By Olivier Sparrow, The Challenge Network, 2009

Neglect and Fracture

The ten years after 2010 sees slow growth in the industrial world. The economy of China slows somewhat, both after a period of overheating, and as the first premonitions of demographic change affect its work force. It also sees marked wage inflation amongst skilled workers, and urban-rural divide increases. Otherwise, the world seems relatively tranquil, energy and mineral prices are relatively stable and economic development amongst the poorer nations continues at around 5% per annum.The various military interventions around the world wind down to a tolerable level of dissent, without much resolution and as a moral defeat for the industrial powers. The governments of the industrial world turn their attention to fiscal gaps, skill supply to industry and coping with demographic change.The economic crisis and the consequent slow-down dispelled this certainty. Foreign policy failures, and the inability of the great powers to sort out the political problems of poor nations through the imposition of force, also dispelled confidence. The international narrative falters, and there is no one dominant way of discussing or addressing problems. The poor nations may show adequate growth, but their politics become more idiosyncratic and their governance less open. Adequate growth encourages inward investment, but this tends to be towards short-term projects. Governments are less inclined to open their doors to radical ideas, and very much less inclined to invite investment in "heart land" resources such as energy and minerals.In this environment, the systems issues are not much addressed. The industrial world is not feeling either rich or expansive. The rest of the world is not inclined to be told what to do. Energy and other raw material supply capacity drifts towards demand. Few measures have been put in place to encourage efficiency, at least beyond the industrial world.The world's populations had a limited time to surmount the first of these, the arrival of undeniable systems issues. Unhappily, these arrive quickly and in force. It becomes clear that economic coordination – already weak after the recoil from open markets and coordinated actions – is acutely needed. Low investment and growth amongst the less efficient nations causes supply price spikes in energy and other resources. Some parts of the world become very wealthy, whilst others are precipitated into poverty.The world's populations had a limited time to surmount the first of these, the arrival of undeniable systems issues. Unhappily, these arrive quickly and in force. It becomes clear that economic coordination – already weak after the recoil from open markets and coordinated actions – is acutely needed. Low investment and growth amongst the less efficient nations causes supply price spikes in energy and other resources. Some parts of the world become very wealthy, whilst others are precipitated into poverty.There are economic-environmental no-go areas that stand in the way of development for the poor nations. Political differences accentuate this. The terms of trade for the poor nations have worsened, and there are barriers such as tariffs that block the sale of goods that do not comply with international standards. Resource rich nations have enjoyed surges of prosperity during the period of price spikes, and face both a wide range of suitors and some international odium for having closed their resources to development.

Yesterday’s futures

Growth after 2010 is quick to pick up. The industrial countries carry a debt burden that is purged across the decade, at the cost of about a half percent per annum off their economic growth. However, the general buoyancy tends to compensate for this. Demographic impacts are also limited by a mixture of medical advances, the ability and willingness of the old to carry on working, and considerable improvements in efficiency as both states and companies assess the demands of the future. Efficiency needs to be coupled to systems awareness, however. That is, as nations become concerned about resource supplies, they have three options open to them. Countries may try to lock in supply through bilateral deals with suppliers. These are hard to sustain when the terms of trade change, making one party the loser.A second, more permanent solution is for individual countries to limit their innate demand, which is partly achieved under the banner of efficiency. There are limits to this, because the fast economic growth in the industrialising countries outweighs the savings of any one nation. Left alone, prices will rise for everyone. Such a policy is plainly inadequate unless it is extended to near-universality.Policy therefore strives to minimise demand in general, something which can only be done in collaboration amongst the powerful and the active acquiescence of the poor nations. Central to such measures is a radical overhaul of the energy and other resource systems of poor nations. Obsolete coal fired electricity plants are replaced with more efficient systems, for example. Urban planning and renewal use minimalist, high technology solutions that cut resource demand.This is assisted by new developments, triggered by a clear policy direction and the creation of certain markets. Near-magic materials appear, in which behaviours are embedded, much as the flexure of a bird's wing is intrinsic to its mechanical form. Common cellulose, for example, is able to cross link into materials that have the strength of metals and the stress resistance of collagen, such that what appears to be a sheet of paper can support the weight and vibration of a car motor. Goods are made specifically to deconstruct easily into their constituent parts, so that "waste refineries" are widely used to separate used goods into feed streams, ready for re-use.The third option is also collaborative, at least insofar as a concert of the powerful is required before effective action can be taken. This is to expand overall resource supply in advance of price signals.This is fraught with difficulties. Resource rich countries may prefer shortage and high prices to a predictable income based on lower prices. They may not want their resources opened to international investment. They may see the possession of resources as a guarantee of political weight.In both the second and third option, the sums of money that are involved are extremely large. They are beyond the practical, political grasp of government consortia and certainly beyond the savings of most of the countries in which the investment must be made. The investments will need to come from private savings, and the technology will need to be derived from companies at the front end of the relevant technologies.This implies that there are two major issues to solve if this is to happen. First, the investment must be possible, and appear safe and attractive to the investors. This implies that legal and political predictability must balance the enormous sums that are involved.Second, the resource-rich countries must feel comfortable with such intervention in their internal affairs. This cannot occur until the style in which such investments are made also changes. That is, the model of foreign finance that funds multi-national companies to operate in effective isolation from the host country's domestic political agenda largely disappears. It derives from a former age, and is supplanted by a new form.The result is, in 2030, a very different world from that of 2010. An unstoppable force – the ambition to live the good life – has met an unmovable object, the carrying capacity of the planet and the basic economics of food and raw material production. The complexity inherent in managing the transition that is implied by this collision forces radical simplification. The established a viable pathway to a state in which a significant fraction of the world's population can enjoy what we have termed a "consumer-lite" society. That is, they are well housed and safe in their beds, well-fed and employed, entertained and healthy, and their children are educated to their potential.Yesterday's Future is, however, an end game. It is clear in the 2030 that every last drop of efficiency has been squeezed out of the system, and that even with collaboration, nine billion people cannot climb onto the wagon and hope that it remains stable. Every effort is bent to push the period when standards begin to slip back a few years. However, even with the formidable technology of the times, and with the much larger economy, the sheer complexity of the structure seems to slip between the fingers of government. Its complexity is its vulnerability, and a thin tissue of accommodations and good faith lie between society and sharp decline. This is a situation in which ever-present scrutiny of the citizen is extended in every direction, for malign intent can cause huge damage, mistakes can do the same and even unanticipated surges in demand or traffic can throw out the finely balanced systems of the time. Yesterday's Future feels geriatric, maintained in a careful hothouse in the hope that a new, unexpected door will open.

Waking Up

This is not to say that networks somehow replace or supplant society. Rather, societies generate fertile niches, some of them industries, some of them companies, some activities such as science or medicine, all deeply rooted in a geographical context such as a city and a firm set of institutions. These support, nurture and propagate ways of behaving that are found to be vastly productive. That they happen to look like networks is fortuitous.These structures generate copious quantities of wealth and enormously accelerate the growth of factor productivity. Yesterday's Future is a scenario that is led by consumption, limited by resource availability but fulfilling existing consumer dreams. Waking Up invents new dreams, new ways of existing and living which consumers have not and cannot discover for themselves.Cliques and networks often inter-connect much more effectively than does the general world. That is because their members share education and insight, values and management talent. Individuals often belong to several networks and information flows across these bridges. The fertile niches are also nested, in the sense that more general connectivity encloses the denser specialist frameworks.As 2030 approaches, these networks become less the passive conduit for conversations and instead become agents in their own right. They begin to act, purposefully and to a degree in a way that is independent of their individual participants. One can see the early stages of this today: Internet structures which suggest who you might want to link with, discussions you might wish to enter, products that match your personal preferences. However, by 2030, information technology has gained much broader contextual understanding. It monitors conversations and understands them, it is able to prompt, suggest and guide in ways which go well beyond individual abilities. Corporate structures have the organisation's purpose and values explicit within them, and they are expected increasingly to manage procedures, discussions and the use of knowledge. Done badly, this can be catastrophic, done well and it confers superhuman powers on mere mortals. Such systems are expected one day to think largely for themselves, but at this stage they need human intermediation. Nevertheless, they alter commercial structures beyond recognition, building in a relentless creativity, consistence and goal-directedness. Their direction can be altered by rationality, new information and by group processes, but they cannot be discouraged and they never give up. Collective intelligence will never willing step down to atomistic, ill-informed guesswork.It shows itself in education and the pursuit of knowledge, in communications, interpretation and in entertainment. People rely more and more on on-the-spot delivery of specialist expertise that are based on expert systems and triggered by contextual understanding of the current situation in which the individual is set. The blend of these generates an informed state that can be called "life navigation".The style invades virtual reality, appears in purely social formats and makes itself felt in areas such as activism, specialist interests and religion. An individual might spend time in a consensus reality that mirrored their religious beliefs about the afterlife, for example, meeting others of like mind and together working for the construction of Heaven. However, structures that have the magic of trust, embedded in the required intangible infrastructure, are able to achieve things which less free environments can deliver.In the 2030s, the flow of knowledge is much augmented, and the application of it greatly enhanced. The consequences are a greater creation of value: essentially, the factor productivity of knowledge creation is enhanced.

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