changes the earth in such a way that, among
other things, the climate itself will change the
way we can inhabit the earth in the future. What
will change? And will we go from ego-system to
eco-system embracing the doughnut economy?
(19)
common assets during the late 1900´s and early
2000. (22) How does this clash with attempts
to battle complexity with regulations within the
governance context?
Technology. This aspect rapidly accelerating. Will
CRISPR-Cas in the garage and corporate hubs for
Footprints; the ecological footprint we leave on
genetic modification change the nature of nature
a daily basis change fundamental aspects of our in ways with unintended consequences? Will AI
lives and will force us to create completely new
lead us to a singularity moment before we have
ways of living. We see the first citizen movements adequately thought about its consequences?
trying to reduce our footprint. Can we conceive
Or can we learn on the fly, and allow the pros to
of positive footprints too – positive footprints for outweigh the cons?
the next four generations?
Outsourcing responsibility. Will superheroes save
Migration; one effect of the changing balance
civilization and deliver us from harm’s way? Are
in the planet’s ecological systems are the new
super-heroes just an alias for superintelligence?
migration movements, due to conflict, economic
Can we outsource responsibility, to super-heroes
realities, and climate change. Major climate mi-
or superintelligence, or our children and theirs?
grations have only just begun, and are expected
to increase in the near future. They bring anger
Let us be perfectly clear: we authors strongly be-
and fear to countries where migrants come, but
lieve that we have to embrace new developments
can also help solve economic problems related to and new challenges, because the old methods,
aging societies.
old systems and old values simply can’t cope
with them sufficiently. We are in the open door-
Urbanization; we see movements into cities- ur-
way of an new era, ready to step through, whether
banization- on a scale that never have been ob-
we know exactly what it entails or not. The pres-
served before, although the move per se has been sure on our societies will grow, and the demands
ongoing for hundreds of years. (20) This massive for resolute solutions from citizen will grow
move of people will in itself demand new ways
louder – if what we have in place is not sufficient,
of both organizing our society, but also on what
then what could be some ways forward?
kind of reciprocal balance is needed in our soci-
ety, combining this mega-trend with the dramatic
ongoing changes in demographics we see some
What relations have to be
extremely demanding challenges. (21)
dealt with in a new societal
contract?
Deregulation. We have experienced a rapid re-
direction, privatization and deregulation of our
30 HF |
April 2019
We are experiencing a period of transition into a
new era. Considering what we have discussed
above, the old traditional hierarchical structures
dissolve and are replaced by a networked system deal with the refugee problem. Being a ‘democrat-
ic’ government sets limits to how far they can act
or even networks of networks. In this system the
nodes are important but are also less constant.
This has the potential for more equality, but also
more complexity. However it gives us an unprec-
edented opportunity to develop and disseminate
fresh thinking about new societal contracts. as a ‘corporation’ or deal-maker. Not everything is
a negotiation, trade-off, compromise or deal, not
everything can be dealt with by caveat. So they
are looking for ways – again – to increase com-
mitment from citizens and citizen groups, stim-
ulate self-organization in society, and privatize
non-essential parts of the government.
When the dynamic in a system increases, rapid
change is possible but so is instability. Looking
at the main players in the system, we see that
because of this changing pattern, government,
citizens, companies and entrepreneurs are rede-
fining their roles.
Governments realize that they can’t ‘control’ de-
velopments as they used to, nor can they deliver
the services society needs in the way they would
like to. An example is the way the EU is trying to
Companies transform and have difficulties to
keep up with innovators and disruptors – think
about the hotel industry and Airbnb or taxi and
Uber: new business models with unintended
consequences which themselves disrupt society.
Citizens and government are far more critical of
big corporations (especially after the banking cri-
sis) and they expect corporations to create more
societal capital.
Citizens are empowered partly because of social
Innovation over the Long Run, NBER Working Paper No. 25266.13
17 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_Industrial_Revolution
18 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropocene and Sverker Sörlin, Antropocene- en essä om människans tidsålder-, 2017.
19 See Otto Scharmer: ”Leading from the Emerging Future: From Ego-System to Eco-System Economies” and Kate Ra-
worth: ” Doughnut Economics: Seven Ways to Think Like a 21st-Century Economist”
20 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urbanization
21 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_ageing and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_demography and further on
HF | Human Futures 31