Predictable futures—the drivers for change

Pergamon Fu~uws. Vol. 28, No. 9. pp. 829-X38. 1996

Copyright 0 199h Elsevier Science Ltd

Printed in Great Britain. Ail rights reserved 00 I h-32X7/96 $ IS.00 + 0.00

PII: SO01 6-3287(96)00045-6

PREDICTABLE FUTURES-THE DRIVERS FOR CHANGE

David Mercer

Based on research undertaken over the past three years-by the UK’s Open

University-with more than 1000 large organizations, the article describes a bright technological future. We will live longer, with greater resources at our

command. We are likely to enter into a form of symbiosis with the computer

networks, and will make positive use of drugs to enhance our performance and

to enjoy life more; and many of us will do this in space colonies. On the other

hand, the exact nature of the new society is difficult to predict, although it will

be much more diverse in nature, offering a much richer diet for individuals to

fulfil their potential, in the ways that they choose. Economic forces on a global

scale are leading to the creation of regional political unions, but political parties

face extinction. Copyright 0 1996 Elsevier Science ltd

This article describes the highlights emerging from research undertaken over the past

three years-by the UK’s Open University. This involved work with more than 1000 large

organizations; including governments as well as the leading multinationals. It covered

the patterns of development most likely to dominate global events over the next 30 years.

Interestingly, despite the academically rigorous nature of the research techniques

employed-which might have been expected to result in conservative findings, at least

some of the developments reported are more radical than might be expected!

Introduction

At the end of the 20th century, confusion-if not outright anarchy-seems to rule. We

have mass genocide in Ruanda, seemingly intractable civil war in Bosnia, genuine anar-

chy in Somalia, mass unemployment around the world, and the underclasses setting up

The author is Senior Lecturer, Open University Bustness School, Walton tiall, Milton Keynes MK7 bAA. UK (Tel: 01908.2321 bi; fax: 01908 655098; e-mail: ci.s.merrer(ic~open.ac.uk).

Predictable futures-the drivers for change: D Mercer

independent (drug-funded) rule in the inner cities of the USA. The family is breaking up;

and more than 300 organizations, in the USA alone, look forward to seeing Armageddon

arrive in the near future.

Our leaders are just as confused as we are, and have no sensible answers to the

problems we face. They increasingly retreat into comforting nostalgia about past values,

whilst adopting corrupt practices to try, without success, to save their own skins.

Methodology

This qualitative research originated with the considered views of the representatives of

more than a thousand organizations, who have worked with us over the past three years.

Using a variety of means, we gathered the expectations-of what the future of mankind

might be-from managers in these organizations; which included most of the world’s

largest multinationals, as well as governments and international bodies. These were not

off-the-cuff comments made in informal interviews, but have been well considered

decisions, the subject of intensive sessions lasting between three and 30 hours each. The

final qualitative research, specifically reported here, involved 17 groups representing

more than 140 organizations.

The views we put forward-for the expectations about the future which are detailed

in this article-are therefore not our own, but are those of the many hundreds of individ-

uals who each gave so much time and energy to the work; and for that we are enormously

grateful to them. It is the authority of those hundreds of contributors-coming not least

from the fact that the expectations they reported already form the basis of the future

planning for those many large organizations-that underpinned our results. As such, the

forces which are described in the material, and whose likely outcomes are mapped, are

not just our speculations about the future, they are those which are already shaping that

future. In most areas indeed, where there is an obvious convergence of these expec-

tations, most of the individuals and groups involved clearly shared a common view of

aspects of that future, so these results spell out what will very probably happen in that

future. In particular, if these thousand or so key organizations are optimistic about the

future-and in general they are-then the prospects for that future, for all of us, look good.

The highlights

Technology

Looking first at some of the technological changes-which typically initiate the overall

processes of long-term development-these are generally seen to impact the future in the

optimistic terms of steady incremental growth-leading to ever increasing standards of

life. The starting-points are typically the wealth-creating ‘inventions’ from which they are

derived. Even so, they still hold some surprises. Not least, as we will see from these

highlights, the greatest impact comes in terms of the way that these forces will change

society in general:

Effectively unlimited physical resources

Perhaps the most fundamental new factor is the availability of effectively unlimited global

resources; access to which is now extending for the first time to almost all individuals.

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Thus, we already have the technology to exploit productively the resources of the whole

planet; and the potential to meet any remaining shortfalls by seeking out the riches which

surround us in space. More important, the rate of growth of demand, even for existing

physical products, is s/owing. Microtechnology, in particular, now allows us to shrink

our new devices to ever smaller sizes; requiring ever less quantities of raw materials and

energy; and the intelligence built into these devices offers optimization of performance

microsecond by microsecond.

The most important development, though, is the switch from ‘tangibles’ to ‘intan-

gibles’. The most dramatic growth has taken place in terms of the provision of intangible

services--especially those in the sectors most directly served by information technology.

Almost by definition, these services demand the use of little or no physical resources.

Computers and communications

The changes wrought by computer communications, in particular, have already started

to demolish concepts which have long been part of our everyday lives. Location or

geography no longer circumscribes our everyday activities. Through the Internet, I ‘talk’,

on a daily basis, people across the world; and I now accept this unquestioningly-behav-

ing as if they were in the same building.

Rather less obviously, the way I talk with these people has also changed. I can

now have a simultaneous conversation with large numbers of them-hundreds, perhaps

thousands of them-almost as easily as with one of them. This is a totally new form of

human communications and, although it is transforming the information flows in organi-

zations and across communities, we have yet to appreciate exactly what this means to

society as a whole.

The increasing ability to instantaneously access information is set to destroy the need

for certain types of expert knowledge painstakingly acquired with our education. As a

result, we educationalists will have to radically rethink our roles; replacing the straightfor-

ward teaching of facts with the more fundamental skills students now will need to retrieve

this data and synthesize it into meaningful new knowledge. It will also render the knowl-

edge base of a number of professions largely redundant. It may even mean that members

of such professions will join the ranks of the unemployed.

One unpredictable, but potentially very potent, fall-out from these developments is

that we ourselves will change. Increasingly, some parts of individuals’ memories-and

hence of their identity-are coming to reside in a computer. This might be described as

symbiosis between humans and computers, and computer networks. Further, this exter-

nalized self will increasingly overlap with the external selves of others. So, in small ways

at first, we may start to adopt a stronger shared identity, perhaps eventually something

approaching a hive mentality. Nobody, not even myself or those involved in our research,

can begin to guess where this symbiosis will lead us.

1 ifespan

It is likely that the average human lifespan in the middle of the ~1st century will be-in

the developed world at least-in excess of 100 years. Despite the worries of governments

about funding retirement, this is good news! Longevity means that individuals will be

able to choose to extend their working lives. Better health, combined with the IT revol-


ution which is creating jobs that are more suitable for the elderly, means that this choice

will be much more widely available; and will be taken by most members of the increas-

ingly active (especially politically active) ‘grey market’. The overall effect, though, will

be that the manpower resources available to society will expand to more than cover

the demands made by any increased period of retirement. Combined with the dramatic

improvements in productivity we have seen over recent decades, this indicates an even

richer future for all.

Legalization of drugs

The position here is currently bedeviled by the blanket illegality of the increasing number

of such substances; though, even here there are anomalies-Prozac is a miracle drug,

supposedly helping millions to a better life, but Ecstasy is a scourge, castigated for blight-

ing the lives of teenagers. And, of course, alcohol and tobacco, arguably the most harmful

drugs of all, are available in shops and bars everywhere. The driving force here will be

the growing usage of a wide range of new drugs by a significant proportion of the popu-

lation. Certain classes of drugs are already in such widespread popular use that legaliz-

ation is probably only a matter of time. Decriminalizing use of these substances will,

though, allow better control. The underlying problems arising from factors such as depri-

vation can be addressed directly and the substances themselves can be subjected to rigor-

ous quality controls-which will reduce the number of drug-related deaths.

More controversially, perhaps, it may allow commercial providers-especially the

pharmaceutical companies, and maybe even the tobacco multinationals-to develop

more suitable, safer alternatives. The products will be designed to produce exactly the

effect the user desires; with no unwanted side-effects.

Space travel

It now seems inevitable that humanity will eventually colonize space-that between the

planets as much as the planets themselves. Indeed, this is accepted as a fact by the

majority of the population and most, according to our research, see this starting in the

relatively near future. Nevertheless, real activity, on such a substantial scale, may be

more delayed than the population at large allows for. Not least, the establishment has

yet to recognize the popular mood and has failed to direct sufficient resources in this

direction. The timescale depends not on technology-we already have the knowledge

and resources to undertake massive programmes of colonization-but on political will.

Development of society

What will happen to society is the most uncertain question of all-as yet unanswered.

The likely developments might be thought of as leading to the ‘individualist society’, or-

more cryptically as we ourselves tend to think of it-as ‘inner space’; with individuals

moving ever deeper into their own private worlds. The biggest unanswered question of

all is how will the individual interact with society in future. In terms of individual happi-

ness, at least, this is probably the most important question. What is clear, and is widely

recognized, is that moves to individual freedom, away from community control, rep-

resent-in the developed countries-a major force for social change.

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Predictable fhres-the drivers for change: D Mercer

Breakdown of the community

The most immediate effects of the new, and as yet unaccustomed, individual freedoms

can be seen in the breakdown of traditional communities; and even in disintegration of

the family. But this does not represent a fundamental problem; which will remain with

us in future. It simply became inevitable when the reasons for the existence of the pre-

vious structures disappeared. The real problem, in the shorter term, is that the old struc-

tures are disintegrating without, as yet, their replacements having emerged, or at least

being obvious to society. But, the breakdown was bound to happen some day. What is

not inevitable is that the resulting anarchy we observe around us will represent the ulti-

mate outcome; the real end of history! It seems likely that, following the lessons of pre-

vious revolutions, society will eventually reintegrate and stabilize. The problem, for the

medium term, is what form(s) this new society might take. It is, indeed, not even possible

to speculate sensibly, as yet, on the alternatives available.

What seems likely is that new form(s) will emerge gradually over the next decades.

Social experiments will take place, perhaps built upon some of those started in the 1960s.

Whatever the outcome, the next few decades will be very exciting at times!

New, extended relationships

The general area of ‘networking’, not just the electronic forms, is rapidly growing. Where

hierarchical relationships-especially in the workplace-are disintegrating, the individual

increasingly depends on a network of relationships; with a much wider range of people,

to provide the context for his or her work and play. Increasing access to the computer

networks will considerably amplify the process; and define many of its characteristics.

Organizations will see increased flexibility and productivity. The individual will see

the number of people with whom they will have regular-network-contact increase

dramatically; and some of these new friends may well live on the other side of the world.

On the other hand, thse new network relationships will typically be highly focused con-

versations, as opposed to the rich relationships which lie at the heart of long-term friend-

ships or family ties, and these ‘acquaintanceships’ may last for a few weeks rather than

a lifetime.

The have-nots

In terms of deprivation those most affected will continue to be the obvious have-nots.

Clearly the unequal split in the distribution of wealth will be the major factor determining

the lives of those consigned to these underclasses-impoverishing their daily lives and

severely constraining their horizons. In societies choosing this path, in particular the USA,

the haves will also pay a price for this split. They will-with considerable justification-

fear that in a rapidly changing world they too may be just a step away from the same

fate. Even worse, perhaps, they will be exposed more immediately to the social side- effects; not least an escalation of crime, generated by individuals in the underclasses who

have nothing to lose, and everything to gain, by moving outside the law. Fortunately, the evidence suggests that this descent into a nightmare world is likely

to afflict few nations, apart most notably from the USA. Other nations, including those

in Europe, will draw back from the precipice, voters judging, correctly, that the long-

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term price to be paid, for any short-term gains in prosperity, is too high. Aided by the

rapid growth in overall wealth, backed by popular electoral support (motivated in the

short term perhaps by uncertainty as to their own futures), they will successfully address

the problems caused by an unequal distribution of wealth.

Feminization

Women’s Lib has proved to be the major political movement of the second half of the

20th century. Indeed, it has succeeded far beyond its founders’ wildest dreams.

Although women are still disadvantaged, not least in terms of pay differentials, they

are rapidly catching up and, more significantly, overtaking men in the labour market.

They are, it turns out, better suited-intellectually and especially emotionally-to the

emerging demands of the new industries. With a growing awareness of their new-found

power and a growing radicalism, they will also start to dominate the political agenda.

The resulting feminization of society at large, and especially feminization of its values

(with cooperation replacing competition as the major political force), will be even more

influential than the growing presence of women in the key positions of economic power.

At the individual level, they will be left with the responsibility for the family; but

this will no longer be the handicap it traditionally has been-for now they will own the

family. They will, thus, naturally own the rich relationships for which their menfolk will

be searching.

Portfolio lives

One of the most obvious changes in the medium term will be the rapidly widening range

of lifestyles available to, and adopted by, many members of society. The main difference

now is the number of different lifestyles each individual has to choose from, and, even

more important, the range of them actually chosen by that single individual, to switch

to (depending only on the needs of the specific situation) on an almost daily basis.

People now have the money, the time and the inclination to adopt the lifestyle appro-

priate to the situation which they face. It is becoming as easy to assume a different life-

style, for the few hours that meet your needs, as it is to dress in a different outfit to suit

your mood; and, indeed, the two activities are often intimately related. The emphasis,

here, is on the freedom to suit your lifestyle to the occasion-or even to your mood-

as you see fit.

In addition, individuals will no longer be expected to go through life with the same

needs or tastes; for we already know that individuals have very different requirements,

as they grow through education into adulthood, get married and have children, become

rich empty-nesters (when the children leave home), retire to a life of leisure and then to

a supported existence as death approaches. It is only recently, however, that real needs

of each of these stages (and of intermediate stages within them) have been truly recog-

nized; and these differences will be increasingly addressed, especially as database mar-

keting allows suppliers-from supermarkets to finance houses-to deal effectively with

our needs on an individual basis.

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Life-long education

The genuine commitment, by the individual as much as by the state, to a life-long pro-

gramme of self-development might be described as life-long education. It certainly should

not be seen as the retraining advocated by so many governments, under the same title,

to meet new workplace practices. It will take the form of a continuous process of self-

development-a life-long exploration of the full potential open to each individual-and

an optimization of personal potential, of self-fulfillment (even through play), rather than

of contribution to the economy.

It will represent an exploration of a// the aspects of life which interest them-which

will vary as they progress through their various life-stages; but it will also encompass an

investigation in some depth of the ones they judge, with some professional advice, to be

the most important for them personally. This new demand, from the expansion in individ-

ual horizons, is likely to be the key to the knowledge society, rather than the supply,

from the growing corporate databases.

Global economic forces

Much has been said about globalization in recent years. The communications revolution

now means that we can as easily talk to someone on the other side of the world as to

someone at the next desk, and containerization has resulted in physical products-even

perishables such as fruit-arriving in our local supermarket from almost as far afield. On

the other hand, our research shows that the multinationals are definitely not about to take

over the world-they simply do not want to, it is not a part of their corporate culture-and

cheap labour in the developing world is not putting people out of work in the developed

world, although it is shifting employment patterns, in the same way that it has done for

centuries past.

Demographic pressures

Estimates of global population size in 2025 range from 8 billion to 12 billion; but, even

though these figures might seem alarming, there really is very little evidence that Malthu-

Sian predictions of worldwide starvation might be valid. Food resources have grown faster

than the population has, even in the most recent decades. Indeed, the existence of rapidly

growing resources, is a key feature of global development; as is a decline, for the first

time, in the rate of growth of population, with the Third World nations approach to

developed status. Then there are the almost infinite resources lying in wait in outer space.

The remaining problem is the uneven distribution of the resources we do have avail-

able to us, especially as the owners of these still show few signs of sharing them out

more fairly with the have-nots. On the other hand, those who exploit their privileged

position in this way should realize is that it is the relative change in demographic press-

ures which is becoming crucial. By 2025, the developed world to which the main owners

of these resources belong, will account for less than a tenth of the world’s population.

Thus, significantly, the have-nots will far outweigh-in number if not in individual buying

power-the haves; by a ratio of more than ten to one! Combine this fact with the potent

‘democratic’ ideology, of ‘one man one vote’, still being promoted by the ‘West’ (even

though its original target, the USSR, has long since succumbed) and you have the recipe

for the rapid collapse of Western power.

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Third World power

The major nations of what is now referred to as the Third World will-by virtue of their

population sizes-soon come to dominate world power. Even the smaller nations, no

longer used as the battleground of the Cold War, will at last begin their own process of

development, a process which can now take as little as a decade!

This will start to resolve positively the problem of uneven distribution of resources.

Resources are already starting to flow, naturally, to where the populations most need

them; and these new investments will significantly increase overall global economic

growth; creating greater riches even among the developed nations. The psychological

impact of this on the West in general, and on the USA in particular, will be even greater.

In a very short space of time, their dominance will be taken away from them. The USA,

for instance, will have less than a generation to come to terms with its loss of a global

empire-where Britain is still suffering withdrawal symptoms the best part of a century

since it lost its own position as world leader.

Global economics

Though it represents only a minor proportion of overall economic activity, international

trade can be, in specific sectors, unduly influential in terms of global developments. This

is especially true, at the moment, of the burgeoning knowledge industries, which lie at

the heart of the new economic developments. Knowledge now effortlessly spans the globe

in microseconds. This opens up the new knowledge markets to supply from anywhere

and everywhere. It is as easy to get your programming done in India, and a lot cheaper,

and this is no special case. It is worth noting that the second largest group of English-

speaking science graduates-after the USA-is to be found in India, not in Britain!

The potential impact can be gauged from what has happened in the financial mar-

kets. After the breakdown of the Bretton Woods agreements, and fuelled by the new

communications technologies, money now surges back and forth across the world-more

than $1 trillion every day! These flows of money are largely intangible, the result of pure

speculation, but they still pose very tangible problems for the organizations which need

to fund international trade. The flows can, in a microsecond, destabilize whole markets.

Even worse, they are beyond the control of even the largest national governments; and

they can destroy national economic policies far more effectively than any invader ever

could.

Political revolutions

Outdated nation-states

Our cosy view of political life is being overtaken by events. At the community level, the growth of individual freedom-paradoxically fostered by the governments which are

otherwise hell-bent on centralization of power-means that there will be ever more irre-

sistible demands for decentralization of such power! More obviously, the nation is under attack from above by regional (supranational) forces-typically in response to the increas-

ingly global nature of the economic forces ranged against them. The new regional govern-

ments springing up around the world, led by the EU and NAFTA-are addressing these global economic forces. They may soon evolve, though, from the purely economic to political unions; as the EC evolved into the EU.

836


A shared distribution of power-with each level, from community up to supra-

national region, and the nation-state somewhere in between, taking responsibility for

those things it does best-should result in structures better suited to modern political

necessities. Unfortunately, these facts are not as evident to the national politicians; who

can only see the threat to their own personal power.

The death of politics

This is, however, just one challenge facing politicians in general. The political parties,

too, face a bleak future. Among the main victims of the growth in individual freedom,

which the parties themselves fostered for political advantage, have been the parties them-

selves, whose members, and especially their electorates, have deserted them in droves.

Elsewhere, single issue politics seems to be more vibrant. The issues are much clearer

when examined individually; be they animal rights or the global environment. They are

irretrievably muddied when joined with the grubby parcel of other issues which parties

try to make their own-to win the popular vote.

The dynamism of single issue groupings may pose significant problems for the tra-

ditional political parties, as the latter are faced with dramatic lurches in direction when

popular forces overtake them and by splits within their own ranks. On the other hand,

it is as yet difficult to see how the single issue parties could cope with the more complex

problems of running a country; or how they might build a consensus to support such a

role. There are some examples of systems which can cope successfully-typically by

adopting a commitment to genuinely representative democracy-but there is so far no

evidence that these experiments can be applied more generally. There has also been

much talk of other forms of democracy-most often perhaps of direct democracy, by

using devices such as referenda directly to involve the electorate-but, again, there is little

evidence that these, by themselves, will lead to viable new systems of government overall.

The establishment at bay

The group which is most exposed to the problems of rapid change is the establishment

in general, and the political establishment in particular. What is worse is that its members

simultaneously form the one group whose future is genuinely under threat-it is typically

the establishment itself which is displaced (often violently) by any revolution-and they

provide those who are in charge of the transition to that future. The result is, not surpris-

ingly, a degree of panic-a fear of the future which they have conveyed to the wider

population.

Revolutionary pains

The problems of rapid change, which accompany any revolution, are well known; and

the current crop were accurately predicted several decades ago by Alvin Toffler (who

then referred to them as ‘future shock’). We prefer to characterize them as ‘revolutionary

pains’, since their key characteristic is that they are by definition short-term, lasting only

as long as the leading edge of the revolution takes to work its way through. Above all

they do not represent-as many politicians appear to fear-underlying trends which will

remain with us. The evidence is that, as in previous revolutions, they will soon be

replaced by the optimism, even a boom, which results from the move beyond; into the

837


post-revolutionary world. The only difference now is that the processes seem to be hap-

pening much faster, but, surprisingly, with much less damage (let alone the violence)

than in previous times, so that the pain should disappear in less than a generation. The

future should be much brighter than the pundits allow for-and this was demonstrated,

in our research, by the clear contrast between private optimism and public pessimism.

Optimism regained

Indeed, perhaps the most important element, especially that arising from the technologi-

cal factors, is totally intangible. It is simply a mood, but no less powerful for that. It is

optimism about the future; a belief that an ever better future will come about.

This might appear to fly in the face of the prevailing mood described in the media.

We are regularly told that the future is bleak. Uncertainty, and chaos, await us all. Further-

more, even our own research showed that most people recognized the fact that everyone

else was pessimistic. Paradoxically, though, individuals were themselves optimistic about

their own future; public pessimism, private optimism! Their optimism is, indeed, well-

founded-we already have to hand all that is needed for a rich future-and we believe

that it will ultimately carry the day.

It is our leaders, especially politicians and journalists, who are out of step. The real

danger is that we will be persuaded by them to abandon our natural optimism, and to

lapse into self-defeating pessimism.

Conclusions

Our technologically determined future is very bright. We will live longer, with greater

resources at our command. How we live, though, may be very different. We are likely

to enter into a form of symbiosis with the computer networks, and will make positive

use of drugs to enhance our performance and to enjoy life more; and many of us will

do this in space colonies. The future, justifiably in this context, is a very optimistic one.

On the other hand, the exact nature of the new society is, as I have shown, difficult

to predict. It seems likely, however, that it will be much more diverse in nature; offering

a much richer diet for individuals to fulfil their potential, in the ways that they choose.

How they will ultimately decide to interact with others is even less predictable, but,

again, it seems likely that the result will be both diverse and rich, in terms of the new

relationships which will emerge.

Finally, economic forces on a global scale are leading to the creation of regional

political unions. As a result of this, and of the moves to individual freedom, political

parties face extinction; though what will replace them is an open question. Still, the

future-for all except the establishment which is charged with managing the transition

(and still poses a major threat to its success)-will be bright!

Notes

More detailed results of this research may be accessed on the (Internet) Web at:

http://www.open.ac.uk/OU/Academic/OUBS/CStra~AD2OOO/OOO.html

This takes you to the introduction and index, but please note it is important to enter the capital letters exactly

as above.

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Predictable futures—the drivers for change