The Third Industrial Age Will Eradicate Poverty — Here’s How
Economic Inclusivity is the key to enriching our world — as long as we can withstand the transition
Is the world making progress for the better? In our society the majority of us believes that things are getting worse, in particular with regards to the widening gap of rich and poor but is that the objective truth? And More importantly, how could we end extreme poverty?
Honestly, we are defacto on the edge of our seats, secretly waiting for calamity and until recently, global change and rampant inequalities have tested our economies and societies on that basis. Yet never before in human history have science, technology and transformative change contributed more to changing our world for the better.
One reason why we do not see progress is that we are just unaware of how bad the past was: in the 19th century 45% [1] of all children died before their 5th birthday, the life expectancy of the world population in 1950 was 45 years and in the 19th century 90% of people lived in extreme poverty. In comparison, towards the second half of the 20th century, a lower-middle-class US citizen had more than six times the income of a well-off middle-class citizen in China. Today, both earn almost the same amount. Similar leaps now happen in other economies, from Turkey to Viet Nam and all around the globe. What exactly made this transition happen?
Diffusion & Concentration
Progressive changes like these have always been driven by two fundamental forces: diffusion and concentration. The erosion of power and privileges was marked by diffusion whereas concentration accounted for the expansion of influence over new technologies by those in control.
Over the past decades these forces were responsible for shaping the world. If we think in terms of fundamental paradigm shifts, each decade was defined by the evolution of human values, norms, principles as well as institutions. During the first industrial revolution, socialism and social capitalism were born from the poorly established working conditions in place. During and after the second industrial revolution the green movement emerged as a direct response to oil and nuclear energy, restating the need of value systems and institutions in place to ensure for a more human-centered and inclusive world.
The Sky Is Blue
Today we are on the verge of a new age and its indicators are slowly pointing towards the same direction; the once manic obsession for economic growth is infiltrated by stagnating GDP growth rates worldwide, expressing warning signals to reconsider our previously linear way of thinking about capital and wealth allocation and how it once gave rise to the concept of poverty and with it a natural imbalance along the pyramid.
At the same time, growing middle classes in emerging countries with soaring GDP levels and territories of previously neglected privilege are giving hope, to a certain extent due to globalization and with it, technology, in particular the internet of things and other technologies to accelerate this trend and set the foundations for a new, better and prosperous chapter in human history.
Salvation
Technology and its distribution do not only enable the global consumer landscape to use services and to become part of the massive consumption apparatus. What’s more, the aspect of scale marks the crucial consideration here as a lever towards more equality.
Think of mobile devices as means to transform excluded individuals into “visible” participants within the system. Besides global coverage to internet access, current estimations of mobile device ownership point towards a healthy trend (two-thirds of the world’s population are connected by mobile devices and 5 billion unique mobile subscribers globally as of estimations in Q2/2017). Even though projections for the year 2020 point towards a 75% coverage [2] there is more to the most pressing challenges of humanity (e.g. politics), yet it marks one mentionable milestone.
As we have come to understand, we define poverty as the extreme minimum of barebones subsistence that any given individual or society requires in order to survive. So how is technology saving us from that? Today, we can already identify the 4 key drivers to enable, realize and orchestrate from that direction.
Approaching Zero Marginal Cost & Access Economy
With our unlimited appetite for growth slowing down and our systemic awareness expanding from platforms to ecosystems and finally into the biosphere, we get an understanding of limits and equilibrium. Digital infrastructure and simplifying framework providers will take the stage to enable more people to participate and direct value creation and re-distribution (e.g. energy) across geographies. As the access to resources will be automated and simplified in usability, people can put broader focus in creative acts that involve the development of collective services (e.g. 3-D printing). Old jobs will die and new demand will grow, re-sparking the idea of purpose and envisioning a better future for everybody.
Global Internet Access
Next, we assume that access to the internet will grow and accelerate, as proposed with the Starlink initiative by Elon Musk. Access means that people will not only be captured by the network but can also easily participate within the society in order to sell their goods and services but also to permit transparency and insights.
Realtime Ecosystem Insights
Connecting human world society along the borders of platform, ecosystem and biosphere requires overall insight into resource consumption to identify gaps, peak-performance as well as gain/loss to provide ideal re-stimulation. A radar platform that captures these parameters will be vital to give humanity the ultimate understanding of its limits at any given point in time. Given parameters include resource allocation, available tolerances among others.
A Ubiquitous Consciousness To Serve Them All
Finally and in order to orchestrate the above factors we require a ubiquitous force that can slowly act across nations with little friction. This will take decades to centuries but in the end we will have an ethical AI in place that can and will serve the natural interests of human life. This intelligence will correct extreme inefficiencies and can determine and steer corrective actions for the sake of earth equilibrium.
Conclusion
The next industrial revolution will allow its channels, primarily energy, transportation and information to drive down marginal cost to nearly zero. This trend is visible today already and manifests itself in alternative business models which eliminate intermediaries and allow for decentralization across most industries (e.g. the sharing economy). We slowly move away from economic conduct where demand creation is based on scarcity and towards abundance — an access economy that includes the citizens of the world slowly, for the better.
Sources:
[1] https://ourworldindata.org
[2] www.businessinsider.de/world-population-mobile-devices-2017-9?r=US&IR=T
