FUTURES RESEARCH

9068 Wiley5 Evolution (unpublished)

personal choices in a networked society: by David Mercer
 

1. PERSONAL CHOICES IN A NETWORK SOCIETY

This is a book which has the very clear aim of empowering you: to actively participate in the coming εvolution, which - leveraged by the e-revolution now taking place around us - will shape every aspect of your life over the coming decades. The book may not be a comfortable read for all of you, especially those of you in the elite that currently runs our lives. Let there be no misunderstanding, it does not just impersonally present you with the facts - though of course it does that with great authority - but it also presents you with a clear call to action! It demands not just that you take full control of your own life but that you use this new power to create the better world we all deserve. If you don't want to change your life, please don't read further!

New Heroes and Old Villains…at a time when we are beset by so many revolutionary changes - not least the e-revolution itself which we will explore throughout the book - it is surprising that so few of our politicians have accepted the challenges which are emerging. They do, though, regularly bemoan the problems posed them by our changing society. More surprising, few of our popular writers have started to explore the most crucial development now facing each and every one of us. Recently they have debated, in ever more minute detail, the 'e-commerce revolution': from shopping for your groceries over the Internet to making your fortune by floating an e-commerce start-up on the global financial markets. It is, therefore, nothing less than astonishing that none of them has yet fully charted the εvolution itself, especially when it will soon have a greater impact on us than almost any other event in our lives! This book does, though,  take up that challenge. It explains not just how you can manage your personal development through that εvolution, but how you can best leverage the impacts of the e-revolution - integrating them with the rest of your life - to your own benefit.

VITAL QUESTIONS

• What plans do you have for your own future?

• Do these take into account the evolutionary nature of the e-revolution?

It should be easy to see why you will become the hero of this book, successfully empowering yourself to win that future. Less obvious are the 'villains' who may try to bar your way. These are the elites who already take far more than their fair share of our common wealth. Some of these are obvious; the world's richest man, Bill Gates who has been convicted of anti-trust violations in the US, has now moved from being seen as a popular hero to being widely characterised as a robber baron. Just as abhorrent have been those CEOs who have received multi-million dollar pay-outs for performances which would have got any ordinary employee fired!

More important, in the context of your own development towards a better future, the many more unseen members of the elite too often oppose changes which might benefit the rest of us, desperately trying to stem the inevitable flow of history which is disadvantaging them personally. Accordingly, while the book will primarily teach you how to empower yourself - for the key element of the personal revolution really is personal development and most of the chapters will be dedicated to this task - the last chapters will also help you to win the 'war' against those elites.

VITAL QUESTIONS

• How aware are you of the power-plays being made by the leaders of industry?

• How much of your own power have you ceded to them and to their politician friends?

Empowerment of the Individual

At the heart of εvolution is the empowerment of the individual. Indeed, one of the most outstanding developments has been that, for the first time, many women have been able to take advantage of this to become the new leaders of this revolution. How many of us might, even a few decades ago, have expected that? But, despite the talk in the media, and especially amongst politicians, very little has happened in the way of positive outcomes. At a time when democratic rights are proclaimed to be paramount, even by the élites, the inequalities in society have actually increased. Fortunately, the real revolution, is - despite the best efforts of the reactionaries - still under way, beneath the surface. In time it will take power from the elites and redistribute it to the rest of us. And who, outside of those elites, is going to complain about that?

The fact is that, in our modern - increasingly networked - society, power really does lie with the individual: with each and every one of us. That fact is, as we all know, supposed to be at the heart of true democracy - 'one man (and now one woman), one vote'. But is that true? So far, we have been deftly persuaded to pass that power back to the establishment. Only that élite, we have been told, knows how to use it properly. We, the intellectually-challenged and ill-educated, should leave the really important decisions to our betters. So, why should things change now? Why should εvolution ever start?

VITAL QUESTIONS

• How happy are you with the degree to which you can control your own life?

• Do you want to have more control over your future?

Well, for one thing, we no longer ill-educated. Each of us probably knows more - far more - than any of the great leaders of the nineteenth century. Indeed, thanks to omnipresent television as much as the Internet, we probably now know more about what is happening around the world than many of our current leaders! And we always were brighter than they allowed for. More important, we are now coming to realise that this is the case.

In the main, though, it is because we are at last learning to use the power we hold; not least through the medium of the Internet. We may still only be allowed to periodically vote out of power our governments, but we are starting to take full advantage of this limited right. The discomfort being experienced by politicians around the  world, when they face their electorates, is not just amusing but is an important indication of the popular groundswell which will soon destroy their monopoly of power! Increasingly, though, we - or pressure groups acting on our behalf - are also using the organisational opportunities offered by the Internet to orchestrate extra-parliamentary activities between elections. We already see, on our televisions, anarchists destroying G8 meetings but the real changes are much better exemplified by the alliances Greenpeace is making - on our behalf - with the energy utilities. A key message of this book is, therefore, that now is the ideal time for us to do even more.

In any case, in the commercial field at least, we are already using our muscle much more effectively. Suppliers are forced to bow to our demands, or be destroyed by the 'market'. Some of us remember the days when you could have any colour as long as it was black. Now, through the medium of the Internet, we can demand any part of the rainbow, and beyond, and do so every day!

VITAL QUESTIONS

• Do you support the aims of Greenpeace? Do you support the actions of the militant anarchists?

• Do you modify your buying behaviour to influence the policies of the multinationals?

All of this has, though, crept up on us. We do not yet realise just how revolutionary are the forces which have already been set in train - in particular the onset of truly individual empowerment, which is at the heart of the personal revolution. But the forces which have been unleashed are irresistible. Nobody - not even the most powerful dictator - can hold them back for ever. Even so, there is still some distance yet to travel.

VITAL QUESTIONS

• So, how can we, how should we, further this εvolution?

Barriers in the Mind

The first thing all of us must do is consolidate our existing gains. In particular, we have to work to overcome the barriers in our own mind. Most of the book is about overcoming these self-imposed limitations so that we can fulfil our individual destiny. At the same time, though, we must work together - now through the Internet - to become an effective revolutionary force, collectively organising our strategies so we reinforce each other's efforts. The elites' secret is that, although they small in numbers, they operate as a tightly disciplined group. If we are to wrest power from them, and stop them rebuilding the mental hurdles which still deter us from achieving many of our dreams, we will need to be just as clear about our personal aims, and as well co-ordinated as a group,. The good news, however, is that in the Internet age we can do this almost with impunity. The new struggles will rarely leave blood on the streets. Even the overthrow of the Soviet empire by its peoples resulted in just a few hundred casualties, rather than the millions which might have been expected.

But this lack of danger also represents a problem. In the old days you knew a revolution was under way when the crowds raced past your home on their way to storm the barricades. Swept up by the shared fervour, you would barely stop to put on your overcoat before you joined them. Now you have first to find your revolution! You can't see it, let alone touch it, even if you do look for it. Even the best search engines on the web are not equipped to provide advice on this subject. Perhaps the most eloquent example of all was that the leaders in the Kremlin only realised what was happening when they saw - on the televisions in their living rooms - the pictures of the Berlin Wall coming down! So, even as you sit in your comfortable armchair, or surf at your desk, you have to find it first inside yourself!

VITAL QUESTIONS

• Do you know what revolutions are taking place around you?

• How important are they for your own future?

Mind Control…but, how can we, mere individuals, add our own weight to the forces already loosed on the world. As this is a battle for our own minds, we first need to organise our thoughts effectively. Above all, the need is for an open mind, where the secret weapon of the elites has long been mind control. If they can control the information getting through to you, typically now by control of the mass media, they can shape how you think - and act. If - literally - you know no better, you will be putty in your master's hands.

These days we generally do know better, thanks to universal education much better, and our task has become that of sniffing out the covert devices they use to hide the truth from us; not least by using the web to challenge the falsehoods with which we are inundated daily. We all know how the media, especially the popular newspapers, presents stories from the particular viewpoint they espouse. We know that they are Conservative, or Republican, or Social Democratic sympathisers, for instance. Indeed we probably choose to read them precisely because we adopt a similar viewpoint ourselves - and that makes our task even harder. But it is no excuse for ignoring the fact that they apply such distortions to every story they run; and that should give us even more cause for checking those that really matter to us against the widest possible range of sources on the web. The rule, therefore, is to assume all news stories in the media contain a dangerous virus. Indeed the analogy with a computer software virus is not unrealistic, and we must deal with them as such. Above all, don't sublet your mind to the establishment!

VITAL QUESTIONS

• As you read your newspaper, in what ways is its editor or, more especially, its proprietor trying to manipulate your views?

Personal Development

The next, and arguably most important, stage is that of developing yourself - and especially your mind - to take full advantage of the opportunities now opening before you, especially those being opened up by the e-revolution. The key to this is what we like to call 'storming the barricades of the mind'. This is at the centre of εvolution. Here the first requirement is that you become a 'free-thinker'. In essence, it demands that you educate yourself to the stage where you become fully aware of all the choices facing you. It may sound simple, all  you need to do is to surf the net until you find what you are looking for. In reality it is far from easy, and you may need to seek out expert help in making this quantum leap in personal awareness. That is why education features so strongly in this book. Indeed, we describe this stage as becoming an 'independent learner'. Once you get to that stage you can then undertake your own education, independent of any specialised support. You can learn from any of the multitude of information sources which are now coming on stream - not least those on the Web. Then nobody can stop your progress. Then nobody else can control your life.

VITAL QUESTIONS

• How much of a free thinker are you?

• Are you an independent learner, or do you always need a teacher to guide you?

• Where can you find a suitable teacher?

The task is then to gain full control over the whole of your life, to plan what you will make of it and to implement those plans - making your dreams a reality. This is what individual empowerment, the culmination of your personal revolution, should be about. You, alone, then become the author of your own life; which is why so much of this book is devoted to that process. It is essential for a fully productive working life, and a fulfilled personal one.

On the other hand, as with most revolutions, you will benefit from co-operation - typically across the Internet - with others who are storming the barricades in their own minds. There is, indeed, no better way of learning than sharing the process with others. That is an essential of any 'university' education, even if it is the 'university of life'. But, beyond sharing the joys of learning, you can also work together to overcome some of the real barricades to progress society may still place in your way.

Beyond passive avoidance of social control, which the personal revolution supported by the knowledge now available over the web offers, you can - still without too much effort - adopt an even more proactive approach. Clearly, even as an individual, you can use your vote to give your political views some impact. Ultimately, every vote really does count. But you can go further, to vote tactically - using the various guides now available on the Web - to leverage your power, and get your message across even more clearly. The last chapter of the book, in particular, explains how you can best leverage this power.

VITAL QUESTIONS

• How do you vote? Do you just vote for the party you have always supported, or do you carefully calculate how you vote can have the maximum impact?

Buyer Power…not least, though, you have the leverage which your buying power already brings. We all have suppliers who we do not trust, or we know will give us bad service, and we gladly dump them as soon as we can. But we can use much the same approach - using the Web for instance - to persuade those organisations whose policies we disapprove of to behave better. We can, though, go even further - using our commercial influence to attack the commercial interests which support those trying to corrupt the values of our society. To put it crudely, you can hit the elites, who would oppose our εvolution, in their wallets where it really hurts. Even more satisfying, with the communications potential being opened up by the e-Revolution, you can persuade others - perhaps millions of them - to do the same!

VITAL QUESTIONS

• Do you use your buying power to gain influence, for instance by boycotting the vendors you disapprove of?

• Why not?

Having said all that about individual pressure, which you can exert without ever leaving your home, it is fair to say that much of the real power in society still lies with groups; and to exert real influence on them that you will have to, metaphorically speaking, get up from your armchair! To wield the maximum influence, indeed, you will have to co-operate with others. So, which others should you join with?

Fortunately, your choice is no longer limited to the traditional political parties - who insist on owning you body and soul and, even so, will not listen to a word you say. Instead you now have a choice - across the web - of literally thousands of single-issue groups with which to work. But, you won't have the time to join all of them, so choose wisely. Pick the ones which will make a real difference to your life. Single-issue groups live, and eventually die, by popular support for their stance on the issues they espouse. So you should know exactly what you are buying into. Then, if you really want them to win, do everything to ensure that they do so!

VITAL QUESTIONS

• Do you belong to any single-issue pressure groups, such as Amnesty of the RSPB, or do you give them your tacit support? Which ones?

Activist…the next step is to become an activist. This is the big one! Orchestrating your revolution through the Internet has its limitations. To fully succeed, though, you will have to get up out of your armchair. Unfortunately, as there are so few activists in almost every field, you will then find it almost impossible to escape the resulting demands on your time. Once you are sucked in, the rest of your private life is doomed, as everyone calls on your services. But the corresponding benefit is that you gain an equally disproportionate amount of power. Where just a few people involve themselves in this way, they become the owners of the group. That is the secret the establishment learned long ago. It is just as true of single-issue groups. Your vote suddenly becomes worth a great deal more!

At the end of the day, however, it really is our new power as individuals which will carry the day in this new εvolution. Our own authoritative research has shown that, increasingly, the many billions of individual decisions will accumulate; to eventually create the world we want - and deserve. So the most important advice must be to shape all your decisions with that aim in mind. The impact may not be immediately obvious, but - as the Japanese say - water eventually wears down the stone.

The Framework

Before we embark on the rest of the book, however, I would like provide a suitable framework to help guide you personally. After all, I am an academic who makes a living from such theory! But this one will, hopefully, help you to understand what you may need to do in order to win your own personal revolution. The framework I would suggest takes the form of a steady progression, leading you incrementally to empower yourself;

PERSONAL POWER

1. Mapping (your possible futures)

2. Investing (in the means of empowerment, to attain your chosen future)

3. Empowerment (achieving that future)

PUBLIC POWER

4. Participating (in εvolution itself)

5. Leading (the εvolutionaries storming the barricades of the 21^st Century)

As you can see, the overall process is clearly split into two separate elements. The first three stages are simply concerned with empowering yourself. At their heart is the personal development for which many authors have already offered their own panaceas. The only difference here is that this book addresses the key issues directly. Indeed it takes them head-on; putting them into the new εvolutionary context. As a result, it provides tools which are that much more effective. Using these, personal empowerment should be well within the grasp of all of us. These three stages, therefore, take up most of the book.

1. Mapping (your possible futures) - personal empowerment is not a trivial process. In particular, before you can even approach your future, you need to understand what forces may be shaping it. Some of these may be affecting, or even afflicting, the whole of society. Only when you understand all the alternatives open to you will you be able to choose the most suitable, or the most desirable, you will wish to follow.

2. Investing (in the means of empowerment, to attain your chosen future) - as I have already suggested, empowerment is not an overnight process. Even if you make the best possible use of the resources now available to you across the web, it can take years to achieve independent learner status and, indeed, learning should now last a whole lifetime. As such this demands a great deal of investment - not perhaps of money, but of time. This is why some of the longest, and most important, sections cover the new skills you will need and on the education - and especially the much talked about Life Long Learning (LLL) - you will need to undertake.

 3. Empowerment (achieving that future) - the next steps, to finally empower yourself, are also scattered throughout the first two thirds of the book, as specific instructions to match specific situations. The benefit you will gain, not least in terms of personal fulfilment, are also described; since you will need the best possible incentive to put in so much effort.

Although shorter in length, the second - rεvolutionary - element in the book is potentially much more controversial. It recognises that, no matter how successful you may be improving yourself, you may still be held back by the obstacles society continues to put in your way. The only answer is to work with others to demolish these road blocks to progress. This is the process that we describe as 'storming the barricades of the establishment'. It may be a battle for minds rather than any physical assault on the citadels of power, but it will be just as intensely fought.

4. Participating (in εvolution itself) - even so, the first stage of your 'εvolutionary' activities may not now seem to be especially controversial. Indeed, you may even receive active support from the rest of society, since it already is disposed to give moral support to those of us willing to put our principles on the line. In fact, this stage is really a only a logical extension of personal empowerment - to give positive support to those working on our behalf in the accompanying societal revolution. Support here may be as simple as voting tactically in national elections, or boycotting the products of the most offensive profiteers; both now co-ordinated very effectively across the net. Such widespread support is going to be the force which wins the rεvolution, but it will be painless for those of you contributing that support! On the other hand, do not underestimate the power that even such passive support may unlock.

5. Leading (the εvolutionaries storming the barricades of the establishment) - at long last we come to the really rεvolutionary activities! The last two chapters of the book, in particular, take developments much further - should you so wish - to make you an activist in εvolution. In truth, even this may not be too arduous if you already use your computer to surf the world. It may take some of your time, but it will no longer demand that you lay down your life for the cause. These days revolutions are relatively quiet. You will not be required to join the mobs on the streets, and still less the guerrilla bands in the jungle. Indeed if you are a manager, especially if you frustrated by the many petty challenges of modern business life and who is used to browsing the Web to add extra interest to your life, you should find that the necessary tasks of organising the disparate forces - which are even now starting to create εvolution - will be fulfilling; and a great way of making friends!

Above all, though, the real revolutionary impact will come from millions of us simply recognising what is happening, what further needs to be done and positively claiming our own empowerment. Without these steps nothing will happen. They are, therefore, the clear focus of the first three stages - which is why these take up the greater part of the book.

So there you are. No gimmicky acronyms, just a recognition of the power you now hold in your hands and the five simple stages of εvolution. Even so, keep them in the back of your mind as you explore the rest of the book. With them you will be able to win your new life!

Even so, before starting on the main content of the book, I feel I must say something about the e-revolution which - with some justification - pre-occupies so many authors. Not least, I must more clearly establish the links between it and εvolution. As we will see in the later chapters, the leverage the e-revolution offers us, changing the way we live in general and how we work in particular, will be crucial to our future success.

Ecommerce…it must be pointed out, though,  that - despite the e-revolution's true importance for our future - most of the 'features' of the ecommerce revolution, especially those so hyped by the mass media, will essentially be peripheral to that future! The new Business-To-Consumer (B2C) ecommerce ventures, which allow us to order our books or groceries over the Internet, are merely taking advantage of the latest technology to continue a form of business which has been around for more than a century. Sears-Roebuck used the new US Mail, then the latest advance in technology, to distribute its first catalogues in 1887! More important, in the context of this book, they merely extend the considerable power the producer already holds over the consumer. The less hyped Business-To-Business (B2B) developments may in fact be more important in the short tem, but even they are best seen as an extension of the improvements in operations management which the Japanese corporations pioneered in the 1970s; and, again, they are about making the producers, especially the largest ones, even more powerful.

So the pundits are focusing on some minor symptoms rather than the real forces for change which, as yet, are unseen by them. Thus, the mass consumer 'products' which will really matter in future are 'ideas' and the medium communicating them will be Consumer-To-Consumer (C2C) networks based on affinity groups. Equally, the real B2B impacts will eventually be seen in terms of how they allow us to change our work practices - not least in replacing hierarchical management structures by other forms of network, and moving your place of work into your home - in the process adding to worker power! But both of these examples will not happen overnight, no matter how much the journalists might wish for it. They may take a decade or more to work through, as will most of the other genuinely revolutionary impacts. So, we must look for much more subtle forces to power our εvolution, and use these to move forward - and to ensure we have secured our bridge-heads when those bigger changes actually do come about!

2.  RIDING THE TIGER OF CHANGE

Don't blink, you might miss the future! And that would be a shame, since for almost all of us it is going to be a much better place. But the pace of change - powered by the e-Revolution - is steadily accelerating. The world is changing faster and faster around us. This is not an illusion, it is an inexorable reality; one we cannot escape. It can truly be described as revolutionary.

Revolutionary Times…in fact, as I have already said, there a number of revolutions taking place at the same time. By now we all know about the IT Revolution which is - it is true - revolutionising the way we work. It is, though, doing this in far more subtle ways than the hype might suggest and ecommerce is only one of the revolutions taking place around us. Those of us who are avid newspaper readers will also recognise the massive shifts in political power taking place across the globe, as governments are estranged from the majority of the electorate, who no longer even bother to vote, and on the other confronted by powerful extra-parliamentary groups of individuals. Surely all of us noticed the fall of the Berlin Wall - which announced the demise of the Soviet Empire. Then there is the revolution in what we buy. The experts refer to this as 'post-materialism', but in essence it means that we are buying more and more services. We, those of us in the developed countries at least, have become almost satiated with material goods - there are just so many loaves of bread you can eat, especially where we are all now encouraged to slim down.

Empowerment

The most important development of all is in the growth of personal power: empowerment of us as individuals. In terms of power shifts, this is very much a continuation of the previous revolutions we have seen in history. In previous eras we saw power being shifted from the king to a wider establishment, and from the Church to the state Then, in the French revolution and later that in Russia, we saw it being seized by the 'masses'. As we all know, having seen countless stories on television about those times, these were bloody affairs. With so many mangled corpses, these later revolutions certainly gave the impression that power was being forcibly taken from the establishment and devolved to the masses. The fictional scenes, in countless films, of thousands taking part in the storming of the Winter Palace in St Petersburg certainly gave that impression. For much the same reason, they also earned the reputation of being blood-baths - but, as we are now seeing - this need no longer be true. Indeed, despite the blood of the workers which flowed so freely, the reality was that - while the number of those brought in to share the establishment's power did increase somewhat - it still covered only a small part of the population. To be sure, it was no longer a royal court, but it still was a very select elite even if the ideology which came with it claimed that it 'represented' the masses - that's us!

In more than three-quarters of a century since the last of these bloody revolutions took effect, the numbers entering this elite have slowly grown; but the establishment - as I will often call this elite throughout the rest of the book -  still represents only a small minority. You may have thought you lived in a democracy where we all were equal but - as you will undoubtedly recognise once the facts are pointed out to you - some are very much more equal than others. The fiasco of the US Presidential election in 2000 showed just how vulnerable were even the underpinnings of the nation which was proudest of all to trumpet its 'democracy'! The subsequent antics of George Bush Jr. - as he still pretended he had a mandate for change and even to take the nation to war when he hadn't even won the popular vote - indicate how far removed from reality are our politicians. But the US was not alone. Even in the so-called communist countries - the 'people's republics' - elites ruled. Their eventual demise came about because - despite their ruthlessness - their establishment ruled less efficiently than its equivalents in the West. Even so, their fall from grace as the one theoretical challenger has given the fat-cats in the capitalist countries the confidence to come out of the closet and flaunt their true power. In this context we are now told by Bill Gates, of Microsoft, that the tens of billions of dollars he is worth entitles him to ignore the anti-trust laws which others are forced to obey. At the other extreme, the cosy coteries on directors remuneration panels - across the developed world - award each other obscene salaries for incompetent management. They think their membership of the establishment, a term I will typically use in its most derogative  sense throughout this book, entitles them to such privileges. We members of the huddled masses are, according to their point of view, entitled to nothing and - in a perhaps fateful echo of Marie Antoinette's supposed quote about eating cake - should be grateful for the few crumbs they allow us to scavenge.

VITAL QUESTIONS

• Do you live in a democracy? What individual power do you have over government decisions? What power do people like you have even as a group, or even as the majority of the electorate?

• Do you believe that the managers of failing corporations should be rewarded, for their own failures, with multi-million dollar pay-offs? Why should significant slices of the contributions we have paid into our pension funds go to support such pay-outs? What can we do to stop such injustices?

These are, of course, rhetorical questions. But the chances are that they are questions which you have rarely asked yourself; and such unquestioning acceptance of the status quo is how the elites hold on to their power. This book is, therefore, intended to help you challenge apathy amongst the general population. In part, it is dedicated to undermining the smug self-assurance of these elites. More generally, it is intended to further our new εvolution, that of our individual empowerment, so that we may all share our common wealth.

Individual Empowerment

Means exactly what it says. It empowers the individual, you and I, to fulfil our true potential. It does not give us a free ride. It certainly does not reward us with the first prize in any lottery. But it will enable us to take our God-given potential and use it as best we may - to create the life for ourselves that we want. 

So, when will we reached this promised land? Well there is a snag! In the good old days when life was cheap, among those starving masses at least, it was possible to persuade people to storm the citadels of power - as we have so often seen in the Hollywood blockbusters. After all they had nothing to lose. Now we have a lot to lose.  The lives of most of us are nicely comfortable, and the prospect of losing them for a cause - any cause, no matter how noble - is much less attractive. Accordingly, rabble-rousers - such as myself - have a much harder task ahead of us!

On the other hand, the price any individual now needs to pay to join this new personal εvolution is very much lower. It is no longer a matter of life and death. Even the overthrow of the Soviet empire was almost bloodless. Neither does it have to cost us a great deal in terms off time and effort - and certainly not of money. Using the power of the Internet, you can participate in many of the new activities from the comfort of your own armchair. Taking the two examples given earlier, even as individuals we can very easily punish Bill Gates for his flouting of the standards of civilised corporate behaviour. We can't easily boycott his Windows operating system - that is now supplied free with almost every PC - and as such has to be commendable 'value for money'. All we need do, however, is apply the same principle to his other products - Word, Excel etc - from which he derives his real profits. Why buy them when there are alternatives just as good, and cheaper, available in marketplaces across the web? Even better, why buy them when - like so many others in our new Internet society - by pushing a button you can copy them anonymously from a friend? Not merely will you probably save money - for Microsoft cannot afford the effort involved in pursuing millions of individuals even if you tell them to invoice you with the cost - but you can feel good where you are helping to get the new εvolution under way!

Punishing fat-cat directors takes more effort. But why not persuade your pension fund, inundating them with emails, to sign up to the new ethical rules which ban such behaviour? Shunned by the financial world, these fraudsters would soon recognise the new rules of the game; and εvolution would have advanced yet another step! All of this can take place without leaving your armchair, and without taking a single action against the politicians who must be - as we will see - the most attractive targets. The e-Revolution allows you to join revolutionary bands without ever stepping outside your front-door. Indeed, the Internet is now the weapon of choice for such revolutionary bands!

The reason people are not joining the revolution is not fear, as we have seen they're no longer likely to lose their lives. Nor is it cost, for you can participate in many of the activities from home across the net. Nor is it simply laziness. Nor is it any lack of public-spiritedness. Despite the low opinion politicians have of us - almost as low as that we hold about them - most of us are good citizens, willing to go far beyond the call of our civic duty.

An Invitation…no, it is largely because nobody has, as yet, invited us to join the party. The existing competitors for our political attention are themselves members of the existing establishment with just as considerable an investment in maintaining the status quo. In particular, the main protagonists - the political parties who canvass our votes at the national elections - are totally embedded in the existing establishment structures. It is, therefore, quite unlikely that they might ever suggest any significant changes to this - let alone the wholesale dismantling of it as our new εvolution demands. Would turkeys vote for Christmas? No wonder we have never been told about the real alternative choices which exist for our future!

This book, though, does tell you about the alternative choices you can make. Furthermore, even if the politicians won't invite you to participate in the εvolution, this book does! All you need bring is an open mind - something which is anathema to the establishment - and your vote; or at least access to the Internet!

Changing Jobs

Returning to the theme of change, as just one example of the forces which are assailing us from all directions, the European Commission estimates that something like a tenth of our jobs are going to be destroyed every year; and over the next decade four fifths of us will find our jobs being shattered by the new technologies  - especially those powered by the e-Revolution. You may be one of the lucky fifth who will be protected from these changes, but don't count on it - the odds are against you! Fortunately, the jobs lost are due to be replaced by the same number of new ones. But these will use different technologies, demanding radically new skills which - without extensive re-education - may be beyond our current capabilities.

On the other hand, I did say 'fortunately' - because most of us will still have jobs, and that at least removes the threat of massive unemployment which has supposedly been hanging over us for the past decade. Those doomsters, who would have us believe that 'structural unemployment' is here to stay, could not be more wrong. The dramatic reduction in unemployment in recent years have already disproved that myth. But those of us - the majority as it so happens - who are amongst the displaced workers may not see the picture being quite so rosy when we experience this. For we will then be faced with the task of finding employment in an alien world, where our skills are no longer wanted, and where the skills - now often IT based - that are in demand are very different to the traditional ones around which our lives have previously revolved. Make no mistake, this is no problem to be faced by a minority of unskilled workers, it will come to affect almost all of us; indeed the re-engineering fashion at the end of the 1990s was often used as an excuse to add managers to the dole queues. The European Commission, I repeat, estimate that over the coming decade no less that four fifths, 80 per cent, of all existing technology will be replaced by radically new approaches. So, only a fifth of us will be able to luxuriate in the comforting knowledge that we won't have to learn new tricks - and no doubt even those few will be faced with the same shocking reality over the following decades. The rest of us will have to look forward to major transformations in our everyday lives. The only constant will be change; revolution indeed!

VITAL QUESTIONS

• What do you think will be the future of your own job? What changes are taking place which will have an impact on it - and perhaps even destroy it?

These are not rhetorical questions. The future of your job really is under threat, and you should at least be considering what your options might be.

Conservatives

So, we won't be able to avoid change. But some people - not least our leaders in the establishment - are so fearful of the future that they try to hide from it; ever more desperately trying to return to the supposedly better times of previous generations. They want to stop it happening! But even the establishment can only escape it for a short time. In any case, the rest of us have to adopt much more practical ways of confronting what the future holds. This book is, therefore, also about how we can best do that - by creating our own εvolution.

Creating Our Own εvolutions

For a start, before we all get too depressed, let's raise the tone - to one of some optimism. For, as we will see in the rest of this book, most of these changes - indeed almost all of them - will be very positive. They will make our lives better, much better. We will be richer, living more easily in greater comfort. More important, perhaps, they will make our lives more rewarding, more fulfilling. We will feel better, not least with ourselves.

In truth, unlike in previous revolutions, there are very few people whose lifestyles are genuinely threatened and most of these are members of the establishment who have previously used their power to falsely inflate their own positions. Whether or not you take part in the revolutions which will destroy their power, the days of the 'fat cats', along with their political accomplices, are indeed numbered; and who - apart from them - is going to complain about that! Indeed, if you are like me and most of the electorate, you will no doubt enjoy some considerable satisfaction in seeing their discomfiture at having to live for once like the rest of us. Their well-earned fall from grace may, indeed, be counted as yet another benefit of the new age - rather than the tragedy they themselves would claim.

The Pace of Change

But, putting any gloating over the misfortunes of our 'betters' behind us, the first thing we have to come to terms with is the pace of change itself. Remember, though, the good news is that - in almost all cases - this change is for the good, even if it may not always feel like it at the time. Indeed, if you only look back over recent decades you should be able to see that most changes have been to the good. Most people are now working reasonable hours in pleasant office environments, managing their own work to best suit their needs as well as those of their employers, where previously they might have been incarcerated in dark satanic mills, driven by the onerous demands of the machinery they served. We typically now earn enough to enjoy a comfortable life away from work - with houses stuffed with the latest electronic gadgetry, delivering a wide choice of entertainment to our living rooms. This is a very different picture to that of not very long ago - in the days of my own youth - where the only choice, in our dimly-lit spartan homes, was the squawk of the radio, only rarely interspersed with visits to the movies. Life is already much better, and will get better still.

The Fate of the Unemployed…on the other hand, you might, with considerable justification, point to the rather different prospects - even in the developed world - of the unemployed. Undoubtedly they have not shared in the gains made by everyone else. In relation to the rest of us, therefore, they are relatively worse off. On the other hand, it is also worth pointing out that most of them are no worse off in absolute terms than they were - and there now are fewer of them than there were in the 1990s. Indeed, it now seems clear that the high levels of unemployment were a temporary factor and are already disappearing, to be replaced by skills shortages as the new millennium develops.

Indeed, the worst aspects of the 'underclass problem' may have been artificially created by politicians who simply did not understand what was happening around them. They, not least, used unemployment - totally inappropriately - as a weapon to fight the unwelcome changes in society they faced. They did not even take decisions which might have ameliorated the suffering of the victims. One day, hopefully soon, we may see the real villains in the piece paying for their mistakes. Again, I would ask for your help in bringing them to 'justice'!

The Better Life…but, returning to the more uplifting theme of hope, in general we now live a better life. We have more physical possessions, more cars, more mobile phones, indeed more of almost everything. The e-Revolution is ensuring that we certainly have more intangible possessions - access to almost unlimited entertainment, and to more knowledge than the whole world possessed not long ago. Indeed, I will go as far as to claim that, with very few exceptions indeed, unless government has mishandled affairs, the changes have been positive. They have been to the considerable betterment of society.

This not because all potential change must be for the good, but because society at large has - despite the interventions of politicians - positively chosen to support those changes that have moved us towards better times. This book assumes that we will continue to make such positive decisions and - even if the establishment doesn't - we will still earn the better future we deserve. In this context change becomes our friend not our enemy, though the establishment is probably correct in fearing that the reverse may be true in their case.

Management of Change

The moral is that it is not change that causes pain, but poor management of that change which does - especially that by politicians and other members of the establishment. To see how this can come about, one only has to look at the obvious relish with which the fat cats used the changes at the beginning of the 1990s as an excuse for making their employees redundant - 're-engineering' them in the fashionable jargon of the times - or reducing their wages - by privatisation or sub-contracting - at the same time as the fat-cats themselves took massive pay increases even when they failed. With your help, those fat cats will eventually pay the price for subverting change to their own ends.

VITAL QUESTIONS

• How are you managing the changes in your own life?

• What are they? What are they going to be in the future? How will you handle them?

Join the εvolution…if that isn't a good enough reason to be angry, just think of all your potential which has been squandered so the fat-cats can run the world their way. If you had a choice would you do the work which you currently endure? Why don't you have that choice? Fortunately, as a university academic I do exactly the work which I find most fulfilling. But there has been a price, a big one. I had to quite deliberately halve my salary to do so. Do you see the fat-cats, on the other hand, halving their own salaries? Get really angry, demand your rights. Join the εvolution!

The Power of the Individual…after that outburst let's quieten down and look at some of the facts about the emergence of the individual as a genuinely powerful entity in his, and especially her, own right. As I have suggested, it has been described as empowerment of the individual: really giving power to the people - as democracies are supposed to - rather than to the groups that have for so long taken it as their right to monopolise it. Indeed, empowerment of the individual is not a bad description of what is happening. Initially this will be in the Western nations, but eventually it will - no doubt - spread across the globe.

For many years the Western establishment has talked endlessly about democracy; albeit in terms which favour their own elites. Thus, all men (at least) are supposed to be equal. But, the reality has been that, even if we are happy to focus just on men, it has never really been true. Our lives have been ruled by others, and by a small number of them at that - the so-called elite in the establishment. In the political sphere this has been by our national leaders, often receiving the gift of their power as a result only of heredity not of worth. At work we have been subject to the demands, quite often unreasonable demands, of the comparable hierarchical management structures which give the fat-cats their power.

Our Rights Usurped…in reality, therefore, our rights, in even the most 'democratic' nations', have usually been limited to electing a government every four or five years. Even then, until we started to take power into our hands, the statistics showed that - in the 'first past the post' electoral systems to which most nations still adhere - just a few voters in a handful of marginal constituencies decided the real outcome. Even in the US Presidential Election, of 2000, it was the unseen, and largely unknown, 'electoral college' which held the balance of power - despite the fact that Al Gore had won the popular vote. Worse still, the representatives put before even these few of the electorate were chosen by just a handful of party faithful, behind closed doors in the fabled smoke-filled rooms. Once these party hacks had gone through this farce of a 'democratic process' we had no more say until the next election; and our 'elected' representatives were free to do as they wished, and too often did so! After all, that is exactly what we elected them to do. We have only ourselves to blame. If you want to change the situation, and bring in some real democracy, join the εvolution!

Power Goes to Individuals in the Elite…paradoxically, as far as the politicians were concerned, the rot set in with Margaret Thatcher's strident demands to return power to the people. Of course, as an ultra-conservative leader, what she really meant was that we should give even more power to the people who traditionally held it - the fat-cats in the 'establishment'. We were supposed to take it back from those who had, in her eyes, recently usurped it - the new meritocracy of teachers, professionals in all fields, trade unionists, and above all social workers. Unfortunately, for the long-term security of the political establishment, she didn't express it in those terms - had she done so she would never have lasted in office for more than one term, let alone for a decade. Instead she talked in terms of giving power to individuals in general. Other leaders around the world - not least Ronald Reagan - espoused much the same idea. In the short term it worked wonderfully well for them. It was just what the people wanted to hear, and it kept these leaders in office long after they should have been recognised for the dinosaurs they really were. But, insidiously, it undermined their political power base. For, even if the politicians didn't, the people saw the powerful truth underlying these statements. It may have taken the electorates more than a decade to realise that these leaders did not mean what they said, but over that time we came to recognise that the real power was ours to claim! In the age of mass consumption, mass media, mass everything, the masses - that's us - hold the real power; if we only claim it. In the 1990s we came to claim it. The landslide defeats of political parties, around the world outside of the US which seems to be a special case of 'end of empire syndrome', were the price the various establishments eventually had to pay.

VITAL QUESTIONS

• When Margaret Thatcher so stridently - and persuasively - insisted that 'power be returned' to the people, did you really understand what she meant? Did you think that, in 'people', she included you? Were you disappointed when it turned out that you were not a beneficiary? Do you now understand what she really meant?

Elites Subverted

Thus, it was, that the most important legacy that these leaders - unwittingly - handed down to us was an idea, a very subversive political philosophy, that we could empower ourselves! That idea is now bearing fruit on the grand scale. Led by the new style leaders - initially Bill Clinton and Tony Blair - some politicians are starting to listen to us; even if their own political parties still won't. If the establishment had listened to their own words, to their own claims about the virtues of democracy, this should have come as no surprise to them. Regrettably, politicians lie to themselves just as much as to us, so they foolishly assumed that the revolution - of their own making - was just a matter of presentation. Tell the lies a different way and they would regain power. But this Pandora's box is well and truly open. The personal εvolution - powered by the freedom of the Internet - has started and we, not they, will be the winners!

Feminism…as we will see, later, accompanying this fracture in popular support was the vanguard of the genuine εvolution to follow. The most disenfranchised minority - well actually a majority, women - were brought into the argument by the feminists! Bra-burning may have won few votes, but it changed the electoral climate and - probably without recognising quite what they were doing - these activists started a quiet revolution which is only now overwhelming us. The campaigns that were fought were much more important than many of us thought at the time, because they massively leveraged the move to individual empowerment in general. The demands for women's rights came to graphically symbolise the rights all of us should enjoy, men as well as women. We all owe a debt of gratitude to Germaine Greer!

VITAL QUESTIONS

• If you are a woman, do you think that you are still discriminated against in the workplace? How?

• If you are a man, do you think women still face discrimination in the workplace?  Why?

So what does empowerment of the individual mean to you? What should it mean, even if you choose to let others win the εvolution for you? Again, these are rhetorical questions. But they are no less important for that.

Basic Rights

Well, quite simply it means that you, as an individual - an ordinary individual, will have the basic right to decide your own future, your own life. Previously you were expected to be a good citizen, a good worker, and do as you were told. No doubt you will continue to be a good citizen and a good worker - but the difference is that now it will be your choice. Nobody can, any longer, tell you how to make up your own mind. Nobody, but you, owns your mind! If you sub-contract your beliefs to the editor of a tabloid, yellow-sheet, newspaper - or even if you slavishly accept the views of the most high-minded broadsheet - you are giving away your birthright. If you blindly sub-contract your power to a politician - even if it is through the ballot box - you are a fool.

Of course there must still be some limitations. You must still earn your living, albeit in the way that makes sense to you rather than as others might wish. In any case, personal selfishness can never be used to justify infringing the rights of others; though that will now apply to the establishment as well! Criminal behaviour, however that may now be defined, will still be intolerable - even for members of the establishment, such as Bill Gates, who have spent their lives sailing close to the wind. But, for the great majority, these are minor limitations compared to the massive benefits individual empowerment brings. Join the personal εvolution, and create a much, much better world.

Liberty and Equality…reverting, briefly, to the cry which fuelled the last great revolution, Liberty and Equality are now inextricably interwoven. They have historically been represented as having an inverse relationship. An increase in the absolute level of one was inevitably accompanied by, or even dependent on, a decrease in the other.  Indeed, at the two extremes, the professed equality of the communist countries was predicated upon freedom limited by a police state, where - conversely - the flaunted individual freedom of the western nations often seemed to generate the grossest inequality. The assignment of different priorities to these two elements arguably was one of the reasons for the gulf that separated East from West during the Cold War.

Fortunately, with the onset of the e-Revolution, the automatic conflict between these two ideals disappears.  The creation of a truly affluent society, that is promised in the longer term by the removal of resource constraints, will obviate any need to prioritise resource allocations between these two principles.  The new technology itself will allow equality to coexist with liberty, without the administrative problems that have previously rendered this impossible.

VITAL QUESTIONS

• Which is more important to you, freedom or equality? Why?

Individual Equality

The most important implication will be that equality can now be redefined in terms of the unique talents, aspirations and identity of the individual. They will be empowered to fulfil their true potential on all fronts.  The overly simplistic view of equality that would apply uniform standards, and consequent dull conformity, has long been an unnecessary, and socially debilitating, constraint. Individual fulfilment, up to the potential we each possess, should now become a reality. Conversely individual freedom can be encouraged, within generally accepted limits, without undue resource penalties and without disadvantaging the weaker members of society. The fruitful anarchy of the Internet is clearly a model for our new freedom.

In this new environment, your life - in its totality - becomes your own responsibility. On the other hand, it is worth remembering that for every right there is a corresponding responsibility - something that the Thatcher generation tried hard to forget. Even so, your prime new responsibility will, above all, be to fulfil that life. 'Fulfilment' is probably the new touchstone of individual empowerment. There are, undoubtedly, some people who will not welcome such responsibility. But they can always join the army or a monastic order - where total obedience is the only demand made upon them. In the new society, however, most of us will be expected to take control of our own lives and will enjoy doing that. In particular, the pattern of our lives will no longer be set by the accident of birth. Neither silver spoon or pick-axe will be given to us by the midwife. Instead, all of us should have the right to choose what we want to make of our lives.

Personal Ability…once again, there are bound to be limitations set by personal ability. Anyone who has seen my portly figure, even in the distance, will quickly realise that I will never become an Olympic athlete or a ballet dancer. Our physique and, especially, our intellect will inevitably determine the range of things we can aspire to. But no arbitrary rules of society should now do so. Our genes will tell us what we may do and, to a decreasing extent, our environment may also have some say. But let nobody, especially those in authority, impose any other restriction on your progress. Even if you don't join the personal εvolution itself, at least claim your rights. But accept the new responsibilities which come with them. Don't be like the fat-cats and demand privileges, but expect others to pay for these!

Those previously born into the upper classes have assumed, as their birthright, the inevitability of progress through university - now through postgraduate (Masters level) programmes as much as undergraduate ones - to well-paid, interesting employment. It has been a sad fact of life that even their intellectual equals in the lower classes have had to fight to achieve the same, and too many of them lost that fight. That has started to change and, over time, there will be genuinely equal access to education - and with it to the good life. But this will not happen immediately and, if we abandon the fight too early, we may never reach that golden age. So, even if you aren't moved to join the personal εvolution for yourself, join for the sake of your children and grandchildren!

VITAL QUESTIONS

• How fulfilled, with your life, do you feel? What will you need to feel completely fulfilled? How do you plan to achieve this?

• What really are the limitations imposed by your abilities? Are these genuine limitations, of have they been imposed on you by society? What are you going to do about this?

Individual Merit…as this book will suggest, you should play your own part in ensuring that the systems are changed - indeed εvolutionised - to allow you the opportunities you desire. All of us, yourself included, should be judged on individual merit alone. Even our leaders now accept that our progress through life should depend only on our inherent abilities and aspirations - which we should be allowed to fulfil - rather than on the stratum of society we are born into. More directly, as these same leaders are doing nothing about this, you should strenuously work to overcome any such artificial disabilities which have been directly imposed on you by society; to claim the place in the sun which is rightfully yours.

In fact this may not be as difficult as at first it may seem, for many of these difficulties are due to psychological barriers rather than real ones. We are too often conditioned by the establishment to 'know our place', and often nothing else stops us from achieving our ambitions. Too often it is not that we do not have the ability, or even the opportunity, to succeed, it is that the society in which we live has persuaded us that we couldn't, or shouldn't, do it. Once you start to challenge the establishment's plans for you, by starting your own personal εvolution, you alone will decide what you should do!

The pressures on you are insidious, though, coming from all directions - including unexpected ones. For the social pressures brought to bear by the old working class groups on those members who wished to escape were often far stronger than those mobilised against them by the groups they wished to enter. In this way, the establishment had surprising collaborators, who did its dirtiest work for it. Thus, you were likely to find yourself criticised simultaneously by your 'superiors' - the real establishment - for daring to enter their world and at the same time by those who had been your friends and neighbours - the establishment's unwitting lackeys - who told you that you were getting above yourself. Who needs enemies when you have such friends to hold you back? This is one time when loyalty to friends definitely does not pay dividends!

Denial of Access…fortunately, with the demise of the class system, and the disappearance of the working class in particular, denial of access - especially the raising of such psychological barriers - is one feature of society which is disappearing. Mobility, almost always upwards, is now the norm rather than the exception. Beyond the breaking down of class barriers, though, the great change - in recent decades - has been that individuals are beginning to sense what rights they have as individuals not just as members of groups. As we have seen, you too should now have a much better idea of your own abilities, and of what you might do with your life, than did any of your ancestors. That offers you a great new freedom of choice in your life. Fulfilling that deliberate choice should now be the prime objective of all of us. The real key to the personal εvolution is not storming the barricades, it is fulfilling your potential in a way that the establishment would never have expected; or allowed. The new barricades are in your head; and the siege engines are now to be found on the web!

3. FULFILLMENT

Although fulfilment may be easy to accept as a target - and indeed is an essential starting point - achieving that fulfilment may still be much more difficult. I have already indicated some of the barriers which still lie in your way, put there by the establishment, and we will look at these later in the book. The major stumbling block at the beginning, for most people anyway, is to decide exactly what is meant for them by 'fulfilment'. Through much of the 1980s, the message stridently put out by government and accepted by many people was that they should want to be entrepreneurs - or, seemingly more likely, lottery winners - with the serious intent of becoming millionaires. Of course, this was never likely to happen, and accordingly it is no wonder that so many people were disappointed! But, even if you did not reach the holy grail of a million or more bucks in your bank account, fulfilment was still supposed to be all about wealth. This had the virtue, at least, of being a simple message; which we all understood. But, it had the shortcoming that only a minority of the population could ever be expected to achieve it - becoming seriously wealthy - whilst the great majority were left just wanting more! The hidden agenda was, for course, that in the process you generated even greater wealth for the establishment. That was exactly as its members intended you to do and is why we were exhorted to play the game by their rules.

If we put aside the debased wishes of the establishment, however, real fulfilment is much more difficult to target. We regularly see people who seem to be successful, such as these new millionaires or Nobel Prize winners or even Prime Ministers, and we are led to believe that they - at least - are in some sense fulfilled. Maybe some of them are, though to achieve such prominence one typically has to sacrifice a great deal in other directions. Indeed, the result may be an unhappily unbalanced life overall, which is less fulfilling than that of most ordinary people. Despite all the hype put out by the establishment, the grass is not always that green on the other side. So what should 'ordinary' people, and I am not using 'ordinary' in any pejorative sense, what should ordinary people, like you and I, expect of our lives. What fulfilment should we realistically seek for our own good?

VITAL QUESTIONS

• What does 'fulfilment' mean to you? Does it simply mean more money? Does it revolve around achieving your true potential in your life?

• Do you know what options are open to you?

Options…what fulfilment means for you is an individual decision. It is so for each of us. That is the essence of personal εvolution. It's undoubtedly a difficult decision, not least because most of us simply don't know what are all the options open to us - our 'betters' have often kept us in our place by not telling us about these! It is especially the case that we do not know what the options are when we are young, and they are all still open to us. By the time we learn about them, too many have closed. Young men, in particular, escape from school as soon as they can; tempted to focus on short-term sexual gratification and other pleasures - and who can blame them. But, in so doing, they often unknowingly throw away much of the rest of their life. As we will see later, the objectives people aspire to can change considerably as they go through their various lifestages. Where society refuses to recognise this progress, it locks you into those early decisions and inappropriate choices, early mistakes, can bar you from later fulfilment. The good news is, though, that these are decisions we can now make for ourselves. Indeed, these decisions represent the first step in making your own personal εvolution.

Conspicuous Consumption…there will be many people who will continue to adopt the false 'Thatcherite' values of acquisition, of physical possessions, This is typically evidenced - especially for the benefit of their neighbours - by conspicuous consumption. These particular individuals will be happy with such shallow ambitions, and one has - in some sense - to envy them their simple philosophy. They may be terribly misled, but they are happy in their ignorance. Fortunately, for the good of society as a whole, these are now in a minority. Most of us, indeed a steadily increasing number of us, want rather more - indeed much more - out of our lives. We want peace of mind, satisfaction from the job we are doing, and some sense of achievement in what we think we are doing for society.

These are very much an inner-directed set of objectives, as opposed to the 'outer-directed' ones of the 1980s. The whole point is that such inner-directed fulfilment is very much the result of an individual compact with yourself. Politicians may have extolled the capitalist virtues of the market, but only you can tell yourself what inner values you want to espouse - to fulfil your hopes, or even - to some extent - your dreams. Not many of us are going to become Olympic athletes, or top fashion models, but there are many other dreams we can aspire to. Dreaming those dreams, and then fulfilling them, is what personal εvolution is all about.

The Challenge

There is no hiding the problems you will still face; for this is a difficult set of decisions, at any time in your life. To choose what it is you want to fulfil may be an exciting challenge - but it will force you to dig deep into your inner resources. On the other hand, society also has a responsibility, in the form of suitable education, to help you make those choices. It has to tell you what the options are, which of them are open to you and how you can succeed in them. In this way, it should help you to see what your true potential might be. The fact that, as yet, society rarely takes this responsibility seriously is no reason to let it off the hook - it is your right to demand. So the second step in your personal εvolution probably will be to demand this assistance from society. Again, I say, it is your right. Without such assistance you may not be able to fulfil your potential - and that would be a loss to society as well as yourself. For all our sakes, demand that right.

Maybe you will be happy with an office job. Many of us are, just as long as the work is inherently interesting and there is no reason why it shouldn't be made so. Maybe fulfilment will in, any case, not come from your job, but will come from your hobby. You may dream of producing wonderful vegetables on your allotment, say, and it is this which gives you the greatest pleasure. The choice is yours and we should not be patronising about it; not least since those making such simple choices will probably be happier than those of us entering into more complex compacts with ourselves. Simple unadulterated happiness perhaps offers the greatest fulfilment of all. Many a government minister would, in his dreams, like to give away the stresses of his public life for such simple, private pleasures.

You may choose to be a writer, which is the road I have chosen to follow, and will happily accept the relative poverty this implies. I, for one, don't do it for the money - though I am ever hopeful - but I do it because it releases something inside of me. It is an obsession which I cannot avoid, an infection which constantly itches but which is wonderful to scratch!

Vocations…I guess that, above all, the definition of fulfilment should be seen most clearly in those professions which are referred to as vocations. Those aspiring to these professions are supposed to choose them not because of the money but because of other forms of inner-directed satisfaction. How fortunate, therefore, the chosen few - such as medical consultants and commercial lawyers, who also belong to the establishment - are able to ensure that the money comes rolling in as well! But, of course, the establishment carefully sees to it that these professional vocations have closed memberships. No matter how able you are you will not be able to join these clubs until you are invited in. That is the essence of how the establishment works - rewarding not ability but service to it - and it is one of the 'barricades' we must destroy in the revolution!

It's a shame that others, often in the same field - nurses, say - do not gain the same double benefit. Thus, there are some vocations which do not rip off society in quite the same way, but almost donate their talents for the greater good. Accordingly, these are allowed - by the establishment - to welcome anyone into their ranks. Teachers, for another instance, have to be highly motivated. Their salaries are low and the stresses are high. Even so, the personal rewards, of seeing pupils grow in stature, are wonderful. When I am not I am an author I am a teacher - and you can maybe see why.

Unfortunately, there is little talk about the vocation of the office-worker. But that is a mistake, because almost all jobs can be made much more rewarding. After all, the fat-cats place great store on enjoying their own office-work and then demand obscene salaries for doing what they enjoy! So why shouldn't we little people also get some fun out of our working lives? There is no reason that we shouldn't have fulfilling elements built into our jobs. As the skills shortages of the next century begin to bite, the more astute employers will do just that - or they will be left with no employees! There is nothing that says you shouldn't enjoy your work - and indeed that it shouldn't be a pleasure, indeed even entertaining.

VITAL QUESTIONS

• What might be your vocation? What do you enjoy doing most? What do you find fulfilling? 

• Where can you make the greatest contribution to society?

Whatever the exact routes you, and others, will choose, it seems likely that the great popular cry of the 21^st. century will be for fulfilment. Mentally storming the barricades erected by the establishment our personal revolutionary cries will be just that - personal empowerment, personal fulfilment! Like many such battle cries they will be aimed at the emotions rather than the intellect, but they will still contain a great deal of the truth of what should be provided for every one of us.

NEW SOCIETY

So far I have talked about individuals; people like us. Now I am going to briefly look at the other side of the coin, the society in which we live. This can be viewed as the aggregation of all of us individuals, or at least that is what it ought to be. In reality it is something rather different. Traditionally it has been, often quite literally, the fiefdom of just a few people at the top of that society. Often it has been - as in this book - popularly described as the establishment, the term I have used so extensively. Its members, the denizens of the fabled 'smoke-filled' rooms,  have shaped society to meet their own ends. We individuals have been forced to fit that alien shape, which is why I have so often used the term in a derogative sense, and identified them as our common 'enemy'!

What I have said in the previous chapter indicates, I hope, that this process - of society dominated by a few - soon will break down. Then, at long last, society will genuinely be run by all of the people for all of the people. Our personal εvolution will, and must, succeed in the longer term. Unfortunately, though that is a worthwhile objective, it is not one which will come about easily. As we all know, Karl Marx, in the nineteenth century, looked forward to the revolution of the proletariat, and something approaching that did happen in the storming of the Winter Palace at Saint Petersburg in the early part of the twentieth century. But, even in Russia, Stalin later subverted that popular communist revolution. He and his acolytes managed to impose a regime which still favoured the few. Those few claimed to be working for the benefit of the many, as do most politicians, but clearly they were not. So much for the popular revolutionaries in history.

Visions Betrayed…indeed, in almost every century and across every continent, the visions of the revolutionary leaders have been betrayed by followers who sold out to the establishment. This is just as true of religious leaders. Jesus gave his life for a set of principles which would be radical even now. But even these were usurped; first by the arch-bureaucrat Paul, to fit his own particular vision of power on Earth, and then - much later - by the Roman Constantine, as a device to legitimise his own imperial rule. Thus, the real predecessor of the modern Pope was not Jesus, or even Peter, but the Roman establishment. The Church the Pope even now leads is riddled with the stuff of military empires long since passed. It is his establishment that needs him to be seen as infallible, not us. Even the rewards of the English Civil War, enshrined in the commonwealth which followed it, were soon handed back to the monarchy. Around the world revolutionary principles have regularly been bought out by the power brokers.

As a footnote, however, it has to be added that - at last - most modern revolutionaries do seem to recognise their role as leaders of the people. This means that they tend to form governments which describe themselves as social democratic - aren't we all - rather than communist! But, maybe, that is just because their own revolutions haven't yet had time to be corrupted. Time will tell. Of the two revolutionary governments I have advised, one has already almost destroyed its population in pursuit of the ideological goals - still Marxist - it embraces. The other, fortunately, is still just about on course to bring its population to a better - now social-democrat - future; but even there the arguments between the different factions within it have already started!

All of this is not to say that society governed by such elites has not progressed, and in particular has not developed many new benefits for most of its members; even while it was really being run to meet the needs of the elites. To retain their positions of power, the few have learned to accommodate the many. Often, with the real incentive of retaining power, they have made a good job of it - especially in recent years when the views of the many have become more forceful. Indeed, it is arguable that the emergence of socialism, and more particularly of social-democracy, saved the elites from the fates which Marx predicted. The seeming egalitarianism offered by the new centre-left deluded us into thinking that the fat-cats really do have a place in our society. But do they?

Popular Rule

The major difference which is now emerging is, as I have already said, direct empowerment of the individual; giving us the right to control our own lives. In terms of society, that means those aggregated rights - rather than the elite's wants - will now shape the future. No longer will society be shaped exclusively by a few individuals; no matter how seemingly altruistic their motives - or how good their PR departments! Though some of them may still be influential, now because of the power of their ideas rather than that conferred by status, we all now have the right - and the duty - to shape the shared future of our society.

Popular Holocausts…this sounds like a very positive answer to the question of 'rule by all of the people', and it is certainly a very good starting point. But it still has its drawbacks. Much as the Nazis gained power in Germany, during the twentieth century, it is still quite possible to appeal to the basest of motives of the largest section of the population - and to gain power by this means. This power was then used by its establishment - the Nazi party - to achieve ends we all now agree were despicable. Yet it was the democratic voice of the German people which ultimately supported those terrible acts. Hitler could never have enacted the Holocaust by himself. There is always a danger that similar 'popular' movements may be used for perverted aims in future, as most recently Pol Pot in Cambodia and the Hutus in Ruanda have tapped similar veins of manic destruction. Even the surviving victims of the Holocaust, the Jews now living in Israel, have used similar approaches to justify their own oppression of their Arab neighbours. If the victims of genocide can so easily practice it, when it suits them, what hope is there for the rest of us?

Having issued that caveat, we do seem to be getting progressively more civilised. We are becoming increasingly capable, as individuals, of assuming our responsibilities rationally. One great lesson of the fall of Communism is that people-power really works, at least in terms of rejecting totalitarian extremes. Widening access to education contributes to this. Ignorance can be a great force for evil, or a good excuse for hiding it.

Popular Education…even so, the process of education should not just be used to teach people their rights, and to indicate how they might claim these rights, but it should also inculcate some concept of shared responsibility for the future of the world. Thus, one of the dangers of recent years has been that, while people are gaining individual power as a result of their demands for their innate rights, they have not been accepting the corresponding responsibilities. The greatest danger is not widespread overt adoption of the selfish 'me' values of the Thatcher generation, rather it is the covert opting out of social, and in particular political, processes by the majority of the population. This may have started because of the distaste with the political corruption which we witnessed during the 1980s, but it has grown to become a flight from involvement in government across the board. This is, perhaps, the true legacy of Ronald Reagan and especially of Margaret Thatcher. After all, despite her later denials, she really did say 'there is no such thing as society', and perhaps she turned that dubious prevarication into a truth. It is indeed paradoxical that, in spite of the extreme views which are now so clearly emerging from her senile ramblings, she is still so highly regarded by some parts of the population. As the 'Sun-Queen' she championed the base values which that yellow-sheet, Rupert Murchoch's most offensive newspaper in the United Kingdom, trumpeted. These values were not just populist, in the worst sense, but they corrupted much of the growth in human spirit which had followed the sacrifices of the Second World War. She gratuitously replaced respect for society with the power of money. Save that she avoided the ultimate disgrace, her real moral predecessor surely was Richard Nixon - whose record on a wide range of subjects was such an affront to the American people.

Even so, regardless of who is to blame, this is not just a mistake it is an abdication of duty. If we don't gain firm control of our society, others will; and we will have nobody to blame but ourselves.

VITAL QUESTIONS

• Do you actively participate in the workings of society as a whole? Do you do so, even in a limited form, as much as you did a decade or so - or in the 1960s?

• Do you fully accept your responsibilities within that society? Do your friends and co-workers take their full share of responsibility for society?

• Or do you feel that the individual no longer has to accept such responsibilities; and indeed can now make use of society for their own advantage? Do you think too many people now rip off society?

Society is Changing

Fortunately, the establishment - the powers that be - are increasingly having to recognise the popular forces for change. It is interesting that the two key political leaders of recent years, first Bill Clinton and now Tony Blair, both place great stress on the wishes of their electorates - even before those of their political parties, the reverse of the previous tradition and regrettably of that since adopted by George Bush Jr.

Their use of focus groups as a method of exploring the wants and needs of the population has been portrayed by more traditional politicians as wilful popularism. But, what exactly is wrong with a government taking into account popular views and ruling on behalf of the people? I know I am much happier when my leaders listen to me rather than to the fawning sycophants in their establishments or, as with George Bush Jr., the pressure groups within the establishment which so expensively funded his route to power. Indeed, it is also interesting that both Clinton and Blair had to move ahead of their parties to achieve what gains they actually made with the electorates. Their limitations, their failures, were generally brought upon them by the conservative views of the more traditional politicians who, for instance, make up the majority of the Congress in the US. The blind hate of republican congressmen, and the comparatively insipid support of their democratic counterparts, which emerged in the impeachment process indicated just how dangerous was the threat the President presented to their comfortable ways. The outcome of the subsequent election confirmed just how dangerous the backlash could be in the US. One is left to wonder what might have been the position if Bush's wholehearted embrace of state terrorism, not least in Israel, had not inspired the global terrorism which has come to plague his own country - and the rest of us! Even in the UK, despite the evaporation of the power held by the Conservative Party, 'conservatives' still represent an important element in Tony Blair's tamed Labour Party.

Bloodless Εvolutions…so society is changing. But it is not yet changing in quite as revolutionary a way as might be expected, given the number of revolutions - from the 'communications revolution' to the 'end of ideology' - now afflicting its activities. Certainly it is not experiencing the bloody revolutions which Karl Marx might have predicted. Indeed, all of these revolutions are progressing in a very civilised way. There is no blood on the streets.

Modern εvolution - it turns out - has become very discrete affair. If it wasn't for a certain sense of uncertainty over where we are going, we might not even notice it!

The good news is that, despite their opposition to progress, almost all the politicians involved eventually concede their position. They accept the fates that await them, and they do so much more readily than in past times. Who, only twenty of thirty years ago, would have thought that the South African white population would have handed over power to the black majority in such a peaceful way. And who would have expected the majority to be so restrained in their use of that power to punish their long-time oppressors. The same has happened to dictatorships and totalitarian regimes all round the world - not least in the ex-Soviet power bloc. Everywhere, the establishment has been so weakened that it seems as if we only need to say 'boo' for it to collapse. Indeed, the evidence is that, if enough of us do say 'boo', it will capitulate to all our demands!

εvolutions Yet to Come

But there are still many εvolutions waiting their turn in the queue. Indeed, there are εvolutionary forces at work all around us. There is no longer one revolution coming along at the same time but a number, resulting in an interplay of forces which adds to the uncertainties. It is as well to remember that the Industrial Revolution, which predated the bloody political revolution in France, had just one focus - the new steam-based technology and the accompanying urbanisation. Now we are experiencing at least half a dozen revolutions of similar magnitude in progress at the same time. It is no wonder that we are disoriented. It is a wonder, however, that we have grown so civilised that - despite all the provocations - there is remarkably little blood on the streets.

Not least, we are surrounded by the effects of the e-Revolution which are totally changing the way we live, the way we work; even the way we build relationships and maintain our friendships. We also have the social revolution which is, I suppose, epitomised by what I have been talking about in terms of personal fulfilment. The rigid structures the establishment has traditionally forced on us are rapidly breaking down, and we are increasingly able to take our own decisions about our futures. Less momentously, perhaps, we are also deciding what lifestyles we will follow. Even the traditional readers of the mass media are demanding something more challenging. There is hope yet for popular culture!

Then there are all the changes taking place in the workplace. As we will see later, we are moving from the inhuman demands imposed by the assembly line, where the essence was obedience to the rules that were necessary for efficient production, to the very fluid situation where multi-skilled information workers have to take their own decisions; as to what solution offers the best answer. In particular, they have to communicate with others to do this. This demands a very different - network - approach by management and staff alike.

I could list half a dozen other revolutions which are impacting our daily lives, but I hope by now you have got the message. In whatever direction you look, this is a time of incredibly rapid change. Many revolutions are taking place at the same time. Over a period of a few decades our world has already changed out of all recognition. Over the next few decades it will change at least as much - and probably far more. The important difference is that we will much better understand what is happening to us; and will actively manage these revolutions rather than be driven by them.

VITAL QUESTIONS

• What revolutionary changes do you think will change the nature of your work - and of your home-life?

The World Twenty Years Ago

Indeed, to help you appreciate the very real pace of change, just think back a couple of decades or so - less than a generation ago. The Thatcher government had only just come to power, and hadn't started to take on the unions - who then represented many hundreds of thousands of unskilled workers in the mines and on the shop-floors of vast numbers of workshops. Most of us were still blue collar workers dreaming of clean jobs in an office. IBM hadn't even launched its PC, so you literally needed to be a millionaire to afford a computer. The container revolution hadn't yet arrived, and this meant that the best your corner grocer could offer in winter was tinned peaches - and even that was a luxury. As you now walk around your out-of-town superstore, flexibly taking time off work - from the desk-bound chores of talking to customers through the Internet - you are forced to decide whether to buy fresh grapes from Chile or strawberries from California. While you are doing this, consider what changes have happened to you in just those two decades, and wonder what will come in the next two - for the pace of change is not slackening!

VITAL QUESTIONS

• Just how has your life changed over the past 20 years? What changes in society had the greatest impact on your life? What changes in technology have changed the way you live?

• Using these changes as a baseline, what comparable changes do you think may impact your life over the next twenty years?

In essence, over the period of just a few decades, life has changed almost out of recognition; and it will continue to change as rapidly for the foreseeable future. But, taking revolution in the narrower sense that Karl Marx meant it and as the rioters storming the Bastille had earlier demonstrated, it is our new responsibility that all these changes take place without the expected bloodshed! We must now peacefully shape the better world, the better society, in which to live - though, as we succeed in this objective, that will still be nothing short of revolutionary. But we do not any longer have to physically storm the barricades to achieve our εvolutionary ends, to persuade the establishment to accede to our demands. Instead, we only need to commit to our own personal εvolution. I have already said this so many times that you are probably becoming bored with it - but do not let this blind you to its importance.

On the other hand, this means we will have to use the other devices which are now available to us even more effectively, not least our new political powers enfranchised through the e-Revolution, to destroy those establishment bodies which are standing in our way. Above all, we must not forget that we are still revolutionaries - in spirit if not in bloody deed. We will, no doubt, be rather comfortable revolutionaries. We certainly will not have to spend decades sleeping in ditches with only our Kalashnikov for company, as some of my Ethiopian friends had to do in their own decades-long revolutionary war. In the developed West there is no longer the raw hunger and poverty which used to underpin the fight against injustice; and which justified the bloody battles of previous times.

As I said earlier, we now live very comfortable lives and few of us are willing to sacrifice any of those comforts even for the greater good, almost no matter how important the principles at stake. Fortunately, we no longer have to sacrifice our lives, or even those comforts, since all we have to do is to make personal use of the powers we rightfully hold as individuals, We need only bring those together - collectively - to bear on the establishment which opposes us. In this painless way we can, collectively saying 'boo', achieve the ends we desire.

Destruction of the Structures of Power

Not least of our εvolutionary aims should be that of destroying the traditional power structures, which are still largely based on inheritance in one form or another. It is ludicrous, for instance, that until recently in the United Kingdom we were still subjects of her majesty rather than free citizens - though the very recent acceptance of the European Charter of Human Rights has finally put a crimp in her presumed power over us. People do not yet realise just how 'revolutionary' is the impact of the European Union on lives. It, perhaps more than any other political body, really will revolutionise the outdated regulatory frameworks which still rule lives across that continent.

However, in the UK we are still not, even in this new European context, individuals with the full right to fulfil our potential but - in theory at least - should still await her majesty's pleasure to dispose of as she, and her establishment, think fit. And the members of that establishment do in practice regularly take advantage of the power which trickles down to them. In the US the equivalent power, even in theory, no longer belongs to any individual. Even the president is held in check by the formal separation of powers. But, even so, the rich there still seem to keep on getting richer and the poor poorer. In almost all other cultures, as well, the fat-cats get fatter by deploying this inherited power base to their lucrative advantage. Despite their claims that they are rewarded because of their unique contributions to the wealth of the country, most actually take away - indeed steal - their ill-gotten gains solely because of their position in the power structure. Their 'rewards' are the result of exploitation, ultimately exploitation of you and me! That is one revolutionary challenge we still have to face up to as a society. It will require, at least, storming the barricades of formal privilege. Perhaps we will have to get so angry at the corrupt values the establishment accepts - and the corrupt practices it indulges in - that we have no alternative but to demand an end to its power. I hesitate to say so, but we will probably need more anger, much more anger, if we are to succeed in our mission!

VITAL QUESTIONS

• How angry are you that the fat cats, supported by their friends in the establishment, are allowed to corrupt society for their own advantage?

This is, in part at least, a question to which you should give an answer. But it is also a rhetorical one; where you need to develop some anger, about the subversion of your own rights, in order to do something about this!

This is not to adopt the pure communist view, and say that nobody should be allowed to earn the rewards that their special talents deserve. Their contributions to society, as international recognised performers or Nobel-prize-winning scientists or whatever, may earn our gratitude and with it great financial rewards as well.

It is interesting, though, to note that most of the people we would wish to reward in this way readily admit that they are motivated by vocations which are unrelated to financial incentives. The intellectual itch I described earlier has been responsible for far more breakthroughs than any number of financial incentives. So, even here, there is no good reason for any great disparity between their income and those of the ordinary citizen - and most of the recipients in fact would probably not wish it to be so. The real problem is with those whose only talent in life is to have our money stick to their fingers and - in every other way - would earn our opprobrium! Get angry! There is no reason we have to tolerate these parasites.

Fear of Change

I will now return to something I discussed at the beginning of this section, and that is the fear of change. It is inevitable that, with so many changes happening so rapidly, some individuals will be uncomfortable and rather more will be anxious. For example, the changes which are part of the e-Revolution will have exposed some people to real pains. They might have been made redundant as a result, perhaps for a long time. These changes are often described as 'structural' changes, paradoxically implying that they will be permanent - locked into the new structures. In fact, they are typically imposed by the short-term changes taking place as the old structures are replaced by the new ones. As such they will usually last a relatively short time, until the new structures become established - though 'short' in this context may be a decade or more, which may seem like eternity to those worst affected. The old jobs are destroyed much more easily than the new jobs are created, but you can be sure that these new jobs will eventually be created.

We describe such pains as 'revolutionary pains' since they are the direct result of the revolutions taking place around us. This does not diminish the pain for those affected, but it offers some hope - for the pains will subside in time, when the revolutions are complete. In the meantime we should be able to treat the worst symptoms. This is not a new prediction. Alvin Toffler first made it more thirty years ago, when he talked about 'Future Shock'. He said that, with so many changes about to take place, we would experience such 'pain'.

Yet how many politicians or commentators listened then, and how many listen now when the signs are clear for us to see all around! The worst offenders are those in the establishment. This is partly because they have a significant vested interest in the status quo and inevitably feel threatened by any change. But it is also because, like many bullies, they are cowards at heart - and fear the unknown with a desperation which the rest of us cannot imagine.

Symptoms…Toffler, however, was right, and the pains are occurring just as he predicted. The importance, which he did not make so clear, is that they are the inevitable symptoms of change, not a fatal illness in their own right. This is the reason we prefer the title 'revolutionary pains', since that term puts them much more clearly into the correct context. Within the next decade or so, despite the many fears of the establishment, we will have learned how to manage these rεvolutions and the pains will abate. We will then look back and wonder what all the fuss was about, as we now do even about the much more traumatic events which accompanied the first industrial revolution. Indeed, it is likely that within the next five years we will start to gain the many benefits which these rεvolutions promise.

The problem remains, however, that in the short term it is all too easy to feel the pain of the symptoms and not see the benefits to come - especially when members of the establishment run around like headless chickens. Indeed, it is all too easy to think that the temporary symptoms indicate that society as a whole is breaking down around us. That is certainly the way that many media commentators, and the less prescient politicians, see it. For just one example, they continuously bemoan the breakdown of the family, not noticing that new forms of family are emerging. To make matters worse, they demonise these new forms - which makes the pain even worse! Communities are similarly supposed to be under threat, and with them the whole of society; but again what the politicians fail to see are the new forms. Again they demonise many of the new developments. What they need to focus on are the welcome shifts which are taking place, as society adopts new models of behaviour - with new values - to replace those which can no longer cope with the pace of change. We, the mass of the people, are far ahead of our supposed leaders in finding the solutions to the changes. Much of the pain, therefore, comes from the fact that society, or at least its leaders, has not yet accepted what the future holds in store - even if most of us mere mortals already have done so!  Indeed, the pain is magnified by these very leaders trying to apply remedies which worked in earlier times, but which are now dangerously outdated. The corset of tradition is not just painful but also holds us back from gaining the real benefits emerging from the εvolutions. The changes are irreversible, nostalgia is not what it used to be!

Hiccups Not Death Throes…so, in the absence of leadership from the establishment, and often in the face of its craven cowardice, what we - the people - have to recognise is where we are really going; and to understand the way society is changing in practice. In this way, we at least can work to discount the symptoms which are causing the worst pain. Our society does not have a fatal disease, it merely has hiccups. The analogy is not that of a dying dinosaur, where the symptoms represent the death throes of a doomed society, instead what we are seeing is the struggles as the butterfly emerges from the chrysalis - to dazzle us with its new-found beauty. The butterfly of our personal εvolution may be very different to the caterpillar which folk are used to, and that may confuse the short-sighted members of our establishment, but it is much better suited to our new life.

The last two chapters have introduced you to some of the key trends which will shape the map of your future, understanding of  which represents the first step on the progression to your personal εvolution. There will be much more of this in later chapters, to help you build that map. But the next few chapters will also start you on your journey towards the third step, that of actually achieving empowerment.

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