The Age of Access: How the Shift from Ownership to Access is Transforming Modern Life (Penguin Business Library) - Tapa dura

British consumers are now spending more on leisure activities than food. Businesses are freeing themselves of costly property and stock-holdings, as intellectual property becomes their most valuable asset. Culture is replacing industry as the maindriving force of the economy. Against this background, The Age of Access looks at how and why we are spending more and owning less. It explores the shift from markets to networks, geography to cyberspace, ownership to access relationships and industrial to cultural production. The critical question posed by Rifkin is whether civilization can survive when only the commercial sphere remains the arbiter of human life.

An internationally renowned social critic, Jeremy Rifkin is the best-selling author of The End of Work and The Biotech Century, both of which have been translated into fifteen languages. Rifkin is a fellow at the Wharton School Executive Education Program, where he lectures on new trends in science and technology and their impacts on the global economy, society and the environment for CEOs around the world. He is president of the Foundation on Economic Trends in Washington D.C.