Growth Trap: Why the Digital Economy Enslaves Us All, and How It Can (Still) Set Us Free (Updated [edition].)

Capital in the Twenty-First Century meets The Second Machine Age in this stunning and optimistic tour de force on the promise and peril of the digital economy, from one of the most brilliant social critics of our time.The digital economy was supposed to create a new age of prosperity.

But so far it has only exacerbated the worst excesses of capitalism: the gap between winners and losers gets more extreme as the 1% extract more value from the rest of us.

Facebook resells our data for billions, while self-driving cars threaten to put already impoverished Uber drivers out of work.

Algorithms drain our 401ks on Wall Street while on the streets of San Francisco, angry locals pelt rocks at the Google bus.

Yet at the heart of the conflict between capitalism and the utopian values of the digital age lies a huge opportunity to usher in a new economic Renaissance--if we seize it now.

Media scholar and technology author Douglas Rushkoff--one of today's most original and influential thinkers--identifies this economic turning point.

Instead of automating and accelerating the extractive economy, digital technology could catalyze a distributed one.

Drawing on sources both contemporary and historical, Rushkoff pioneers a new understanding of the old economic paradigm, from central currency to debt to corporations and labor.

Most importantly, he offers a series of practical steps for businesses, consumers, investors, and policymakers to remake the economic operating system from the inside out--and prosper along the way.

Instead of boycotting Walmart or overtaxing the wealthy, we should implement strategies that create value for stakeholders other than ourselves.

From our currency to our labor to the corporation itself, all parts of the economy can be reprogrammed with minimal disruption to create a more equitably distributed prosperity for all.

Rushkoff provides a pragmatic, optimistic, and human-centered model for economic progress in the digital age.