Destined to become one of the most talked-about books of 2000, here is a journey into the new world of hyper-capitalism where accessing experiences becomes more important than owning things and all of life is a paid-for activity.

In The End of Work, Jeremy Rifkin argued that computers, robotics, telecommunications, and biotechnologies are fast replacing human beings in virtually every industry and workplace. In The Age of Access, he goes further, showing how new technologies are even eliminating concepts of "property" and "ownership" from our lives. In this new era, we will buy enlightenment and play, grooming and grace, and everything in between in the form of purchased experiences.

Imagine a world where virtually every activity outside the confines of family relations is a paid-for experience--a world where traditional reciprocal obligations and expectations are replaced by contractual relations in the form of paid memberships, subscriptions, admissions charges, retainers, and fees.

For the first time in modern history, Rifkin argues, ownership of physical property is seen as an albatross, and intangible ideas and expertise are the chief generators of wealth. This dramatic shift affects corporations as much as consumers: the world's major companies are quickly shedding property holdings, factories, and other assets in favor of massive outsourcing and leasing.

Rifkin warns of a dawning era in which giant access-providing companies are profiting from every aspect of human existence, while consumers own nothing. In this new economy, access-sellers will finally be able to commidify all of human experience.

The Biotech Century: Harnessing the Gene and Remaking the World

The Biotech Century: Harnessing the Gene and Remaking the World, an international bestseller, has been translated into more than twenty languages and is the most widely read book on biotechnology in the world.

After more than forty years of running on parallel tracks, the information and life sciences are beginning to fuse into a single powerful technological and economic force that is laying the foundation for the Biotech Century. The computer is increasingly being used to decipher, manage and organize the vast genetic information that is the raw resource of the new global economy. Already, transnational corporations are creating giant life-science complexes from which to fashion a bio-industrial world.

Our way of life is likely to be more fundamentally transformed in the next few decades than in the previous 1,000 years. Food and fiber will likely be grown indoors in giant bacteria baths, partially eliminating the farmer and the soil for the first time in history. Animal and human cloning could be commonplace, with "replication" increasingly replacing "reproduction." Millions of people could obtain a detailed genetic readout of themselves, allowing them to gaze into their own biological future and predict and plan their lives in ways never before possible. Parents may choose to have their children conceived in test-tubes and gestated in artificial wombs outside the human body. Genetic changes could be made in human fetuses to correct deadly diseases and disorders and enhance mood, behavior, intelligence and physical traits.

The Biotech Century promises a cornucopia of genetically engineered plants and animals to feed a hungry world, genetically derived sources of energy and fiber to propel commerce and build a "renewable" society, wonder drugs and genetic therapies to produce healthier babies, eliminate human suffering, and extend the human life span. But, with every step we take into this "Brave New World," the nagging question, "At what cost?" will haunt us.

The new genetic commerce raises more troubling issues than any other economic revolution in history. Will the artificial creation of cloned, chimeric and transgenic animals mean the end of nature and the substitution of a "bio - industrial" world? Will the mass release of thousands of genetically engineered life forms into the environment cause catastrophic genetic pollution and irreversible damage to the biosphere? What are the consequences for the global economy and society of reducing the world's gene pool to patented intellectual property controlled exclusively by a handful of life-science corporations? What will it mean to live in a world where babies are genetically engineered and customized in the womb, and where people are increasingly identified, stereotyped, and discriminated against on the basis of their genotype? What are the risks we take in attempting to design more "perfect" human beings?

The biotech revolution will force each of us to put a mirror to our most deeply held values, making us ponder the ultimate question of the purpose and meaning of existence. This may turn out to be its most important contribution.

The End of Work: The Decline of the Global Labor Force and the Dawn of the Post-Market Era

The End of Work is an international bestseller that has been translated into more than fifteen languages and is widely credited with helping shape the current global debate on technology displacement, corporate downsizing and the future of jobs.

We are entering a new phase in history � one characterized by the steady and inevitable decline of jobs. Worldwide unemployment is now at the highest level since the great depression of the 1930s. The number of people underemployed or without work is rising sharply as millions of new entrants into the workforce find themselves victims of an extraordinary high-technology revolution. Sophisticated computers, robotics, telecommunications, and other cutting-edge technologies are fast replacing human beings in virtually every sector and industry � from manufacturing, retail and financial services, to transportation, agriculture, and government.

Many jobs are never coming back. Blue collar workers, secretaries, receptionists, clerical workers, sales clerks, bank tellers, telephone operators, librarians, wholesalers, and middle managers are just a few of the many occupations destined for virtual extinction. While some new jobs are being created, they are, for the most part, low paying and generally temporary employment. The world is fast polarizing into two potentially irreconcilable forces: on one side, an information elite that controls and manages the high-tech global economy; and the other, the growing numbers of permanently displaced workers, who have few prospects and little hope for meaningful employment in an increasingly automated world.

We need to move beyond the delusion of retraining for nonexistent jobs and begin to ponder the unthinkable � to prepare ourselves and our institutions for a world that is phasing out mass employment in the production and marketing of goods and services. Redefining the role of the individual in a near workerless society is likely to be the most pressing issue in the decades to come.

Fresh alternatives to formal work will need to be devised. New approaches to providing income and purchasing power will have to be implemented. Greater reliance will need to be placed on the emerging �third sector� to aid in the restoration of communities and the building of a sustainable culture.

The end of work could mean the demise of civilization as we have come to know it, or signal the beginning of a great social transformation and rebirth of the human sprit.

The Hydrogen Economy: The Creation of the World-Wide Energy Web and the Redistribution of Power on Earth

In his presentation on The Hydrogen Economy, best-selling author Jeremy Rifkin takes us on an eye-opening journey into the next great commercial era in history. He envisions the dawn of a new economy powered by hydrogen that will fundamentally change the nature of our market, political and social institutions, just as coal and steam power did at the beginning of the industrial age.

Rifkin observes that we are fast approaching a critical watershed for the fossil-fuel era, with potentially dire consequences for industrial civilization. Experts had been saying that we had another forty or so years of cheap available crude oil left. Now, however, some of the world�s leading petroleum geologists are suggesting that global oil production could peak and begin a steep decline much sooner, as early as the end of this decade. Non-OPEC oil producing countries are already nearing their peak production, leaving most of the remaining reserves in the politically unstable Middle East. Increasing tensions between Islam and the West are likely to further threaten our access to affordable oil. In desperation, the U.S. and other nations could turn to dirtier fossil-fuels � coal, tar sand, and heavy oil � which will only worsen global warming and imperil the earth�s already beleaguered ecosystems. Looming oil shortages make industrial life vulnerable to massive disruptions and possibly even collapse.

While the fossil-fuel era is entering its sunset years, a new energy regime is being born that has the potential to remake civilization along radical new lines, according to Rifkin. Hydrogen is the most basic and ubiquitous element in the universe. It is the stuff of the stars and of our sun and, when properly harnessed, it is the �forever fuel.� It never runs out and produces no harmful CO2 emissions.

Commercial fuel-cells powered by hydrogen are just now being introduced into the market for home, office and industrial use. The major automakers have spent more than two billion dollars developing hydrogen cars, buses, and trucks, and the first mass-produced vehicles are expected to be on the road in just a few years.

The hydrogen economy makes possible a vast redistribution of power, with far-reaching consequences for society. Today�s centralized, top-down flow of energy, controlled by global oil companies and utilities, becomes obsolete. In the new era, says Rifkin, every human being could become the producer as well as the consumer of his or her own energy � so called �distributed generation.� When millions of end-users connect their fuel-cells into local, regional, and national hydrogen energy webs (HEWs), using the same design principles and smart technologies that made possible the World Wide Web, they can begin to share energy � peer-to-peer � creating a new decentralized form of energy use.

Hydrogen has the potential to end the world�s reliance on imported oil and help diffuse the dangerous geopolitical game being played out between Muslim militants and Western nations. It will dramatically cut down on carbon dioxide emissions and mitigate the effects of global warming. And because hydrogen is so plentiful and exists everywhere on earth, every human being could be �empowered,� making it the first truly democratic energy regime in history.

The European Dream: How Europe's Vision of the Future Is Quietly Eclipsing the American Dream

The European Union is emerging as a new kind of super power. With 450 million inhabitants spanning twenty-five member states, the EU now rivals the United States in raw economic power.

For more than two centuries the world has looked to the American Dream for inspiration and guidance. Now, a newly emerging European Dream is beginning to eclipse the American vision, becoming a new beacon of light in a troubled world. The European Dream represents a new chapter in world history. It is the first truly global vision befitting a globalizing economy. Mr. Rifkin will explore the economic, political, social, and cultural aspects of the fledgling European Dream and its implications for the business community and society.

The American Dream is becoming ever more elusive. Americans are increasingly overworked, underpaid, squeezed for time, and unsure about their prospects for a better life. One third of all Americans say they no longer even believe in the American Dream.

While the American Dream is languishing, says bestselling author Jeremy Rifkin, a new European Dream is capturing the attention and imagination of the world. Twenty-five nations, representing 455 million people, have joined together to create a United States of Europe.

The European Union�s $10.5 trillion GDP now eclipses the United States�, making it the largest economy in the world. The EU is already the world�s leading exporter and largest internal trading market. Moreover, much of Europe enjoys a longer life span and greater literacy, and has less poverty and crime, less blight and sprawl, longer vacations, and shorter commutes to work than we do in the United States. When one considers what makes a people great and what constitutes a better way of life, observes Rifkin, Europe is beginning to surpass America.

More important, Europe has become a giant laboratory for rethinking humanity�s future. In many respects, the European Dream is the mirror opposite of the American Dream. While the American Dream emphasizes unrestrained economic growth, personal wealth, and the pursuit of individual self-interest, the European Dream focuses more on sustainable development, quality of life, and the nurturing of community.

We Americans live (and die) by the work ethic and the dictates of efficiency. Europeans place more of a premium on leisure and even idleness. America has always seen itself as a great melting pot. Europeans, instead, prefer to preserve their rich multicultural diversity. We believe in maintaining an unrivaled military presence in the world. Europeans, by contrast, emphasize cooperation and consensus over go-it-alone approaches to foreign policy.

All of this does not suggest that Europe has suddenly become a utopia. Its problems, Rifkin cautions, are complex and its weaknesses are glaringly transparent. And, of course, Europeans� high-mindedness is often riddled with hypocrisy. The point, however, is not whether Europeans are living up to the dream they have for themselves. We have never fully lived up to the American Dream. Rather, what�s crucial, notes Rifkin, is that Europe is articulating a bold new vision for the future of humanity that differs in many of its most fundamental aspects from America�s.

Rifkin draws on more than twenty years of personal experience working in Europe, where he has advised heads of state and political parties, consulted with Europe�s leading companies, and helped spur grassroots environmental and social justice campaigns. The author delves into the history of Europe, from the medieval era to postmodernity, to capture the soul of the new European consciousness.

Two hundred years ago, America�s founders created a new dream for humanity that transformed the world. Today, suggests Rifkin, a new generation of Europeans is creating a radical new dream �one better suited to meet the challenges of a globalizing world in the 21st century.

To Order
Click here to learn more about this book and to order it securely online from Amazon.com. When the Amazon.com screen comes up, simply click "add it to your shopping cart" to order.

Articles by Jeremy Rifkin:

• Dialogue Is a Necessity
  
• What Does Europe Do Right?