Optimistic, Collaborative, Persistent: The Secret To Unlocking the World’s Potential in an Age of Anxiety
By Hans-Paul Bürkner, Sandeep Chugani, Mai-Britt Poulsen, Vaishali Rastogi
In the busy rush of our lives, it can be hard to stop and take stock of where we are and how we’re doing. If we are to believe what we hear on the news and social media, then a triple-whammy of disasters is going to send us hurtling to hell in a handcart: secular stagnation will rob us of the opportunity to grow, digital technology will make us redundant, and climate change will wipe us out.
This is a deeply depressing dystopian vision of the future, and it perhaps explains why we’re living in what has been called an age of anxiety. But if we look at human history, we can clearly see that things have never been better. To illustrate this point, the late Hans Rosling, professor of international health at Sweden’s Karolinska Institute, picked out 16 “bad things decreasing,” such as HIV infections, oil spills from tanker ships, hunger, and child labor, and 16 “good things increasing,” such as the number of girls in school, the number of people enjoying clean water, the share of the world’s population living in democracies.
All this is not meant to sound complacent. Of course, we face many significant challenges. There are still too many poor, hungry people with little or no access to healthcare, proper schooling, clean water and sanitation, decent housing, and affordable sources of energy. But we should not underestimate the extraordinary power of human ingenuity to face up to these problems, to mitigate their worst effects, and ultimately to solve them.
Let’s take a look at those three looming disasters: low growth, climate change, and technological disruption.
Yes, growth has slowed, but this should spark a blast of realism rather than disappointment. A global growth rate of between 3 percent and 4 percent is still achievable—and would allow developed countries to continue growing and developing countries to catch up and become developed countries themselves.
Developed countries could still expect to show reasonable GDP per capita growth of 1 percent to 2 percent per year because of their stagnating or only slowly growing populations,. Meanwhile, developing countries could expect to fulfill their rich potential and enjoy significantly higher GDP per capita growth of 2 percent to 5 percent per year, provided they continue to develop their human capital, their infrastructure and their institutions.
As for climate change—yes, it’s happening. Anyone who disagrees is on the wrong side of history. But we can solve this by, among other things, reducing the shocking amounts of wastefulness in the global system. One-third of the food we produce every year gets lost or wasted. Food, energy and resources more generally can all be saved if we systematically optimize supply chains in traditional and new industries.
And finally, technological disruption can be a good thing. Indeed, it is better to think of the “a” in AI as standing for “augmented” rather than “artificial.” Properly handled, it will improve our chances of finding solutions—not impede them. In developed countries, new technology will help to address many of the challenges we are facing as a result of slowing demographic rates. In developing countries, it will help to integrate many more people into the economy, enabling them to become healthier, learn faster, and be more productive.
In other words, the future is in our hands. This is why it now behooves corporate executives to champion an optimistic, collaborative, and persistent approach to creating a positive future. As leaders of transnational organizations, they have a once in a generation opportunity to show that, by working together with renewed confidence and determination, they can shape tomorrow’s world for the benefit of everyone.