This is a speculative vision of 2050 as if our prevalent mindset matter. It is a thought experiment, not a prediction. It’s wrong, but hopefully in useful ways.

It was originally written as a chapter in a book in 2016. I’ve finally accepted the book is never coming out. So, here is what I wrote back then.

Introduction

Here in 2050 we ask: given the shocks of the 2020s, how is it that many people are thriving? How did that lead to us becoming a two-speed world?

The short answer: countries responded in broadly two different ways to those shocks. One group were future-facing, seeking security through renewal, directing the potential of digital technologies. They became the thriving Primary World that today is increasingly synergistic with nature. Other countries sought security through protecting what they had. They make up today’s struggling Secondary World.

Now for the long answer.

London from Blythe Hill Fields.
Photo taken by David Bent.

The shocking 2020s

Entering the 2020s, the world was highly uncertain. The West had a rising tide of populism. People felt their identity was at risk, from economic change, immigration and the rise of confident formerly ‘developing’ nations like China. The benefits of globalisation – that supposed engine of success – were reaching the top 1% and emerging market workers, but was not increasing wages across Europe and America. The West had a crisis of legitimacy of experts and politicians.

We now think of the 2020s as shocking us out of a vicious spiral, but at the time people just felt in a tailspin.

Climate change, over-exploitation, and pollution kept ratcheting up pressures on ecosystems, regions and economies. Each year set a new record for extreme weather events. People stopped rebuilding, so some Caribbean islands and coastal cities were effectively abandoned.

Oceans were more acidic and plastic. Some fisheries collapsed, taking away the primary protein source for parts of South East Asia. Fresh water – for agriculture or for cities – was a local challenge around the world. Every year from 2025, at least one of the world’s ‘cereal bowls’ had a serious failing.

We were learning that we could not treat nature as infinite. The Great Acceleration of humankind was faster than the natural world could co-evolve (Steffen et al, 2015) . We were like an introduced species running riot on a pristine island – rabbits eating up Australia without foxes to control them. Either natural systems we relied on would collapse, or we would re-organize our political economies so those natural systems could cope.

Each crisis had multiple spillovers: refugees and mass displacement; economic growth slowed by costs of repair; strained relations between countries; companies distrusting their supply chains; and more.

At the same time, automation and artificial intelligence were a shock to employment and incumbents. New job types were created as old ones disappeared. But every organisation was touched by machines ‘thinking’ faster and cheaper than people. No one – from executive to unskilled worker, from corporation to cornershop – felt secure.

Renewable energy revolution brought shocks too. By the mid 2020s, new renewables were cheaper to build and run than old fossil fuel powerstations. Resulting closures sent the coal industry over the edge.

Renewables promised affordable, low-carbon electricity. The Oil Majors and oil nations resisted but, as electric vehicles blossomed, investors realized there was not enough future demand to burn oil reserves. The share prices of Oil Majors collapsed (Gilding, 2011).

The different responses to these shocks created our two-speed world.

Today’s Primary World

Choosing ‘security through renewal’

For today’s Primary World, it started with citizens, cities and leading companies, often applying digital technologies.

Even as the 2020s shocked, citizens pushed their own efforts at ‘system fixing’ (Warwick, 2013). Some were hyper-local digital currencies (Bendell, 2013) which supported patches where people were both producer and consumer, often underpinned by cooperatives. Billionaire philanthropists provided patient capital to nurture new innovations and networls.

Leading cities got a mandate to explicitly shape markets (not merely fix market failures) (Mazzucato, 2017). Mumbai had a cluster of missions on urban mobility, resilience to extreme weather, and gender. Where city-regions knew they could not become world-leaders, they focused on resilience – giving people the means to adapt themselves.

Underneath, digital technologies were changing how to succeed. Digital giants had built up near-impenetrable barriers to entry in the quality of datasets and AI processing power. But digital platforms were allowing changes in the ‘knowledge commons’ (Bauwens, 2012). Inspired by Linux, people contributed to intellectual property commons, on which others could build enterprises for issues like circular economy or dementia treatment protocols. The successful ones created their own for-benefit institutions to manage the ’infrastructure of cooperation’.

Leading businesses increasingly relied on accessing the knowledge commons for success, which grew the number and size of for-purpose businesses and organisations. More companies pushed to deliver the Sustainable Development Goals, reasoning their success relied on a functioning economy.

As the shocks piled up, there was more pressure on politicians to give people security. The existing start proved decisive, giving positive examples people could build their hope around. These innovation networks that could now be pressed into action, and the incubated ‘niche’ solutions to replace the mainstream (Geels and Schot, 2007).

Gradually governments gave their peoples a new direction: security through renewal.

Different players started to dance to the same tune: a digitally-enabled ‘access economy’ aimed at people’s flourishing where natural systems are coping. It turned out there were many positive feedback loops in this configuration (Mazzucato and Perez, 2014). The whole structure of the economy could be transformed (Zenghelis, 2016).

The primary vehicle: national and global missions on climate safety, feeding the 9 billion, and individual’s earning power. Each mission provided a ‘north star’ for ecosystems of scientists, engineers, entrepreneurs, patient funders, venture capitalists, for-profit businesses, for-benefit enterprises, suppliers, employees and more.

The ‘access’ way of satisfying needs combined with people seeing themselves as citizens – eroding the cultural stranglehold of consumption (NCP, 2016). To fit in and to be ‘successful’, you no longer needed to buy things you didn’t need, with money you didn’t have, to impress people you didn’t like.

Governments also re-orientated capital markets, away from speculation to long-term returns. They started to sell bonds based on delivering on climate targets (Ekins et al, 2014),and changed stock exchange rules to make it easier for businesses to pursue long-term purposes, which provided a stability to investment in technologies, skills and infrastructures (Big Innovation Society, 2016).

Thriving in 2050

Today the Primary World is most human activity. Our societies, in their different ways, focus on flourishing, and adapting to the shocks from nature.

There are increasing options for people to choose their own way of life (and, to be old-fashioned, the economy is also growing) (Raworth, 2017). We have had decades of what our parents would call ‘female empowerment’, which helped hold down population growth. The shift to ‘access’ has reduced in-country wealth disparities. The result: one person can live better than a 2020s Westerner, with far less environmental impact; and the cumulative impact of humankind is reducing to what nature can cope with.

In our access economy people own little. Instead, they pay for digitally-enabled services (Kelly, 2017), whether a vehicle at the right moment, or washed clothes in the morning. Behind the scenes everything is re-used, re-manufactured and – eventually – recycled. And it is all powered by renewables. Most international trade by value is designs, which are then made locally with 3D printers; by volume it is food and inputs to those 3D printers.

People’s livelihood is combination of: cash income from formal ‘tasks’ (permanent jobs are in minority); micro-credits for every time an AI earns from data from that person (Larnier, 2014), complimentary currencies from informal tasks; plus Universal Basic Services (Portes et al, 2017). People choose their own pace of life, slower with less negative spill-overs (e.g. the burden of mental health is much reduced).

Businesses orientate around value for the user. ‘Maximising shareholder value’ is now seen as a failed cul-de-sac (just as communism was after 1990). The finance system is predominantly about allocating to useful assets. Speculation has its place – finding the right price – but is a small proportion.

Government has an explicit role: ensuring increasing ability to adapt. It doesn’t pick winners; it picks directions and supports a variety of possibilities through many institutional vehicles. Overall, some hard-working inventors and entrepreneurs succeed, a number don’t make it but overall society wins.

To that end, political decision-making is pushed to the lowest level. People looked to Switzerland’s example (community participation informs regional government which percolates up to country direction) as a way to have responsiveness and an active citizenry.

People are valued for the difference they bring (crucial with AI everywhere). Nature is seen as a source of example and abundance. Human activity is understood as part of an interconnected world, which is part of natural world.

The Secondary World

Choosing ‘security through protection’

In contrast, in the 2020s, other countries tried to keep the status quo. Patriotism was prized, along with past social norms (such as gender roles). Existing sectors and jobs were protected by requiring ‘local content’ and putting up trade barriers.

One country started its own geoengineering, prompting sanctions. Another withdrew from international agreements on movement of people, building a wall instead. Large companies were required to join their sector interest group and to put their effort into providing jobs.

At points these countries lashed out, using military might to get what they need. They won some battles, over some water sources, for instance. But the Primary World had the lead in the technologies that mattered, and an adaptive capacity that respond to such setbacks.

Struggling in 2050

The struggling Secondary World sees nature as something to overcome. Combined with the continued power of pre-2020 incumbents, this means there’s an awkward combination of linear and circular, product-orientated and service-orientated, renewable and fossil fuel economies.

All Secondary Nations have a Universal Basic Income. For the corporatists governments, it’s a way to ensure big companies have customers, even when individuals have weak earning power. Overall, their orientation is protection, and people are valued for their loyalty.

Today there are on-going tensions between Primary and Secondary Worlds. But, much like the late Cold War almost 100 years ago, the innovative side is in the driving seat. The Secondary Nations rely on Primary for knowhow, technology transfer, development assistance and aid.

References

Arbib, J., and Seba, T., 2017: ‘Rethinking Transportation 2020–2030: The Disruption of Transportation and the Collapse of the Internal-Combustion Vehicle and Oil Industries’.

Bauwens, M., 2012: ‘Blueprint for the P2P Society: The partner State and Ethical Economy’.

Bendell, J. and Greco, T. H., 2013: ‘Currencies of transition: transforming money to unleash sustainability’.

Big Innovation Society, 2016: ‘The Purposeful Company Interim Report’

Brown, K J., 2016: ‘What Is Your Narrative? Human Purpose and the Future of Work.’

Ekins, P., McDowall, W. A. S., and Zenghelis, D., 2014: ‘Greening the recovery: the report of the UCL green economy policy commission’.

Gaffney, O., and Steffen, W., 2017: ’The Anthropocene equation’, The Anthropocene Review

Geels, Frank W., and Johan Schot. “Typology of sociotechnical transition pathways.” Research policy 36, no. 3 (2007): 399-417.

NCP, 2016: Citizen Shift by New Citizenship Project

Gilding, P., 2011: ‘The Great Disruption: Why The Climate Crisis Will Bring On The End Of Shopping And The Birth Of A New World’

Kelly, K., 2017: ‘The Inevitable: Understanding The 12 Technological Forces That Will Shape Our Future’.

Larnier, J., 2014: ‘Who Owns the Future?’

Mazzucato, M., 2017: Mission-orientated Innovation Policy webpage.

Mazzucato, M., and Perez, C., 2014: ‘Innovation as growth policy: the challenge for Europe’.

Meadows, D., 1997. “Places to Intervene in a System.” Whole Earth, 91(1), 78-84.

Mulgan, G., 2017: ‘Thesis, antithesis and synthesis: A constructive direction for politics and policy after Brexit and Trump’

Portes, Reed, and Percy, 2017: Social Prosperity for the future, A proposal for Universal Basic Services

Raworth, K., 2017: ‘Dougnut Economics’.

Steffen, A., 2016: ‘Trump, Putin and Pipelines to Nowhere’.

Steffen, W., W. Broadgate, L. Deutsch, O. Gaffney, C. Ludwig. 2015. ‘The Trajectory of the Anthropocene: the Great Acceleration’. The Anthropocene Review.

Warwick, K., 2013: ‘Beyond Industrial Policy’

Zenghelis, D., 2016: ‘Decarbonisation: Innovation and the Economics of Climate Change’.

Two-speed 2050: ‘security through renewal’ versus ‘security through protection’

This is a speculative vision of 2050 as if our prevalent mind-set matter. It is a thought experiment, not a prediction. It’s wrong, but hopefully in useful ways.