The South African Civil Society Information Service
A nonprofit news agency promoting social justice. Seeking answers to the question:
How do we make democracy work for the poor?
A nonprofit news agency promoting social justice. Seeking answers to the question:
How do we make democracy work for the poor?
Fazila Farouk -
Some parts of our world are already being delivered into a new industrial revolution, but this revolution is one that will likely pass by South Africa due to our continued reliance on fossil fuels and nuclear energy.
Embracing the forward-thinking technological advancements of the 21st century, the economies of Northern Europe are realigning completely to adapt to new modes of production based on renewable energy. Clean technology is integrating into the digital economy to produce a new...
On a single Sunday in May this year, Germany was able to obtain nearly 75 percent of its electricity from renewable resources. By noon that day, electricity prices went negative. Small producers such as small businesses, families and co-ops are producing large amounts of wind and solar energy at near zero marginal cost, which is fed into the grid. Renewable energy technologies have sprung up in tandem with information technology heralding a move away from energy being supplied by large...
Fazila Farouk -
Inequality is hard to avoid here in the most unequal country in the world, yet South Africa’s chattering classes have for a very long time done exactly that. Admittedly there are many titillating distractions, from our polygamous president engulfed in corruption scandals to the vulgar display of wealth by our black economic empowerment beneficiaries, there is much to keep the chins of the more established sections of South African society wagging in gloomy disapproval.
However, as...
Economists never in their wildest imagination anticipated a technology revolution whose productivity was so extreme that it is bringing marginal costs to near zero, making goods and services essentially free, abundant and beyond profit in the exchange capitalist economy. That's what's beginning to happen, argues Jeremy Rifkin, president of the Foundation on Economic Trends. We saw the zero marginal cost phenomenon sweep through the information goods industry when, facilitated by the...
