The socio-ecological implications of the knowledge revolution are many and multifaceted. But the world needs a system where a 'post bi-polar' order is yet to be defined...
IT is the era of knowledge revolution. And we are living in a
'knowledge society' ever since we learned how to make a fire
and where to find food. The values of competition and materialism mostly dominate the human society today. In my
mind, a future cannot be built on such narrow objectives. If
life on earth should survive, what we first and foremost need is
cooperation, which is becoming alarmingly divided.
One salient feature of the post-Cold War period is the
worldwide acceptance of market economy. Although it is the
most efficient method to organise an economy, I do think it is
dangerous to let markets become almost a new religion. For,
profit-led markets do not respond to problems of social deprivation, hunger and illiteracy, depletion of natural resources
and growing structural unemployment. We need wise politics
to address these social problems. Unfortunately, what we see
today is too little of such efforts, with the only notable exception of the European Union (EU).
Developments in science and technology have recently
been phenomena], and the increase in lifestyles has been truly
impressive. But in the words of Ricardo Petrella, science
advisor of the EU, a salient feature of the modern industrialised
society is the gap between what technology 'could provide' -
its potential, and what it actually 'does provide' - its reality.
Today, our ethics have to catch up with technologies!
Developments in the South have mostly been lopsided.
Although considerable achievements have been made in the
least-developed countries, the combination of growing population, misdirected policies, excessive defence expenditure, an
unrealistic belief in the 'trickle-down economics' theory, corruption and ethnic conflicts et al, have all seriously destabilised the South.
Since the 18th century, we in Continental Europe, have
had a vision of historical optimism. Through hard work and
technological developments, the society experienced steady
progress. The emergence of the welfare state did see to it that
the results of production were relatively evenly distributed.
Recent developments have changed this situation drastically. Most OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation
and Development) countries are majorly impoverished. The
reasons are: rising unemployment, lower real wages and
increasing inefficiency of governments to meet the customary
level of payments to the unemployed, and the sick and the old.
Even in the US, 80 per cent of households have come under
the onslaught of inflation since the '70s. Only upper income
bracket members could improve their lifestyles. The number
of workers below the poverty line almost doubled during the
'80s. The super-rich, earning more than US $1 million
annually, have increased 100-fold from 642 in 1970 to over
62,000 in 1990. In 1980, corporate chief executive officers
earned roughly 40 times the average income of factory
workers. By 1989, they made 93 times as much. The American
dream became a nightmare.
Both the International Labour Organization and the
World Bank seem to be confident that growing economies will
result in more job opportunities provided right policies are
adopted. According to this, jobs disappear because of automation, but new and fascinating opportunities open up. The
'other view' claims that the greatest risk from automation and
the emerging knowledge society is that they offer fewer jobs.
It seems we are moving towards a three-tier workforce:
skilled personnel concentrated in fascinating, intellectually
demanding, well-paid knowledge jobs; those with repetitive,
less challenging and low-pair tasks; and those who have been
ousted from the production procedure. Information technologies (IT) are making new working arrangements possible.
Home-based work is an important option. The International
Institute for Sustainable Development, Canada, reports that
25 per cent of all Canadian business are home-based.
Although a welcome development, it has proven harmful in
many developing countries' contexts as it thwarts
social aspects of work prevalent there.
To judge carefully, we may actually be in the process of creating a new type of aristocracy, not land-based as in the past, or
capital-based as today, but based on access to information.
Economic growth and strong governments helped the working class' access to rights and wealth in the past. The knowledge society could destroy these achievements and return to age-old contrasts between social groups, and between the educated and uneducated. We know from experience in Sweden
that all kinds of methods to increase working class participation in higher education through measures like quotas had
limited success. Higher education continues to be strongly
linked to social groups and parental encouragement - patterns that are not broken easily.
One of the recent catchwords has been the notion of sustainable development. The concept of sustainability very often
is confused with the renewal of natural resources, which, however, is just one important aspect of sustainable development.
What is very much needed is sustainability of all types of capital - physical, human, financial, social and natural.
Natural capital, however, is very important. Most of the
activities we enjoy in our modern economies, ultimately
depend on the natural resource base. This was very obvious
when the vast majority of the world's population was farmers.
Today, when farming employs less than three per cent of the
global population, and the city-bred can buy fast food round
the clock, we more or less take the natural resource base for granted.
The major environmental problem today is exactly this:
we consume an ever-increasing amount of energy and raw
materials, producing waste in the process, thereby threatening
the atmosphere, forests, lands and water resources. We do
experience serious problems in a world of 5.7 billion inhabitants. And it is a chilling thought what our situation would be
in AD 2020 with almost eight billion people on earth.
To take a middle path, there appears to be only one possible strategy to prevent an environmental disaster:
efficiency. We hope, of course, for a change in lifestyles.
But the fact is that, everyone wants to travel, wants cars,
wants to eat meat, buy plenty of clothing, enjoy heat in the
winter and cool weather in summer. These lifestyles prevail in
the North and are the aspirations of billions of Southern
people. Already today, one-third of the so-called global
consumers are found in the developing countries. Hence, if
lifestyles and consumption patterns are difficult to change,
what must happen is a revolution in our mode of using energy
and materials.
Traditionally, the private sector has opposed any proposal
to increase the costs of energy and resource use. At the same
time, most industrial leaders subscribe to the 'polluter pays'
principle. In my opinion, the only possible effective way to
encourage an efficiency revolution would be through an ecological tax reform - higher taxes on natural resource use and
lower taxes on labour.
There are, indeed, opportunities for an efficiency revolution. There are also, however, limits to efficiency just as there
are limits to growth. Hence, we will have to continue stimulating the evolution of lifestyles which are more in harmony with
nature.
There is a risk that many of the least developed countries
will be left behind and experience exclusion when it comes to
utilising the revolutionary developments in IT, telecommunications, biotechnology and raw materials. Private investors do
not look for opportunities in these countries and foreign aid
resources are shrinking.
I do not think it is an exaggeration to say that traditional
lines of power are being challenged and new structures of
power are manifesting themselves. Governments are decentralising, which implies more involvement and participation
at community level. Multinational companies (MNC) are gaining increasing control on events. Collectively, MNCs could
become far more powerful than all nation states Put together.
In fact, the total corporate sales of the top five corporations in
the world currently surpasses the GDP of all countries in the
Middle East and North Africa.
The power concept is also redefined by the knowledge one.
In general, an informed society will be a more democratic
society. Transparency, accountability and greater involvement
of a civic society in the affairs of the state should be facilitated.
The UN, for instance, has begun to open up its activities to discussions via the Internet.
We may observe a new era of MNCs which specialise in
information hardware and software. In many ways, power
concentration in the hands of a few MNCs is dangerous
because such companies not only influence our needs in
terms of goods and services, but also shape and form our perceptions and views of the world. The CNNs of this world are
driven by commercial considerations whereby spectacular
news catch more attention than thoughtful analysis of
society's problems.
But technology developments do include some fascinating
opportunities. I have learned more about the issue of
'jobless growth' on the Internet than through the orthodox
Prospects for dialogue among peoples and cultures
can become very inspiring. But again, it should be
ensured that societies are not left behind or excluded from
such developments.
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