whole world. You got a problem with that?
A bad meme—a contagious idea—began spreading through the United States in the
1980s: America is in decline, the world is going to hell, and our children's
lives will be worse than our own. The particulars are now familiar: Good jobs
are disappearing, working people are falling into poverty, the underclass is
swelling, crime is out of control. The post-Cold War world is fragmenting, and
conflicts are erupting all over the planet. The environment is imploding—with
global warming and ozone depletion, we'll all either die of cancer or live in
Waterworld. As for our kids, the collapsing educational system is producing
By the late 1990s, another meme began to gain ground. Borne of the surging
stock market and an economy that won't die down, this one is more positive:
America is finally getting its economic act together, the world is not such a
dangerous place after all, and our kids just might lead tolerable lives. Yet
the good times will come only to a privileged few, no more than a fortunate
fifth of our society. The vast majority in the United States and the world face
a dire future of increasingly desperate poverty. And the environment? It's a
lost cause.
But there's a new, very different meme, a radically optimistic meme: We are
watching the beginnings of a global economic boom on a scale never experienced
before. We have entered a period of sustained growth that could eventually
double the world's economy every dozen years and bring increasing prosperity
for—quite literally—billions of people on the planet. We are riding the early
waves of a 25-year run of a greatly expanding economy that will do much to
solve seemingly intractable problems like poverty and to ease tensions
throughout the world. And we'll do it without blowing the lid off the
environment.
If this holds true, historians will look back on our era as an extraordinary
moment. They will chronicle the 40-year period from 1980 to 2020 as the key
years of a remarkable transformation. In the developed countries of the West,
new technology will lead to big productivity increases that will cause high
economic growth—actually, waves of technology will continue to roll out through
the early part of the 21st century. And then the relentless process of
globalization, the opening up of national economies and the integration of
markets, will drive the growth through much of the rest of the world. An
unprecedented alignment of an ascendent Asia, a revitalized America, and a
reintegrated greater Europe—including a recovered Russia—together will create
an economic juggernaut that pulls along most other regions of the planet. These
two metatrends—fundamental technological change and a new ethos of
openness—will transform our world into the beginnings of a global civilization,
a new civilization of civilizations, that will blossom through the coming
century.
Think back to the era following World War II, the 40-year span from 1940 to
1980 that immediately precedes our own. First, the US economy was flooded with
an array of new technologies that had been stopped up by the war effort:
mainframe computers, atomic energy, rockets, commercial aircraft, automobiles,
and television. Second, a new integrated market was devised for half the
world—the so-called free world—in part through the creation of institutions
like the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. With the technology
and the enhanced system of international trade in place by the end of the
1940s, the US economy roared through the 1950s, and the world economy joined in
through the 1960s, only to flame out in the 1970s with high inflation—partly a
sign of growth that came too fast. From 1950 to 1973, the world economy grew at
an average 4.9 percent—a rate not matched since, well, right about now. On the
backs of that roaring economy and increasing prosperity came social, cultural,
and political repercussions. It's no coincidence that the 1960s were called
revolutionary. With spreading affluence came great pressure from
disenfranchised races and other interest groups for social reform, even overt
political revolution.
Strikingly similar—if not still more powerful—forces are in motion today. The
end of the military state of readiness in the 1980s, as in the 1940s, unleashed
an array of new technologies, not the least of which is the Internet. The end
of the Cold War also saw the triumph of a set of ideas long championed by the
United States: those of the free-market economy and, to some extent, liberal
democracy. This cleared the way for the creation of a truly global economy, one
integrated market. Not half the world, the free world. Not one large colonial
empire. Everybody on the planet in the same economy. This is historically
unprecedented, with unprecedented consequences to follow. In the 1990s, the
United States is experiencing a booming economy much like it did in the 1950s.
But look ahead to the next decade, our parallel to the 1960s. We may be
entering a relentless economic expansion, a truly global economic boom, the
long boom.
•
Sitting here in the late 1990s, it's possible to see how all the pieces could
fall into place. It's possible to construct a scenario that could bring us to a
truly better world by 2020. It's not a prediction, but a scenario, one that's
both positive and plausible. Why plausible? The basic science is now in place
for five great waves of technology—personal computers, telecommunications,
biotechnology, nanotechnology, and alternative energy—that could rapidly grow
the economy without destroying the environment. This scenario doesn't rely on a
scientific breakthrough, such as cold fusion, to feed our energy needs. Also,
enough unassailable trends—call them predetermined factors—are in motion to
plausibly predict their outcome. The rise of Asia, for example, simply can't be
stopped. This is not to say that there aren't some huge unknowns, the critical
uncertainties, such as how the United States handles its key role as world
leader.
Why a positive scenario? During the global standoff of the Cold War, people
clung to the original ideological visions of a pure form of communism or
capitalism. A positive scenario too often amounted to little more than
surviving nuclear war. Today, without the old visions, it's easy enough to see
how the world might unravel into chaos. It's much more difficult to see how it
could all weave together into something better. But without an expansive vision
of the future, people tend to get short-sighted and mean-spirited, looking out
only for themselves. A positive scenario can inspire us through what will
inevitably be traumatic times ahead.
So suspend your disbelief. Open up to the possibilities. Try to think like one
of those future historians, marveling at the changes that took place in the
40-year period that straddled the new millennium. Sit back and read through the
future history of the world.
The Boom's Big Bang
From a historical vantage point, two developments start around 1980 that will
have profound consequences for the US economy, the Western economy, then the
global economy at large. One is the introduction of personal computers. The
other is the breakup of the Bell System. These events trigger two of the five
great waves of technological change that will eventually help fuel the long
boom.
The full impact can be seen in the sweep of decades. In the first 10 years,
personal computers are steadily adopted by businesses. By 1990, they begin to
enter the home, and the microprocessor is being embedded in many other tools
and products, such as cars. By the turn of the century, with the power of
computer chips still roughly doubling every 18 months, everything comes with a
small, cheap silicon brain. Tasks like handwriting recognition become a breeze.
Around 2010, Intel builds a chip with a billion transistors—100 times the
complexity of the most advanced integrated circuits being designed in the late
1990s. By 2015, reliable simultaneous language translation has been
cracked—with immediate consequences for the multilingual world.
The trajectory for the telecommunications wave follows much the same arc. The
breakup of Ma Bell, initiated in 1982, triggers a frenzy of entrepreneurial
activity as nascent companies like MCI and Sprint race to build fiber-optic
networks across the country. By the early 1990s, these companies shift from
moving voice to moving data as a new phenomenon seems to come out of nowhere:
the Internet. Computers and communications become inextricably linked, each
feeding the phenomenal growth of the other. By the late 1990s, telecom goes
wireless. Mobile phone systems and all-purpose personal communications services
arrive first with vast antennae networks on the ground. Soon after, the big
satellite projects come online. By 1998, the Iridium global phone network is
complete. By 2002, Teledesic's global Internet network is operational. These
projects, among others, allow seamless connection to the information
infrastructure anywhere on the planet by early in the century. By about 2005,
high-bandwidth connections that can easily move video have become common in
developed countries, and videophones finally catch on.
•
The symbiotic relationship between these technology sectors leads to a major
economic discontinuity right around 1995, generally attributed to the explosive
growth of the Internet. It's the long boom's Big Bang—immediately fueling
economic growth in the traditional sense of direct job creation but also
stimulating growth in less direct ways. On the most obvious level, hardware and
infrastructure companies experience exponential growth, as building the new
information network becomes one of the great global business opportunities
around the turn of the century.
A new media industry also explodes onto the scene to take advantage of the
network's unique capabilities, such as interactivity and individual
customization. Start-ups plunge into the field, and traditional media companies
lumber in this direction. By the late 1990s, the titans of the media industry
are in a high-stakes struggle over control of the evolving medium. Relative
newcomers like Disney and Microsoft ace out the old-guard television networks
in a monumental struggle over digital TV. After a few fits and starts, the Net
becomes the main medium of the 21st century.
The development of online commerce quickly follows on new media's heels. First
come the entrepreneurs who figure out how to encrypt messages, conduct safe
financial transactions in cyberspace, and advertise one to one. Electronic
cash, a key milestone, gains acceptance around 1998. Then come businesses
selling everyday consumer goods. First it's high tech products such as
software, then true information products like securities. Soon everything
begins to be sold in cyberspace. By 2000, online sales hit US$10 billion, still
small by overall retail standards. Around 2005, 20 percent of Americans
teleshop for groceries.
Alongside the migration of the traditional retail world into cyberspace,
completely new types of work are created. Many had speculated that computer
networks would lead to disintermediation—the growing irrelevance of the
middleman in commerce. Certainly the old-style go-betweens are sideswiped, but
new types of intermediaries arise to connect buyers to sellers. And with the
friction taken out of the distribution system, the savings can be channeled
into new ventures, which create new work.
The Birth of the Networked Economy
New technologies have an impact much bigger than what literally takes place
online. On a more fundamental level, the networked economy is born. Starting
with the recession of 1990-91, American businesses begin going through a
wrenching process of reengineering, variously described at the time as
downsizing, outsourcing, and creating the virtual corporation. In fact, they
are actually taking advantage of new information technologies to create the
smaller, more versatile economic units of the coming era.
Businesses, as well as most organizations outside the business world, begin to
shift from hierarchical processes to networked ones. People working in all
kinds of fields—the professions, education, government, the arts—begin pushing
the applications of networked computers. Nearly every facet of human activity
is transformed in some way by the emergent fabric of interconnection. This
reorganization leads to dramatic improvements in efficiency and productivity.
Productivity, as it happens, becomes one of the great quandaries stumping
economists throughout the 1990s. Despite billions invested in new technologies,
traditional government economic statistics reflect little impact on
productivity or growth. This is not an academic point—it drives to the heart of
the new economy. Businesses invest in new technology to boost the productivity
of their workers. That increased productivity is what adds value to the
economy—it is the key to sustained economic growth.
•
Research by a few economists, like Stanford University's Paul Romer, suggests
that fundamentally new technologies generally don't become productive until a
generation after their introduction, the time it takes for people to really
learn how to use them in new ways. Sure enough, about a generation after the
introduction of personal computers in the workplace, work processes begin
mutating enough to take full advantage of the tool. Soon after, economists
figure out how to accurately measure the true gains in productivity—and take
into account the nebulous concept of improvement in quality rather than just
quantity.
By 2000, the US government adopts a new information-age standard of measuring
economic growth. Unsurprisingly, actual growth rates are higher than what had
registered on the industrial-age meter. The US economy is growing at sustained
rates of around 4 percent—rates not seen since the 1960s.
The turn of the century marks another major shift in government policy, as the
hidebound analysis of inflation is finally abandoned in light of the behavior
of the new economy. While the Vietnam War, oil shocks, and relatively closed
national labor markets had caused genuine inflationary pressures that wreaked
havoc on the economy through the 1970s, the tight monetary policies of the
1980s soon harness the inflation rate and lead to a solid decade with
essentially no wage or price rises. By the 1990s, globalization and
international competition add to the downward pressure. By 2000, policymakers
finally come around to the idea that you can grow the economy at much higher
rates and still avoid the spiral of inflation. The millennium also marks a
symbolic changing of the guard at the Federal Reserve Bank: Alan Greenspan
retires, the Fed lifts its foot off the brake, and the US economy really begins
to take off.
More Tech Waves
Right about the turn of the century, the third of the five waves of technology
kicks in. After a couple false starts in the 1980s and 1990s, biotechnology
begins to transform the medical field. One benchmark comes in 2001 with the
completion of the Human Genome Project, the effort to map out all human genes.
That understanding of our genetic makeup triggers a series of breakthroughs in
stopping genetic disease. Around 2012, a gene therapy for cancer is perfected.
Five years later, almost one-third of the 4,000 known genetic diseases can be
avoided through genetic manipulation.
Throughout the early part of the century, the combination of a deeper
understanding of genetics, human biology, and organic chemistry leads to a vast
array of powerful medications and therapies. The health care system, having
faced a crossroads in 1994 with President Clinton's proposed national plan,
continues restructuring along the more decentralized, privatized model of HMOs.
The industry is already booming when biotech advances begin clicking in the
first decade of the century. It receives a further stimulus when the baby
boomers begin retiring en masse in 2011. The industry becomes a big jobs
provider for years to come.
The biotech revolution profoundly affects another economic sector—agriculture.
The same deeper understanding of genetics leads to much more precise breeding
of plants. By about 2007, most US produce is being genetically engineered by
these new direct techniques. The same process takes place with livestock. In
1997, the cloning of sheep in the United Kingdom startles the world and kicks
off a flurry of activity in this field. By the turn of the century, prize
livestock is being genetically tweaked as often as traditionally bred. By about
2005, animals are used for developing organs that can be donated to humans.
Superproductive animals and ultrahardy, high-yielding plants bring another
veritable green revolution to countries sustaining large populations.
•
By the end of the transitional era, around 2020, real advances begin to be made
in the field of biological computation, where billions of relatively slow
computations, done at the level of DNA, can be run simultaneously and brought
together in the aggregate to create the ultimate in parallel processing.
So-called DNA computing looks as though it will bring about big advances in the
speed of processing sometime after 2025—certainly by the middle of the century.
Then comes the fourth technology wave—nanotechnology. Once the realm of science
fiction, this microscopic method of construction becomes a reality in 2015.
Scientists and engineers figure out reliable methods to construct objects one
atom at a time. Among the first commercially viable products are tiny sensors
that can enter a person's bloodstream and bring back information about its
composition. By 2018, these micromachines are able to do basic cell repair.
However, nanotechnology promises to have a much more profound impact on
traditional manufacturing as the century rolls on. Theoretically, most products
could be produced much more efficiently through nanotech techniques. By 2025,
the theory is still far from proven, but small desktop factories for producing
simple products arrive.
By about 2015, nanotech techniques begin to be applied to the development of
computing at the atomic level. Quantum computing, rather than DNA computing,
proves to be the heir to microprocessors in the short run. In working up to the
billion-transistor microprocessor in 2010, engineers seem to hit insurmountable
technical barriers: the scale of integrated circuits has shrunk so small that
optical-lithography techniques fail to function. Fortunately, just as the pace
of microprocessing power begins to wane, quantum computing clicks in. Frequent
increases in computing power once again promise to continue unabated for the
foreseeable future.
The Earth Saver
All four waves of technology coursing through this era—computers, telecom,
biotech, and nanotech—contribute to a surge of economic activity. In the
industrial era, a booming economy would have put a severe strain on the
environment: basically everything we made, we cooked, and such high-temperature
cooking creates a lot of waste by-products. The logic of the era also tended
toward larger and larger factories, which created pollution at even greater
scales.
Biotech, on the other hand, uses more moderate temperature realms and emulates
the processes of nature, creating much less pollution. Infotech, which moves
information electronically rather than physically, also makes much less impact
on the natural world. Moving information across the United States through the
relatively simple infotechnology of the fax, for example, proves to be seven
times more energy efficient than sending it through Federal Express.
Furthermore, these technologies are on an escalating track of constant
refinement, with each new generation becoming more and more energy efficient,
with lower and lower environmental impact. Even so, these increasing
efficiencies are not enough to counteract the juggernaut of a booming global
economy.
Fortunately, the fifth wave of new technology—alternative energy—arrives right
around the turn of the century with the introduction of the hybrid electric
car. Stage one begins in the late 1990s when automobile companies such as
Toyota roll out vehicles using small diesel- or gasoline-fueled
internal-combustion engines to power an onboard generator that then drives
small electric motors at each wheel. The car runs on electric power at low RPMs
but uses the internal-combustion engine at highway speeds, avoiding the problem
of completely battery-powered electric vehicles that run out of juice after 60
miles. The early hybrids are also much more efficient than regular gas-powered
cars, often getting 80 miles to a gallon.
•
Stage two quickly follows, this time spurred by aerospace companies such as
Allied Signal, which leverage their knowledge of jet engines to build hybrids
powered by gas turbines. By 2005, technology previously confined to aircraft's
onboard electric systems successfully migrates to automobiles. These cars use
natural gas to power the onboard generators, which then drive the electric
motors at the wheels. They also make use of superstrong, ultralight new
materials that take the place of steel and allow big savings on mileage.
Then comes the third and final stage: hybrids using hydrogen fuel cells. The
simplest and most abundant atom in the universe, hydrogen becomes the source of
power for electric generators—with the only waste product being water. No
exhaust. No carbon monoxide. Just water. The basic hydrogen-power technology
had been developed as far back as the Apollo space program, though then it was
still extremely expensive and had a nasty tendency to blow up. By the late
1990s, research labs such as British Columbia-based Ballard Power Systems are
steadily developing the technology with little public fanfare. Within 10 years,
there are transitional hydrogen car models that extract fuel from ordinary
gasoline, using the existing network of pumps. By 2010, hydrogen is being
processed in refinery-like plants and loaded onto cars that can go thousands of
miles—and many months—before refueling. The technology is vastly cheaper and
safer than in the 1960s and well on its way to widespread use.
These technological developments drive nothing less than a wholesale
transformation of the automobile industry through the first quarter of the new
century. Initially prodded by government decrees such as California's
zero-emission mandate—which called for 10 percent of new cars sold to have zero
emissions by 2003—the industrial behemoths begin to pick up speed when an
actual market for hybrid cars opens up. People buy them not because they are
the environmentally correct option but because they're sporty, fast, and fun.
And the auto companies build them because executives see green—as in money, not
trees.
This 10- to 15-year industrial retooling sends reverberations throughout the
global economy. The petrochemical giants begin switching from maintaining vast
networks that bring oil from remote Middle Eastern deserts to building
similarly vast networks that supply the new elements of electrical power.
Fossil fuels will continue to be a primary source of power into the middle of
the 21st century—but they will be clean fossil fuels. By 2020, almost all new
cars are hybrid vehicles, mostly using hydrogen power. That development alone
defuses much of the pressure on the global environment. The world may be able
to support quite a few additional automobile drivers—including nearly 2 billion
Chinese.
Asia Ascendant
While the end of the Cold War initiates the waves of technology rippling
through our 40-year era, that's only half the story. The other half has to do
with an equally powerful force: globalization. While it is spurred by new
technologies, the emergence of an interconnected planet is propelled more by
the power of an idea—the idea of an open society.
•
From a historical vantage point, globalization also begins right around 1980.
One of the souls who best articulates this idea of the open society is Mikhail
Gorbachev. It's Gorbachev who helps bring about some of its most dramatic
manifestations: the fall of the Wall, the collapse of the Soviet empire, the
end of the Cold War. He helps inititate a vast wave of political change that
includes the democratization of eastern Europe and Russia itself. To kick it
off, Gorbachev introduces two key concepts to his pals in the Politburo in
1985, two ideas that will resonate not just in the Soviet Union but through all
the world. One is glasnost. The other is perestroika. Openness and
restructuring—the formula for the age, the key ingredients of the long boom.
An equally important character is China's Deng Xiaoping. His actions don't
bring about the same dramatic political change, but right around the same time
as Gorbachev, Deng initiates a similarly profound shift of policies, applying
the concepts of openness and restructuring to the economy. This process of
opening up—creating free trade and free markets—ultimately makes just as large
a global impact. No place is this more apparent than in Asia.
Japan grasps the gist of this economic formula long before the buzz begins,
pulling a group of Asian early adopter countries in its wake. By the 1980s,
Japan has nearly perfected the industrial-age manufacturing economy. But by
1990, the rules of the global economy have changed to favor more nimble,
innovative processes, rather than meticulous, methodical economies of scale.
Many of the attributes that favored Japan in the previous era, such as a
commitment to lifelong employment and protected domestic markets, work against
the country this time around. Japan enters the long slump of the 1990s. By the
end of the decade, Japan has watched the United States crack the formula for
success in the networked economy and begins to adopt the model in earnest. In
2000, it radically liberalizes many of its previously protected domestic
markets—a big stimulus for the world economy at large.
Japan's rise, however, is but a prelude to the ascendance of China. In 1978,
Deng takes the first steps toward liberalizing the communist economy. China
slowly gathers force through the 1980s, until the annual growth in the gross
national product consistently tops 10 percent. By the 1990s, the economy is
growing at a torrid pace, with the entire coast of China convulsed with
business activity and boomtowns sprouting all over the place. Nineteen
ninety-seven—a year marked by both the death of Deng and the long-awaited
return of Hong Kong—symbolizes the end of China's ideological transition and
the birth of a real economic world power.
The first decade of the new century poses many problems for China
domestically—and for the rest of the world. The overheated economy puts severe
strain on the fabric of Chinese society, particularly between the increasingly
affluent urban areas on the coast and the 800 million impoverished peasants in
the interior. The nation's relatively low tech smokestack economy also
threatens to single-handedly push the global environment over the edge. The
Chinese initially do little to reduce their level of dependence on coal, which
in the late 1990s still supplies three-quarters of the country's energy needs.
Only sustained efforts by the rest of the world to ensure that China has access
to the very best transportation and industrial technology avert an
environmental catastrophe. Occasionally using draconian measures, China manages
to avoid severe internal disturbance. By 2010, the sense of crisis has
dissipated. China is generally acknowledged to be on a path toward more
democratic politics—though not in the image of the West.
•
With the reemergence of China's economic might, the 3,500-year-old civilization
begins to assert itself and play a larger part in shaping the world. Chinese
clan-based culture happens to work very well within the fluid demands of the
networked global economy. Singapore and Hong Kong prove the point through the
1980s and 1990s, when the two city-states with almost no land mass or natural
resources become economic powers through pure human capital, primarily
brainpower.
For years, Chinese expatriates have established intricate financial networks
throughout Western countries, but especially in Asia. Many Southeast Asian
economies—if not governments—are completely dominated by the overseas Chinese.
By about 2005, the mainland Chinese decide to capitalize on this by formalizing
the Chinese diaspora. Though the entity has no legal status vis-a-vis other
governments, it has substantial economic clout. That date also marks the
absorption of Taiwan into China proper.
By 2020, the Chinese economy has grown to be the largest in the world. Though
the US economy is more technologically sophisticated, and its population more
affluent, China and the United States are basically on a par. China has also
drawn much of Asia in its economic wake—Hong Kong and Shanghai are the key
financial nodes for this intricate Asian world.
Asia is jammed with countries that are economic powerhouses in their own right.
India builds on its top-notch technical training and mastery of the lingua
franca of the high tech world, English, to challenge many Western countries in
software development. Malaysia's audacious attempt to jump-start an indigenous
high tech sector through massive investments in a multimedia supercorridor pays
off. The former communist countries Vietnam and Cambodia turn out to be among
the most adept at capitalism. The entire region—from the reunited Koreas to
Indonesia to the subcontinent—is booming. In just 20 years, 2 billion people
have made the transition into what can be considered a middle-class lifestyle.
In the space of one full 80-year life span, Asia has gone from almost
uninterrupted poverty to widespread wealth.
The European Shuffle
Meanwhile, on the other side of the planet, the new principles of openness and
restructuring are applied first in politics, then economics. In the aftermath
of the spectacular implosion of the Soviet Union, most energy is spent
promoting democracy and dismantling the vestiges of the Cold War. With time, an
equal amount of energy is applied to restructuring and retooling economies—in
some obvious and not so obvious ways.
First, Europe at large has to reintegrate itself, both economically and
politically. Much of the 1990s is spent trying to integrate eastern and western
Europe. All eyes first focus on the new Germany, which powers through the
process on the basis of sheer financial might. Next the more advanced of the
eastern European countries—Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic—get integrated,
first into NATO, with formal acceptance in 2000, and then into the European
Union in 2002. The more problematic countries of eastern Europe aren't accepted
into the union for another couple years. Alongside this East-West integration
comes a more subtle integration between the western European countries. With
fits and starts, Europe moves toward the establishment of one truly integrated
entity. The European currency—the euro—is adopted in 1999, with a few laggards,
like Britain, holding out a few more years.
•
Though the UK may have dragged its feet on the European currency measure, in an
overall sense it's far ahead of the pack. The economic imperative of the era is
not just to integrate externally but to restructure internally. Right around
1980, Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan begin putting together the formula
that eventually leads toward the new economy. At the time it looks brutal:
busting unions, selling off state-owned industries, and dismantling the welfare
state. In hindsight, the pain pays off. By the mid-1990s, the US unemployment
rate is near 5 percent, and the British rate has dropped to almost 6 percent.
In contrast, unemployment on the European continent hovers at 11 percent, with
some individual countries even higher.
Indeed, through the 1990s, the rest of Europe remains trapped in the legacy of
its welfare states, which maintain their political attractiveness long after
they outlive their economic worth. By 2000, chronic unemployment and mounting
government deficits finally force leaders on the continent to act. Despite
widespread popular protests, especially in France, Europe goes through a
painful economic restructuring much like the United States did a decade before.
As part of this perestroika, it retools its economy using the new information
technologies. This restructuring, both of corporations and governments, has
much the same effect it had on the US economy. The European economy begins to
surge and create many new jobs. By about 2005, Europe—particularly in the
northern countries like Germany—even has the beginnings of a serious labor
shortage as aging populations begin to retire.
Then the Russian economy kicks in. For 15 years, Russia had been stumbling
along in its transition to a capitalist economy, periodically frightening the
West with overtures that it might return to its old militaristic ways. But
after almost two decades of wide-open Mafia-style capitalism, Russia emerges in
about 2005 with the basic underpinnings of a solid economy. Enough people are
invested in the new system, and enough of the population has absorbed the new
work ethic, that the economy can function quite well—with few reasons to fear a
retrenchment. This normalization finally spurs massive foreign investment that
helps the Russians exploit their immense natural resources, and the skills of a
highly educated populace. These people also provide a huge market for Europe
and the rest of the world.
The Global Stampede
By the close of the 20th century, the more developed Western nations are
forging ahead on a path of technology-led growth, and booming Asia is showing
the unambiguous benefits of developing market economies and free trade. The
path for the rest of the world seems clear. Openness and restructuring.
Restructuring and openness. Individually, nations begin adopting the formula of
deregulating, privatizing, opening up to foreign investment, and cutting
government deficits. Collectively, they sign onto international agreements that
accelerate the process of global integration—and fuel the long boom.
Two milestones come in 1997: the Information Technology Agreement, in which
almost all countries trading in IT agree to abolish tariffs by 2000, and the
Global Telecommunications Accord, in which almost 70 leading nations agree to
rapidly deregulate their domestic telecom markets. These two developments
quickly spread the two key technologies of the era: computers and
telecommunications.
•
Everyone benefits, particularly the underdeveloped economies, which take
advantage of the leapfrog effect, adopting the newest, cheapest, best
technology rather than settling for obsolete junk. IT creates a remarkable
dynamic that brings increasing power, performance, and quality to each new
generation of the technology—plus big drops in price. Also, wireless
telecommunications allow countries to avoid the huge effort and expense of
building wired infrastructures through crowded cities and diffuse countrysides.
This all bodes well for the world economy. Through most of the 1970s, all the
1980s, and the early 1990s, the real growth rate in the world's gross domestic
product averages 3 percent. By 1996, the rate tops a robust 4 percent. By 2005,
it hits an astounding 6 percent. Continued growth at this rate will double the
size of the world economy in just 12 years, doubling it twice in just 25 years.
This level of growth surpasses the rates of the last global economic boom, the
years following World War II, which averaged 4.9 percent from 1950 to 1973. And
this growth comes off a much broader economic base, making it more remarkable
still. Unlike the last time, almost every region of the planet, even in the
undeveloped world, participates in the bonanza.
Latin America takes off. These countries, after experiencing the nightmare of
debt in the 1980s, do much to vigorously restructure their economies in the
1990s. Chile and Argentina are particularly innovative, and Brazil builds on an
extensive indigenous high tech sector. But the real boost from 2000 onward
comes from capitalizing on Latin America's strategic location on the booming
Pacific Rim and on its proximity to the United States. The region becomes
increasingly drawn into the booming US economy. In 1994, the North American
Free Trade Agreement formally links the United States to Mexico and Canada. By
about 2002, an All American Free Trade Agreement is signed—integrating the
entire hemisphere into one unified market.
The Middle East, meanwhile, enters crisis. Two main factors drive the region's
problems. One, the fundamentalist Muslim mind-set is particularly unsuited to
the fluid demands of the digital age. The new economy rewards experimentation,
constant innovation, and challenging the status quo—these attributes, however,
are shunned in many countries throughout the Middle East. Many actually get
more traditional in response to the furious pace of change. The other factor
driving the crisis is outside their control. The advent of hydrogen power
clearly undermines the centrality of oil in the world economy. By 2008, with
the auto industry in a mad dash to convert, the bottom falls out of the oil
market. The Middle Eastern crisis comes to a head. Some of the old monarchies
and religious regimes begin to topple.
An even more disturbing crisis hits Africa. While some parts of the continent,
such as greater South Africa, are doing fine, central Africa devolves into a
swirl of brutal ethnic conflict, desperate poverty, widespread famine and
disease. In 2015 the introduction of biological weapons in an ethnic conflict,
combined with the outbreak of a terrifying new natural disease, brings the
death count to unimagined levels: an estimated 5 million people die in the
space of six months—this on top of a cumulative death toll of roughly 100
million who perished prematurely over the previous two decades.
•
The contrast between such destitution and the spreading prosperity elsewhere
finally prods the planet into collective action. Every nation, the world comes
to understand, ultimately can only benefit from a thriving Africa, which will
occupy economic niches that other nations are outgrowing. It makes as much
practical as humanitarian sense. The regeneration of Africa becomes a prime
global agenda item for the next quarter of the century.
Future Aftershocks
Riding the wave of the booming economy brings other major social and political
repercussions. Fundamental shifts in technology and the means of production
inevitably change the way the economy operates. And when the economy changes,
it doesn't take long for the rest of society to adapt to the new realities. The
classic example is the transformation of agricultural society into industrial
society. A new tool—the motor—led to a new economic model—capitalism—that
brought great social upheaval—urbanization and the creation of an affluent
class—and ultimately profound political change—liberal democracy. While that's
a crude summation of a complex historical transition, the same dynamic largely
holds true in our shift to a networked economy based on digital technologies.
There's also a commonsense explanation. When an economy booms, money courses
through society, people get rich quick, and almost everybody sees an
opportunity to improve their station in life. Optimism abounds. Think back to
that period following World War II. A booming economy buoyed a bold, optimistic
view of the world: we can put a man on the Moon, we can build a Great Society,
a racially integrated world. In our era, we can expect the same.
By about 2000, the United States economy is doing so well that the tax coffers
begin to swell. This not only solves the deficit problem but gives the
government ample resources to embark on new initiatives. No longer forced to
nitpick over which government programs to cut, political leaders emerge with
new initiatives to help solve seemingly intractable social problems, like drug
addiction. No one talks about reverting to big government, but there's plenty
of room for innovative approaches to applying the pooled resources of the
entire society to benefit the public at large. And the government, in good
conscience, can finally afford tax cuts.
A spirit of generosity returns. The vast majority of Americans who see their
prospects rising with the expanding economy are genuinely sympathetic to the
plight of those left behind. This kinder, gentler humanitarian urge is
bolstered by a cold, hard fact. The bigger the network, the better. The more
people in the network, the better for everyone. Wiring half a town is only
marginally useful. If the entire town has phones, then the system really sings.
Every person, every business, every organization directly benefits from a
system in which you can pick up a phone and reach every individual rather than
just a scattered few. That same principle true holds for the new networked
computer technologies. It pays to get everyone tied into the new information
grid. By 2000, this mentality sinks in. Almost everyone understands we're deep
into a transition to a networked economy, a networked society. It makes sense
to get everyone on board.
•
The welfare reform initiative of 1996 begins the process of drawing the poor
into the economy at large. At the time, political leaders aren't talking about
the network effect so much as eliminating a wasteful government program.
Nevertheless, the shakeup of the welfare system coincides with the revving of
the economy. Vast numbers of welfare recipients do get jobs, and the great
majority eventually move up to more skilled professions. By 2002, the end of
the initial five-year transitional period, welfare rolls are cut by more than
half. Former welfare recipients are not the only ones benefiting from the new
economy. The working poor hovering just above the poverty line also leverage
their way up to more stable lives.
Even those from the hardened criminal underworld migrate toward the expanding
supply of legitimate work. Over time, through the first decade of the century,
this begins to have subtle secondary effects. The underclass, once thought to
be a permanent fixture of American society, begins to break up. Social mobility
goes up, crime rates go down. Though hard to draw direct linkages, many
attribute the drop in crime to the rise in available work. Others point to a
shift in drug policy. Starting with the passage of the California Medical
Marijuana Initiative n 1996, various states begin experimenting with
decriminalizing drug use. Alongside that, the failed war on drugs gets
dismantled. Both initiatives are part of a general shift away from stiff law
enforcement and toward more complex ways to deal with the roots of crime. One
effect is to destroy the conditions that led to the rise of the inner-city drug
economy. By the second decade of the century, the glorified gangsta is as much
a part of history as the original gangsters in the days of Prohibition.
Immigrants also benefit from the booming economy. Attempts to stem immigration
in the lean times of the early 1990s are largely foiled. By the late 1990s,
immigrants are seen as valuable contributors who keep the economy humming—more
able hands and brains. By the first decade of the century, government policy
actively encourages immigration of knowledge workers—particularly in the
software industry, which suffers from severe labor shortages. This influx of
immigrants, coupled with Americans' changing attitudes toward them, brings a
pleasant surprise: the revival of the family. The centrality of the family in
Asian and Latino cultures, which form the bulk of these immigrants, is
unquestioned. As these subcultures increasingly flow into the American
mainstream, a subtle shift takes place in the general belief in the importance
of family. It's not family in the nuclear-family sense but a more sprawling,
amorphous, networked sense of family to fit the new times.
The Brain Wave
Education is the next industrial-era institution to go through a complete
overhaul—starting in earnest in 2000. The driving force here is not so much
concern with enlightening young minds as economics. In an information age, the
age of the knowledge worker, nothing matters as much as that worker's brain. By
the end of the 1990s, it becomes clear that the existing public K-12 school
system is simply not up to the task of preparing those brains. For decades the
old system has ossified and been gutted by caps on property taxes. Various
reform efforts gather steam only to peter out. First George Bush then Bill
Clinton try to grab the mantle of "education president"—both fail. That changes
in the 2000 election, when reinventing education becomes a central campaign
issue. A strong school system is understood to be as as vital to the national
interest as the military once was. The resulting popular mandate shifts some of
the billions once earmarked for defense toward revitalizing education.
•
The renaissance of education in the early part of the century comes not from a
task force of luminaries setting national standards in Washington, DC—the
solutions flow from the hundreds of thousands of people throwing themselves at
the problems across the country. The 1980s and 1990s see the emergence of
small, innovative private schools that proliferate in urban areas where the
public schools are most abysmal. Many focus on specific learning philosophies
and experiment with new teaching techniques—including the use of new computer
technologies. Beginning around 2001, the widespread use of vouchers triggers a
rapid expansion in these types of schools and spurs an entrepreneurial market
for education reminiscent of the can-do ethos of Silicon Valley. Many of the
brightest young minds coming out of college are drawn to the wide-open
possibilities in the field—starting new schools, creating new curricula,
devising new teaching methods. They're inspired by the idea that they're
building the 21st-century paradigm for learning.
The excitement spreads far beyond private schools, which by 2010 are teaching
about a quarter of all students. Public schools reluctantly face up to the new
competitive environment and begin reinventing themselves. In fact, private and
public schools maintain a symbiotic relationship, with private schools doing
much of the initial innovating, and public schools concentrating on making sure
the new educational models reach all children in society.
Higher education, though slightly less in need of an overhaul, catches the
spirit of radical reform—again driven largely by economics. The cost of
four-year colleges and universities becomes absurd—in part because antiquated
teaching methods based on lectures are so labor intensive. The vigorous
adoption of networking technologies benefits undergraduate and graduate
students even more than K-12 kids. In 2001, Project Gutenberg completes its
task of putting 10,000 books online. Many of the world's leading universities
begin carving off areas of expertise and assuming responsibility for the
digitalization of all the literature in that field. Around 2010, all new books
come out in electronic form. By 2015, relatively complete virtual libraries are
up and running.
Despite earlier rhetoric, the key factor in making education work comes not
from new technology, but from enshrining the value of learning. A dramatic
reduction in the number of unskilled jobs makes clear that good education is a
matter of survival. Indeed, nearly every organization in society puts learning
at the core of its strategy for adapting to a fast-changing world. So begins
the virtuous circle of the learning society. The booming economy provides the
resources to overhaul education. The products of that revamped educational
system enter the economy and improve its productivity. Eventually, education
both sows and reaps the benefits of the long boom.
In the first decade of the century, Washington finally begins to really
reinvent government. It's much the same process as the reengineering of
corporations in the 1990s. The hierarchical bureaucracies of the 20th century
are flattened and networked through the widespread adoption of new
technologies. Some, like the IRS, experience spectacular failures, but
eventually make the transition. In a more important sense, the entire approach
to government is fundamentally reconsidered. The welfare and education systems
are the first down that path. Driven by the imminent arrival of the first of
many retiring baby boomers in 2011, Medicare and Social Security are next.
Other governmental sectors soon follow.
•
The second decade of the century marks a more ambitious but amorphous project:
making a multicultural society really work. Though the United States has the
mechanics—such as the legal framework—of an integrated society in place,
Americans need to learn how to accept social integration on a deeper level. The
underpinnings of a booming economy make efforts to ease the tensions among
various ethnic and interest groups much easier than before: people are more
tolerant of others when their own livelihoods are not threatened. But people
also come around to seeing diversity as a way to spark a creative edge. They
realize that part of the key for success in the future is to remain open to
differences, to stay exposed to alternative ways of thinking. And they
recognize the rationality of building a society that draws on the strengths and
creativity of all people.
Women spearhead many of the changes that help make the multicultural society
work. As half the population, they are an exceptional "minority" that helps
pave the way for the racial and ethnic minorities with fewer numbers. In the
last global boom of the 1960s, the women's movement gained traction and helped
promote the rise in the status of women. Through the 1970s and 1980s, women
push against traditional barriers and work their way into business and
government. By the 1990s, women have permeated the entire fabric of the economy
and society. The needs, desires, and values of women increasingly begin to
drive the political and business worlds—largely for the better. By the early
part of the century, it becomes clear that the very skills most needed to make
the networked society really hum are those that women have long practiced. Long
before it became fashionable, women were developing the subtle abilities of
maintaining networks, of remaining inclusive, of negotiating. These skills
prove to be crucial to solving the very different challenges of this new world.
The effort to build a truly inclusive society does not just impact Americans.
At the turn of the century, the United States is the closest thing the world
has to a workable multicultural society. Almost all the cultures of the world
have some representation, several in significant proportions. As the century
moves on, it becomes clear to most people on the planet that all cultures must
coexist in relative harmony on a global scale. On a meta level, it seems that
the world is heading toward a future that's prefaced by what's happening in the
United States.
A Civilization of Civilizations
In 2020, humans arrive on Mars. It's an extraordinary event by any measure,
coming a half century after people first set foot on the Moon. The four
astronauts touch down and beam their images back to the 11 billion people
sharing in the moment. The expedition is a joint effort supported by virtually
all nations on the planet, the culmination of a decade and a half of intense
focus on a common goal. A remarkable enough technical achievement, the Mars
landing is even more important for what it symbolizes.
•
As the global viewing audience stares at the image of a distant Earth, seen
from a neighboring planet 35 million miles away, the point is made as never
before: We are one world. All organisms crammed on the globe are intricately
interdependent. Plants, animals, humans need to find a way to live together on
that tiny little place. By 2020, most people are acting on that belief. The
population has largely stabilized. The spreading prosperity nudged a large
enough block of people into middle-class lifestyles to curtail high birth
rates. In some pockets of the world large families are still highly valued, but
most people strive only to replicate themselves, and no more. Just as
important, the world economy has evolved to a point roughly in balance with
nature. To be sure, the ecosystem is not in perfect equilibrium. More pollution
enters the world than many would like. But the rates of contamination have been
greatly reduced, and the trajectory of these trends looks promising. The
regeneration of the global environment is in sight.
The images from Mars drive home another point: We're one global society, one
human race. The divisions we impose on ourselves look ludicrous from afar. The
concept of a planet of warring nations, a state of affairs that defined the
previous century, makes no sense. Far better to channel the aspirations of the
world's people into collectively pushing outward to the stars. Far better to
turn our technologies not against one another but toward a joint effort that
benefits all. And the artificial divisions we perpetuate between races and
genders look strange as well. All humans stand on equal footing. They're not
the same, but they're treated as equals and given equal opportunities to excel.
In 2020, this point, only recently an empty platitude, is accepted by almost
all.
We're forming a new civilization, a global civilization, distinct from those
that arose on the planet before. It's not just Western civilization writ
large—one hegemonic culture forcing itself on others. It's not a resurgent
Chinese civilization struggling to reassert itself after years of being
thwarted. It's a strange blend of both—and the others. It's something
different, something as yet being born. In 2020, information technologies have
spread to every corner of the planet. Real-time language translation is
reliable. The great cross-fertilization of ideas, the ongoing, never-ending
planetary conversation has begun. From this, the new crossroads of all
civilizations, the new civilization will emerge.
In many ways, it's a civilization of civilizations, to use a phrase coined by
Samuel Huntington. We're building a framework where all the world's
civilizations can exist side by side and thrive. Where the best attributes of
each can stand out and make their unique contributions. Where the peculiarities
are cherished and allowed to live on. We're entering an age where diversity is
truly valued—the more options the better. Our ecosystem works best that way.
Our market economy works best that way. Our civilization, the realm of our
ideas, works best that way, too.
•
The Millennial Generation
By 2020, the world is about to go through a changeover in power. This happens
not through force, but through natural succession, a generational transition.
The aging baby boomers, born in the wake of World War II, at the beginning of
the 20th century's 40-year global economic boom, are fading from their
prominent positions of economic and moral leadership. The tough-minded,
techno-savvy generation that trails them, the digital generation, has the new
world wired. But these two generations have simply laid the groundwork,
prepared the foundations for the society, the civilization that comes next.
The millennial generation is coming of age. These are the children born in the
1980s and 1990s, at the front end of this boom of all booms. These are the kids
who have spent their entire lives steeped in the new technologies, living in a
networked world. They have been educated in wired schools, they have taken
their first jobs implicitly understanding computer technologies. Now they're
doing the bulk of society's work. They are reaching their 40s and turning their
attention to the next generation of problems that remain to be cracked.
These are higher-level concerns, the intractable problems—such as eradicating
poverty on the planet—that people throughout history have believed impossible
to solve. Yet this generation has witnessed an extraordinary spread of
prosperity across the planet. They see no inherent barrier to keep them from
extending that prosperity to—why not?—everyone. Then there's the environment.
The millennial generation has inherited a planet that's not getting much worse.
Now comes the more difficult problem of restoration, starting with the rain
forests. Then there's governance. Americans can vote electronically from home
starting with the presidential election of 2008. But e-voting is just an
extension of the 250-year-old system of liberal democracy. Interactive
technologies may allow radically new forms of participatory democracy on a
scale never imagined. Many young people say that the end of the nation-state is
in sight.
These ambitious projects will not be solved in a decade, or two, or even three.
But the life span of this generation will stretch across the entire 21st
century. Given the state of medical science, most members of the millennial
generation will live 100 years. Over the course of their lifetimes, they
confidently foresee the solutions to many seemingly intractable problems. And
they fully expect to see some big surprises. Almost certainly there will be
unexpected breakthroughs in the realm of science and technology. What will be
the 21st-century equivalent of the discovery of the electron or DNA? What
strange new ideas will emerge from the collective mind of billions of brains
wired together throughout the planet? What will happen when members of this
millennial generation possibly confront a new species of their own making: Homo
superior? And what happens if after all the efforts to methodically scan the
skies, they finally latch onto signs of intelligent life?
Just Do It
Beam back down to Planet Earth. Get your head back to 1997, not even halfway
through the transition of this 40-year era. We're still on the front edge of
the great global boom, the long boom. Almost all the work remains before us.
And a hell of a lot of things could go wrong.
•
This is only a scenario of the future, by no means an outright prediction of
what is to come. We can be reasonably confident of the continuation of certain
trends. Much of the long boom's technology is already in motion and almost
inevitably will appear within that span. Asia is ascendant whether we like it
or not. Barring some bizarre catastrophe, that large portion of the world will
continue to boom. But there are many unknowns, all kinds of critical
uncertainties. Will Europe summon the political will to make the transition to
the new economy? Will Russia avoid a nationalist retrenchment and establish a
healthy market economy—let alone democracy? Will China fully embrace capitalism
and avoid causing a new cold—or hot—war? Will a rise in terrorism cause the
world to pull back in constant fear? It's not technology or economics that pose
the biggest challenges to the long boom. It's political factors, the ones
dependent on strong leadership.
One hundred years ago, the world went through a similar process of technical
innovation and unprecedented economic integration that led to a global boom.
New transportation and communications technologies—railroads, telegraphs, and
telephones—spread all over the planet, enabling a coordination of economic
activity at a level never seen before. Indeed, the 1890s have many parallels to
the 1990s—for better or worse. The potential of new technologies appeared
boundless. An industrial revolution was spurring social and political
revolution. It couldn't be long, it seemed, before a prosperous, egalitarian
society arrived. It was a wildly optimistic time.
Of course, it all ended in catastrophe. The leaders of the world increasingly
focused on narrow national agendas. The nations of the world broke from the
path of increasing integration and lined up in competing factions. The result
was World War I, with everyone using the new technologies to wage bigger, more
efficient war. After the conflict, the continued pursuit of nationalist agendas
severely punished the losers and consolidated colonial empires. The world went
from wild optimism to—quite literally—depression, in a very short time.
The lessons of World War I contrast sharply with those of World War II. The
move toward a closed economy and society after the first war led to global
fragmentation as nations pulled back on themselves. In the aftermath of World
War II, the impetus was toward an open economy and society—at least in half the
world. This led down a path of continuing integration. World leaders had the
foresight to establish an array of international institutions to manage the
emerging global economy. They worked hard to rebuild their vanquished enemies,
Germany and Japan, through generous initiatives like the Marshall Plan. This
philosophical shift from closed to open societies came about through bold
leadership, much of it coming from the United States. In the wake of World War
I, American political and business leaders embraced isolationism—with severe
consequences for the world. After World War II, they did the opposite—with very
different results.
Today, the United States has a similarly crucial leadership role to play. There
are purely practical reasons for this. The United States has the single largest
economy in the world, a market with a big influence on the flow of world trade.
It has the biggest research and scientific establishment by far. Since the
demise of the Soviet Union, no other country features a comparable array of
university research facilities, corporate industrial labs, and nonprofit think
tanks. That combination of a huge economy and a scientific elite gives the
United States the world's strongest military; the country can develop the
weapons and pay the bills. For the next 15 years at the very least, America
will be the preeminent military power. These reasons alone ensure that the
United States, regardless of the intentions of its leaders, will have a huge
influence on any future scenario. But the role of the United States is more
involved, more complicated than that.
•
The United States is the great innovator nation, the incubator of new ideas.
Just as the new technologies of the early Industrial Revolution were born in
England, the vast majority of innovations in the computer and
telecommunications fields are happening now in the United States. Americans are
fundamentally shaping the core technologies and infrastructure that will be at
the foundation of the 21st century. Partly because of that, the US is the first
country to transition to the new economy. American corporations are the first
to adopt the new technologies and adapt to the changing economic realities. As
a nation, the United States is figuring out how to finesse the new model of
high economic growth driven by new technologies. The American people are
feeling the first social and cultural effects. And the government is the first
to come under the strain to change. The United States is paving the way for
other developed nations and, eventually, the rest of the nations of the world.
Even more important, the United States serves as steward of the idea of an open
society. The US is home to the core economic and political values that emerged
from the 20th century—the free-market economy and democracy. But the idea of an
open society is broader than that. Americans believe in the free flow of ideas,
products, and people. Historically, this has taken the form of protecting
speech, promoting trade, and welcoming immigrants. With the coming of a wired,
global society, the concept of openness has never been more important. It's the
linchpin that will make the new world work.
In a nutshell, the key formula for the coming age is this: Open, good. Closed,
bad. Tattoo it on your forehead. Apply it to technology standards, to business
strategies, to philosophies of life. It's the winning concept for individuals,
for nations, for the global community in the years ahead. If the world takes
the closed route, it starts a vicious circle: Nations turn inward. The world
fragments into isolated blocs. This strengthens traditionalists and leads to
rigidity of thought. This stagnates the economy and brings increasing poverty.
This leads to conflicts and increasing intolerance, which promotes an even more
closed society and a more fragmented world. If, on the other hand, the world
adopts the open model, then a much different, virtuous circle begins: Open
societies turn outward and strive to integrate into the world. This openness to
change and exposure to new ideas leads to innovation and progress. This brings
rising affluence and a decrease in poverty. This leads to growing tolerance and
appreciation of diversity, which promotes a more open society and a more highly
integrated world.
The United States, as first among equals, needs to live this concept in the
coming decades. One of the first great tasks will be integrating its former
communist adversaries China and Russia into the world community, in much the
same way that it once did Japan and Germany. This will be the main geopolitical
challenge of the next dozen years. We'll know if we made it by 2010. Then
there's the need to create a complex fabric of new global economic and
political institutions to fit the 21st century. Though these need not take the
bureaucratic shape they did in the past, a certain level of coordination of
global activities will continue to fall in the public sphere. In the technical
realm, some body needs to mediate the setting of global technical standards and
the allocation of what are, at the moment, scarce resources like airwaves. In
the legal arena, we need to find ways to protect the rights of creators and
consumers of intellectual property. In terms of the environment, the collective
world community needs to get cracking on problems that endanger everyone:
global climate change, loss of the ozone layer, and other cross-border problems
like acid rain. And then there are the issues that fall under security. We
spent decades in excruciating negotiation to disarm and limit nuclear
proliferation. In an age of information warfare, we face a very different set
of security concerns and a laborious process to find global solutions—starting
with a workable accord on cryptography.
The vast array of problems to solve and the sheer magnitude of the changes that
need to take place are enough to make any global organization give up, any
nation back down, any reasonable person curl up in a ball. That's where
Americans have one final contribution to make: optimism, that maddening can-do
attitude that often drives foreigners insane. Americans don't understand
limits. They have boundless confidence in their ability to solve problems. And
they have an amazing capacity to think they really can change the world. A
global transformation over the next quarter century inevitably will bring a
tremendous amount of trauma. The world will run into a daunting number of
problems as we transition to a networked economy and a global society. Apparent
progress will be followed by setbacks. And all along the way the chorus of
naysayers will insist it simply can't be done. We'll need some hefty doses of
indefatigable optimism. We'll need an optimistic vision of what the future can
be.
THE END