Next Economy Additions: Zero marginal cost, metaspace, conscious, and Blockchain

A couple of years, I started collecting and posting concepts or names for the next economy as part of my scanning (which admittedly “ain’t what it used to be). I didn’t seek them out, but rather have been noting them when they appear. It’s been a while since my last addition to the list, which I left at 31 concepts, and now we’re at 35 with four new additions in red: Zero marginal cost, metaspace, conscious, and Blockchain.

The Blockchain, well, I’m not sure it’s exactly a new economy concept, although I was pleasantly surprised to see Blockchain: Blueprint for a New Economy by Melanie Swan, Founder of the Institute for Blockchain Studies. Just a few weeks ago, the Houston Foresight Program had the Blockchain as its central theme at our annual Spring Gathering. The transformative power of the Blockchain caught everyone’s attention, and it’s very likely to play a key role in the next economy

Conscious Capitalism came to me from a futurist colleague who suggested I ought to chat with its originator Vinny Tafuro. Not only did we have a great chat about foresight and the future, I realized we had yet another concept to add to our list. This concept is perhaps less transformative in nature than some others, more of a refining of capitalism than a replacement.

The Metaspace Economy comes to us from the Future Hunters (aka Weiner Edrich Brown). One of the nice benefits of teaching is that students regularly uncover good scanning hits – such as this one. There is no soft-pedaling here – “rather what we’re currently going through is a fundamental global economic transformation.” They might have a looser definition of transformation than I do (we just transitioned from the emotile economy in their model), but I agree it is transformation that we are talking about here! They identify 10 major growth areas in the metaspace economy. I won’t spoil the surprise.

The Zero Marginal Cost concept comes to us from Jeremy Rifkin in his book “The Zero Marginal Cost Society. As the blurb exudes, Rifkin describes “how the emerging Internet of Things is speeding us to an era of nearly free goods and services, precipitating the meteoric rise of a global Collaborative Commons and the eclipse of capitalism.” It brings together many of the themes he has explored in the twenty books he has written, among them “The End of Work,” which should give you a good idea of where he’s coming from.

As always, glad to hear your feedback, in particular links to concepts I may have missed.  — Andy Hines