Bridging the Rift: Reconnecting Youth to their Future
The digital age may lead to the replacement of employees in many repetitive tasks. Robotics, three-dimensional printing, driverless electric cars, and revolutionary composite materials are changing the social and economic landscape. Automation of repetitive manual and mental jobs seems inevitable given the acceleration of CPU capabilities and access to big data. The shrinking half-life of scientific knowledge and disruptive breakthroughs in congruent info-, bio- and nanotechnologies will cause further shifts in employment patterns. This acceleration of innovation will enhance returns to capital and technology, not labour, exacerbating national and international social tensions. Already, the share of national wealth and income of the top one percent of U.S. citizens has doubled in 30 years, while the manufacturing wage has been static in real terms and the middle class suffered a lost decade between 2001 and 2010. We have also passed the apogee of our current understanding of
representative democracy: Party membership and electoral participation have fallen in the advanced economies; democratic transitions have stalled in the emerging world; and a majority of the
millennial generation, do not believe that their country’s political systems represent their value or beliefs. While family (85%), school (61%), friends (56%), and technology (30%) have shaped their outlooks, government has influenced only 8%. In this short presentation to the
Salzburg Global Seminar, Seán Cleary discusses the implications of these changes for today’s youth.
Related Articles:
