FUTURES RESEARCH

7238 Gelsenkirchen - Predictable Futures

PREDICTABLE FUTURES - THE DRIVERS FOR CHANGE

David Mercer - Open University Business School

This paper describes the highlights emerging from research undertaken over the past three years - by the United Kingdom’s Open University. This involved work with more than 1,000 large organizations; including governments as well as the leading multinationals. It covered the patterns of development most likely to dominate global events over the next thirty years. Interestingly, despite the academically rigorous nature of the research techniques employed - which might have been expected to result in conservative findings, at least some of the developments reported are more radical than might be expected!

INTRODUCTION

At the end of the 20th century, confusion - if not outright anarchy - seems to rule. We have mass genocide in Ruanda, seemingly intractable civil war in Bosnia, genuine anarchy in Somalia, mass unemployment around the world, and the under-classes setting up independent - drug-funded - rule in the inner cities of the United States.  The family is breaking up; and more than 300 organizations, in the United States alone, look forward to seeing Armageddon arrive in the near future.

Our leaders are just as confused as we are, and have no sensible answers to the problems we face. They increasingly retreat into comforting nostalgia about past values, whilst adopting corrupt practices to try - without success - to save their own skins.

METHODOLOGY

This qualitative research originated with the considered views of the representatives of more than a thousand organizations, who have worked with us over the past three years. Using a variety of means, we gathered the expectations - of what the future of mankind might be - from managers in these organizations; which included most of the world's largest multinationals, as well as governments and international bodies. These were not off the cuff comments made in informal interviews, but have been well considered decisions, the subject of intensive sessions lasting between three and thirty hours each.  The final qualitative research, specifically reported here, involved 17 groups representing more than 140 organizations.

The views we put forward - for the expectations about the future which are detailed in this paper - are therefore not our own, but are those of the many hundreds of individuals who each gave so much time and energy to the work; and for that we are enormously grateful to them. It is the authority of those hundreds of contributors - coming not least from the fact that the expectations they reported already form the basis of the future planning for those many large organizations - that underpinned our results. As such, the forces which are described in the material, and whose likely outcomes are mapped, are not just our speculations about the future, they are those which are already shaping that future. In most areas indeed, where there is an obvious convergence of these expectations, most of the individuals and groups involved clearly shared a common view of aspects of that future, so these results spell out what will very probably happen in that future. In particular, if these thousand or so key organizations are optimistic about the future - and in general they are - then the prospects for that future - for all of us - look good.

THE HIGHLIGHTS

TECHNOLOGY

Looking, first, at some of the technological changes - which typically initiate the overall processes of long-term development - these are generally seen to impact the future in the optimistic terms of steady incremental growth - leading to ever increasing standards of life. The starting points are typically the wealth-creating ‘inventions’ from which they are derived. Even so, they still hold some surprises. Not least, as we will see from these highlights, the greatest impact comes in terms of the way that these forces will change society in general:

EFFECTIVELY UNLIMITED PHYSICAL RESOURCES

Perhaps the most fundamental new factor is the availability of effectively unlimited global resources; access to which is now extending for the first time to almost all individuals. Thus, we already have the technology to productively exploit the resources of the whole planet; and the potential to meet any remaining shortfalls by seeking out the riches which surround us in space. More important, the rate of growth, even for existing physical products, is slowing. Micro-technology, in particular, now allows us to shrink our new devices to ever smaller sizes; requiring ever less quantities of raw materials and energy; and the intelligence built into these devices offers optimization of performance micro-second by micro-second.

The most important development, though, is the switch from ‘tangibles’ to ‘intangibles’. The most dramatic growth has taken place in terms of the provision of intangible services - especially those in the sectors most directly served by information technology. Almost by definition, these services demand the use of little or no physical resources.

COMPUTERS AND COMMUNICATIONS

The changes wrought by computer communications, in particular, have already started to demolish concepts which have long been part of our everyday lives. Location or geography no longer circumscribes our everyday activities. Through the Internet, I ‘talk’, on a daily basis, with across the world; and I now accept this unquestioningly - behaving as if they were in the same building.

Rather less obviously, the way I talk with these people has also changed. I can now have a simultaneous conversation with large numbers of them - hundreds , perhaps thousands of them - almost as easily as with one of them. This is a totally new form of human communications, and - though it is transforming the information flows in organizations and across communities - we have yet to appreciate exactly what this means to society as a whole.

The increasing ability to instantaneously access information is set to destroy the need for certain types of expert knowledge painstakingly acquired with our education. As a result, we educationalists will have to radically rethink our roles; replacing the straightforward teaching of facts with the more fundamental skills students now will need to retrieve this data and synthesize it into meaningful new knowledge. It will also render the knowledge base of a number of professions largely redundant. It may even mean that members of such professions will join the ranks of the unemployed.

One unpredictable, but potentially very potent, fall-out from these developments is that we ourselves will change. Increasingly, some parts of individual’s  memories - and hence of their identity - are coming to reside in a computer. This might be described as symbiosis between humans and computers, and computer networks. Further, this externalized self will increasingly overlap with the external selves of others. So, in small ways at first, we may start to adopt a stronger shared identity, perhaps eventually something approaching a hive mentality. Nobody, not even myself or those involved in our research can begin to guess where this symbiosis will lead us.

LIFESPAN

It is likely that the average human lifespan in the middle of the 21st century  will be - in the developed world at least - in excess of a hundred years. Despite the worries of governments about funding retirement, this is good news! Longevity means that individuals will be able to choose to extend their working lives. Better health, combined with the IT revolution which is creating jobs that are more suitable for the elderly, means that this choice will be much more widely available; and will be taken by most members of the increasingly active (especially politically active) ‘gray market’. The overall effect, though, will be that the manpower resources available to society will expand to more than cover the demands made by any increased period of retirement. Combined with the dramatic improvements in productivity we have seen over recent decades, this indicates an even richer future for all.

LEGALIZATION OF DRUGS

The position here is currently bedeviled by the blanket illegality of the increasing number such substances; though, even here there are anomalies - Prozac is a miracle drug, supposedly helping millions to a better life, but Ecstasy is a scourge, castigated for blighting the lives of teenagers. And, of course, alcohol and tobacco - arguably the most harmful drugs of all - are available in shops and bars everywhere. The driving force here will be the growing usage of a wide range of new drugs by a significant proportion of the population. Certain classes of drugs are already in such widespread popular use that legalization is probably only a matter of time. Decriminalizing use of these substances will, though, allow better control. The underlying problems arising from factors such as deprivation can be addressed directly and the substances themselves can be subjected to rigorous quality controls - which will reduce the number of drug-related deaths.

More controversially perhaps, it may allow commercial providers - especially the pharmaceutical companies, and maybe even the tobacco multinationals - to develop more suitable, safer alternatives. The products will be designed to produce exactly the effect the user desires; with no unwanted side-effects.

SPACE TRAVEL

It now seems inevitable that humanity will eventually colonize space - that between the planets as much as the planets themselves. Indeed, this is accepted as a fact by the majority of the population and most, according to our research, see this starting in the relatively near future. Nevertheless, real activity, on such a substantial scale, may be more delayed than the population at large allows for. Not least, the establishment has yet to recognize the popular mood and has failed to direct sufficient resources in this direction. The timescale depends not upon technology - we already have the knowledge and resources to undertake massive programs of colonization - but upon political will.

DEVELOPMENT OF SOCIETY

What will happen to society is the most uncertain question of all - as yet unanswered. The likely developments might be thought of as leading to the ‘individualist society’, or - more cryptically as we, ourselves, tend to think of it - as ‘inner space’; with individuals moving ever deeper into their own private worlds. The biggest unanswered question of all is how will the individual interact with society in future. In terms of individual happiness, at least, this is probably the most important question. What is clear, and is widely recognized, is that moves to individual freedom, away from community control, represent - in the developed countries - a major force for social change.

BREAKDOWN OF THE COMMUNITY

The most immediate effects of the new, and as yet unaccustomed, individual freedoms can be seen in the breakdown of traditional communities; and even in disintegration of the family. But this does not represent a fundamental problem; which will remain with us in future. It simply became inevitable when the reasons for the existence of the previous structures disappeared. The real problem, in the shorter term, is that the old structures are disintegrating without - as yet - their replacements having emerged, or at least being obvious to society. But, the breakdown was bound to happen some day. What is not inevitable is that the resulting anarchy we observe around us will represent the ultimate outcome; the real end of history! It seems likely that, following the lessons of previous revolutions, society will eventually reintegrate and stabilize. The problem, for the medium term, is what form(s) this new society might take. It is, indeed, not even possible to speculate sensibly - as yet - on the alternatives available.

What seems likely is that new form(s) will emerge gradually over the next decades. Social experiments will take place, perhaps built upon some of those started in the 1960s. Whatever the outcome, the next few decades will be very exciting at times!

NEW, EXTENDED RELATIONSHIPS

The general area of ‘networking’, not just the electronic forms, is rapidly growing. Where hierarchical relationships - especially in the work-place - are disintegrating, the individual increasingly depends upon a network of relationships; with a much wider range of people, to provide the context for his or her work and play. Increasing access to the computer networks will considerably amplify the process; and define many of its characteristics.

Organizations will see increased flexibility and productivity. The individual will see  the number of people with whom they will have regular - network - contact increase dramatically; and some of these new friends may well live on the other side of the world. On the other hand, these new network relationships will typically be highly focused conversations, as opposed to the rich relationships which lie at the heart of long-term friendships or family ties, And these ‘acquaintanceships’ may last for a few weeks rather than a lifetime.

THE HAVE-NOTS

In terms of deprivation those most affected will continue to be the obvious have-nots. Clearly the unequal split in the distribution of wealth will be the major factor determining the lives of those consigned to these underclasses - impoverishing their daily lives and severely constraining their horizons. In societies choosing this path, in particular the US, the haves will also pay a price for this split. They will - with considerable justification - fear that in a rapidly changing world they too may be just a step away from the same fate. Even worse, perhaps, they will be exposed more immediately to the social side-effects; not least an escalation of crime, generated by individuals in the underclasses who have nothing to lose, and everything to gain, by moving outside the law.

Fortunately, the evidence suggests that that this descent into a nightmare world is likely to afflict few nations, apart most notably from the US. Other nations, including those in Europe, will draw back from precipice; voters judging, correctly, that the long-term price to paid, for any short-term gains in prosperity, is too high. Aided by the rapid growth in overall wealth, backed by popular electoral support (motivated  in the short-term perhaps by uncertainty as to their own futures), they will successfully address the problems caused by an unequal distribution of wealth.

FEMINISATION

Women’s’ Lib has proved to be the major political movement of the second half of the twentieth century. Indeed, it has succeeded far beyond its founders wildest dreams.

Although women are still disadvantaged, not least in terms of pay differentials, they are rapidly catching up and - more significantly - overtaking men in the labor market. They are, it turns out, better suited - intellectually and especially emotionally - to the emerging demands of the new industries. With a growing awareness of their new-found power and  a growing radicalism, they will also start to dominate the political agenda. The resulting feminisation of society at large, and especially feminisation of its values (with cooperation replacing competition as the major political force), will be even more influential than the growing presence of women in the key positions of economic power.

At the individual level, they will be left with the responsibility for the family; but this will no longer be the handicap it traditionally has been - for now they will own the family. They will, thus, naturally own the rich relationships for which their menfolk will be searching.

PORTFOLIO LIVES

One of the most obvious changes in the medium term will be the rapidly widening range of lifestyles available to, and adopted by, many members of society. The main difference now is the number of different lifestyles each individual has to choose from, and - even more important - the range of them actually chosen by that single individual, to switch to (depending only upon the needs of the specific situation) on an almost daily basis.

People now have the money, the time and the inclination to adopt the lifestyle appropriate to the situation which they face. It is becoming as easy to assume a different lifestyle, for the few hours that meet your needs, as it is to dress in a different outfit to suit your mood; and, indeed, the two activities are often intimately related. The emphasis, here, is on the freedom to suit your lifestyle to the occasion - or even to your mood - as you see fit.

In addition, individuals will no longer be expected to go through life with the same needs or tastes; for we already know that individuals have very different requirements, as they grow through education into adulthood, get married and have children, become rich empty-nesters (when the children leave home), retire to a life of leisure and then to a supported existence as death approaches. It is only recently, however, that real needs of each of these stages (and of intermediate stages within them) have been truly recognized; and these differences will be increasingly addressed, especially as database marketing allows suppliers - from supermarkets to finance houses - to very effectively deal with our needs on an individual basis.

LIFE-LONG EDUCATION

The genuine commitment, by the individual as much as by the state, to a life-long program of self-development might be described as life-long education. It certainly should not be seen as the retraining advocated by so many governments, under the same title, to meet new workplace practices. It will take the form of a continuous process of self-development - a life-long exploration of the full potential open to each individual - and an optimization of personal potential - of self-fulfillment (even through play), rather than of contribution to the economy.

It will represent an exploration of all the aspects of life which interest them - which will vary as they progress through their various life-stages; but it will also encompass an investigation in some depth of the ones they judge - with some professional advice -  to be the most important for them personally. This new demand, from the expansion in individual horizons, is likely to be the key to the knowledge society, rather than the supply, from the growing corporate databases.

GLOBAL ECONOMIC FORCES

Much of has been said about globalization, in recent years. The communications revolution now means that we can as easily talk to someone on the other side of the world as to someone at the next desk, and containerization has resulted in physical products - even perishables such as fruit - arriving in out local supermarket from almost as far afield.

On the other hand, our research shows that the multinationals are definitely not about to take over the world - they simply do not want to, it is not a part of their corporate culture - and cheap labor in the developing world is not putting people out of work in the developed world - though it is shifting employment patterns, in the same way that it has done for centuries past.

DEMOGRAPHIC PRESSURES

Estimates of global population size in 2025 range from eight to twelve billion; but, even though these figures might seem alarming, there really is very little evidence that Malthusian predictions of world-wide starvation might be valid. Food resources have grown faster than the population has, even in the most recent decades. Indeed, the existence of rapidly growing resources, is a key feature of global development; as is a decline, for the first time, in the rate of growth of population, with the Third World nations approach developed status. Then there are the almost infinite resources lying in wait in outer space.

The remaining problem is the uneven distribution of the resources we do have available to us, especially as the owners of these still show few signs of sharing them out more fairly with the have-nots. On the other hand, those who exploit their privileged position in this way should realize is that it is the relative change in demographic pressures which is becoming crucial. By 2025, the developed world to which the main owners of these resources belong, will account for less than a tenth of the world’s population. Thus, significantly, the have-nots will far outweigh - in number if not in individual buying power - the haves; by a ratio of more than ten to one! Combine this fact with the potent ‘democratic’ ideology - of ‘one man one vote’ - still being promoted by the ‘West’ (even though its original target, the USSR, has long since succumbed) and you have the recipe for the rapid collapse of Western power.

THIRD WORLD POWER

The major nations of what is now referred to as the Third World will - by virtue of their population sizes - soon come to dominate world power. Even the smaller nations, no longer used as the battleground of the cold war, will at last begin their own process of development - a process which can now take as little as a decade!

This will start to positively resolve the problem of uneven distribution of resources. Resources are already starting to flow, naturally, to where the populations most need them; and these new investments will significantly increase overall global economic growth; creating greater riches even among the developed nations. The psychological impact of this upon the West in general, and on the US in particular, will be even greater. In a very short space of time, their dominance will be taken away from them. The US, for instance, will have less than a generation to come to terms with its loss of a global empire - where Britain is still suffering withdrawal symptoms the best part of a century since it lost its own position as world leader.

GLOBAL ECONOMICS

Though it represents only a minor proportion of overall economic activity, international trade can be - in specific sectors - unduly influential in terms of global developments. This is especially true, at the moment, of the burgeoning knowledge industries, which lie at the heart of the new economic developments. Knowledge, now, effortlessly spans the globe in micro-seconds. This opens up the new knowledge markets to supply from anywhere and everywhere. It is as easy to get your programming done in India - and a lot cheaper - and this is no special case. It is worth noting that the second largest group of English-speaking science graduates - after the US - is to be found in India, not in Britain!

The potential impact can be gauged from what has happened in the financial markets. After the breakdown of the Bretton Woods agreements, and fueled by the new communications technologies, money now surges back and forth across the world - more than a trillion dollars every day! These flows of money are largely intangible, the result of pure speculation, but they still pose very tangible problems for the organizations which need to fund international trade. The flows can, in a micro-second, destabilize whole markets. Even worse, they are beyond the control of the even the largest national governments; and they can destroy national economic policies far more effectively than any invader ever could.

POLITICAL REVOLUTIONS

OUTDATED NATION-STATES

Our cozy view of political life is being overtaken by events. At the community level, the growth of individual freedom - paradoxically fostered by the governments which are otherwise hell-bent on centralization of power - means that there will be ever more irresistible demands for decentralization of such power! More obviously, the nation is under attack from above by regional (supra-national) forces - typically in response to the increasingly global nature of the economic forces ranged against them. The new regional governments springing up around the world - led by the EEC and NAFTA - are addressing these global economic forces. They may soon evolve, though, from the purely economic to political unions; as the EEC evolved into the EU.

A shared distribution of power - with each level, from community up to supra-national region, and the nation-state somewhere in between, taking responsibility for those things it does best - should result in structures better suited to modern political necessities. Unfortunately, these facts are not as evident to the national politicians; who can only see the threat to their own personal power.

THE DEATH OF POLITICS

This is, though, just one challenge facing politicians in general. The political parties, too, face a bleak future. Amongst the main victims of the growth in individual freedom, which the parties themselves fostered for political advantage, have been the parties themselves, whose members - and especially their electorates - have deserted them in droves. Elsewhere, single issue politics seems to be more vibrant. The issues are much clearer when examined individually; be they animal rights or the global environment. They are irretrievably muddied when joined with the grubby parcel of other issues which parties try to make their own - to win the popular vote.

The dynamism of single issue groupings may pose significant problems for the traditional political parties, as the latter are faced with dramatic lurches in direction when popular forces overtake them and by splits within their own ranks. On the other hand, it is as yet difficult to see how the single issue parties could cope with the more complex problems of running a country; or how they might build a consensus to support such a role. There are some examples of systems which can cope successfully - typically by adopting a commitment to genuinely representative democracy - but there is so far no evidence that these experiments can be applied more generally. There has also been much talk of other forms of democracy - most often perhaps of direct democracy, by using devices such as referenda to directly involve the electorate - but, again, there is little evidence that these, by themselves, will lead to viable new systems of government overall.

THE ESTABLISHMENT AT BAY

The group which is most exposed to the problems of rapid change is the establishment in general, and the political establishment in particular. What is worse is that its members simultaneously form the one group whose future is genuinely under threat - it is typically the establishment itself which is displaced (often violently) by any revolution - and they provide those who are in charge of the transition to that future. The result is, not surprisingly, a degree of panic - a fear of the future which they have conveyed to the wider population.

REVOLUTIONARY PAINS

The problems of rapid change, which accompany any revolution, are well known; and the current crop were accurately predicted several decades ago by Alvin Toffler (who then referred to them as ‘future shock’). We prefer to characterize them as ‘revolutionary pains’, since their key characteristic is that they are by definition short-term, lasting only as long as the leading edge of the revolution takes to work its way through. Above all they do not represent - as many politicians appear to fear - underlying trends which will remain with us. The evidence is that, as in previous revolutions, they will soon be replaced by the optimism, even a boom, which results from the move beyond; into the post-revolutionary world. The only difference now is that the processes seem to be happening much faster, but - surprisingly - with much less damage (let alone the violence) than in previous times, so that the pain should disappear in less than a generation. The future should be much brighter than the pundits allow for - and this was demonstrated, in our research, by the very clear contrast between private optimism and public pessimism.

OPTIMISM REGAINED

Indeed, perhaps the most important element, especially that arising from the technological factors, is totally intangible. It is simply a mood, but no less powerful for that. It is optimism about the future; a belief that an ever better future will come about.

This might appear to fly in the face of the prevailing mood described in the media. We are regularly told that the future is bleak. Uncertainty, and chaos, await us all. Furthermore, even our own research showed that most people recognized the fact that everyone else was pessimistic. Paradoxically, though, individuals were themselves optimistic about their own future; public pessimism, private optimism! Their optimism is, indeed, well founded - we already have to hand all that is needed for a rich future - and we believe that it will ultimately carry the day.

It is our leaders, especially politicians and journalists, who are out of step. The real danger is that we will be persuaded by them to abandon our natural optimism, and to lapse into self-defeating pessimism.

CONCLUSIONS

Our technologically determined future is very bright. We will live longer, with greater resources at our command. How we live, though, may be very different. We are likely to enter into a form of symbiosis with the computer networks, and will make positive use of  drugs to enhance our performance and to enjoy life more; and many of us will do this in space colonies. The future, justifiably in this context, is a very optimistic one.

On the other hand, the exact nature of the new society is, as I have shown, difficult to predict. It seems likely, however, that it will be much more diverse in nature; offering a much richer diet for individuals to fulfil their potential, in the ways that they choose. How they will ultimately decide to interact with others is even less predictable, but - again - it seems likely that the result will be both diverse and rich, in terms of the new relationships which will emerge.

Finally, economic forces on a global scale are leading to the creation of regional political unions. As a result of this, and of the moves to individual freedom, political parties face extinction; though what will replace them is an open question. Still, the future - for all except the establishment which is charged with managing the transition (and still poses a major threat to its success) - will be bright!

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