The Ringing Grooves of Change: Mid-Future Possibilities for the Global System by Doug Cocks (1999)




“At the end of this century it has for the first time become possible to see what a world may be like in which the past . . . has lost its role, in which the old maps and charts which guided human beings, singly and collectively, through life no longer represent the landscape through which we move, the sea on which we sail. In which we do not know where our journey is taking us, or even ought to take us.” (Eric Hobsbawm)

“There are no national laboratories with full-time research and development teams assigned to come up with ingenious ideas for improved social organisation and communication and interaction, and to set them in motion.” (Doug Cocks)

“The ecological consequences of ongoing economic growth will not make the world uninhabitable for humans but will change the environments in which people live and perhaps reduce the carrying capacity of the globe dramatically. In the long run, a balance will have to be struck between humanity, the resources it consumes and the effect of its activities on the environment. Nobody knows, and few dare speculate how this is to be done, and at what level of population, technology and consumption such a permanent balance would be possible. One thing however is undeniable. It would be incompatible with a world economy based on the unlimited pursuit of profit in capitalist economies of the type now existing.” (Eric Hobsbawm)

 

(This paper provides an excellent overview in the landscape of futurist thinking despite some outdated trends. Thus, although it contains views and analysis somewhat different in tone than the kind of entries in this blog, it gives a more realistic view of the world seen from the ‘mainstream’ thinking. Quite surprisingly, many analysis within the paper confirms the kind of analysis done by progressive thinkers mentioned throughout this blog. This can be seen, for example, from the quotations above. Thus, although this paper was made in relation to formulating Australia’s national policy, the analysis of the global system with all it’s complexity is worth reading. Below is a quick summary. Click the link at the bottom of this entry to read the full, and long, paper.)

Overview

The paper starts with a review of the last century, looking for powerful trends and established patterns that might carry over into and shape the world’s next 50 years. It ends with an attempt to summarise a wide-ranging discussion into a manageable number of assertions presented as a set of working answers to most of the questions about the world’s future.

In keeping with the prevailing weltanschauung (or perhaps because it cannot be defied directly), our present interest is in the social, political, economic and natural resource dimensions of the global system rather than in more esoteric foci such as the spiritual, the cultural and the bio-evolutionary. The paper’s focal time-window is from now to about 2050–the mid-future.

My propositions about global futures fall into four categories:

  • Global catastrophes. These are depressing images of the future which have low potential surprise and profound implications for the quality survival of world society, but which I am prepared to accept, for later scenario building purposes, as certain to not eventuate.
  • Global givens. These are images of part-futures I am prepared to accept as certain to more-or-less eventuate, at least for the purpose of developing ‘active’ national scenarios. If this book were about constructing world scenarios instead of national scenarios, these are future-images which would be common to all scenarios.
  • Global windfalls. These are encouraging images of the future which have high potential surprise but which, if they did eventuate, would significantly improve society’s prospects for quality survival, eg nuclear fusion. For scenario building purposes, I will accept these as certain to not eventuate.
  • Global possibilities. These are paired, contrasting, possibilistic images of part-futures, all of low to moderate potential surprise and all of significance for world’s future, e.g. more versus less economic growth. For scenario building and evaluation purposes, I will usually assume that one or other of each of these pairs will eventuate (and therefore, necessarily, that other related possibilities will not occur). This is simply an analytical device that, by abstracting out and concentrating on ‘focal’ possibilities, allows an infinitely rich suite of possible futures to be discussed.

 

From the conclusion of the paper

While there is a common view abroad that global society is in a state of flux from which clear patterns have yet to emerge, there is in fact a remarkable consensus amongst futurists about many aspects of the world’s mid-term future, now that 1970s perceptions of a world going forward into an age of abundance and leisure have been decisively rejected. In the 1990s, what does seem clear, certainly in the views of both Hobsbawm (1994) and Heilbroner (1995), is that global change in coming decades will take place within a cage formed by the same giant forces as those moulding recent centuries–capitalism, technology and the search for political emancipation. The difference is that these forces are no longer regarded unambiguously as carriers of progress. Rather, the outlook for the future has turned sombre because negative aspects of these agents, either unknown or unrecognised previously, are now perceived to be as important as their undisputed positive effects.

It is true that many future-gazers can be readily tagged as either global optimists or global pessimists, but closer inspection reveals not so much incompatible perceptions as different foci. The wonderful achievements painted in scenarios of technological Utopias are for the rich. Most of the world will continue to be poor. Global optimists (eg North 1995) are those concentrating on the apparent ‘winners’ while global pessimists are concentrating on the ‘losers’. Another split is between optimists focussing on economic and technological change and pessimists focussing on environmental change.

What then are these conventional wisdoms about the world’s future?

Certainly there are contingencies, both catastrophes and windfalls, that would trigger an unknowable restructuring of the global system if they came to pass (e.g. world war; cheap fusion power; nano-scale constructor robots), and there are existing trends which also could trigger fundamental change eventually, e.g. the consequences for world order in a generation or so of global population growth. But, catastrophes and windfalls aside, it can be taken as ‘given’ that the world of 2050 will still be divided into first, second and third world countries, much as it is now and that the world will be populated by a billion or so ‘rich’ people and eight or nine billion poor people.

Driven by the communications and information industries and other knowledge-intensive industries, the world economy will be dominated by capitalist countries and will continue to globalise, grow and shift towards service industries.

The possibility of some democracies being reduced to token or nominal status is also plausible as nation states struggle to survive at home and in a global economy. Many sub-national groups will successfully struggle for recognition and more autonomy and many national powers will be ceded to supranational bodies.

The global environment and resource base will continue to degrade. Large or small increases in crime and violence in first world countries would be unsurprising. Various strengthening social movements (e.g. female emancipation, environmentalism) will begin to impose their values on their societies, perhaps slowly, perhaps more rapidly.

(Click here to read the full paper)

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Published::
11.8.07 / 6am
Category:
Appropriate Science and Technology, Change in Change, Democratic Democracy, Ecosocionomics, Global Governance, Means, Paths, Ends
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