Global Trends 2005: An Owner's Manual for the Next Decade

As social theorist Drucker pointed out, every few hundred years a sharp transformation occurs during which society rearranges itself in a variety of aspects--its worldview, its basic values, its social and political structure, its arts, its key institutions. At the end of the 20th century, we are living through precisely such a transformation. The tremendous shift from an industrial to a knowledge economy and society is generating profound new challenges even as it opens up unprecedented vistas of possibility. This "age of social transformation," to the knowledge era, Drucker wrote, "will not come to an end with the year 2000--it will not even have peaked by then." Global Trends 2005 is a look at this transition now shaking the foundations of human society. At once a vision of the future and a handbook for understanding daily events, this book will change the way you see the world--and your place in it.

Acknowledgments Introduction: A Transformation of Human Society 1 Trend 1 The Foundations 25 1 A Story of Two Worlds 29 2 A Price Spike Economy 49 3 A Foundation of Human Perception: Culture 65 Trend 2 The Engines of History 71 4 The Engines: Science and Technology 73 5 The Engines: Social and Psychological 85 6 Chaos and Complexity Theory 93 7 Where Are They Taking Us? 99 Trend 3 A Human Resources Economy 115 8 A New Kind of Economy 117 9 The Reorganization of Work 123 10 Other Aspects of the New Economy 133 11 Conflict in the Knowledge Era 151 Trend 4 An Era of Global Tribes 157 12 The Process of Globalization 159 13 Tribalism, Fragmentation, and Pluralism 175 14 Tribalism within Globalism 187 Trend 5 A Transformation of Authority 195 15 Phase One: The Decline of Hierarchical Authorities 197 16 Implications: Social Instability and a Political Crisis 213 17 Phase Two: The Rise of New Authorities 217 Trend 6 A Test of Human Psychology 237 18 "In Over Our Heads": Postmodern Life and Human Psychology 239 19 A Habit of Alienation 249 20 The "Pessimism Syndrome" 261 Conclusion: Toward a New Society 279 21 A New Kind of Society 283 22 The Authors of Our Own Destiny 295 Notes 297 Index 323

About The Author:

Michael J. Mazarr is Director of the New Millennium Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington D.C. He is the author of North Korea and the Bomb .