The Observer - 2 March 2014 - 7
It would take so little to fix Zimbabwe
A
N issue that every human being
has to deal with in today’s world
is how to accommodate change
in all its different forms. The
earth is old - how old is a subject on its own,
but the history of mankind on earth is much
shorter - perhaps no longer than 10,000 years.
What evidence we have suggests that human
kind has not changed in a fundamental sense
in that time.
Early records show that humans had a
sophisticated grasp of the key issues that they
had to deal with; they had mathematics, science
and language. But one common characteristic
of the entire period of 10,000 years has been
the need for human beings to adjust to and
manage their changing environment.
The one thing that we can say about our
world without contradiction is that the pace of
change is accelerating. We tend to concentrate
on the most visible symbols of change - the
cell phones, computers and the instant global
communications but the process is affecting
everything and all our lives. When my father
was born, the airplane was an image on a
drawing board. When I first became involved
with the company that I would ultimately lead
as the Chief Executive, we did not have a
computer in the organisation.
Our first machine was purchased from a
little known company called IBM, had to be
moved by crane, housed in a special building
with air conditioning. It used punch cards
for processing and when it was turned on,
it shook the whole building. When I left the
organisation, our main frame was the size of
a small fridge, stood in an alcove and ran off
a plug. It was many times more powerful than
our first machine.
But the pace of change has many faces
- money markets, social change, politics,
incomes and commerce in all its different
forms. In the money market for example,
we have a situation where up to $100 trillion
in liquid cash is held by millions of firms
and individuals all over the world. This sum
dwarfs even the largest economies and the
largest banks and the collective impact of
shifts in perception and confidence can have
tidal impact on virtually every company and
every country on the globe.
This means that the rules of how countries
can manage their affairs have changed. After
the Second World War as the world struggled
to come to grips with the death of 60 million
men and women and the near total destruction
of European States, the multilateral
institutions established by the Breton
Woods agreements - the IMF and the World
Bank - set the rules and made the necessary
decisions. For a while they had the power and
authority to impose macroeconomic policies
on countries. Now that role has been taken
over by the global integrated financial markets
that automatically punish States if they violate
these fundamental rules.
At the same time, if a country gets the mix
right, they can attract massive resources and
the result is the dramatic and unparalleled
growth of the Asian Tiger States and China.
Historically no country has grown so fast
and for such a long time as modern China.
This has lifted billions out of abject poverty
and created cit