The world needs smarter globalization
4th Industrial Revolution calls for agile governance
The globalization of prosperity and openness has been derailed by broken social contracts and an ominous fear of our technological future. These can be countered through smart, adaptive leadership, but this will require a new approach to policymaking and a willingness and commitment to collaborate across stakeholders that has lately been too rare in politics.
Why does the polarization of American society and the backlash against Big Tech occur at the same time that other countries are seeing similar societal shake-ups?
I believe all these events are driven by the “Fourth Industrial Revolution,” a phenomenon of wide-ranging disruption tearing through business models, economic and social systems, and labor markets. Technologies such as machine learning and artificial intelligence, blockchain, gene editing, autonomous vehicles and robotics are combining in unprecedented and sometimes frightening ways. Science fiction is becoming reality.
Yet there is no natural law saying we must be alienated from our inventions. Technologies and their systems reflect the context in which they were created, as well as the purpose for which they were designed. It’s therefore critical we don’t focus simply on the technologies themselves, but also on the incentives and assumptions of the economic, social and political systems influencing their development.
To responsibly embrace the prospects of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, we need permanent interaction between governments and regulatory agencies on the one hand, and business on the other. We call this interaction agile governance, and to facilitate it, we opened our Center for the Fourth Industrial Revolution in San Francisco this year.
The second big challenge for global politics and economics is the transformation of a unipolar global governance system, led by the United States, into a multipolar one, with several countries each asserting influence. It is a world where international relations may no longer be based on shared values, and where it is all the more imperative to develop and promote rules for global and regional interaction based on shared interests.
It is natural that in such a world, individuals and nation states want to primarily act in their own self-interest. The “America First” doctrine is a case in point. Nevertheless, we are globally interdependent, and there are global challenges, such as terrorism and climate change, for which we have to find solutions in our common interest.
The World Economic Forum is usually associated with globalization and sees its positive potential for humanity. Societies today are globally interconnected and need globalization — but we need a new type of globalization. Trade and investment engagement should not be driven by a pure focus on reducing impediments, and economic gains should serve to protect those who are losing out. In some way, we need to save globalization from its negative consequences.
The idea that leveling the global playing field for trade and investment would generate prosperity for all has lost all credibility, particularly in the aftermath of the financial crisis.
Every society requires a tailored global policy approach depending on its political, economic and social situation. We need to be committed to pursuing smart globalization, not the kind of“hyper globalization” where national interests are subordinated to the imperative of creating a borderless society at all costs. The priority today must be to reestablish trust through rebuilding social cohesion. If we cannot do this, and establish a sense of belonging and purpose, we will see democratic systems replaced with authoritarian power structures.
At the World Economic Forum’s meeting in Davos, Switzerland, in January, we will be committed to creating shared solutions for this fractured world. Agile governance and smart globalization are totally new paradigms for a fast-moving, complex world that requires global collaboration and local responses. The world is fast changing, and leaders have to find ways to create new positive narratives that motivate people to embrace change.