Fast-forward modernization and us

Hans Blommestein, Project Syndicate

A decade ago, people spoke of the end of history, meaning the ultimate triumph of a liberal capitalist political order. Nowadays, many scoff at that notion as too simplistic. Nonetheless, we are at both the end and beginning of something remarkable.

The central driver of all this is today's enormous acceleration in the underlying pace of technological and economic change. Call it fast-forward modernization.

Of course, the worldwide crash of high-tech stocks in 2000 chilled the hype about a "new economy" that seemed to be emerging at the "end of history." But falling share prices should not blind us to the fact that on top of the ongoing information revolution, three fresh waves of revolutionary technology are poised to hit: Bio-technology (including new medical technologies and genetic engineering, such as the creation of human embryos through cloning), nanotechnology, and robotics. Each is its own industrial revolution, and will profoundly alter our lives and ways of thinking.

Indeed, the revolution is already upon us. For the first time in history, a global techno-market order is transforming the world of finance, business, politics and, indeed, physiology, beyond recognition. This new techno-market system is shaped and characterized by a belief in the increasing importance of knowledge, new ideas, innovations and new technologies, and a higher pace of what the economist Joseph Schumpeter famously called "creative destruction."

As a result, corporate capitalism is rapidly becoming obsolete, replaced by a creative capitalism in which entrepreneurship, combined with a greater willingness to adopt innovations, transforms the business landscape. Innovative start- up firms become huge companies faster than ever before. But these infant giants are quickly threatened with eclipse by even newer enterprises.

Take the example of computers. It took 15 years for other countries to compete successfully with America's Silicon Valley in semi-conductors, but less than five years in Internet technology.

This system provides unprecedented financial incentives to scientists and entrepreneurs to aggressively develop new technologies and thus become rich. But the revolution is not only for the elite; it also offers a realistic (non-utopian) promise of dramatically improved lives for many people around the entire globe -- not in 100 years, but in the foreseeable future.

We are not just witnessing a simple adaptation of social structures and ways of living to suit new technologies. The Nobel laureate Robert Fogel argues that a new synergism between technological and physiological improvements has produced a radically new form of human evolution, which he calls technophysio evolution. Only this, Fogel believes, can explain recent trends in longevity, body size, the durability of vital organs, and chronic diseases.

These changes are also triggering changes in human consciousness. The result is a litany of "post-utopian" values that include a stronger emphasis on individual freedom and personal responsibility. In this world without utopia, individual freedom is the supreme value.

But, as with any change of such magnitude, there are holdouts. Indeed, politics everywhere now seems dominated by the "war of lifestyles" that has emerged from today's emphasis on individual autonomy.

Not so long ago, issues such as the environment, the balance of work versus leisure in daily life, and the role of marriage, abortion, and other family concerns were secondary political disputes, as politicians fought over who would receive what share of a nation's wealth. Now these issues define domestic political agendas.

Much of the new battle over lifestyles is undoubtedly misunderstood, perhaps because debates about them are conducted in a simplistic way: Anti-global movements versus multi- nationals, environmentalists versus corporate polluters, small farmers versus agro-business, and so on. But, beyond slogans, there is an underlying fault line between those who have the cultural capacity to embrace change and those who resist it by adhering to traditional ideas about how one's life and, by extension, society, should be organized.

This conflict exists globally. In societies that have been preparing themselves by opening their markets and embracing universal education, the disruptions of this revolution can probably be absorbed and handled. Conflict is most acute in closed societies characterized by a politically repressive climate and culturally induced obstacles to growth.

Such obstacles include the absence of an informed and capable workforce, instinctive mistrust and rejection of new ideas and technologies just because they come from the West, lack of respect for those who acquire new knowledge, and endemic discrimination against women.

The new battle of lifestyles has given rise to new enemies of open societies, such as the Taliban and al-Qaeda. It is no coincidence that terrorism thrives in societies that are intrinsically hostile to today's modernizing values and belief in individual autonomy. So long as these ideas clash, violence will lurk.

The writer is an economist with the OECD, and author of After the Death of Utopia. The opinions expressed here are his own.