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Jeremy Rifkin: The third industrial revolution

Amanda Gefter, Books & Arts editor


What is the premise of The Empathic Civilization?



What do you think the problem is?



If we begin to change our ideas about human nature and, as you say in the book, view history through an empathic lens, what new things do we discover?

We can see how consciousness, which is wired for empathy and social engagement, changes over history. Obviously consciousness has changed over history--a Paleolithic hunter is wired differently than a medieval serf or a modern human. My belief is that when energy and communications revolutions converge it creates new economic eras and changes consciousness dramatically by shifting our temporal and spatial boundaries, causing empathy to expand.

For instance, wherever there were hydraulic agricultural societies based on large-scale irrigation systems, humans independently created writing. That's fascinating to me. Writing made it possible to manage a complex energy regime. It also changed consciousness--transforming the mythological consciousness of oral cultures into a theological one. In the process, empathy evolves. The range of oral communication is limited--you can't extend empathy beyond kin and blood ties. With script you could empathize further with associational ties, you broaden your frame of reference.

In the 19th century the printing press communications revolution converged with new energies: coal and steam. This led to the introduction of public schools and mass literacy across Europe and America. Theological consciousness became ideological consciousness. The same shift occurred in the 20th century with the Second Industrial Revolution, the electronics revolution, which gave rise to psychological consciousness.

Each convergence of energy and communications technology changed our consciousness, extended our social networks and in turn expanded our empathy.

But all of that happens at the expense of the environment?

It's the conundrum of history that these more complex civilizations that use greater energy flow-through allow us to bring more people together, but they create more entropy in the process. If we are going to ward off the extreme dangers posed by climate change we need to find a way to increase empathy while decreasing entropy. The question is, how do you do that? How do you break the paradox?




Why "re-globalization"?

The global economy didn't work in its first stage. And that's because the economics and the technology raced ahead of our changing consciousness. A global economy requires social trust; you need biosphere consciousness, not geopolitics. You're never going to get globalization until empathy extends to the whole species.

As I said in the book, I think we need to rethink economic policies and make thermodynamics the basis of economic theory. The price of energy is embedded in every product we make. At the same time, the effects of climate change are already eroding economies in many parts of the world as extreme weather events destroy ecosystems and agricultural infrastructure. The Third Industrial Revolution will be driven in part by the need to mitigate the entropic impact of the first two industrial revolutions.

A lot of business people would say that you can't be empathic in the market. But the market is a secondary institution--it's an extension of culture. The real invisible hand of the market is trust, which is the result of empathic engagement. The only way you can have a market is if you have a shared narrative. The market is not a utilitarian frame of reference, it only exists by the social trust that allows people to engage in anonymous settings and believe that their engagements will be honored. When that trust fails, markets collapse and that's what is happening now.





How will the Third Industrial Revolution change our consciousness?

It extends it in a distributed fashion, with everyone taking responsibility for their swath of the biosphere and then sharing their energy across continents. We have to take responsibility where we are but we have to share across the world for it to work. That would allow us to think biosphere politics not geopolitics and extend empathy in that regard. That gives us a possibility of breaking the empathy/entropy paradox. Will we actually do it? If I were a betting person...well, I wouldn't even want to make a bet. But it's our best shot.

It's a tough challenge. What I'm saying is so difficult. But what
encourages me is the empathy we are already seeing resulting from technology.
After the Iranian elections a young college student was gunned down in the street by an Iranian militiaman for protesting, and someone took a cell phone video. The world instantly empathized. Then there was the earthquake in Haiti. There was an immediate response. That's new--we're thinking as a human race. We still have our xenophobia and our prejudices but I think we're catching a glimpse of something new, and we're going to have to if the possibility of our own extinction depends on it.

I think the question hasn't been asked yet, what is the point of this exercise in connecting the human race in this way? Up to now, most people's reasons for supporting it is more information, quicker information, better entertainment, improved commerce and trade, etc. What I'm suggesting is that that is not enough. When Henry David Thoreau saw the telegraph, he said, "Well, now Maine can talk to Texas, but does Maine really have anything to say to Texas?" If we can't have a global discussion of the transcendent purpose of this connectivity, I don't think entertainment and information are going to be enough to justify the Third Industrial revolution. We have to think deeper, to think as a human family, to take responsibility for the biosphere and our fellow creatures.

If human nature is Homo empathicus, as scientists are suggesting, if that's our true nature, then we can begin to create new institutions--parenting styles, education, business models--that reflect our core nature. Then I can see how this Third Industrial Revolution will happen.

Perhaps we are too cynical for these ideas. Do some people see an empathic global society as an idealistic dream?

If you know my past work you know I'm not utopian. But empathy isn't about utopia. It's about knowing how damn tough it is to be alive. We empathize with others because we smell the whiff of death in their vulnerabilities and so we celebrate their life. There's no such thing as empathy in heaven because there's no mortality, no suffering. Empathy is about encouraging another person's struggle to be. It's a tough feeling to have. In utopia there's no struggle, there's nothing to empathize with. Empathy is more than just, "I feel your pain". We root for each other's struggle to live out this mystery of life.

I was struck by the vast number of fields you explore in your book. Do you think there's a need for more cross-disciplinary scholarship?

Absolutely. Education is a total mess. Our educational model is based on Enlightenment ideas and progressive ideas of the 20th century--if human nature is autonomous, calculating and self-interested and if the market is the way we fulfill those interests, our education reflects that. We are taught that knowledge is a personal asset to achieve one's aims in the world--knowledge is power. If you share your knowledge, that's cheating.

It limits us to a more vocational idea of what life is about. We all become little drones. And as we go through education it grows narrower and narrower. But what's happening with the internet is that young folks are growing up believing that information is something you share, not hoard. That thinking is a collaborative exercise, not an autonomous one, and that spaces ought to be commons. That's completely alien to the Enlightenment ideas I grew up on.

I'm a big fan of interdisciplinary and collaborative teaching. If you're studying evolutionary biology, let a philosopher come in and talk about the way our concept of nature has changed over history. Allow young people to have so many frames of reference so they can be more open and more synthetic in their thinking. If we are a social animal and we live by our stories, then our stories are only made richer with more points of view.

Sharing knowledge is considered cheating, yet collaboration has been shown to improve critical thinking if it's done in a disciplined way. There was a doctor at UCL medical college in the 1950s who realized that if he brought all of his interns to a patient's bedside at the same time, the collaborative response got to a diagnosis quicker than if only one intern was there.

Education has to be completely reformed to reflect the new era of distributed knowledge. I'm currently in deep private discussions with some major educational associations in the US who want to put together a team of people to begin rethinking this.

We still don't know how to grade people in a collaborative model. But if we're moving from Homo sapien to Homo empathicus, we have to rethink all of this.

You've also said we need to rethink the scientific method.

The scientific method reflects Enlightenment thinking. You have to be detached, rational and value-free; you can't be connected or use empathic imagination. But we're seeing that you need both. If the scientific method is the way kids learn, how do they grow up to form an empathic connection to the world?

There are scientists who are practicing a different kind of science, a not-too-close, not-too-far empathic engagement. Jane Goodall is a great example. I told Jane, what you did was so amazing because it's a new approach to science, and she said she had never thought about it that way. She began to empathize with the chimpanzees she was studying, imagining their experience as if it were her own. What she learned about chimpanzee behaviour was massively more than what people had previously learned by studying them in a completely detached way.

Goethe understood this a couple hundred years ago--he disagreed with Francis Bacon's approach. He argued that we understand nature by participating, not by standing back and observing with dispassionate neutrality. Especially in the ecological sciences and climate science, you need to be engaged, interactive and interdisciplinary, because you're dealing with systems thinking.

Empathic science is a good balance between the traditional scientific method on the one hand and something that wouldn't be science at all on the other. Empathy requires that you not be too close or too far away. You have to be close enough to feel the experiences biologically as if they are your own but far enough to use your cognitive abilities to rationally respond.

I hope scholars will take these ideas much further. I'm hoping a younger generation can do that.

I found it interesting that you correlate the expansion of empathy throughout human history with a growing sense of self. I would naively think that they would have an inverse relationship.

Empathy goes hand-in-hand with selfhood; if you know you're a self you can see yourself in relation to the other. People hear "empathy" and they think socialism or something--that's completely missing the point. Increasing individuation and selfhood is critical to increasing empathy.

We are wired for empathic distress. If you put a bunch of babies in a nursery and one starts crying, the others start crying but they don't know why. Real empathy - empathic expression--doesn't occur until children develop a sense of self and recognize themselves as being separate from others; when they can recognize themselves in a mirror, for instance. When kids learn about birth and death they think, uh oh, now I know I have a history, I'm finite. Realizing their own vulnerability allows them to feel another's vulnerability. The more advanced your selfhood, the more you can feel another's fragility and empathize. Empathy is the invisible social glue that allows a complex individuated society to remain integrated.



At over 600 pages, The Empathic Civilization is a long book! How long did it take you to write it?

I didn't mean for it to be a long book, but my wife says the older I get, the longer my books get. It took over five years. I got so deep into the research; I read about 400 books and maybe 3,000 articles. The actual writing took about a year and a half. My wife has made me promise no more books!

Jeremy Rifkin is an advisor to the European Union and heads of state around the world. He is a senior lecturer at the Wharton School's Executive Education Program at the University of Pennsylvania where he instructs CEOs and corporate management on new trends in science, technology, the economy and society. He is the president of the Foundation on Economic Trends in Washington, D.C. His book The Empathic Civilization was published by Penguin in December

Image: Steve Bisgrove/Rex Features

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One question. How exactly do you plan to "decrease entropy"?


Answer to the question by Amudhan with another question:
Perhaps to "decrease entropy" by means of a "scientific empathy dictatorship"? (SED).
Because empathy or not, there are questions of power.
Where will be the Master signifier (S1, in Lacan's algebra) situated?



Search the phrase 'tubgirl' and the sick truth of the Internet pops out. Callous exploitation of other people's misfortune for entertainment is a more common use of the modern communications technology, than mutual empathy.

There is plenty of evidence to support the opposite view to this, that non-face to face communication may decrease empathy, in the manner of road rage or that increasing the influence of minorities on intransigent majorities may create catastrophic tipping points such as Vienna in the 1930s.

The benign view of a connected world is an illusion perpetuated by a vested interest in the success of information technology by those who work in it.

Perhaps we should be wary of the short term effects of a globally connected environment on hairless apes who have a world view calibrated for success on the relative isolation of the African Savannah.

Like Rifkin says its a question of entropy: more communication means more disorder. Inevitably.


"decrease entropy"? It is impossible. If you are decreasing entropy in a place, you are increasing entropy in another place.


really like what Jeremy Rifkin is proposing here.
i have been watching a couple of talks by him and i hope to read the book one day.
it's men and women like him we need!
people with a vision of a brighter future,not whiners and sarcastic comments.that's easy...what Jeremy Rifkin is saying makes a lot of sense to me.obviously saving our planet and ourself will not be a piece of cake.
but me too, i believe in human empathy,even though
i know that humans are also capable of horrible things.
we are definitely able to do both.
but we have this outstanding capability to learn and to improve.isn't that what really makes us different?and we should be aware that our selfish,greedy society has us and our kids learning and affirming the cruel capitalism rules day by day.we can do better.but we have to be conscious about what is going on and we have to want to learn.
the bad facts are overwhelming,and the urge to simply look away and not even try,is huge.
especially when the whole society screams all day long in your ear :
"you got only one life,and you yourself are the most important thing ever! go indulge in stupid consumerism! even if it does not make you happy a bit....."
i think we need people like Jeremy Rifkin to remind us of hope.we need that energy of hope, cause we need to be creative.i think that's the key.
cause isn't learning like this?
it's very hard and sometimes seems impossible,but with a vision of the future you got a chance.if you know what it's good for and you believe that you can make it,then chances are you will succeed in learning.
hope and believing is crucial for keeping up the strength to practice,to try again till you make it.
and i am sure everybody knows the helping boost of energy you get,when somebody encourages you at a desperate moment.


Is it me or is Rifkin simply stating the blindingly obvious? We all know that our current social/economic models are unsustainable. But how about formulating a PRACTICAL new model before you publish a book?


To all those people saying decreasing entropy is impossible; the author is not refering to entropy in regards to thermodynamics. In fact this article has nothing to do with physics.


Sounds like nonsense to me. The world is always changing. Now it changes so fast we are in a constant state of revolution.


History tells us all bubbles burst. Usually the burst is a result of unsustainable growth. The principal driver of rapid climate change on our little planet is the unsustainable Homo sapien population level and resulting loss of biodiversity.

The population bubble will, like others before it burst. The third Industrial revolution is too late to save our species.


you have quite succeeded in ruining my appetite for today. However, the picture of tubgirl is more about a taste for the extremely disgusting than about schadenfreude, isn't it? And for the last, we do not need the internet, just watch the funniest home video. All about people toppling over or children hitting their heads.


Mr. Rifkin:

Allow me to sum up the problem causing ALL the other problems that threaten the survival of the human 'especies'. I am talking here about the proverbial 800lb gorrilla that nobody else wants to serously discuss. I've stated the following summary in earlier postings, and I shall now do it again... and most likely be nattered (again) with the usual ridicule.

Here goes!

THE DOCTRINE OF PERPETUAL GROWTH of the human population and the global consumer economy on Planet Over-Birth Earth, a fragile HOST ORGANISM of finite space and finite resources, CANNOT be sustained much longer. Indeed! Humans have already far exceeded the planet's ability to sustain the current population.

PERPETUAL GROWTH in a FINITE system (the Earth) is NOT progress. It is cancer! Full blown cancer! See it! See it!

We (baboonies in extreme denial) have less than twenty earth years remaining to face the issue as stated above... and do something extremely radical to attenuate the imminent threat. Failing to do so means that humankind (a.k.a.: ewe-man-unkind) shall suffer a major extinction event on the surface of this planet satellite. Bluntly put: this means 95+% of all the humans dead. And the same for fish in the seas and mammals on the lands.

Twenty earth years left. That's all we have left... if we're lucky.

Do ewe folks feel lucky? Do yah punk?


I believe Mr. Roehl is a prime example of Mr. Rifkin's desire to ditch the traditional scientific method in favor of a more empathic (aka emotional) approach to solving problems (real or imagined).


Humans have survived several Ice Ages,and the following global warming periods that melted the ice,Humans will survive,without any "tinkering"by socialogists or scientists.some will die,nature will provide,good luck.


Rifkin provides a lot of good food for thought here, but somebody needs to tell him the adjectival form of "empathy" is "empathetic". You wouldn't say "sympathic", would you?


Finduilas, you may want to consult a dictionary. It appears that there may be words that you don't know.


Rifkin's empathic future depends, as he says, on an abundance of distributed, freely shared renewable energy. But can any combination of renewables replace oil, and is there sufficient time and political and corporate will to build out the transition before the limits imposed by Peak Oil make the transition impossible?

The answer to that question arrived at by the Hirsch report, published by the US Dept. of Energy in 2005, was an emphatic no.



if you blame entropy then you're not using the concept of entropy properly.

Rifkin's entropy arguments apply only to thermodynamically closed systems (adiabatic processes); and the earth isn't one of those, in fact 10^17 watts thermal power escapes into space all the time. And this happens to be equal to the power absorbed by the sun. we're in equilibrium!

So this planet must have a balance of ordering and disordering processes going on at once, and all life on earth struggles against the thermodynamic flow, simply to remain alive. Everything here gets recycled, eventually. Everything gets eaten by something.

We don't so much decrease entropy as reject it, into surrounding space, and that's ultimately possible forever, because the universe is expanding.


I understand how physics allows for the evolution of the human grandparent. That genes for longevity allow a grandparent to care for grandchildren while the more able parent forages. But I don't believe for a second that any human is wired to be concerned with the propagation of the entire human species. Hence I think that empathy is purely a social construct, and while sometimes useful or prudent and warm and fuzzy is not real physics.

Rifkin says about the scientific method, "You have to be detached, rational and value-free; you can't be connected or use empathic imagination."

This is the age old hatred that people born into the ruling class have for people who possess real skill. A person cannot be too rational. But a person who is rational does not have to be value free. You ask me to design a weapon to kill your enemies and I can do it. It doesn't mean I lack empathy, you do!


Empathy/Entropy (Physics (not withstanding)) is a bloom from these replies so far, or better said: a lack of certainly empathy for your thoughtful work.

I do believe that your vision is correct in two primary areas:

1. Communication bridges understanding in more complete manners. Whether it is totally empathic or congruent as one would hope is the goal. Doing that may require some secular ground rules, by way of establishing common ground rules for this new world society… Just simply applying the fundamentals of the “Golden Rule” comes to mind as a standard or moral imperative for all, as we continue to integrate on more common playing fields by way of better communication and energy supplies.

2. Energy whether on a distributed grid (ideal for sharing), but Energy engaged across all cultures would I fully agree bring us to a more fair and common life style, breeding a commonality of resources that would bind us as a cohesive world far better than today.

Both of these are integrators, not geopolitical separators, so I agree with your premises.

However, as you stated you would not guess when this might occur…

Therein lies the rub: I believe societies are to self-engaged to mature to this level of social cohesion, but I do believe that in spite of the failings in our social make-up’s, that technologies may lead us to your stated end goal. Conversely too: Technologies also, will have the force of a Nation-State in the hands of one person with WMD’s to take us all out, as well, biologically or mechanically.

Along with asteroids, dramatic tectonic plate changes, possible plagues, thus global economic upheavals, are very much on nature’s stage to turn the tables from the positive changes technology may lead us potentially too.

I found your thoughts to be thoughtful and compelling, but more from your insights into the nature of technology and the innate transformation it will bring, as opposed perhaps to the will of the people to lead that change…

I think social improvements are following technology, rarely the other way around. As I have little faith in social leadership to break their geo-political self-indulgents…

Technology actually may do it for us. But not leadership, save for the very few.

I also what to share my own views in some of my BLOGS that I believe are analogous to your thinking:

Congratulations, Russ Otter


Dear Jeremy Rifkin,

In my previous reply from 2/20/10 (Empathy/Entropy): I missed a critical element in your thoughtful and spot-on article, save the criticisms, that have some merit, but are out weighted, from my bias perspective, as to the insightful reality of your view of technology.

I mentioned 2 Primary Premises you proposed:

1. Communication Technology
2. Energy Technology

But neglected in my off-the-momentary-cuff-reply to note a crucial issue: Economics:

I want to note that I also agree that with the proliferation of the first 2 elements of your perspective:

1. Communication / Information
2. Energy equity or balance on a global scale

I want to add a third premise you keyed in on:

3. Economics will be balanced in a far greater manner.

For instance: The Free world, as we call it, is not a purely capitalistic system, it is a hybrid of simplistically both: Capitalism and Socialism. In other words if we had a fully Capitalistic System in the United States today, we would have the J.P. Morgan’s and the Rockefeller’s being the Kings owning America, over the Paupers… The middle class would be an unknown quantity. Just as with Socialism in its pure form, fails miserably, as well. The Kings and Queens always prevail, albeit with chaos in the streets…

America, the country I live in is a hybrid of both Capitalism (Free Markets) and Socialism (Regulation). To call this country purely capitalistic is naïve. It takes the best of both philosophies and attempts to apply them pragmatically. No single economic system per se’ is a panacea [PERIOD].

With the lead of technology carrying us forward to a better and more balanced world, our economic equities will be a benefit or side-effect by nature. Once technology better equalizes our life-styles, our cultures, our functions, then our commonalities better join to empower this world, far beyond the disparities that our heretofore, lack of education, knowledge and living conditions have sadly contributed too.

With the advent and advances in technology, knowledge wins. And superstition, myth, legend and inequities are minimized. Economics finds its own relative balance on a global scale, as we all become more commonly connected.

• The only good is knowledge, and the only evil is ignorance. – Socrates

Once again, Congratulations are articulating the value of knowledge and hope for goodness by way of humanities ever evolving movement toward knowledge…

Russ Otter


I very much admire the cross disciplinary way in which you have outlined the book. I think the observational section on our current situation are insightful and really worth reading.

My qualms:

Despite a general distaste for classical socialsm, we're still in a class war. You and I can empathize, but it only take a few self interested megalomaniacs (See: Politicians) to change the game.

When anyone says "We need to" it usually means we won't. We only change when we have to. Socialsm was the only example in our history when people tried to overhaul the whole economic model for the betterment of society, and we know what happened then (See above)

Perhaps rather than waiting, we should start building communities like this, now, by ourselves?
I'm getting involved in an ecovillage for this reason.


It seems this book does well to describe some of the problems. I would like to suggest that examining society through a self-organisational lens may be very helpful not only in understanding why things seems to keep going wrong, but also some concrete steps that we could take that could create the empathy Rifkin says we need. This is explained at

I would also suggest that Rifkin may be overly enamoured with the internet. As reported by New Scientist 30 Jan, 2010, while the quantity of information we generate is accelerating exponentially, the means by which we store it is becoming ever more fragile and vulnerable to shocks. As those who study systems realise, anything growing exponentially is in an unsustainable cycle and is a bubble waiting to happen.

Is anyone ready for the information bubble to burst?


The empathic "universalist, catholic" world might be nice - but not possible - especially with a "religion" like Islam wanting to convert everyone into it, or to kill them, or force them into dimmitude status if they are Christians, or Jewish, or special case Hindus and be forced to pay the Jazyira (sp?) tax of 25% of one's income. .
All the hopeful ones for an "Empathic World" need to get a cold water face wash by reading the Koran, "Islam 101", one of he many Islamic apostates like Ibn Warriq, scholars of the desert tribal, plunderer, raider cult of Islam - like Robert Spencer of Jihad Watch, Wada Sultan of "A God Who Hates." etc etc.
It - the empathic world - would be nice but.... for the tyrannical tendancies in human nature and the weaknesses in human nature to see it and stand up against it early one, or ever.
Our pity, eh!
We may preach and engineer our own species and other species and even perhaps life all together's destruction and extinction.
That is our challenge. The problem is bigger than the concerns of us as environmentalists and economic citizens.

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