by 
We all love lists. I posted a drivers list a year-ish ago. I thought it would be fun to revisit and see if anything changed and add a few observations. This is my personal view of the top ten drivers for roughly the 20-year global future. I do make some allowances for what’s being paid attention to.
| DRIVER | Comments |
| 1. Values Shifts: Value are shifting in a consistent direction over time, from traditional to modern to postmodern to integral. | Staying at the top; may never move; reflects my personal view of the central role of values. |
| 2. Post-Work: Long-term future in which formal jobs are not the primary means for making a living | I split this off from After Capitalism as it really is gaining a momentum of its own, i.e., Great Resignation, Quiet Quitting and the like |
| 3. After Capitalism: Neoliberal capitalism crumbling with alternative images emerging. | Steady drumbeat of interest continues, although still way more about the decline of capitalism than alternatives |
| 4. Inequality: Huge gaps in inequality are driving interest in program such as UBI | Still more talk than action, but UBI pilots are increasing |
| 5. Climate Change & the Circular Economy: Climate change and humanity’s growing ecological footprint are threatening the ecosystem, with the circular principles of using less and re-using being a promising development. | Growing awareness and some action re: climate change, but circular is suffering a pandemic hangover; preferring disposable over re-use for public health safety reasons |
| 6. Technology Acceleration, the Singularity & Abundance: Accelerating technological progress is such that within a generation, it may be possible to provide goods and services, once reserved for the wealthy few, to any and all who need them. | Even though we saw this coming, ChatGPT has certainly galvanized the attention of the public. |
| 7. Local & Decentralized Production: As 3D printing and other approaches, e.g., vertical farming expands their reach, local supply chains become more feasible vis-à-vis global ones. | This is rather quietly becoming a really big thing. |
| 8. Integration of Virtual and Real: While often more prominent “at work,” it is expanding into the home as well … differences are beginning to blur as we get used to it … and will increasingly fade. | The dreadful knee-jerk “get back to the office” orders are keeping things interesting here at least. |
| 9. Tribalism: Our growing unwillingness to empathize and compromise outside of our communities threatens the social and political order. | Not much change here; some “thawing,” but overall, probably worse |
| 10. Food Security: Challenges to physical and economic access to food are growing | Seeing nothing good here; wait, that’s not true, some interesting small scale, local things, but big picture doesn’t look good … at all. |
A few notes:
- Dropped
- Augmented Humans: Technology and medical breakthroughs provide ways for us to keep up with AI … or to make ourselves into superheroes (still too early)
- New Metrics of Success: Gross National Happiness: The most common measure, GDP, only tells a small part of the story. New measures, such as the Triple Bottom Line, and Gross National Happiness are emerging.(disappointing this isn’t moving faster; ESG “woke” controversy hurts this)
- Added
- Post-work: Split out post-work future separate from After Capitalism
- Food Security: feeling uneasy here
Please keep in mind that this is not a serious in-depth analysis, but a top-of-mind reflection. I may well have forgotten something. It’s an interesting experiment to run. Try it! What’s your top ten? — Andy Hines
Paying attention to Food Security is interesting and commendable. We need to pay more attention to the issue of food and its related changes.
Drivers of food can be categorized in five scales:
1. global and transnational,
2. regional and national,
3. urban,
4. rural and agricultural.
5. domestic scales of food consumption and the individual as a consumer.
Looking at the future of food, two subjects must be considered, production and consumption.
Very well communicated, echoes my thoughts at so many levels. I feel we will have a strong deglobalization movement, as production and supply chains are local and faster than ever. This is propelled by climate catastrophes, rising food insecurities, and simply the need for economies to be self-reliant(to a certain extent UBI). These drivers will push for sharp deglobalization.
All these drivers are restricting mobility.
We may have some level of global governance, but that’s a far sight, isn’t it?
i’ve never really understood what you mean by “post capitalism”. not clear to me what some key definitions are in that space. but, we are moving toward more and more solutions coming from collaboration enabled by real time communications, electronic computing, and data analytics. it is not hard to imagine a world where the bulk of commerce is virtual, automated, and collaborative.
since the post ww2 western coalition to block the ussr is finally collapsing, and china is on the verge of regressing, expect to see a major realignment of national alliances on a global basis that will:
– dramatically impact europe and the EU (expect old rivalries to return)
– lead to a resurgence of the middle east (iran, turkey)
– asian cooperation (japan, s korea, australia, us, others)
– a surge in wealth and growth for canada, us, and mexico.
– africa will be exploited by all more than ever, but has the potential to emerge stronger.