Circular Economy Quotes

Each business is like a tree in the forest that is the economy. Each business is like a living being that exists within an ecosystem that also has a life of its own.

Additive manufacturing has a major role to play in the circular economy.

A circular economy is a step in the right direction towards a permaculture economy.

Bartering has a suite of business applications in today's economy.

3D Printing has a major role to play in the circular economy.

In the permaculture economy, recycling isn't good enough. It's more about upcycling - because as resources cycle through the system, they should continue to add greater value to the system.

We can only have a Permaculture Economy when we systematically begin to treat waste as a resource.

A Permaculture Economy provides the greatest conditions for people and businesses to thrive.

The key to having a permaculture economy is ensuring that the waste from every one is a resource for another. When every ones waste is a resource for another, interesting truths emerge - no waste exists in the system as a whole, resources become abundant and easily accessible, businesses become generally more profitable, and wealth becomes more widely distributed. This is a circular economy. This is a permaculture economy.

The key to having a permaculture economy is ensuring that the waste from every one is a resource for another. When every ones waste is a resource for another, an interesting truths emerge - no waste exists in the system as a whole, resources become abundant and easily accessible, businesses become generally more profitable, and wealth becomes more widely distributed. This is a circular economy. This is a permaculture economy.

A lot of people are talking about the circular economy. But the ultimate goal is to have a permaculture economy.

The profit motive is the most potent source of collective motivation and the most efficient means for society to solve its problems. Anywhere you insert a profit motive - people will self assemble groups, leverage resources, and implement processes all in the effort to satisfy that profit motive.

The sum of global business activity should actually add value to natural ecosystems.

A dysfunctional society is bad for business. If the society you live in is wasteful or destructive or non-inclusive or inefficient.... It's more difficult to manage a business, and there are less business opportunities available. So every entrepreneur should be concerned about social dynamics and broader society.

When the principles of permaculture are applied to business on a global scale, business will be a producer of profit for individuals and for the whole earth.

When a business utilizes resources wisely, it becomes better able to widen the margins between revenues and expenses.

A permaculture economy is superior to a circular economy.

If we want a circular economy; a permaculture economy - we need to design decay into products and processes as opposed to disposability. Manufacturers should design materials and products to programmatically biodegrade back into an economic ecosystem. This will allow for more efficient upcycling and the cultivation of various business opportunities in the process.

Capitalism emphasizes the utility of capital. Permaculture Economics emphasizes the stewardship of Capital.

Every problem that we have in society has a suite of relative solutions that are also business opportunities. Agricultural waste is a problem. But solving that problem is a business opportunity. Energy inefficiency is a problem. But solving that problem is a business opportunity. The abusive treatment of animals is a problem. But solving that problem is a business opportunity. Reduced biodiversity is a problem. But solving that problem is a business opportunity. Plastic waste in the ocean is a problem. But solving that problem is a business opportunity. And the list goes on indefinitely. We just have to think creatively and fluidly and we can solve all of these problems that plague Earth and we can grow businesses and earn money and provide for our families in the process.

When we apply the principles of permaculture to business operations - we end up with more profitable businesses, more resilient businesses, and businesses that holistically add value to all stakeholders.

Increases in cyclicality result in increases in efficiency which result in increases in productivity which result in increases in profits.

It's unwise to waste resources, and it's also unwise to waste capacity. Every system should maximize utilization.

Change management is a broad term for the many ways of preparing, supporting, and helping businesses, teams, and organizations adapt to, thrive through and initiate change.

In regard to the health of planet Earth, business should be a value adder. The sum of global business activity should actually add value to natural ecosystems.

More often than not, solutions need to be systemic in order to cultivate meaningful and lasting results.

In nature, waste does not exist. There is only production and consumption; there is only creation and utilization. Everything that's produced is efficiently consumed. Everything that's created is efficiently utilized. And this cyclicality results in growth and in profit. The same should be true of each business, and the same should be true of an economy.

When we apply the design principles of permaculture to economics, we end up with an economic ecosystem where every participant adds to and benefits from maximized productivity.

In a Permaculture Economic system, participants view capital from a holistic perspective, as stewards of Capital rather than just users of Capital.

In nature, capital is stewarded and not merely used. Permaculture Economics shares this stewardship approach to capital.

A business is a business, regardless of it's size and scale.

An economy should be regenerative by design. That's what a permaculture economy is.

It’s time for a new understanding of what capital is and how to put it to use wisely.

Any type of business we're talking about – in any industry, any market, anywhere in the world – it boils down to this same fundamental truth, the same fundamental essence and that is: creating value for others and adding some kind of benefit to the lives of other people.

Every Spring, nature teaches a class on business entrepreneurship. ....We see how capital is re-allocated, currencies are re-directed, growth is re-emphasized, and numerous life forms promote their value with re-vitalized marketing programs that implement flowers or seeds or aromas or habitability or pollination in an effort demonstrate a unique value proposition in a busy economy.

Reciprocity is key in a Permaculture Economy.

A permaculture economy is one whereby people are inclusively participating in productivity and equitably sharing in profits.

From a municipal bond perspective, linear economies are less investable.

Municipalities with permaculture economies experience greater economic growth through the increased revenues from circularity.

We'll have better communities, better cities, better states, better nations, and a better world - simply because businesses are creating and adding value for other groups of people. That's the power, the depth and the magnitude of the core essence of business.

Like with pure Capitalism — in a Permaculture Economy, trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit and not by the state. This is essential to the success of an economic ecosystem.

Capitalism resembles a wild forest. But a Permaculture Economy resembles a productive fruit garden. Both are great, but the latter facilitates prosperity more equitably and with more definiteness of purpose.

In any economic ecosystem whereby things are measured primarily according to their present gross utility; it becomes tolerable and even profitable to create, sell and buy products and services which cause net future harm even as they provide present gross utility. This is why a permaculture economy is superior to every other economic ecosystem.

Greenwashing is a problem. That's why the practice of just sticking a label like ESG on a company or a project isn't good enough. We need to have a systemic approach. We have to approach it from the ground up with systems design, not from the top down with labels.

From a systems design and capacity sharing perspective — sometimes facilitating access to resources is better than facilitating ownership of resources.

Capitalism embraces linear and singular value chains whereas Permaculture Economics embraces value networks and multiplicative value effects.

Economic growth should be paired with cycles of reciprocal production and consumption.

Having circularity in an economy allows municipalities to widen the margins between revenues and expenses.

In business, as is the case in nature, circularity amplifies profit.

Circularity is a key component of what makes forests inherently sustainable. And in the same way, circularity is a key component of what makes businesses inherently sustainable.

The global economy and all of its markets are constantly changing. In order to survive and thrive as an individual in business these days, you've got to be always updating your mental models. You've got to be always updating the software of your mind and spirit so that you remain capable of seeing the new ways value is being measured and exchanged; and so that you remain capable to plugging in to and profiting from the new ways that value is being exchanged.

Capitalism is great at facilitating the maximization of production — regarding efficiency only as it effects the profit of the producer and the profit of the buyer in any given transaction. But permaculture economics is great at facilitating the maximization of productivity — regarding efficiency more holistically and measuring according to multiplicative value effects.

Businesses are better positioned in cities that prioritize sustainability. For example, business leaders look at the architectural environment - whether or not the buildings in the city designed for efficiency and resiliency. Business leaders look at energy - whether or not solar and other renewable energy sources are designed into the city's systems. And business leaders look at a variety of other factors regarding sustainability when they're deciding where to establish or relocate a business. So cities that prioritize sustainable development are positioning themselves to be hubs of business success.

In the end, the term 'circularity' may just be one way to make us aware that we need a more encompassing, integrated and restorative sustainability path that includes people as much as technology and nature.

There's always problems to be solved. As long as the economy is changing and evolving - which it has always been doing, is doing, and will always do - as long as that process is happening - the process of continual change, there will be problems that need solving. And therefore, there will be business opportunities.

3d printers use less material, labor and energy yet they're more effective than substractive manufacturing machines. At full potential and systems scale, they achieve greater results in less time. When something does more with less, it's a good investment. And when that's employed on a systems level, theres a multiplicative benefit effect.

Capitalism incentivizes its participants to utilize capital; whereas permaculture economics incentivizes participants to steward capital. Capitalism emphasizes production and consumption. Permaculture Economics emphasizes holistic ROI and productivity.

A purely capitalist ecosystem is like a wild forest — It’s beautiful and great and productive. But the application of design principles which utilize the natural capabilities already there will result in a luscious fruit garden that is more beautiful, more great, and more productive. A permaculture economy is that luscious fruit garden.

Cradle to Cradle is like good gardening; it is not about “saving” the planet but about learning to thrive on it.

Community cooperatives are a key feature in a Permaculture Economy.

Nature's cyclical processes inspire permaculture economies, eliminating waste and pollution.

Permaculture economics offers a climate-resilient future, where growth and sustainability converge.

Capitalism is great at facilitating the maximization of production — regarding efficiency only as it effects the profit of the producer and the profit of the buyer in any given transaction. But permaculture economics is great at facilitating the maximization of productivity — regarding efficiency holistically and messing according to multiplicative value effects.

Ultimately, ESG is about wise capital stewardship. The expectation is that we wisely steward environmental capital, financial capital and human capital, as well as other forms of capital. If we understand that capital comes in all these various forms, and approach that capital with the spirit of stewardship and the know-how of stewardship, we will in effect be ESG compliant.

To avert climate crisis, it's important that humanity embraces permaculture economics, prioritizing regeneration over exploitation. Interestingly enough, putting regeneration over exploitation will create more opportunities for individuals and businesses to profit.

When you have a business and people in a business that are feeling fulfilled because they're adding value to other peoples lives and they're making money because of that- you've got a win win win win win win situation - everybody's winning. Customers and clients are winning because their lives are improving with the services or products that the business provides them. Business managers owners and employees are winning because they're receiving compensation and a sense of fulfillment for the value they add. And because these two groups of people are winning, society as a whole is winning.

Godwin and Shepard (1979) pointed out a decade ago that policy scientists were doing the equivalent of “Forcing Squares, Triangles and Ellipses into a Circular Paradigm” by using the commons-dilemma model without serious attention to whether or not the variables in the empirical world conformed to the theoretical model.

In a capitalist ecosystem, different forms of capital often compete to the detriment of one another. In a permaculture economy, different forms of capital are incentivized to collaborate and share in the holistic ROI of maximized productivity. Capitalism embraces linear and singular value chains whereas Permaculture Economics embraces value networks and multiplicative value effects.

To enable lending to proceed when the IMF’s sustainability criteria were not met, its bureaucrats designed the “systemic risk waiver.” It was a model of circular reasoning that might well be taught to philosophy students. “Severe debt crises all carry the risks of systemic spillovers,” notes Schadler. The global financial system was deemed to be endangered if a debt payment was missed or a haircut imposed on bondholders, because “confidence” was threatened. Any haircut for bondholders might cause panic and “contagion.” So it doesn’t matter what IMF economists say regarding debt sustainability. The IMF is committed to preserving “confidence” at all costs – confidence that the troika will lend governments enough to pay their bondholders and speculators in full (but not pension funds). The systemic risk waiver means that no bondholder should lose. Labor and taxpayers must pay for the losses from risky loans, or else there will be “contagion.

The economic system founded on isolation is a circular production of isolation. The technology is based on isolation, and the technical process isolates in turn. From the automobile to television, all the goods selected by the spectacular system are also its weapons for a constant reinforcement of the conditions of isolation of 'lonely crowds.' . . . 'With the present means of long-distance mass communication, sprawling isolation has proved an even more effective method of keeping a population under control,' says Lewis Mumford in The City in History, describing 'henceforth a one-way world.' But the general movement of isolation, which is the reality of urbanism, must also include a controlled reintegration of workers depending on the needs of production and consumption that can be planned. Integration into the system requires that isolated individuals be recaptured and isolated together: factories and halls of culture, tourist resorts and housing developments are expressly organized to serve this pseudo-community that follows the isolated individual right into the family cell. The widespread use of receivers of the spectacular message enables the individual to fill his isolation with the dominant images―images which derive their power precisely from this isolation.

It is the custom in Germany for students to pass from one university to another during the course of their studies—a custom, incidentally, which no other country has. But it would be false to assume that this variety in instruction is a safeguard afainst uniformity of outlook, for although the professors of the various universities fight among themselves, they are all, fundamentally and at heart, in complete agreement. I came to realise this clearly through my contacts with the economists. This must have been about 1929. At that time we published a paper on certain aspects of the economic problem. Immediately a whole company of national economists of all sorts, and from a variety of universities, joined forces and signed a circular in which they unaminously condemned our economic proposals. I made one attempt to have a serious discussion with one of the most renowned of them, and one who was regarded by his colleagues as a revolutionary in economic thought Zwiedineck. The results were disastrous! At the time the State had floated a loan of two million seven hundred thousand marks for the construction of a road. I told Zwiedineck that I regarded this way of financing a project as foolish in the extreme. The life of the road in question would be some fifteen years ; but the amortisation of the capital involved would continue for eighty years. What the Government was really doing was to evade an immediate financial obligation by transferring the charges to the men of the next generation and, indeed, of the generation after. I insisted that nothing could be more unsound, and that what the Government should really do was to take radical steps to reduce the rate of interest and thus to render capital more fluid. I next argued that the gold standard, the fixing of rates of exchange and so forth were shibboleths which I had never regarded and never would regard as weighty and immutable principles of economy. Money, to me, was simply a token of exchange for work done, and its value depended absolutely on the value of the work accomplished. Where money did not represent services rendered, I insisted, it had no value at all. Zwiedineck was horrified and very excited. Such ideas, he declared, would upset the accepted economic principles of the entire world, and the putting of them into practice would cause a breakdown of the world's political economy. When, later, after our assumption of power, I put my theories into practice, the economists were not in the least discountenanced, but calmly set to work to prove by scientific argument that my theories were, indeed, sound economy !

When you talk about “saving the planet” you turn it into an ethical question, and I think you won’t solve problems if they are ethical.

what most people see in their garbage cans is just the tip of the material iceberg; the product itself contains on average only 5% of the raw materials involved in the process of making and delivering it.

The design intention behind the current industrial infrastructure is to make an attractive product that is affordable, meets regulations, performs well enough, and lasts long enough to meet market expectations

as a buyer you got the item or service you wanted, plus additives that you didn’t ask for and that may be harmful to you and your loved ones.

Once you understand the destruction taking place, unless you do something to change it, even if you never intended to cause such destruction, you become involved in a strategy of tragedy. You can continue to be engaged in that strategy of tragedy, or you can design and implement a strategy of change

Unless materials are specifically designed to ultimately become safe food for nature, composting can present problems as well.

This “solution” to pollution – dilution – is an outdated and ineffective response that does not examine the design that caused the pollution in the first place. The essential flaw remains: badly designed materials and systems that are unsuitable for indoor use.

Increasingly we are acknowledging that people (and their technologies) are just as much part of our 'ecologies' as are nature and the physical features of our planet.

As the 'circular' approach to sustainability begins to gather ground, we humans are finding ourselves within the circle, not without.

So-called 'circular' approaches - to the city, the economy, design - extend well beyond just limiting environmental impacts. They take on a more systemic, cyclical view of how physical and biological processes, together with human interactions, give rise to sustainable living environments - forming a complete self-sustaining 'ecosystem', like a closed circle.

Some people believe labor-saving technological change is bad for the workers because it throws them out of work. This is the Luddite fallacy, one of the silliest ideas to ever come along in the long tradition of silly ideas in economics. Seeing why it's silly is a good way to illustrate further Solow's logic. The original Luddites were hosiery and lace workers in Nottingham, England, in 1811. They smashed knitting machines that embodied new labor-saving technology as a protest against unemployment (theirs), publicizing their actions in circulars mysteriously signed "King Ludd." Smashing machines was understandable protection of self-interest for the hosiery workers. They had skills specific to the old technology and knew their skills would not be worth much with the new technology. English government officials, after careful study, addressed the Luddites' concern by hanging fourteen of them in January 1813. The intellectual silliness came later, when some thinkers generalized the Luddites' plight into the Luddite fallacy: that an economy-wide technical breakthrough enabling production of the same amount of goods with fewer workers will result in an economy with - fewer workers. Somehow it never occurs to believers in Luddism that there's another alternative: produce more goods with the same number of workers. Labor-saving technology is another term for output-per-worker-increasing technology. All of the incentives of a market economy point toward increasing investment and output rather than decreasing employment; otherwise some extremely dumb factory owners are foregoing profit opportunities. With more output for the same number of workers, there is more income for each worker. Of course, there could very well be some unemployment of workers who know only the old technology - like the original Luddites - and this unemployment will be excruciating to its victims. But workers as a whole are better off with more powerful output-producing technology available to them. Luddites confuse the shift of employment from old to new technologies with an overall decline in employment. The former happens; the latter doesn't. Economies experiencing technical progress, like Germany, the United Kingdom, and the United States, do not show any long-run trend toward increasing unemployment; they do show a long-run trend toward increasing income per worker. Solow's logic had made clear that labor-saving technical advance was the only way that output per worker could keep increasing in the long run. The neo-Luddites, with unintentional irony, denigrate the only way that workers' incomes can keep increasing in the long-run: labor-saving technological progress. The Luddite fallacy is very much alive today. Just check out such a respectable document as the annual Human Development Report of the United Nations Development Program. The 1996 Human Development Report frets about "jobless growth" in many countries. The authors say "jobless growth" happens whenever the rate of employment growth is not as high as the rate of output growth, which leads to "very low incomes" for millions of workers. The 1993 Human Development Report expressed the same concern about this "problem" of jobless growth, which was especially severe in developing countries between 1960 and 1973: "GDP growth rates were fairly high, but employment growth rates were less than half this." Similarly, a study of Vietnam in 2000 lamented the slow growth of manufacturing employment relative to manufacturing output. The authors of all these reports forget that having GDP rise faster than employment is called growth of income per worker, which happens to be the only way that workers "very low incomes" can increase.

Second, see the big picture. Mainstream economics depicts the whole economy with just one, extremely limited image, the Circular Flow diagram. Its limitations have, furthermore, been used to reinforce a neoliberal narrative about the efficiency of the market, the incompetence of the state, the domesticity of the household and the tragedy of the commons. It is time to draw the economy anew, embedding it within society and within nature, and powered by the sun. This new depiction invites new narratives—about the power of the market, the partnership of the state, the core role of the household and the creativity of the commons.

Circular Sustainability, Circular Services.

Circular Sustainability, circular Services, circular economy.

Sustainability is circular, so should be the services.

If the technology platforms of the First and Second Industrial Revolutions aided in the severing and enclosing of the Earth’s myriad ecological interdependencies for market exchange and personal gain, the IoT platform of the Third Industrial Revolution reverses the process. What makes the IoT a disruptive technology in the way we organize economic life is that it helps humanity reintegrate itself into the complex choreography of the biosphere, and by doing so, dramatically increases productivity without compromising the ecological relationships that govern the planet. Using less of the Earth’s resources more efficiently and productively in a circular economy and making the transition from carbon-based fuels to renewable energies are defining features of the emerging economic paradigm. In the new era, we each become a node in the nervous system of the biosphere.

The biggest recycling success story ever? The aluminum cans that pack the single-serving shelves in your neighborhood supermarket or convenience store. Nearly 75 percent of all aluminum ever produced in the United States remains in use today, proof of the potential of the “circular economy.

However, reality teaches us that democracy—like free markets—can be messy, especially when intense passions and partisanship are involved. Hence the episode we recounted at the start of this chapter, in which the Wikipedia article about the death of Meredith Kercher was hijacked by “haters” of Amanda Knox who were determined to make sure the page should assert her guilt and were prepared to eradicate any signs of dissension. The Kercher killing is not the only instance in which Wikipedia is embroiled in controversy—far from it. An article on the platform headed “Wikipedia: List of controversial issues” lists over 800 topics that “are constantly being re-edited in a circular manner, or are otherwise the focus of edit warring or article sanctions.” Organized under headings that include “Politics and economics,” “History,” “Science, biology, and health,” “Philosophy,” and “Media and culture,” they include everything from “Anarchism,” “Genocide denial,” “Occupy Wall Street,” and “Apollo moon landing hoax accusations” to “Hare Krishna,” “Chiropractic,” “SeaWorld,” and “Disco music.

S3R, Canada's top independent circular economy consulting firm, has helped 1,000+ companies since 2010. Clients save thousands & divert landfill waste with risk-free solutions. S3R's 700+ partners help with agreements, equipment, waste recovery, invoice tracking, optimization, training, and planning. Key figures: 120,000 tonnes diverted, 40-80% savings. Improve your environmental footprint, embrace sustainable development, and join the circular economy with S3R.

One of the key elements of circular economy thinking is designing-out waste, including and especially from the product inception phase.

The handover from efficiency to adaptivity comes with sweeping changes in the economy and society including the shift from productivity to regenerativity, growth to flourishing, ownership to access, seller-buyer markets to provider-user networks, linear processes to cybernetic processes, vertically integrated economies of scale to laterally integrated economies of scale, centralized value chains to distributed value chains, corporate conglomerates to agile, high-tech small- and medium-sized cooperatives blockchained in fluid commons, intellectual property rights to open-source sharing of knowledge, zero-sum games to network effects, globalization to glocalization, consumerism to eco-stewardship, gross domestic product (GDP) to quality-of-life indicators (QLI), negative externalities to circularity, and geopolitics to biosphere politics.

far from being a closed, circular loop, the economy is an open system with constant inflows and outflows of matter and energy. The economy depends upon Earth as a source—extracting finite resources such as oil, clay, cobalt and copper, and harvesting renewable ones such as timber, crops, fish and fresh water. The economy likewise depends upon Earth as a sink for its wastes—such as greenhouse gas emissions, fertiliser run-off and throwaway plastics. Earth itself, however, is a closed system because almost no matter leaves or arrives on this planet: energy from the sun may flow through it, but materials can only cycle within it.

You can see this effect at work in the circular labyrinths that are designed for nothing other than contemplative walking. Labyrinths function similarly to how they appear, enabling a sort of dense infolding of attention; through two-dimensional design alone, they make it possible not to walk straight through a space, nor to stand still, but something very well in between. I find myself gravitating toward these kinds of spaces—libraries, small museums, gardens, columbaria—because of the way they unfold secret and multifarious perspectives even within a fairly small area.

Corporate interest in forging ‘circular advantage’ is growing fast, and companies leading the pack have adopted a niche set of circular economy techniques such as: aiming for zero-waste manufacturing; selling services instead of products (such as computer printing services instead of printers); and recovering their own-brand goods—ranging from tractors to laptops—for refurbishment and resale.

Open Source Circular Economy (OSCE) movement. Its worldwide network of innovators, designers and activists aims to follow in the footsteps of open-source software by creating the knowledge commons needed to unleash the full potential of circular manufacturing.

Sustainability in Packaging By Henning Weigand In November, Henning Weigand attended the Sustainability in Packaging Conference in Barcelona, Spain, an event designed to offer a 360 perspective on the key challenges and solutions the supply chain are faced with to evolve towards a circular economy. The over 500 attendees included representatives from across the entire sustainable packaging value chain, NGO, such as the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, as well as delegates from the European Union Commission.

The #TechSector in #EmergingMarkets honestly believes in the #CircularEconomy. But like Copernicus and Galileo, they do not believe it revolves around you.

The ideas in this book have been inspired by many. But it is probably significant that the previous chapter, looking at new theory, cites so many women scholars who have put life at the centre of the economy, not the economy at the centre of life: Hannah Arendt’s work on the public life, vita activa; Elinor Ostrom’s on creating community via the commons; Kate Raworth’s on the construction of a circular economy which minimizes waste; Stephanie Kelton’s on the power of long-run finance and an outcomes-based budgeting process; Edith Penrose’s on the dynamic capabilities of value-creating organizations; Carlota Perez’s on tilting the playing field towards a smart green transition.

The judges believed Uber and Lyft to be more powerful than they were willing to admit, but they also conceded that the companies did not have the same power over employees as an old-economy employer like Walmart. “The jury in this case will be handed a square peg and asked to choose between two round holes,” Judge Chhabria wrote. Judge Chen, meanwhile, wondered whether Uber, despite a claim of impotence at the center of the network, exerted a kind of invisible power over drivers that might give them a case. In order to define this new power, he decided to turn where few judges do: the late French philosopher Michel Foucault. In a remarkable passage, Judge Chen compared Uber’s power to that of the guards at the center of the Panopticon, which Foucault famously analyzed in Discipline and Punish. The Panopticon was a design for a circular prison building dreamed up in the eighteenth century by the philosopher Jeremy Bentham. The idea was to empower a solitary guard in the center of the building to watch over a large number of inmates, not because he was actually able to see them all at once, but because the design kept any prisoner from knowing who was being observed at any given moment. Foucault analyzed the nature and working of power in the Panopticon, and the judge found it analogous to Uber’s. He quoted a line about the “state of conscious and permanent visibility that assures the automatic functioning of power.” The judge was suggesting that the various ways in which Uber monitored, tracked, controlled, and gave feedback on the service of its drivers amounted to the “functioning of power,” even if the familiar trappings of power—ownership of assets, control over an employee’s time—were missing. The drivers weren’t like factory workers employed and regimented by a plant, yet they weren’t independent contractors who could do whatever they pleased. They could be fired for small infractions. That is power. It can be disturbing that the most influential emerging power center of our age is in the habit of denying its power, and therefore of promoting a vision of change that changes nothing meaningful while enriching itself. Its posture is not entirely cynical, though. The technology world has long maintained that the tools it creates are inherently leveling and will serve to collapse power divides rather than widen them.