the sea of leased products and packaged experiences that he sees awaiting us. Still, his eerie vision 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 who are 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 From Publishers Weekly In his latest synthesis of business analysis and academic philosophizing, Rifkin (The End of Work, The Biotech Century, etc.) argues that we are in the midst of a new age in which "concepts, ideas and images--not things--are the real items of value" and where "the purchase of lived experiences becomes the consummate commodity." In the book's first half, Rifkin contends that ownership of property has become increasingly devalued. Today's companies avoid amassing physical capital, which can later prove "an albatross" that prevents them from keeping up with rapid technological advances. Instead, they prefer to "outsource ownership," contracting third parties to provide and maintain equipment. This trend combines with others, such as the proliferation of service relationships, to put more emphasis on access than ownership, heralding a time when what companies sell will be human experience itself and all cultural activities will be commodified. In the book's second half, Rifkin shows how "experience industries"--such as travel and entertainment--are coming to dominate the new global economy. "More and more of the global cultural sphere--its natural wonders, cathedrals, museums, palaces, parks, rituals, festivals--is being siphoned off into the marketplace," he says, where it serves as a backdrop "for enacting paid-for cultural experiences" that is divorced from historical context. As in Rifkin's earlier works, the author asserts the truth of his ideas in considerable detail without offering much supporting evidence, leaving readers either to believe him or not. Even so, his larger historical and social perspective and lack of technological boosterism is refreshing. Agent: Jim Stein. (May) Acknowledgments Contents PART I: The Next Capitalist Frontier 1. Entering the Age of Access Between Two Worlds The Clash of Culture and Commerce Proteans and Proletarians 2. When Markets Give Way to Networks The Connected Economy The Hollywood Organizational Model 3. The Wieghtless Economy Shrinking Real Estate Just-in-Time Inventory The Dematerialization of Money No More Savings A Borrowed Existence Outsourcing Ownership Intangible Assets Mind over Matter 4. Monopolizing Ideas Franchising Access Leasing DNA 5. Everything Is a Service The Rise and Fall of Propertied Goods The Birth of the Service Economy The Evolution of Goods into Services The End of Sales The New Service Providers Giving Away the Goods, and Charging for the Services 6. Commodifying Human Relationships The Customer Is the Market The Shift from a Production to a Marketing Perspective New Kinds of Communities 7. Access as a Way of Life Gated Communities Renting a Lifestyle Time-Share Communities Real-Estate vs. Temporal-Estates PART II: Enclosing the Cultural Commons 8. The New Culture of Capitalism Communication and Culture The Rise of Cultural Production The Oldest Cultural Industry Mall Culture From Being Cultures to Being Entertained Every Business Is Show Business 9. Mining the Cultural Landscape Marketing the Culture The New Gatekeepers Cultural Intermediaries 10. A Postmodern Stage Modernity Postmodernity Changing Forms of Consciousness The Protean Persona Reprogramming the Mind The New Thespians All the World Is a Stage 11. The Connected and the Disconnected The New Corporate Moguls The End of the Nation-State Living Outside the Electronic Gates The Right and Left of Access 12. Toward an Ecology of Culture and Capitalism A New Rights Theory Two Kinds of Access Resurrecting Culture A New Mission for Education Politicizing the Third Sector The Dialectics of a Play Ethos Notes Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five Chapter Six Chapter Seven Chapter Eight Chapter Nine Chapter Ten Chapter Eleven Chapter Twelve Bibliography Index Destined to become one of the most talked-about books of 2000, here is a journey into the new world of hyper-capitalism where accessing experiences becomes more important than owning things and all of life is a paid-for activity.

In The End of Work, Jeremy Rifkin argued that computers, robotics, telecommunications, and biotechnologies are fast replacing human beings in virtually every industry and workplace. In The Age of Access, he goes further, showing how new technologies are even eliminating concepts of "property" and "ownership" from our lives. In this new era, we will buy enlightenment and play, grooming and grace, and everything in between in the form of purchased experiences.

Imagine a world where virtually every activity outside the confines of family relations is a paid-for experience--a world where traditional reciprocal obligations and expectations are replaced by contractual relations in the form of paid memberships, subscriptions, admissions charges, retainers, and fees.

For the first time in modern history, Rifkin argues, ownership of physical property is seen as an albatross, and intangible ideas and expertise are the chief generators of wealth. This dramatic shift affects corporations as much as consumers: the world's major companies are quickly shedding property holdings, factories, and other assets in favor of massive outsourcing and leasing.

Rifkin warns of a dawning era in which giant access-providing companies are profiting from every aspect of human existence, while consumers own nothing. In this new economy, access-sellers will finally be able to commidify all of human experience. "Imagine waking up one day to find that virtually every activity you engage in outside your immediate family has become a "paid-for" experience. It's all part of a fundamental change taking place in the nature of business, contends author Jeremy Rifkin. On the horizon looms the Age of Access, an era radically different from any we have known.". "Rifkin argues that the capitalist journey, which began with the commodification of goods and the ownership of property, is ending with the commodification of human time and experience. In the future, we will purchase enlightenment and play, grooming and grace, and everything in between. In the Age of Access, Rifkin asks, will any time be left for relationships of a noncommercial nature?". "Rifkin warns that when the culture itself is absorbed into the economy, only commercial bonds will be left to hold society together. The critical question posed by The Age of Access is whether civilization can survive when only the commercial sphere remains as the primary arbiter of human life."--BooK jacket. pt. 1. The next capitalist frontier -- -- ch. 1. Entering the age of access -- -- ch. 2. When markets give way to networks -- -- ch. 3. The weightless economy -- -- ch. 4. Monopolizing ideas -- -- ch. 5. Everything is a service -- -- ch. 6. Commodifying human relationships -- -- ch. 7. Access as a way of life -- -- pt. 2. Enclosing the cultural commons -- -- ch. 8. The new culture of capitalism -- -- ch. 9. Mining the cultural landscape -- -- ch. 10. A postmodern stage -- -- ch. 11. The connected and the disconnected -- -- ch. 12. Toward an ecology of culture and capitalism.