Reviewing 2023: Insight from The Economist

It is that time of year again. Wondering where 2023 went and reflecting on what might lie ahead in 2024. Most of us do this personally, but I also find it helpful to be guided through the process on a global scale. The Economist has long published their annual The World Ahead issue. I collect these and have back issues into the early 1990s (the innate futurists in me, collecting an annual memento).

Reflecting on 2023, The Economist top five anticipated stories included the following (with my update in parentheses):

1. India’s Population Potential: April 2023 is when the UN estimated that India would overtake China as the most populous country in the world. India’s population will continue to grow through 2050, with a significant increase anticipated in the next decade. (NB: India did surpass China in late April 2023)
2. Psychedelic Medicines: Party drugs! MDMA, magic mushrooms, Ketamine. A landmark year with psychedelic drugs approved by regulatory bodies, i.e. MDMA used for assisting with PTSD for veterans. (NB: the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and other medical governing bodies have yet to approve psychedelics)
3. Japan’s Market Mayhem: Japan was potentially seen has initiating a global recession. The Yen was viewed as not attractive to buyers, with the ten-year bond capped widened by the BOJ, causing disruptions in global markets.
4. Repairing the World: Make do and mend, will be back on trend. LVMH, Hugo Boss, Tommy Hilfiger will push for repairing and remaking older clothing. Every second, the equivalent of a rubbish truck load of used clothing is burned or buried in a landfill. (NB; Greenwashing remains rampant for major brands, yet the used clothing industry provides over 350,000 jobs in Africa. Government’s on the continent want to ban the importation, demonstrating immense short-sightedness.)
5. The Coronation’s Colonial Concerns: Charles is now king, Camilla queen consort, but will the UK avoid a diplomatic firestorm and not use the Koh-i-Noor diamond stolen from India? Will past mistakes and British colonial larceny be rectified? (NB: Camilla did not wear the contested jewel, but Charles only regretted British involvement in Kenya’s colonialism, stopping from a full apology. Many nations–Nigeria, Greece, Ethiopia, Benin, etc.–are pressing for stolen artifacts to be returned.)

The Top Ten stories to watch in 2023, according to Tom Standage, the current editor of The World Ahead, included:

1. All eyes on Ukraine (it was until Gaza-Israel conflict)
2. Recessions loom (The Economist missed this one)
3. Climate silver lining (Despite the hype, COP28 only produced a “transitioning away” from fossil fuels)
4. Peak China? (Yes, in April, India surpassed China)
5. Divided America (Yes, and ongoing as the country heads into the 2024 election)
6. Flashpoints to watch (Experts were wrong about China trying to take Taiwan, border conflict between India and China, and Turkey nabbing a Greek island)
7. Shifting alliances (Yep, NATO expands, BRICS admit new members, Saudi Arabia and Israel almost normalize relations, but is now in tatters)
8. Revenge tourism (Yep. Airports were buzzing with activity in 2023. Global airlines, hotels, and the tourism industry tried to capture the pent up energy of wanderlust stuck at home during the pandemic)
9. Metaverse reality check (I guess…Zuck just seems lost.? However, passkeys are slowly replacing passwords. Fingerprints and facial recognition are gaining popularity. I still prefer passwords. I died 9 August [obviously I survived], but I would hate to see someone trying to use my dead body to gain access to my computer)
10. New year, new jargon (NIMBY is out, YIMBY is in; cryptocurrencies are uncool and post-quantum cryptography is hot and “riz” was Oxford Word of the Year, not their prediction “ChatGPT”)

So how do you think The Economist did for anticipating 2023? In a recent webinar, editor-in-chief, Zanny Minton Beddoes, deputy editor, Edward Carr, and business affairs editor, Rachana Shanbhogue, shared their reflections. They admitted they were completely wrong about the Silicon Valley bank failures and the predicted change of government in Turkey. They did acknowledge the Fed managed a soft landing in the U.S. versus their anticipated recession for the U.S. Zanny still thinks that in the medium term, ChatGPT has made significant improvements. She remains excited (not terrified) about how AI can assist The Economist with translation, research, and data analysis.

Zanny made a fascinating observation about the U.S. I conclude with her quote from the webinar transcript.

I think in the United States in particular, the narrow casting of the media landscape and the loss of trust in the mainstream media is a really serious problem. And it's, you know, in Europe, we have smaller countries and by and large the fact base is anchored by public broadcasters. Everyone in the UK loves to hate the BBC, but in the end, the BBC is a sort of unifying source of facts and my concern about the US. Whenever I go to the US, I force myself to watch 10 minutes of cable news in the morning and in the evening. And if I watch MSNBC, the left-leaning one in the morning, I'll watch Fox in the evening or vice versa. It's not something I recommend. It's not terribly edifying, but it is a very powerful reminder, that not only is the US a country where people have differing opinions, they really do, you could be in a different country watching those two different sources of cable news, and I think where you cannot have honest debate around a common set of facts, I think that's really, really alarming. And I think it's partly because of a long-standing shift in the conservative media world towards, you know, at least in some instances, mendacity, a really dangerous shift. But it is also about the sort of illiberalism of some mainstream media and the leftward bias of it. And so, the result is that there are just two different ecosystems in the US. ?I think it's a real problem. I think it's not clear to me how you sustain a healthy democracy in that environment. And it's not just–it's too simple to say–it's because of social media. It's more. I think that within the narrow cast fragmented landscape, you have a democracy with people living in different informational universes and this is really quite worrying.

This is my last article/post for 2023. I will resume tomorrow (next year!) by reviewing The Economist’s predictions and stories to watch for 2024.