Jeremy Rifkin

Interview

• The Biotech Century: a "wonderful new biological world" Rome,15/10/1998)

Biography

Economist and philosopher Jeremy Rifkin is president of the Foundation on Economic Trends in Washington (USA), and of the Greenhouse Crisis Foundation.He studied economics and internal affairs, his research centring on the influenza of technological and scientific evolution on the economy, employment, the environment and society. The impact that his work has had on civil and political society has led to him being labelled a 'professional activist'. His experience as an activist dates from the '60s and '70s when he was part of the pacifist movement in the USA. In 1969 he founded the Citizens Commission, which aimed to bring to light the war crimes committed by the Unites States during the war in Vietnam.By the end of the '70s his focus shifted to the biotechnology industry. Rifkin is concerned that without strict government controls biotechnology would allow scientists to "play God".

His book The Biotech Century: Harnessing the Gene and Remaking the World, (J.P. Tarcher, 1998), published in Italy as Il secolo Biotech. Il commercio genetico e l'inizio di una nuova era (Baldini&Castoldi, 1998), is concerned with genetic commerce and the problems the biotechnological revolution will bring. Jeremy Rifkin's newest crusade has been against the beef industry. Through his Beyond Beef Coalition, Rifkin hopes to reduce beef consumption by 50% by the turn of the century.

His book The End of Work: The Decline of the Global Labor Force and the Dawn of the Post-Market Era (Putman, 1995) was published in Italy under the title La fine del lavoro. Il declino della forza lavoro globale e l'avvento del post-mercato (Baldini&Castoldi, 1995). In it Rifkin argues that for the first time in the history of mankind the triumph of the machine in the production process renders human work unnecessary.

Beyond beef: The rise and fall of the cattle culture, Thorsons, 1994 Biosphere politics: A new consciousness for a new century, Harper Collins 1992