A History Of The Next Ten Years
Many believe that the recent recession has heralded a new era in our social, economic, and political development. If they are right, then the next decade could well be critical to our development over the rest of this Century. In many ways, the course of the next ten years is already apparent. Using the tools of professional futurists, we can see how the shape of the coming decade has started to take form. The purpose of this programme was to outline how this form may develop.
The programme consisted of a series of six sessions examining some of the key trends which will help to shape the course of the next decade. It was delivered at the Suffolk County Council HQ in Ipswich, in conjunction with RSA Suffolk. The content of the programme was reported to the WFS Annual Conference in Vancouver, July 2011.The six sessions were:
1. Modelling The Long Term Future
Could we have foreseen the recent down-turn in the global economy? The recession took many by surprise, but there were a few who had been expecting it for some time. The basis of their expectations was a set of models that suggested that an economic correction was overdue and that this would have a profound effect upon society over the coming decade.
A long term model provides a framework through which we can interpret our recent past and which can be used to understand the present. More importantly, it allows us to see where we are likely to go next. In this session, we introduced four of those models, which are an economic model, a technology model, a model of society, and a model of political action. The models can be used in a variety of practical contexts. For example, the model of society can deliver insights into the future developments of people as consumers, voters, and workers. Armed with this knowledge, organisations can tailor their services according to what the likely demand will be.
Knowledge of the future will not prevent people from making mistakes, but it can help us to understand where those mistakes could be and how we can mitigate the effects of those mistakes. The purpose of long term models is to provide a road map for us so that we can better understand where we are in the context of where we have been and where we are going next. In this session, we introduced four of those road maps.
(Weds. 13th October 2010)
2. The Great Re-balancing Act
The recent recession has left both the household and public sectors with unprecedented levels of debt. As this debt mountain unwinds, it will have a profound impact upon national economies and global geopolitics. This will have a number of consequences upon that could take a number of years to fully unwind. The need to repay the debt overhang could well lead to reduced consumer spending and greater fiscal retrenchment. These are likely to reshape the nature of our economies. The subdued economic background will have an effect upon how communities interact with each other and will shape what people feel that politics is capable of. It is entirely possible that we may revise the whole concept of public sector provision in response to this fiscal crisis.
In turn, the interactions of nations will be affected by the re-balancing of the global economy. Some nations will decline relatively and some will rise relative to others. We might ask who those winners will be and which societies might have to act to inhibit their relative decline. The path of decline might not be smooth and we need to consider where potential conflicts might occur. The purpose of this session was to examine some of these implications of the great re-balancing and to allow the participants to consider how the changes might impact upon their personal and organisational lives.
(Weds. 17th November 2010)
3. The Reform of Big Brother
As the unprecedented levels of public debt start to unwind, a new age of austerity has entered into the public sector. Part of this is contained in a longer trend towards smaller units of public service delivery and part of this is contained in a broader trend towards the pluralisation of public service. However, the need for fiscal retrenchment is causing a fundamental review of public service delivery. One question that is being currently asked concerns the range of services that are provided by the public sector. In many cases, public services operate within a field where there is also private sector provision as well. This thinking is reviewing the boundary of where the public sector ought to be.
Of course, a public responsibility for a particular service does not necessarily mean that the public sector ought to provide that service. The service could well be provided by the private or third sectors under the supervision and management of the public sector. In this respect, the public sector becomes an enabler for services rather than a provider. We are entering a period of profound reform of the public sector, initiated by a fiscal crisis, but also riding upon much longer trends that have been evident for some time. The purpose of this session was to gauge the direction and pace of such reform. How will that change the levels of service delivery in this decade? Will a new role for the public sector arise? We considered these questions in this session.
(Weds. 8th December 2010)
4. The New Enlightenment
As the role of the public sector changes in response to the age of austerity, do we have an adequate institutional infrastructure in which the reformed public sector can operate? The UK government has made great play of the need to build a ‘Big Society’ but it is unclear exactly how that might come about and what organisational forms would be needed to make it happen. This suggests a lack of precision in our public vision of how the future ought to be structured. Are we to see public services to be delivered by the voluntary and private sectors? If so, what accountability can be brought to this delivery? What transparency might we expect in the delivery of those services? In many ways, politics is made much easier when we have a common goal but only different opinions about how to reach it. Has our view of how society should develop changed?
Our institutions reflect our hopes and ambitions, but if these are divergent, then it could be that new institutions are required. Institutional change takes two general forms – the reforming and the revolutionary. To what extent do our public institutions stand in need of reform? If they are beyond reform, then should we to replace them with more appropriate institutions? Is a more widely ranging programme needed?
As we start to reflect upon whether or not the Enlightenment has run its course, we examined which aspects of our institutional infrastructure might come under acute stress in the next ten years. This helped us to appraise whether a revolution is necessary or reform will suffice. From this, we could then take a view on what our expectations for public services might be in the coming decade.
(Weds. 19th January 2011)
5. The New Nationalism
The traditional response of societies in the face of austerity is to retreat into a nationalist cocoon. To what extent is this possible today? If we were to do this, then it would mark a retreat from the process of globalisation that has been a feature of our world in recent decades. It rather begs the question of whether or not that process can be reversed and how such a reversal might take place. In order to examine this question, we first need to understand the process of globalisation and the forces that have brought it into being. The world did not globalise overnight, and we need to understand the long term processes that brought it into being. How will austerity affect theses processes? How will it affect the way in which we view the world?
From this point we can start to understand how the New Nationalism might start to manifest itself. This will have an impact on the economic and social spheres. Through this, it will start to affect the political sphere. It is likely to impact how we view the concept of community and inform us about the range of political action that might become possible. As the New Nationalism starts to assert itself, the consequences of the process will start to become apparent. These will shape the course of the next ten years. However, they will also have an impact on our expectations for the coming decades as well. We might fear that this is entirely negative, but it will also have some positive consequences as well. In this session we considered what those positive aspects might be.
(Weds. 9th February 2011)
6. The Icarus Effect
Prior to the recent recession, the newly emerging economies were growing at a pace to challenge the dominance of the more established economies. Has the recession changed that trajectory? Or, will recession lead to a change in the fundamental growth of the newly emerging economies? Recovery from the recession has been, so far, uneven in its effect. The Far Eastern newly emerging economies have bounced back quite well, but are now showing clear signs of over-heating and the development of perilous asset bubbles. The commodity based newly emerging economies have recovered, but not at their former pace. And finally, the newly emerging economies that lie within the close orbit of the more established economies have not recovered well at all. What does this mean for the economic outlook for the next decade?
In an inter-connected world, the peril faced by one actor is shared by all actors to a certain degree. In a globalised world, the transmission of economic pain and pleasure is much faster than it would have been twenty years ago. To what extent can the global economy experience a wide divergence of economic performance between various nations?
The political response has been to return the economy to normality. To what extent are we witnessing a ‘New Normality’? Are there aspects of the New Normal that are likely to prove much better than our recent past? To what extent, from the pain of the current recession, can we build a better world over the course of this decade? As the programme came to an end, we considered the aspects of our current predicament that can be used to improve our lot.
(Weds. 9th March 2011)
The programme consisted of a series of six sessions examining some of the key trends which will help to shape the course of the next decade. It was delivered at the Suffolk County Council HQ in Ipswich, in conjunction with RSA Suffolk. The content of the programme was reported to the WFS Annual Conference in Vancouver, July 2011.The six sessions were:
1. Modelling The Long Term Future
Could we have foreseen the recent down-turn in the global economy? The recession took many by surprise, but there were a few who had been expecting it for some time. The basis of their expectations was a set of models that suggested that an economic correction was overdue and that this would have a profound effect upon society over the coming decade.
A long term model provides a framework through which we can interpret our recent past and which can be used to understand the present. More importantly, it allows us to see where we are likely to go next. In this session, we introduced four of those models, which are an economic model, a technology model, a model of society, and a model of political action. The models can be used in a variety of practical contexts. For example, the model of society can deliver insights into the future developments of people as consumers, voters, and workers. Armed with this knowledge, organisations can tailor their services according to what the likely demand will be.
Knowledge of the future will not prevent people from making mistakes, but it can help us to understand where those mistakes could be and how we can mitigate the effects of those mistakes. The purpose of long term models is to provide a road map for us so that we can better understand where we are in the context of where we have been and where we are going next. In this session, we introduced four of those road maps.
(Weds. 13th October 2010)
2. The Great Re-balancing Act
The recent recession has left both the household and public sectors with unprecedented levels of debt. As this debt mountain unwinds, it will have a profound impact upon national economies and global geopolitics. This will have a number of consequences upon that could take a number of years to fully unwind. The need to repay the debt overhang could well lead to reduced consumer spending and greater fiscal retrenchment. These are likely to reshape the nature of our economies. The subdued economic background will have an effect upon how communities interact with each other and will shape what people feel that politics is capable of. It is entirely possible that we may revise the whole concept of public sector provision in response to this fiscal crisis.
In turn, the interactions of nations will be affected by the re-balancing of the global economy. Some nations will decline relatively and some will rise relative to others. We might ask who those winners will be and which societies might have to act to inhibit their relative decline. The path of decline might not be smooth and we need to consider where potential conflicts might occur. The purpose of this session was to examine some of these implications of the great re-balancing and to allow the participants to consider how the changes might impact upon their personal and organisational lives.
(Weds. 17th November 2010)
3. The Reform of Big Brother
As the unprecedented levels of public debt start to unwind, a new age of austerity has entered into the public sector. Part of this is contained in a longer trend towards smaller units of public service delivery and part of this is contained in a broader trend towards the pluralisation of public service. However, the need for fiscal retrenchment is causing a fundamental review of public service delivery. One question that is being currently asked concerns the range of services that are provided by the public sector. In many cases, public services operate within a field where there is also private sector provision as well. This thinking is reviewing the boundary of where the public sector ought to be.
Of course, a public responsibility for a particular service does not necessarily mean that the public sector ought to provide that service. The service could well be provided by the private or third sectors under the supervision and management of the public sector. In this respect, the public sector becomes an enabler for services rather than a provider. We are entering a period of profound reform of the public sector, initiated by a fiscal crisis, but also riding upon much longer trends that have been evident for some time. The purpose of this session was to gauge the direction and pace of such reform. How will that change the levels of service delivery in this decade? Will a new role for the public sector arise? We considered these questions in this session.
(Weds. 8th December 2010)
4. The New Enlightenment
As the role of the public sector changes in response to the age of austerity, do we have an adequate institutional infrastructure in which the reformed public sector can operate? The UK government has made great play of the need to build a ‘Big Society’ but it is unclear exactly how that might come about and what organisational forms would be needed to make it happen. This suggests a lack of precision in our public vision of how the future ought to be structured. Are we to see public services to be delivered by the voluntary and private sectors? If so, what accountability can be brought to this delivery? What transparency might we expect in the delivery of those services? In many ways, politics is made much easier when we have a common goal but only different opinions about how to reach it. Has our view of how society should develop changed?
Our institutions reflect our hopes and ambitions, but if these are divergent, then it could be that new institutions are required. Institutional change takes two general forms – the reforming and the revolutionary. To what extent do our public institutions stand in need of reform? If they are beyond reform, then should we to replace them with more appropriate institutions? Is a more widely ranging programme needed?
As we start to reflect upon whether or not the Enlightenment has run its course, we examined which aspects of our institutional infrastructure might come under acute stress in the next ten years. This helped us to appraise whether a revolution is necessary or reform will suffice. From this, we could then take a view on what our expectations for public services might be in the coming decade.
(Weds. 19th January 2011)
5. The New Nationalism
The traditional response of societies in the face of austerity is to retreat into a nationalist cocoon. To what extent is this possible today? If we were to do this, then it would mark a retreat from the process of globalisation that has been a feature of our world in recent decades. It rather begs the question of whether or not that process can be reversed and how such a reversal might take place. In order to examine this question, we first need to understand the process of globalisation and the forces that have brought it into being. The world did not globalise overnight, and we need to understand the long term processes that brought it into being. How will austerity affect theses processes? How will it affect the way in which we view the world?
From this point we can start to understand how the New Nationalism might start to manifest itself. This will have an impact on the economic and social spheres. Through this, it will start to affect the political sphere. It is likely to impact how we view the concept of community and inform us about the range of political action that might become possible. As the New Nationalism starts to assert itself, the consequences of the process will start to become apparent. These will shape the course of the next ten years. However, they will also have an impact on our expectations for the coming decades as well. We might fear that this is entirely negative, but it will also have some positive consequences as well. In this session we considered what those positive aspects might be.
(Weds. 9th February 2011)
6. The Icarus Effect
Prior to the recent recession, the newly emerging economies were growing at a pace to challenge the dominance of the more established economies. Has the recession changed that trajectory? Or, will recession lead to a change in the fundamental growth of the newly emerging economies? Recovery from the recession has been, so far, uneven in its effect. The Far Eastern newly emerging economies have bounced back quite well, but are now showing clear signs of over-heating and the development of perilous asset bubbles. The commodity based newly emerging economies have recovered, but not at their former pace. And finally, the newly emerging economies that lie within the close orbit of the more established economies have not recovered well at all. What does this mean for the economic outlook for the next decade?
In an inter-connected world, the peril faced by one actor is shared by all actors to a certain degree. In a globalised world, the transmission of economic pain and pleasure is much faster than it would have been twenty years ago. To what extent can the global economy experience a wide divergence of economic performance between various nations?
The political response has been to return the economy to normality. To what extent are we witnessing a ‘New Normality’? Are there aspects of the New Normal that are likely to prove much better than our recent past? To what extent, from the pain of the current recession, can we build a better world over the course of this decade? As the programme came to an end, we considered the aspects of our current predicament that can be used to improve our lot.
(Weds. 9th March 2011)