In his best-selling book ‘21 Lessons for the 21st Century’, historian Yuval Noah Harari captures the essence of the challenges that will determine the future of humanity in this century.
These challenges can be broadly categorised under technology, politics, war, and resilience. Most observers of current affairs are in agreement with Harari mainly due to the fact that a familiar mantra has been bandied around by many futurists.
The fundamental underpinnings of these challenges have the possibility of making or breaking humanity, the most pernicious being rapid technological change. Most sociologists are of the opinion that when faced with changes that have the possibility of displacing individuals and societies out of their comfort zone, social unrest will often ensue.
History is replete with instances in which rapid changes in technology were accompanied by major disruptions. Take the first industrial revolution as a case in point. The discovery of the steam engine had, for a lack of a better word, revolutionised not only the production of goods but also the movement of people.
While the first industrial revolution originated in Great Britain, it spread to other parts of the European continent, and eventually to other parts of the globe. Looking back at the beginning of the 18th century, the discovery of a new technology – the steam engine, was without a doubt a novelty that ushered in hope for a better future.
Nevertheless, back then, as it is today, the purveyors of capital had almost total control of technology. Put in another way, while technology may hold a promise of salvation, that hope suffered a premature death.
Let’s look at what happened in Europe after the first industrial revolution. In their quest to pursue more and more profit for themselves, the European bourgeoisie and industrialists exploited not only their working class population but also the populace in their colonies.
The subjugation of labour and the environment to the greed of the capitalist class created a blowback on the ideological front in the form of Marxism-Leninism. Karl Marx’s prescient take on the negative externalities of the first industrial revolution such as the wealth gap between the owners of capital and the proletariats is of course applicable to the world in the 21st century as well.
At the height of the first industrial revolution, women and children had to work for long hours under dangerous conditions. It took numerous battles between the proletariats and the owners of capital before working conditions were made tolerable.
While the workers in Europe had a better deal, the working population in the European colonies from Africa to Southeast Asia suffered serious calamities. Not until some of these colonies were granted their independence that the working class enjoyed some respite.
Even then, Western military and economic dominance have rendered whatever little freedom that these societies had achieved, hollow. The first, second, third, and fourth industrial revolutions have inadvertently created both winners and losers.
While workers in the developed world have undoubtedly enjoyed better perks and privileges, changes in technology have also displaced some of the workers there. What is more, wage disparity and social immobility are becoming part of the social milieu in the developed world.
Just like the pre-independence days, the developing world is still trying to play catch up with its colonial masters. Their inability to capitalise fully on rapid technological changes that took place in the first to the fourth industrial revolutions has relegated them to the back burner, playing the role as peripheral nations.
While most developed countries are blessed with rich natural resources, the world’s political economy is designed in such a way that nations with the most capital and access to global market will undoubtedly have control over these resources.
From oil to diamond, the volatility of the price of natural resources has somehow turned these natural resources in the developing world into a resource curse. Their inability to compete economically with the developed world and their role as consumers of technology as opposed to creators of new technologies have exerted a lot of social, economic, and political pressures in these countries.
Rapid technological changes in the developed world, especially in the West continue to create instability, not only in their respective societies, but also globally. Some of these disruptions had manifested in the rise of nationalism and anti-globalisation movements in the West. The rise of Trumpism and Brexit are a clear manifestation of right-wing nationalism and anti-globalisation.
While the rise of new technologies are undoubtedly something that humanity must come to terms with, we must not forget the Luddite riots. Of course, there won’t be a repeat of groups of people going around destroying computers, cell phones, AI and the likes, but the backlash against the unequal access and the monopoly of technologies by a handful of corporations will manifest itself in social, economic, and political instability, not only in developing countries, but in developed countries.
The race to control the production of the chip between the US and China will surely have a spillover effect on the rest of the world. It might be a recipe for a political and economic showdown between two global powers and it will surely exacerbate the gulf in technological know-how between the developed and developing countries.
