I’ve just returned from an eye-opening, mind-expanding week in Leipzig at the 4^thAnnual global Degrowth congress. This vibrant gathering brought together over 3000, mostly young, ‘prosumer’ activists and practitioners from a variety of new economy movements.

While there I learnt a huge amount from makers, hacktivists, anarcho-syndical cooperativists, collaborative-commoners, anti-capitalists, free-culturalists, buen-vivir, transitioners, Fab-Lab-ers, p2p-ers and social-entrepreneurs from places as diverse as Spain, India, Bolivia and Brazil. And continuing the theme of new economics, on the train back I read Jeremy Rifkin’s important new book the ‘The Zero Marginal Cost Society – the internet of things, the collaborative economy, and the eclipse of capitalism’.

In preparation for Degrowth I also spent three days in Meissen on a deep-dive with a small group of p2p and commons movement leaders including David Bollier and Michel Bauwens who, in the introduction to his book, both praise Rifkin as a visionary of a new world order.

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