by Alvin and Heidi Toffler

Global Economy | Economic Crisis - The Social Heroes of Tomorrow | iHaveNet.com

The economic crisis now gripping the world is going to go away.

We may not know precisely when, where and how. But one thing is certain. Nothing is likely to blow away the waves of change that have marked human history: first carrying away hunters and gatherers in much of the world and replacing them with peasants, then supplanting peasants with factory workers, and then -- starting half a century ago -- replacing assembly-line workers with increasing numbers of knowledge workers.

These three historic waves of change may have been delayed, shifted geographically, interrupted or accelerated by war and/or disaster. They may have been temporarily sidetracked by nature. But nothing stopped them over the course of the last 10 millennia.

It is against this background that today's economic crisis needs to be seen.

Millions of people are suffering from the current meltdown, but that, too, will no doubt fade away. Moreover, economic crisis often brings with it unusual opportunities for changing and improving our social arrangements and ways of life.

The danger today is that, in country after country, politicians, in their response to the crisis, are racing to rebuild the past rather than prepare for the future.

One example of this are the huge investments being poured into infrastructure.

Already an enormous commitment before the current economic breakdown, additional sums are understandably being added to provide work for the unemployed. But, while some of these are wise, too many are designed to serve yesterday's industrial needs rather than the requirements of tomorrow.

For example, many crowded highways and roads are in desperate need of repair on the assumption that they will continue to serve as the pathways we use to get to work and return home. But what happens if, with the coming availability of ever faster, smaller, cheaper computers and communication technologies, knowledge workers multiply and more and more knowledge work is, in fact, done at home?

Will we need more highways and mass transit? Or -- quite possibly -- fewer?

Of even more concern is the industrial approach to education.

Public-education schools in many countries are essentially factories designed to prepare young people with work skills needed in assembly-line environments -- e.g., take orders; show up on time at the factory door; do endlessly repetitive work; operate in a hierarchical, bureaucratic, organization structure, etc.

But current battles over education funding and curricula miss an essential point. Emergent knowledge-based economies -- or advanced sectors in industrial economies -- have radically different requirements.

They need workers capable of thinking independently and generating fresh ideas under continually changing rules and circumstances -- including frequent organizational reshuffling, ongoing introduction of new technologies, and constantly changing linkages with other organizations ranging from government agencies to non-governmental groups.

Infrastructure and schools are hardly the whole story.

Indeed, most of our institutions -- from health care and energy to government bureaucracy -- were similarly designed to serve the needs of the industrial era.

And most of the proposals to reform these institutions are also based on the past rather than the future. What is missing are truly innovative ideas for new institutions and policies more appropriate to tomorrow. To achieve this, we need to release the passions and brainpower of social innovators.

As the industrial age spread across Europe and America, many new social structures were invented to adapt to the emerging economic, social and cultural landscape.

We often forget that virtually every institution we now have, from hospitals to schools, from banks to airports, were once non-existent.

The first orchestra, the first labor union, the first football team, the first police force, the first movie theater, the first self-service grocery store and then the first supermarket were all invented by somebody somewhere. So, too, are the everyday common products on which we rely. Often at home or at the jobsite.

Unfortunately, while great financial rewards have often come to those whose creative innovation resulted in new products or technologies, this has been markedly less true for those who invented new social structures and institutions.

As we move forward, we need to provide incentives and rewards for those who will design the new systems, networks and organizations that are appropriate to the technologies and knowledge-based economies and societies of tomorrow.

Today, as many parts of the planet transition from an industrial to a no-longer-industrial world, social inventions will be equally or more important than new technologies alone.

It's time to recognize the increasing obsolescence of the social structures on which we rely.

Social innovators will be history's next heroes.

 

The Economic Crisis - The Social Heroes of Tomorrow | Global Economic Viewpoint