Doughnut Economics: Seven Ways to Think Like a 21st-Century Economist

by Kate Raworth

the digital revolution has given rise to the network era of near zero-marginal-cost collaboration, as we saw in the dynamic rise of the collaborative commons in Chapter 2. It is essentially unleashing a revolution in distributed capital ownership. Anyone with an Internet connection can entertain, inform, learn and teach worldwide. Every household, school or business rooftop can generate renewable energy and, if enabled by a blockchain currency, can sell the surplus in a microgrid. With access to a 3D printer, anyone can download designs or create their own and print-to-order the very tool or gadget they need. Such lateral technologies are the essence of distributive design, and they blur the divide between producers and consumers, allowing everyone to become a prosumer, both a maker and user in the peer-to-peer economy. So far, so empowering. But a parallel process of winner-takes-all dynamics is also in play. Instead of promoting a diversity of web-based enterprises and information providers, the Internet’s strong network effects (with everyone wanting to be on the networks that everyone else is on) have transformed individual providers—such as Google, YouTube, Apple, Facebook, eBay, Paypal and Amazon—into digital monopolies that sit at the heart of the network society. They are now effectively running the global social commons in the interest of their own commercial ventures, while aggressively arming themselves with patents to guard that privilege.70 The global governan...