Words&Dirt

“Getting to near zero marginal cost and nearly free goods and services is a function of advances in productivity.  Productivity is ‘a measure of productive efficiency calculated as the ratio of what is produced to what is required to produce it.’  If the cost of producing an additional good or service is nearly zero, that would be the optimum level of productivity.

Here again, we come face-to-face with the ultimate contradiction at the heart of capitalism.  The driving force of the system is greater productivity, brought on by increasing thermodynamic efficiencies.  The process is unsparing as competitors race to introduce new, more productive technologies that will lower their production costs and the price of their products and services to lure in buyers.  The race continues to pick up momentum until it approaches the finish line, where the optimum efficiency is reached and productivity peaks.  That finish line is where the marginal cost of producing each additional unit is nearly zero.  When that finish line is crossed, goods and services become nearly free, profits dry up, the exchange of property in markets shuts down, and the capitalist system dies.”

––The Zero Marginal Cost Society: The Internet of Things, the Collaborative Commons, and the Eclipse of Capitalism, by Jeremy Rifkin, pg. 70