You can’t stop the waves, but you can learn to surf.
Jon Kabat-Zinn
Mega Trends
Scarce Natural Resources.
Natural resources are increasingly getting scares. Both an economy based on mineral fuels as an economy based on renewable energy need huge amounts of scares resources, being it natural gas, or metals for power cells. Also the internet based economy is a huge consumer of energy and rare metals. Agricultural production is also using considerable amounts of fossil fuel and phosphate, which will be used up in the near future. Next to that climate change and soil degradation threatens future crop production. Countries like China and Saudi-Arabia are therefore already claiming considerable areas in Africa to secure their food production.
Awakening of Global Consciousness.
The moment the first man in space saw the earth was a symbolic moment: for the first time ever the world was, now also physically, seen as an whole. Until that moment global consciousness was at best defined as international solidarity of the working class or global ambitions of the own religion. Ever since a global consciousness or world citizenship has grown, resulting now in most people believing humans share more commons than differences. This mindset is a indispensable prerequisite to solve global problems.
New Bonds to the Local.
Our relation to the local had considerably changed in the past and will continue to do so in the future. Proofs of loosening bonds are urbanization, mass immigration and the recent emergence of the home office driven by technology and Covid-19. In the same time the importance of the local is rediscovered of reinvented. Big companies are clustering their management departments and try establish their HQ close to their business partners. Differences in life-expectancy can in the same city be as high as 20 years depending on the residential area one lives in. And there is of course the increasing popularity of locally produced food.
Increasing Debt.
The burden of the past has financially never been this high. Most countries are highly indebted, with the United States being the undisputable number one. Quantitative easing, helicopter money, monetary financing are different terms to create ‘uncovered cheques’ that have to be paid by future generations. The recent Covid 19 crisis has shown an even faster increase of debts. But also households carry an increasing burden of debts, being it mortgages in Europe or credit card debts in the US. In the next decade 1 billion of the poorest households will be issued a bank account and will therefore be given access to officially registered debt.
Changing Governance Structures.
In a world getting more complex and interconnected, authorities have less steering possibilities and increasing problems in governance and delivering stability. Some liberal states or their superstructures are disintegrating and losing legitimacy, while on the other hand the seemingly more resolute Chinese model gains attractiveness. With the US and China having opposing agendas a new bi-polar world is emerging. The world of free trade has partly came to an end and made place for the practices of geopolitics.
Search for New Markets.
The production of cheap consumer goods has flooded the world market. Due to standardization and fierce competition profit margins have declined. But as ever increasing amounts of capital seek profit, there is a constant search for new markets. Geographically this new markets may coincide with the emerging markets such as the BRIC countries. But there are also other new markets arising that may totally challenge the old logics. The sharing economy is a good example, both in its idealistic appearances such as car-sharing, as in the Airbnb style.
Superfluous Humans.
Robots and artificial intelligence are more and more capable to take over human tasks. As a result, a large part of the current labor force may become superfluous in the near future. This may leave many people in uncertainty, frustration and the feeling of aimlessness, posing a threat to the stability of society. On the other hand, it gives the opportunity to dedicate more time and personnel to the real human needs in our communities.
Changing Value Production.
For long the production of value was highly associated with the production of goods. The quality of our products is now more and more detached from its physical properties. Quality can also be added by branding. But there is even a more structural shift in value production. Younger generations tend to attribute less value to property than to the actual services the commodity is delivering. And though there are still many products pushed into the market with massive commercial campaigns, creating demand that did not exist before the campaign, modern technology allows to unnoticed unravel the demands of the consumer, thus supporting a shift from supply driven to consumer demand driven production.
Empowerment of the Individual.
There are numerous sings of rising self-awareness. This is not only shown by the ever increasing popularity of self-help books. It is also apparent in the increased literacy. The population has never been as high educated as yet. This challenges the traditional forms of participation. Meaningful stakeholder engagement has almost became a licence to operate and democratic public structures have to be redesigned in order to survive and to stay legitimate.
Transparancy and Loss of Privacy.
We spent a substantial part of our live on the internet, which makes us increasingly transparent. Since the internet of things is introduced in our homes our complete life can be traced. This transparency can only be legitimate as long as there is trust. This trust prerequisites transparency of institutions as well, which often lacks. But politicians and institutions under constant public scrutiny are likely to avoid risks and controversy. Negotiations can only be made in an atmosphere of confidentiality.
Emergence of Network Society.
TBD
Divergation, Loss of Traditional Bonds.
What have tightened us together for long seems to disappear. Family bonds, church and class is no longer as central to our kinship as it was. In the era of post-modernism meaning has become subjective. We can play with all styles, and combine as we want. To many this may also feel as a vacuum. New identities are therefore constructed and old identities sometimes recovered. Challenging is how this identities can be substantiated, since nothing should be taken automatically for granted anymore.