A World Beyond Markets

How will the ‘collaborative commons’ transform our lives? Jeremy Rifkin, one of the world’s most popular public thinkers and political advisors, argues that capitalism will no longer be the dominant paradigm in the second half of the 21st century.

Has capitalism become a victim of its own success?

One of the world’s most popular public thinkers and political advisors, Jeremy Rifkin, argues that capitalism will no longer be the dominant paradigm in the second half of the 21st century.

Rifkin describes how hundreds of millions of people are already transferring parts of their economic lives from capitalist markets to global networked Commons; “prosumers” are producing their own information, entertainment, green energy, and 3-D printed products; young social entrepreneurs are establishing ecologically sensitive businesses, crowdsourcing capital, and creating alternative currencies in the new sharable economy.

In this era, identity is less bound to what one owns and more to what one shares; Rifkin visits the RSA to explain how we are learning to live together collaboratively and sustainably in an increasingly interdependent global Commons.

Jeremy Rifkin is president of the Foundation on Economic Trends.

Chair: Jonathan Schifferes is a senior researcher with RSA’s Action Research Centre