Throwing Rocks at the Google Bus: How Growth Became the Enemy of Prosperity

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by Douglas Rushkoff

Magic Eraser Duo, 107

  Maker’s Row, 30

  malware, 37

  marketing. See also advertising

  big data and, 42

  branding and, 20, 35–37

  “likes” economy and, 35–37

  mass, 19–20

  social graphs generated by, 40

  market makers, 178–79

  market money, 127–28, 130

  Marx, Karl, 83, 138

  mass media, 20–21

  maturity, 98

  Mecklenburg, George, 159

  medical debt, 153

  Meetup, 196–97

  microfinancing platforms, 202–4

  Microsoft, 83

  Microventures, 202–3

  Mill, John Stuart, 135

  mining, of bitcoins, 145, 147

  MIT Technology Review, 53

  Mondragon Corporation, 220, 222

  money

  basket of commodities approach to backing of, 139

  blockchains and, 144–51, 222

  central currency system and (See central currency system)

  cooperative currencies, 160–65

  debt and, 152–54

  digital transaction networks and, 140–51

  extractive purpose of, 128–31

  free money theory, currencies based on, 156–59

  gold standard and, 139

  grain receipts, 128

  history of, 126–31

  local currencies, 154–65

  manipulating human financial behavior to serve, 151–52

  market, 127–28, 130

  operating system nature of centrally-issued, 125–26

  outlawing of local currencies and replacement with coin of the realm, 128–29

  precious metals and, 128

  reprogramming of, 138–51

  traditional bank’s role in serving communities, 165–67

  traditional purpose of, 126

  as unbound, 212–13

  velocity of, 140–41

  monopolies

  chartered, 18, 56, 70, 101, 125, 131

  platform, 82–93, 101

  power-law dynamics and, 27–28

  Monsanto, 218

  Morgan Stanley, 195

  Mozilla Corporation, 122–23

  Mozilla Foundation, 122–23

  Mr. Clean Magic Eraser, 107

  music industry, 100

  positive reinforcement feedback loop and, 28

  power-law dynamics and, 26–27

  360 deals and, 34

  Musk, Elon, 121

  Myspace, 31

  Nakamoto, Satoshi, 143, 145

  National Commission on Technology, Automation and Economic Progress, 52–53

  negative income tax, 64

  Neilsen Soundscan, 26–27

  Nelson, Jonathan, 26

  Nelson, Matthew, 25, 26

  Netflix, 29, 48

  New Deal, 99

  New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), 182

  New York Times, 37–38, 87, 177

  99designs, 200

  Nixon, Richard, 63

  not-for-profits (NFPs), 121–23

  obsolescence

  Amazon business model and, 89–90

  corporations and, 70–71, 73

  employment opportunities, technology as replacing and obsolescing, 51–54

  Occupy Wall Street movement, 100, 152, 153

  Oculus Rift, 201

  offshoring, 78–79

  Olen, Helaine, 170

  OMGPop, 192, 193

  online trading platforms, 176–78

  open-source corporate strategies, 106–7

  Open Source Ecology project, 217

  Organic, Inc., 26

  Ostrom, Elinor, 216

  Pacific Lumber Company, 117

  Palmer, Amanda, 38–39, 199

  PandoDaily, 197–98

  Pandora, 34, 218

  Parker, Sean, 191–92

  PayPal, 140–41

  paywalls, 37–38

  peer-to-peer economy/marketplaces, 16–17, 18

  alternative corporate models for fostering, 93–97

  Bandcamp and, 29–30

  central currency as means of shutting down, 128–29

  digital transaction networks and, 141

  distribution of ability to create and exchange value by, 29–30

  eBay and, 29

  Known business model versus Blackboard’s in fostering, 95–97

  obsolescence of, as effect of corporations, 70–71, 73

  Sidecar business model versus Uber’s in fostering, 93–94

  pensions, 170–71

  Perez, Carlota, 98, 99

  personhood, of corporations, 72, 73–74

  Amazon and, 90

  artificial intelligence and, 91

  perspective painting, 235

  Piketty, Thomas, 53–54, 131

  Pitbull, 36

  Pius X, Pope, 228–29, 230

  platform cooperatives, 220–23

  platform monopolies, 82–93, 101

  acceleration in extraction of value and opportunity from economy and, 92–93

  Amazon (publishing industry) and, 87–90

  becoming entire environment and, 87

  creative destruction and, 83–87

  distributive alternatives to, 93–97

  Uber (transportation industry) and, 85–87

  Plum Organics, 119

  Poole, Steven, 201

  populists, 99–100

  positive reinforcement, 28

  Pound Foolish (Olen), 170

  power-law distribution, 26–29, 30

  precious metals currencies, 128

  present shock, 6

  price gouging, 86

  privatization, 114–16

  Proctor & Gamble, 107–8

  productivity gains

  corporations failure to capitalize on, 77

  great decoupling and, 53

  income disparity and, 53–54

  sharing of, with employees, 60–62

  Prosper Marketplace, 203, 204

  publishing industry, 87–89

  Publix Super Markets, 117–18

  quantitative easing, 137

  Quirky, 199

  Reagan, Ronald, 64

  Real Pickles, 205–6

  Renaissance, 45, 71, 230, 235–37

  repatriation of jobs, 80

  retirement savings plans, 170–75

  fees and commissions charged for, 173–74

  financial services industry and, 171–73, 175

  401(k) plans and, 171–74

  individual retirement accounts (IRAs), 171

  pension accounts and, 170–71

  performance of, 173–75

  retrieval, 71–72, 73

  return on assets (ROA), 76–77

  Rifkin, Jeremy, 62

  Roaring Twenties, 99

  robotic ad-viewing programs, 37

  Rolling Jubilee, 153

  Rosenberg, Dan, 205–6

  Rothschild, Lynn Forester de, 111

  Ryan, Paul, 138

  Ryan, William F., 63

  Santa Barbara Missions, 156

  scarcity, 62

  Scholz, Trebor, 50, 223

  Schor, Juliet, 58

  Schumpeter, Joseph, 83, 84, 85

  Second Machine Age, The (Brynjolfsson & McAfee), 23

  secrecy, 106–7

  seed-sharing networks, 217

  self-help cooperatives, 159

  Series A round of investment, 188–89

  shareholder
. See investors/investing

  sharing economy, 44–54, 218

  crowdsharing apps and, 45–49

  crowdsourcing platforms and, 49–50

  employment opportunities, technology as replacing and obsolescing, 51–54

  getting paid for our data and, 44–45

  great decoupling and, 53

  jobs assisting with transition to computerized society and, 51–52

  learning to code and, 51

  Shift Happens (Hagel), 76–77

  Shirky, Clay, 27

  Sidecar, 93–94

  Silk Road, 145

  singularity, 91

  Slay, Julia, 58

  Smith, Adam, 212–13

  Snapchat, 32

  social branding, 35–37

  social graphs, 40

  social media, and “likes” economy, 31–37

  Somerhalder, Ian, 36

  South by Southwest, 19

  specialists, 178–79

  Spotify, 218

  Square, 141

  Stallman, Richard, 216

  stamp scrip, 158–59

  startups, 184–205

  angel investors and, 187, 188

  burn rate and, 190

  crowdfunding and, 198–201

  direct public offerings (DPOs) and, 205–6

  Google’s IPO, 194–95

  hypergrowth expected of, 187–91

  microfinancing platforms and, 202–4

  model for building real and sustainable businesses, 196–98

  playbook for establishing, 187

  reverse engineering of, 184–86

  Series A round of investment and, 188–89

  venture capital and, 189–95

  steady-state enterprises, 98–123

  alternative corporate structures and, 118–23

  appropriate size for business, finding, 104–5

  benefit corporations and, 119

  contracting with small and medium-sized enterprises and, 112

  dividends as means of rewarding shareholders and, 113–14

  dual transformation and, 108–9

  ecosystem as model for assembling, 105

  employee ownership of company and, 116–18

  extractive bias of traditional corporate model, eschewing, 104

  family business model and, 103–4, 231–32

  flexible purpose corporations and, 119–20

  growth, shifting away from, 103–6

  hybrid approaches to attaining, 106–12

  inclusive capitalism and, 111–12

  low-profit limited liability company (L3C) and, 120–21

  not-for-profits (NFPs) and, 121–23

  open sharing and collaborative corporate strategies and, 106–7

  privatization and, 114–16

  shareholder mentality, changing, 112–18

  technological revolutions, phases of, 98–102

  stimulative economic policies, 136, 137

  stock market crash of 1929, 99

  storytelling, 236

  Strickler, Yancey, 198

  student debt, 153

  subsidiarity, 231–32

  supermarket chains, hybrid strategies for, 109–10

  Supplier Connection, 112

  surge pricing, 86

  synergy, 99

  Talmud, 208

  Tapscott, Don, 49n

  Target, 142

  TaskRabbit, 222

  tax anticipation scrip, 159

  taxi industry, 85–86

  TD Waterhouse, 176

  Tea Party, 99–100

  technological revolutions, 98–102

  creative destruction and, 83–87

  destructive destruction and, 100

  frenzy phase of, 98–99

  government intervention and, 99–100

  irruption phase of, 98

  maturity phase of, 98–99

  synergy phase of, 99

  turning point phase of, 99

  Thatcher, Margaret, 64

  theAudience, 36

  Thiel, Peter, 120, 191–92

  This Changes Everything (Klein), 135

  3-d printing, 62–63

  360 deals, 34

  time dollar systems, 161–63

  toy industry, 85

  Toyoda, Akio, 105–6

  Toyota Motor Corporation, 105–6

  tragedy of the commons, 215–16

  Treehouse, 59

  Tumblr, 32

  turning point, 99

  Twitter, 7, 8–9, 195

  tyranny of choice, 30

  Uber, 4, 93, 94, 98–99, 188, 213, 219, 222, 229

  peer-to-peer commerce enabled by, 45, 46

  as platform monopoly, 85–87

  pricing power of, 47–48

  unemployment insurance, 99

  unemployment solution, 54–67

  guaranteed minimum income programs and, 62–65

  guaranteed minimum wage public jobs and, 65–66

  hourly-wage employment, history of, 56

  joblessness as feature of new digital economy and, 55–56

  questioning need for work and, 56–58

  real needs, getting paid to address, 65–67

  reducing 40-hour workweek and, 58–60

  sharing productivity gains with employees and, 60–62

  Unilever, 112, 205

  United Steel Workers, 220

  Upwork, 51, 200

  USA Today, 173

  velocity of money, 140–41

  venture capital, 189–95

  Vicarious, 119–20

  Victorian exhibition, 20

  Volkswagen, 106

  Wall Street Journal, 7, 8, 37–38

  Walmart, 47, 73–75, 110–11

  Watson, 90–91

  wealth inequality. See income disparity

  Welch, Jack, 132

  welfare state, 99

  Whole Foods, 109

  Wiener, Norbert, 52

  Wikinomics (Tapscott & Williams), 49n

  Wikipedia, 49, 207, 215, 219

  Williams, Anthony D., 49n

  Williams, Evan, 7–8

  Wilson, Fred, 87, 93, 94

  Winklevoss twins, 146, 150

  Wired, 187

  Wörgl, 157–58

  worker-owned collectives, 219–20

  workweek, reduction of, 58–60

  WorldCom, 133

  Worlds Fairs, 19, 20

  Xerox, 98

  Yahoo, 32

  Yahoo Finance, 182

  Young, Neil, 199

  zero marginal cost society, 62

  Zipcar, 218

  Zobele, 107–8

  Zuckerberg, Mark, 92–93, 120, 146

  Zynga, 192–93

  * Most notably Chris Sacca, in public statements.

  * Don Tapscott and Anthony D. Williams’s widely read book Wikinomics points to Wikipedia as a new model for mass collaboration and value creation online. They go on to credit Amazon Mechanical Turk with creating valuable new opportunities for the next generation of digital workers.

  * I have been participating in the Open Society’s “Future of Work” initiative, and the labor theorists, union leaders, and futurists in attendance—arguably the world’s experts on the future of work—can’t even agree on the parameters for defining a “job” from this point forward.

  * The places in the world where subsistence agriculture is no longer possible are themselves largely the victims of colonialism, global market inequities, or Western-owned factory pollution. By most responsibly derived accounts, we have more than enough bounty for the en
tire globe.

  * See my book Life Inc., which traces the emergence of corporations in the late Middle Ages. The earliest charters granted to merchants make clear that the right to invest was a concession made from the merchant to the monarch. The merchant didn’t need the cash and didn’t need shareholders but took the investment money in return for exclusivity over a market and the protection of the king’s army.

  * Lately, however, Costco’s approach has been winning out. It is one of the few brick-and-mortar discount retailers whose “same-store sales” have been increasing year after year. This may also be because Costco charges an annual membership fee to shop at its stores, which accounts for about 70 percent of its operating income, as well as increased loyalty from its member-customers.

  * As of this writing, lawsuits against the company contesting the independent-contractor status of its drivers are under way. Uber is objecting to the notion that it is an employer or anything more than a neutral platform enabling the business dealings between individuals.

  * There’s still some debate among participants over how to define DACs, Dapps (decentralized applications), and DAOs (decentralized autonomous organizations), as well as the principles to which they must adhere.

  * People borrow not opportunistically but irrationally. As if looking at objects in the distance, they see future payments as smaller than ones in the present, even if they are actually larger. They are more reluctant to lose a small amount of money than they are eager to gain a larger one—no matter the probability of either event in a particular transaction. They do not consider the possibility of any unexpected negative development arising between the day they purchase something and the day they will ultimately have to pay for it.

  * That’s what happened in the famous Enron scandal, when the energy company used pension funds as part of its illegal investment scheme, costing employees $2 billion of their own retirement savings.

  * Midas List venture capitalists in 2013 did a study in which Pando was determined to be one of the five most trusted media brands for venture capitalists, along with the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Fortune, and TechCrunch.

  * A Web site where designers compete to create logos for companies, and only the winning designer gets paid.

  * And of course, widespread corruption within the Vatican itself played no small role in the collapse of the value system it was supposed to be promoting.

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  Visit Penguin.com for more about this author and a complete list of their books.

 

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