'The age of access' : Jeremy Rifkin, the prophet

The explosion of communications and the 'new economy' are at the origin of an unprecedented mutation : markets are substituted by networks, goods by services, salesmen by providers, and buyers by users. The increasing resort to licences, to leasing and to subscription is sounding the knell of the property and constitutes the matrix of a new age of economy.In his book, 'The age of access', which just has been published in French under the Editions de la Découverte, Jeremy Rifkin, the president of the Foundation of Economic Trends in Washington, acts as a prophet of the new economy in a way. He deals with the genesis, explains the great movements of this international cultural revolution and indicates the danger of it.

The author of 'The end of work' and of the 'Biotech Century', two visionary works, Jeremy Rifkin was in Paris recently. Libération, in its edition of September 29th 2000, managed to conduct a long interview in several parts on the end of capitalism ( /www.liberation.com/multi/neweconomy/rifkin.html"> 'La fin du capitalisme'). In this interview, Jeremy Rifkin describes the framework of this emerging new world and, as well, he talks about his fears as for a risk of destruction of the culture and formulates the problem of excessive marketing of human experience. ' Can you live in a civilization in which every time of your life, your relations, are subjected to business contract between people? My answer is negative…',Rifkin declares. Fortunately…

Another interview of Jeremy Rifkin, in Transfert, which has been a little bit quicker than Libération, as the article has been published on September 25th. Same point of discussion in /www.transfert.net/fr/net_economie/article.cfm?idx_rub=86&idx_art=1853"> 'Les nouvelles technologies signent la mort du capitalisme'(the new technologies sign the death warrant of capitalism). You will find there all the differences between a market economy and a network economy. Jeremy Rifkin explains that in pure networks there aren't any salesmen, nor buyers. There are only people offering things and others using them. Servers and customers…'He concludes this way : ' the cultural diversity becomes the basic resources of the new economy…'