WHEN YOU look one year ahead you can say something you hope is sensible—and you soon find out whether you are right. But sketching the world in 30 years’ time? Can you sensibly peer that far into the future?
Well, having done that in the early 1990s in a book called “The World in 2020”—pinching the idea of a title from The Economist—I think you can. For there are some things about the world a generation hence that we know with a fair degree of certainty: how many people there will be, for example, and where they will live. We can be reasonably confident, too, of how demography and economic growth will change the relative size of the major economies. But technological change and political shifts are harder. We have to fall back on history and intuition—and accept that we’ll often be wrong.
So it was fairly easy back in 1994 to see that by 2020 China would be well on its way to becoming the world’s largest economy (it already is, in purchasing-power-parity terms) or that the ageing population of Japan would lead it to turn more inward. But although personal computers and mobile phones were being developed, there were no internet browsers or search engines, so it was hard to see quite how technology would transform communications. And until 2007 there was no iPhone—the digital device which really did, as Steve Jobs said it would, “change everything”.
As for politics, I scored a couple of near bull’s-eyes. One was Brexit: I predicted that Britain would go for a free-trade deal with Europe rather than being a full member of the EU. I observed that “negotiating such an arrangement might, however, be very difficult”. The other was that the United States would experience “one of those great radical shifts in political attitudes that take place from time to time”. Frustrated voters would challenge the power of professional bodies, of the Hollywood moguls and “even of the liberal press”.
But I had many misses, too. The two biggest were to suggest that China would not be economically successful unless it became a less centralised bureaucracy, and that if the European common currency was indeed established it would probably break up by 2020.
So what about the next 30 years? Drawing on this experience, here are five predictions for 2050.
• There will be 10bn people in the world and the great demographic division will be one of age. The relatively young regions—Africa, and to a lesser extent the Indian subcontinent—will be fast-growing and often chaotic. Older regions, such as continental Europe and Japan, will be even more cautious and inward-looking. The EU will survive, but as a looser association. Russia’s fast-falling population will curb any global ambitions
• China will be obviously the world's biggest economy, however its maturing (and declining) populace will push it back from a dream of worldwide predominance towards making life secure and agreeable for its own kin.
• The United States will stay the most lively, outward-looking and well off district, essentially winning the tussle with China for worldwide impact. The remainder of the English-talking world, including the nations of the British Isles (which might have turned into a looser affiliation) will conform to it. Language and culture will turn out to be more significant binding together factors than actual vicinity.
• Innovative advances will empower the world to give a respectable way of life to the greater part of its 10bn, yet it will be a tenacious battle to restrict (and ideally push back) mankind's ecological weight in the world. Every one of the current worries, including environmental change and loss of territory, will crush on. Yet, innovation will carry efficiencies to support ventures, similarly as the processing plant framework expanded effectiveness in assembling. That will permit expectations for everyday comforts to keep on rising.
• A few 3/4 of the total populace will be working class. Their thoughts, especially those of the tremendous working class of China, India and progressively Africa, will input into the old created world. America will hold scholarly administration, tempered by the thoughts of the substantially more various (and similarly accomplished) individuals of the arising scene.
Jokers in the pack
At long last, two special cases that could make a huge difference. One would come from looking outwards. Assume we observe we are in good company in the universe. Assuming there are different civilisations out there that we can speak with, we would need to reevaluate everything about our species.
The other would come from peering inside. Assume we come to get what, for need of a superior articulation, we call the paranormal: how we can at times anticipate something going to happen when there is at this point not a great reason for how we do as such. That, as well, would make the world in 2050 an altogether different spot and maybe a superior one.
This article showed up in the 2020 dreams segment of the print release under the feature "The long view"
You must be logged in to post a comment.