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Introduction.
Where are we? 10
Appendix 1 Extra information 353
Appendix 2 Books and reports 374
Appendix 3 Draft letters 376
Charts & Tables.
Current world income. 16
Current world wealth. 19
Gini Coefficient Worldwide. 38
Key indicators for understanding progress. 41
Proposed world income. 79
Notable luxury assets. 86
CEO v Worker, in same company, ratios 93
Billionaires and Millionaires. 95
Giving and Donation promises. 103 & 104
Wealth created from history. 115
Proposed wealth targets. 118
New political system. 130
When women & men obtained the right to vote. 137
Declining democracy. 175
Wealth of Royal Families. 193
Top 10 world companies. 200
Ratio of private v public education in key countries. 305
Excessive spending. 325
Proposals and priorities. 332
Actions you can take. 345 & 350
Editor Paul Phillips, Economics Artem Shitkov, Aug 11th, 2024
This book is dedicated to my family and friends. Many thanks for the help of Paul Phillips who helped with the editing, John Varnom for some early thoughts, Artem Shitkov for reviewing the economic information. Ben Aris for xxx, Nick Kenwrick-Piercyr reviewing as we went along, James Thain for sorting out the charts. This book is a reflection on the need for a better way forward.
A new more robust morality to guide us and frame our decisions.
We all have faults. I admit many. I also recognise I write from the inside and as part of the elite, but that does give some understanding and access.
We need to ask ourselves over and over, what is right for all of us, not just me. For the We and not just the I.
Every day in the newspapers, on television and online we see things happening that horrify us. Many of these things show us that there is little desire for democracy, freedom, Independence, equality and decency as we understood them as demonstrated by; the global debt crisis of 82/83, book burnings on our streets, black wednesday in the UK, 9/11, the banking collapse of 2007/08, Covid 19 and the lockdowns, ayatollah khomeini’s return to Iran, Putin's invasion of Ukraine.
This book is my attempt to make some sense of how we got here, but more importantly to map a way forward.
By Gregory Thain. © Copyright 2024 by Gregory Thain. All rights reserved. It is not legal to reproduce, duplicate or transmit any part of this document in electronic or printed form. Recording of this publication is strictly prohibited. The moral rights of Gregory Thain to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the copyright, design and patterns act of 1988.
Introduction
We are at a turning point, technologically and geopolitically.
Life as we know it is going to become very different, and relatively quickly.
Over the past 1,000+ years, change has taken a long time. It has mostly been a protracted and a multi-generational process.
And then, over the past 100 or so years, progress sped up. It took 30 years to overthrow 5,000 years of horse culture, replacing the horse with automobiles.
Then came flight, air travel, jet speed; radio, film, television; humans in space, on the moon, room-sized computers, desktop computers, smart hand-held devices; genome mapping, rockets to Mars.
Most of that in the last 80 years.
But if we thought things moved quickly in the 20th century, life is about to become very challenging and quicker than most are prepared for.
Because everything, business, social interaction, medical advancement, scientific development, change in every person’s life is speeding up dramatically.
And spearheading this change will be Artificial Intelligence and GAI-AI.
If you are over 80, and 167m people are, even if you were born in a G7 country the likelihood would have been still quite high in 1945 that your house had neither a connection to electricity nor the comfort of an indoor toilet.
If you are now over 60, you started your business life without a computer and mobile telephones were only a dream.
If you are over 40, the iPhone has been with you for less than half of your life - only 17 years. But it has dramatically changed our lives, both business and personal.
Physically, things on many levels have improved. There are hundreds of thousands of items and experiences we can purchase today - online, without even leaving our homes - that had barely been dreamed of 50 years ago.
Some politicians might even suggest you have never had it so good.
But?
We currently have a war in Europe, which may evolve into WW3; a war in Israel which threatens to encompass the whole Middle East; plus conflicts in Syria, Yemen, Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, Myanmar, and the Philippines, Sahel region, Ethiopia's Tigray region, to name a few and a prospective future conflict between China and America which is very much a possibility.
One of the problems of our modern world is our access to so much information and news. Whereas in the recent past you might only have been looking at a newspaper daily, or listening to the news on radio at 9 pm, we are now swamped with so many stories that we have become immune to their effect, anaesthetised to the impact of the most miserable of stories. If we aspire to rise above the animal, the tribal, I would suggest we need to think about or acquire a better sense of morality.
Child poverty is a good example. The assumption is that this is something only affecting the Third World. But child poverty in G7 countries is frightening and growing.
As Will Hutton has put it: we need to think about the we not the i.
Human Life has been in a permanent process of change. From caves to houses. From foraging to farming. From footsteps to the wheel, to flight, and soon rocket ships.
We must ask what is best for all, not just for me. The driver or motivation should not be: how can I obtain more power, money, wealth; but how can I contribute as an individual, as a family, as a community, to create a better world for everyone. The idea behind this book is to spell out some target that we need to aim for, to start the path to a better life for everyone. For the We not the I. There are quite a few books, many of which we refer to or mention, but there are not clear targets and ideas to aim for to make a start on a better life for everyone.
We frequently hear President John F Kennedy’s inaugural speech quoted: “Ask not what your country can do for you. Rather ask what you can do for your country.” We hear it, but we’ve forgotten what it means. As citizens, we have become increasingly passive, and the more passive we become, the more we will be at the mercy of the state, the unelected, the dictator.
Now we are on the verge of a Space Revolution, whose exploration and exploitation is increasingly backed by companies with almost no accountability. The drive into space will certainly create the next Industrial Revolution.
But where will that leave most ordinary people? Almost half of the world’s wealth (46.1% of it) is owned by 1.0% of its population. The globe’s billionaires - 3,000 of them - control 3% ($14.2trn) of our wealth. To put that into perspective, $14.2trn is almost two times the amount of the world’s wealth that accrues to the 50.0% of people who earn less than $10,000 a year.
The turnover and power of the world's biggest companies is a real concern. Amazon, for example, has a current market capitalization of $1.85 trillion which is getting very close to the total GDP of Canada, a G7 country at $2.1trn. In fact Amazon’s value is greater than all but the top 12 countries of the world ranked by GDP.
Size gives power and essentially that power is unaccounted for, and each day more wealth is syphoned off to the very few. Our society is very fractured and huge gaps have grown between the haves and the have nots.
The task of this book will be to expand upon some of these issues and discuss the details of how the issues have happened, and the consequences.
Do the systems we currently have inspire you as structures capable of dealing with humanity which is facing the swiftest and most powerful changes we have ever seen?
The good news is that we are all living longer, but as the population ages we will need higher taxes and no one, no politician, is prepared to say this. And where will those higher taxes come from? Will they come from taxing the top 10% properly and particularly the billionaires and the elite or will the governments try and squeeze the poor even further? I would suggest that we need to consider, what is good for us all? What is the grown-up reaction? Because in many ways we have not grown up. We remain only a short step from the original savage cave. Indeed, in Afghanistan, 700 families, bereft of home and work by constant war, are now back living in caves.
We should all be aware of how close our civilisation is living very close to the edge of the cliff. We have an absolute need for a better morality, a grown-up morality. Or, as a civilisation, we will simply implode.
By Gregory Thain. 1st September 2024.
Chapter 1. Where are we now?
Life as we know it will soon be very different. And sooner than you think.
Business life for many of us started without computers. They only appeared in offices in any meaningful way after 1981. Mobile telephones were only a dream in the 80s, becoming a status symbol in the early 1990s, before the work-friendly blackberry launched in 1999.
The iPhone has been with us for just 17 years, since 2007, but it has dramatically changed our business and personal lives. (And I think to most people it seems like it has been here forever).
So work and personal communication/interaction has changed massively and rapidly over the last 40 years.
But now we have AI which will speed everything up even further. Life will be turbocharged. We are living at a time where we will see further dramatic change in the development of the world as we currently know it.. Three years from now, or maybe a little later, unmanned spacecraft will be reaching Mars. By 2030 or shortly thereafter manned spacecraft will be landing there.
In the late 15th century, Columbus set off to reach America. (Well, he thought he was going to China!).
Following Columbus’s first discovery of America early in the 16th century, Juan Ponce de León explored Florida in 1513. Vasco Núñez de Balboa also in 1513 crossed the Isthmus of Panama and discovered the Pacific Ocean. Ferdinand Magellan sailed around the tip of South America, across the Pacific to the Philippines, through the Indian Ocean and back to Europe between 1519 and 1522 - more than the time it will take to go to Mars and back which is currently forecast as between 18 months and 2 years.
Why the history lesson? Because, just as with Columbus, after Mars landings, there will be a flood of future explorers into space.
In the next 20+ years there will be plans for spacecraft to explore moons, asteroids and planets. Investors in these exploratory voyages will be hoping for the discovery of new sources of gold, silver, diamonds, rare metals and precious materials as yet unknown. Or maybe grabbing the territory for the country from which the spacecraft has originated.
Space exploration will have the advantage of driving the world's economy as many race for new wealth and new power. Costs of extraterrestrial travel have significantly reduced and will continue to do so. Saturn 1, which made its maiden voyage in 1961, cost $864m (£10bn adjusted to current values). By contrast, Star link is currently costing $1.1 million per satellite, the Falcon 9 launcher, has a reported launch cost of $67M and it simultaneously launches 60 satellites.
It's 150 years since the Second Industrial Revolution which began in 1870 and peaked in 1914. Interrupted by the First World War, it was characterised by rapid technological and economic growth. Some of the key developments of the Second Industrial Revolution include: widespread adoption of electricity and the internal combustion engine; the development of new industries such as steel, chemicals, and petroleum; the rise of mass production and assembly lines; the expansion of railroads and telegraph networks; and the growth of urbanisation and consumerism.
This Second Industrial Revolution had a profound impact on the world, transforming economies, societies, and cultures. It also led to several new social and environmental problems, such as pollution, poverty, and inequality. There were very few people thinking about a better morality, or a better way of racing forward, Robert Owen of New Lanark Mill being a rare exception.
The Third Industrial Revolution is the one we are currently living through: the communications technology era, where corporate power and wealth have ended up residing in the hands of fewer and fewer individuals, who are richer and more influential than any humans who have ever lived.
And before we draw breath on the Third Industrial Revolution, we are now facing another - “The leaving of earth” which could be dubbed the Fourth Industrial Revolution, or the First Space Revolution.
Untold and unimaginable wealth awaits, but to whom will it belong?
At the same time, the new South Sea bubble, the new tulips of the 2030s, will become The Galaxy Bubble, an irresistible investment opportunity where a few will make spectacular returns but the majority may lose their money. There are already over 10,000 companies in the USA, and many more in China, India and elsewhere, offering you shares to invest in different variations of the First Space Revolution. Many of them will fail. But some will make huge profits. A recent funding round has valued SpaceX (Elon Musk’s venture) at over $100 billion, making it the most valuable privately held space company. Meanwhile, although not publicly traded, estimates suggest Blue Origin's (Jeff Bezos) valuation could also be in the tens of billions of dollars. Relativity Space (Tim Ellis and Jordan Noone) is also not publicly traded, but recent funding rounds have valued Relativity Space at over $4 billion.
Will the profits from discoveries that flow from these ventures benefit the entirety of mankind? Or, will history repeat, with fabulous wealth accruing to just a few individuals?
Space X is planning a Mars mission. Blue Origin is eyeing lunar missions. Boeing is considering various space exploration projects. Northrop Grumman is developing technology for planetary exploration. And Sierra Nevada Corporation is working on reusable spacecraft as just a few examples.
But while our new heroes and explorers are escaping our current world, we are in disarray and very unclear about our direction and morality. Because of advances in technology, we were able to watch on our televisions, in real time, as aeroplanes attacked the World Trade Center in New York on September 11, 2001. After the first iPhones appeared in 2007, world events could be followed on handheld devices as we moved around towns and cities, and it became possible for us to phone or text each other and spread the word about earth-shattering events, again in real time. The Arab Spring - a widespread revolt against despotic leaders in the Middle East - was organised and encouraged by widespread use of smart devices. In 2020, live video of thousands of Chinese trying to flee Wuhan woke the world up to a novel and dangerous coronavirus which came to be called Covid-19.On 24th/25th of June 2023 there was almost another revolution in Russia which we were all able to track on the internet and on our iPhones as soldiers supposedly marched towards a new revolution in Moscow.
By now, we are used to getting our news up to the minute. No waiting, as we had 100 years ago, for the newspaper to arrive weeks or even months later.
Technology and the access provided by the Internet means that going forward everybody in the world is able to access information and knowledge.
Yes, there is fake news, fake propaganda, and governments - with all their resources - spinning their “official” slant on reality.
But we have access to a lot of basic information, and it is up to us to develop the critical faculties to determine what is real and what is not; what is true and what is a lie. In our Education chapter, we discuss how the teaching of critical thinking is crucial to developing our sense of reality. Meanwhile, some governments are turning off their people’s access to the internet, but I believe we will soon be able to access the Internet, without government control. Elon Musk’s company SpaceX has already launched over 7,000 satellites as part of its Star link project. The purpose of this project is to provide high-speed Internet services to all people around the world, especially in remote or underserved areas.
If this does not work people will still find a way. Briar is one option, allowing mobiles to connect to other mobiles without Wi-Fi, building on Fire chat, which was used during the unrest in Hong Kong 2019/20. Even after the Chinese (Hong Kong) government turned off access to the internet, people could still talk to each other.
There is no doubt in my mind that this world can provide a good life and a safe life for the entire eight billion of us. If that is what we want. Do we have the moral strength to push for this? There is enough money circulating in the world for everyone to earn a decent living. There is more than enough wealth for everyone to be comfortable. We have enough food in developed countries to feed the world. We throw a lot of it away; while in the emerging countries people are starving.
With a world income in 2022 of approximately $103.3 trillion which represents just under $18,782 per person annually, why are millions subsisting on $2-3 a day?
Why do we have so much grief and suffering, growing income and wealth inequality? The simple answer is the elite, the very top of our society, are taking far too much of the pie.
We currently live in a global society where the rich continue to get richer and the poor stay fixed or are pushed increasingly further to the bottom to look up, resulting in increased envy, anger and diminishing hope. Inequality is bad and it is getting worse.
This growing wealth gap between rich and poor is the first fundamental problem we must tackle. I hope we all can agree that the gap between the rich and the poor, must and should decrease.
In the 1980s, the richest 10% of the population in OECD countries earned seven times more than the poorest 10%. The gap has now increased to 10 times.
It is difficult to provide specific figures as wealth distribution varies greatly between countries and internally within countries. In fact, internal distribution is increasingly becoming an issue. Recently, John Burn-Murdoch showed that if you exclude London, the average income for the rest of the UK, was the lowest in all of the G20 countries.
However, an even greater concern should be that globally, the top 1% of the world's population holds more than three times the wealth (46.1%) compared to the bottom 90%. That is 55 million adult individuals holding $200.4 trillion, while 7.2 billion inhabitants of our planet ‘share’ $62 trillion. Another shocking statistic: the top 10% of the world's adults have 85.5% of the wealth, compared to the bottom 50% of the world's adults who have only 1.8% of total wealth. (see this graphically demonstrated in the chart below).
In many countries, the top 1% of the population has seen a significant increase in their wealth in recent decades, particularly since the introduction of ‘quantitative easing’ (the printing of new money, on demand, by governments, designed to get us through the disastrous effects of the 2007/2008 banker and bank failures). Meanwhile, the bottom 50% has seen a slower rate of growth, or even a decline in their limited wealth. Such extreme wealth concentration in the hands of a few raises questions about the fairness and sustainability of current economic systems. It suggests that wealth is not being distributed equitably. Meanwhile, opportunities for upward mobility have become severely limited and cycles of poverty for a vast majority of the world's population are perpetuated.
This level of inequality will inevitably lead to social unrest, political instability, and a sense of injustice among those who feel excluded from the benefits of economic growth. And especially now that internet access for everyone, makes information on injustice available in an instant. This undermines any democratic principles. The wealthy elite are now exerting an increasingly disproportionate influence over our political processes and decision-making to their own benefit.
These trends are contributing to the accelerating income and wealth inequality, this is highlighted in the following sources: -
World Inequality Lab: This report shows that the gap between the top 10% and bottom 50% of earners has almost doubled in many countries [World Inequality Report ON The World Inequality Lab worldinequalitylab.org].
Institute for Fiscal Studies (UK): This analysis uses charts to show rising income inequality in the UK, with the top earners pulling further ahead. https://ifs.org.uk/articles/income-and-wealth-inequality-explained-5-charts
The World Economic Forum: Highlights how the COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated existing inequalities, with the wealthy benefiting more from government interventions. https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2021/12/global-income-inequality-gap-report-rich-poor/
The increasing gap between rich and poor creates numerous economic, social, and political issues. We need to look at both the income and the total wealth for both. The gap is increasing. But even worse is the growth of the super rich, the world's 3,000 billionaires and those who are multi-millionaires.
The richest 0.01% of the global population earn 5% of global income, and hold 11% of global wealth. while the poorest half of the global population earns 8.5% of global income.
On average, an individual from the top 1% of the global income distribution earns $372,727 per year, whereas an individual from the poorest half of the global income distribution averages $3,200 per year, $8.77 a day.
Global wealth inequalities are even more pronounced than income inequalities. The poorest half of the global population barely have any wealth at all, possessing just 1.8% of the total. In contrast, the richest 10% of the global population have 85.5% of all wealth. On average, the poorest half of the global population owns $2,905 per adult. This suggests a total lack of resources and financial security for a large portion of the world's population. This figure includes individuals living in extreme poverty, struggling to meet their basic needs for food, shelter, and healthcare.
The top 1% of our population own $3,637,091 on average, with the next 9% having $346,154. This underscores the concentration of wealth among the elite. A minority of individuals hold a disproportionate amount of global assets, including financial investments, real estate, and business ownership.
Could we create a more reasonable and moral system? Should we engender a better morality? I believe this is very urgent, because now everyone knows the reality, even if just instinctively, and if we do not urgently seek to change and improve the future, just as with climate change we ignore the need to at our own peril. We must all ask ourselves what have we done that has made people's lives better; what have we contributed to making the world a better place. Because real change is going to come from many small actions by many of us. Since this is not a problem that is going to be solved by action from governments alone, can it be made better by everyone of us making changes ourselves, considering our own morality and our own position? There are so many different problems, but they all interlink, are all interrelated.
I realise I am talking from the point of view of a privileged European, someone who has reasonable wealth and is inside the top 1%. So, can I really understand what's happening in the rest of the world?
My only answer is: I can but try. I have travelled widely, I ran a major market research company, created a lot of the early big data and was very involved with data about people and trends over many years. I have tried to see the extremes at both ends of society. You can agree or disagree, but if I succeed in getting you thinking and taking action, maybe something can start to change. Change will come if enough of us take small and consistent steps. We need to accept that there probably needs to be a reduction in our own wealth and income. This book is not just a recitation of the world’s problems. It also contains suggestions and solutions. We too often hear that there is no further money available for public sector workers; there is no money available for medical services for the poor. In reality we are being lied to, as the UK’s new Labour Government has just demonstrated, committing £1bn a year extra to fund a 22% pay rise for junior doctors who had been striking for 12 months while the old government told voters there was no money.
There is, in fact, plenty of money in the world but the elite, who fund politicians around the world, are keeping the money for themselves and their own kind.
The alternative to taking action now is to ignore the increasing poverty and accept that terrorism, violence, and revolution will be the only solution for many. If we look forward, the world is going to be very different. We are very bad at looking forward even though sometimes the future may not be too far away. As I have already said: everything is speeding up. There is going to be very little actual labour soon. Machines will increasingly take over all production work, even in agriculture. The remaining jobs will be much more focused on the arts and entertainment, understanding and communicating with AI, mental health counselling, and massive opportunities for individuals to create their own artisan businesses. Plus taking care of the elderly, who require human interaction rather than machine interaction. When we get to this stage, and it will be soon, I hope the rational amongst us will look at the logic of a basic salary for everyone. We have a choice between levelling up or letting the rich continue to get richer. Why are we where we are?
Over the last few thousand years the world has been fundamentally tribal. Our countries, our institutions, likes, and dislikes are built in many cases on membership of a/our tribe.
Until we can rise above the tribal and consider ourselves as thinking humans, citizens of one earth, we are not going to see a great deal of progress.
We are all equal, whatever the tone of our skin, our sex, attitudes, or persuasions. But it seems we are going backwards. Various factions are dividing society into smaller and smaller cliques, based on skin colour, sexual orientation, gender choices, or religion. These cliques are moving their adherents to the extreme right or extreme left, with associated lobbies creating hate and division where we need care, support and cohesion. We could look at these developments as a return to tribalism.
We need to look at our tribal past and the problems we have inherited from it.
Violence and warfare have always been used as a means of obtaining or maintaining leadership in tribal societies, together with creating and hoarding wealth.
Throughout history, tribes and communities have engaged in conflict with one and another, killing over resources, territory, and power.
How many of our current world leaders are in effect maintained in power, or elected to power, using the gun, the backing of the military and police/secret service? We will discuss how democracy is under attack. Something those of us in the developed world, and the West in particular, have increasingly taken for granted during the past 120 years only really took hold in roughly half of the United Nations’ member States, and is now on the slide. Which means that countries run by despots, controlled under the gun, are on the increase.
The leaders of these countries are effectively continuing to use violence and the techniques of the bully to grasp the power and money that they want. Throughout the past century, there have been instances where leaders have come to power through military coups, revolutions, or other undemocratic means. Examples include Adolf Hitler in Germany, Benito Mussolini in Italy, Francisco Franco in Spain, Joseph Stalin in the Soviet Union, and more recently, leaders like Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe, Saddam Hussein in Iraq, and Bashar al-Assad in Syria.
Not all tribal societies relied on violence and warfare as a means of obtaining or maintaining leadership. Occasionally the methods used to select tribal leaders, which varied greatly between cultures and were influenced by the tribe's social structure, cultural beliefs, and environmental challenges, were benign. In a few tribal societies, leaders were chosen through non-violent means such as elections, appointments by a council of elders, or based on demonstrable leadership ability.
However, increasingly, power has drifted to the elite in each country, selecting the leaders/rulers from their own group to protect their own wealth. Or the military because they were not included in the benefits of the elite decided they would seize power. Or leadership continues to be hereditary with no reflection on ability or suitability.
But the past also feeds on the lack of education.
So, the most common methods of selecting leaders were:
Hereditary succession: Leadership was passed down from generation to generation within a certain dominant family or clan.
Tribal elections: Leaders were elected by tribal members through a voting process or consensus decision-making. But voting was usually limited to older men or family leaders.
Appointment by a council of elders: Leaders were chosen by a group of respected elders within the tribe who made decisions based on their wisdom and experience.
Demonstrate your leadership ability, especially military leadership. Win the war and kill all our enemies and you have a good chance to be our chief, leader , king!
Leaders were selected based on their ability to lead and make effective decisions in a crisis or other important situations.
Spiritual or supernatural means: In some cultures, leaders were selected based on a spiritual connection to the tribe's ancestors or gods, or through supposed supernatural means such as divination or prophecy.
But these past power grabs relied on a lack of education among the majority. Power was retained by a few on the basis that either they had been appointed by the gods or were linked to supernatural beings. They had the power through violence or the backing of soldiers. Or they claimed a hereditary right to rule over territory or country.
I would suggest that we are now past this stage in our evolution, but the picture does not look good. In many countries it is still the bullies, those with excessive wealth, guns or control of the media who control the ruling elite.
Every citizen should have a vote or a say in how and who we want to manage our lives. Good education is essential for everyone to make a good choice, but good education - one that prepares us for the world we will inhabit - is in short supply. It is probably the most important thing we should address immediately.
If everyone is provided with a good education, especially women, we may move over time towards better solutions for managing our affairs.
But how do we provide everyone access to the same education when the wealthy purchase the better teachers, the better schools, the better environment, for their children and grandchildren? We have recently seen a few ambitious parents in the USA arrested for bribing top universities to give places to their already privileged children.
The proposed move in the United Kingdom to start taxing private education is definitely a positive way forward, and is in line with the majority of G20 countries, all of whom tax private education, with the exception of Saudi Arabia.
We also need to consider very strongly what we teach in our schools/education systems. Are we really preparing people for their future lives?
Why does education not discuss in more depth how we should behave to each other? Why is AI not on the curriculum? Or Space?
With equal and good education for all, we might be able to start asking ourselve tough questions such as: what is a State?
What should be the real or potential role of politicians,
How should the world's civil services be managed?
What is a just and fair legal system?
How do we ensure companies behave ethically?
Should pharmaceutical companies be allowed to maximise their profit at the expense of us all?
Should we price the poor out of healthcare access?
In the past, some of these questions would have been considered as part of every important discussion about something called ‘ethics’. Today ethics is a branch of philosophy, and not much discussed outside of academia. Mostly we come across the word when someone has clearly behaved outside the norms of acceptable behaviour. Their behaviour is described as ‘unethical’, which is to say they have done something which the mass of society finds unacceptable, even reprehensible.
So, we know the word. But we don’t generally understand the concept. If we are to move forward as a civilisation, we need to reintroduce the concept of ethics into general education, and talk a lot more about the We and not the I.
For more than a century, we have been satisfied that religious studies - in the West, primarily the study of Christianity - was enough to imbue pupils with a sense of right and wrong. We also had, at the end of the first and second world wars, teachers who had been through those wars and survived and had real experience and good values. But these teachers and those values have long faded into retirement. The lessons learned have also mostly faded. In an increasingly secular world, doubt has crept in, and the idea of the existence of ‘moral relativity’ has muddied the waters.
We are no longer comfortable making judgements about right and wrong. Yet, at the same time, we become more and more judgemental - witness ‘cancel culture’, the supposed moral superiority of being ‘woke’, and the current blazing row about how many sexes there are, which throws into question the very definition of ‘female’, and the rigidity of the science of biology. All of which makes a case for the reintroduction of ethics as a concept into general discourse, but particularly into the education curriculum.
In Classical times, ethics consisted of shrewd advice on how to live happily, avoid unnecessary troubles, and advance one’s career. Ethics also proposed broadly based ideals of conduct, such as: that rulers should treat people justly and judge impartially between their subjects; that they should aim to make their people prosperous; and that those who have bread should share it with the hungry. Humble and lowly people must be treated with kindness. One should not laugh at the blind or at dwarfs!
Socrates says: ‘the good is like the sun’. The sun gives light and life to the earth, the good gives knowledge and virtue to the sentient world. It is the cause of goodness in people and actions, and it also is the cause of existence and knowledge. The pursuit of and love of good itself (rather than any good thing) Socrates thought was the chief aim of education and (especially) of philosophy.
So perhaps we do need to spend a little more time again looking at Ethics.
We must also look at the structure of countries and states. What makes your country? Why should a country exist? Can a country simply be a group of people who want to live together with the same ethos and attitude to life?
Many of the existing 198 countries of the world were created by conflict and formed with arbitrary borders, imposed without any real consultation of the people affected.
Here are some thoughts from philosophers about Statehood:
"A state that does not protect its citizens from external and internal danger, that does not ensure them the enjoyment of their rights, or that does not fulfil its duties towards them, is not a state." - Immanuel Kant (1724-1804)
"A country is not a mere territory; the particular territory is only its foundation. The country is the idea which rises upon that foundation; it is the sentiment of love, the sense of fellowship which binds together all the sons of that territory." - Giuseppe Mazzini (1805-1872)
"In a just society, the rule of law replaces arbitrary power, and the dignity and rights of the individual are protected." - Aung San Suu Kyi (b1945)
We can see from these thoughts that cynicism about nationalism is not new, and nor is idealism. Aung San Suu Kyi might be seen as having a foot in both camps - her words are pure idealism, her actions not always matching her words. Her Buddhist faith and her popularity with the Buddhist majority in her country put her at odds with Myanmar’s Muslim Rohingya minority.
Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900), on the other hand, was simply cynical - "The state is the great fiction by which everybody tries to live at the expense of everybody else" as was William Ralph Inge (1860-1954) who said: “A nation is a society united by a delusion about its ancestry and by a common hatred of its neighbours."
Some thinkers emphasise the importance of protecting the rights and dignity of citizens. I would suggest that a country is an area populated by a group of people that wish to live with the same heritage, habits, attitudes, and opinions, and, we hope, governed by individuals who respect the rule of law and respect the ability of each one of us to be different.
The Kurds, a large ethnic group spread across the Middle East, have no such rights and dignity because they lack their own independent nation due to a confluence of historical and geopolitical factors. They provide a classic case history of the difficulties of creating a nation state and, even more, how one might thrive in a world on the move.Following the collapse of the Ottoman Empire after World War I, the Treaty of Sèvres initially proposed an independent Kurdistan. This was never ratified,and the Kurds became the world's largest ethnic group without their own state.
The countries containing Kurdish populations have viewed Kurdish nationalism as a threat to their territorial integrity, so Kurdish cultural identity and political aspirations have been suppressed. While a desire for self-determination unites many Kurds, there hasn't always been unified leadership or a singular vision for an independent Kurdistan. But now the Kurdistan Region of Iraq enjoys a degree of autonomy, with its own parliament and president. However, it remains part of Iraq. There are also Kurdish-controlled areas in Syria functioning with a level of self-governance. There are also Kurds in Turkey and Iran. For there to be an independent Kurdistan would require these four countries - Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Iran - to give up territory and for borders to be redrawn. This, however, gives us a different set of problems, because in the current world migration and movement of population is a major and increasing problem that must be allowed. What sense does it make to create another country when its population might later wish to move elsewhere? It is natural for all people to wish to move to a better location that is safer and gives security and hope to their family. Twelve million people, half of Syria’s population, have been displaced by their country’s 13-years of civil war.
One solution here is to take the view that we are one world and one people and the sooner we can move towards removing all the barriers to international social cohesion, the better it will be for all of us as individuals. This was certainly a trend we were already seeing with the development of the single European market.
But recently, the trend seems to be towards populist politics and imposing barriers that cut off hope and access for the disadvantaged.
This is almost certainly due to the declining standard of politicians themselves. We will look at their role in the world going forward and how we continually fail to attract individuals who at least appear to be working for the good of all of us. Politicians tend to come in the main from the elite upper-class. Most have been to university, in the USA often Ivy League, and in the United Kingdom a large proportion went through two private elite schools, Eton and Harrow. Often their main role appears to be to protect the elites and their status quo.
Politicians need to care more about improving the lot of the citizens/voters, each individual and less about their own wealth, social media approval and speaking engagements. Do we need a new philosophy? A new way of living?
Are we moving towards a Brave New World, or a rewrite of 1984? Given the dystopian nature of Huxley’s book, in stark contrast to the optimism of its title, neither is desirable
But power is being further concentrated in a few hands, more so than in the past.
Companies are growing larger because there are no limits now to worldwide dominance and worldwide trade.
Perhaps we need an International Antitrust Law, such as that introduced in America as long ago as 1890? Senator John Sherman and colleagues recognised the danger of companies growing so big they could inhibit or even squash competition.
Due to the Sherman Antitrust Act, in 1911, when Standard Oil had become the largest petroleum company in the world, it was split into 43 smaller companies by the American government after the US Supreme Court had ruled that it was an illegal monopoly. In 1974, AT&T was similarly forced to split some of its telephone services into seven regional operating companies.
How many monopolies do we have today? In the 2000s, Microsoft, in both the USA and the EU, and Google in the EU were forced to make some minor changes. Surely Google, Microsoft, Apple, Meta and Amazon are, in many ways, monopolistic? This question was partially answered in August 2024 by Judge Amit Metha who concluded: “Google is a monopolist, and it has acted as one to maintain its monopoly.” The US Justice Department’s case was that “Google’s domination of search was the result of freezing out potential rivals, rather than because it offered the best service”. The Judge ruled that Google had spent $26bn to ensure it was the default search engine on smart devices and web browsers.
Google, of course, will appeal, but this judgement - which took four years to reach, and will rumble on for years more - begs the question as to why there has been no previous action to limit the power and size of such companies? Essentially the leaders and owners of these companies are part of the new elite ruling our world. Our current politicians/lawyers and decision makers would be going against their own tribe, fighting the elite group to which they belong, affecting their own income and multiple associated benefits, if they decide to take a more moral approach. Few people in 2010 would have placed a bet on the fresh-faced, apparently empathetic Nick Clegg, leader of the UK’s Liberal Democrat Party 2007-2015, becoming a shill for Facebook. But there he is, Vice-President, Global Affairs and Communications.
Being kind, perhaps our politicians don’t see the world that is coming. A world where we no longer need to worry about making things. The sweat, toil, heat and fire of the factory and the steel mill, will be taken on shortly by robots. According to the World Economic Forum, as many as 85 million jobs could be lost to automation by 2025. A study by the McKinsey Global Institute, says up to 800 million jobs could be lost to automation by 2030. The study found that the industry’s most at risk are manufacturing, transportation, agriculture, and retail.
Robots are already being used in manufacturing to automate tasks like welding, painting, and assembly. They are also being used in logistics to automate tasks such as picking and packing orders, loading, and unloading trucks, and driving delivery vehicles. As they become more capable, they will be able to automate even more tasks in the logistics industry. And from being ‘capable’, we will quickly progress to sophistication. With increased sophistication, robots will be able to automate even more tasks, putting more and more manufacturing jobs at risk. According to the World Bank, the world's labour force breaks down 49% services, 27% agriculture and 24% industry. Where is going to be safe?
It’s easy, and only natural, to imagine this is a long way off. But In 2023, Amazon had over 520,000 robotic drive units in its warehouses around the world. These robots are used to pick, pack and move products around the warehouses. Amazon also has a variety of other robotic systems in its facilities, including sort centres and air hubs. Dave Clark, Amazon's senior vice president of worldwide operations says: "We're not replacing people with robots. We're collaborating with robots to make our jobs more interesting and rewarding for our employees."
But I will remind you that the motorcar is only 137 years old. The normal date given for the first motor car is 1886. This is the year that German inventor Carl Benz patented his Benz Patent Motorwagen, a three-wheeled vehicle powered by a gasoline engine. The first flight of an aeroplane is given as December 17, 1903, the date that the Wright brothers, Orville, and Wilbur, made the first successful controlled, powered flight of a heavier-than-air aircraft at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina.
Development is accelerating at an unprecedented rate. What you think is only a dream of the future, will happen very quickly. It took only 25 years for the motor car to displace 5,000 years of horse culture. Within 65 years of the first aircraft flight, humans were standing on the moon.
What other developments are in our immediate or foreseeable future? One example: farming will increasingly be carried out automatically and driven by AI and drones.
We will move soon to Renewable Energy everywhere, but probably not fast enough to stop much of the long-term damage we are currently doing to our world. The dramatic weather events of the last few years make this very clear.
Recently, July 14, 2023, was one of the hottest days ever across whole regions of southern Europe. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Sixth Assessment Report, released in 2021, states: "It is unequivocal that human influence has warmed the atmosphere, oceans and land." The report also states that "human-induced climate change is already affecting many weather and climate extremes in every region across the globe". The World Meteorological Organization’s (WMO) State of the Global Climate 2022 report found that "the past eight years have been the eight warmest on record” and that "the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events have increased”. The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) states that "climate change is already having a significant impact on extreme weather events in the United States," and that "these events are expected to become more frequent and severe in the coming decades”.
Extreme weather events have increased in recent years:
Heatwaves: The number, intensity, and duration of heatwaves have increased in recent decades. For example, in 2021, North America experienced its hottest summer on record, with temperatures reaching over 50 degrees Celsius in some places.
Heavy precipitation: The amount of heavy precipitation has increased in many parts of the world. For example, in 2021, Europe experienced its deadliest floods in centuries.
Droughts: The frequency and intensity of droughts have increased in many parts of the world, including the United States, the Middle East, and Africa.
Tropical cyclones: The intensity of tropical cyclones has increased in recent decades. For example, in 2019, Hurricane Dorian devastated the Bahamas, with sustained winds of up to 295 kilometres per hour.
How will all this progress and chaos affect the mass of people? Especially the people below in the areas marked dark Blue.
The masses need not only more education, but better education, better medical care and better food to enable us all to live longer and more fulfilling lives. If we look at the list of the key factors in measuring quality of life, it is concerning that many of the indicators have changed in the wrong direction in recent years, and the difference between those at the top, the majority of the rest of us, and the abjectly poor has grown.
It may be time to ditch GDP as an indicator of national health, and switch to an index that measures quality of life - Gross National Happiness rather than Gross Domestic Product. Treating civilians as little more than units of productivity has had its day, and life will continue to deteriorate for the majority unless we change our attitude to what really matters, which also requires us to address morality at national and international levels. The chart below is a list of key factors to measure if we want to demonstrate that quality of life is improving.
There will be many individuals over 100 years old in the future. Currently 0.3% of the population in America are over 100 , a figure that has doubled during the last 20 years, and is forecast to continue to grow. In France, it is expected that 50% of all women born today will live to be over 100.
But who will be in control, and how will they raise the money required for increased medical budgets, and to fund everyone’s pensions?
Pension ages are set to rise everywhere, despite violent protests in France. In the United Kingdom the pension age is set to increase to 68. In the US it is due to increase again to 68 by 2037, having been raised to 66 in 2020. In Canada it was due to increase to 67 by 2023, but currently this is on hold. In Australia and Japan there has already been an increase of the retirement age to 67. How long until pensions start at 70? Every country needs higher tax or higher tax revenue to be able to pay pensions to populations that are living longer.
But as the mass of people are pushed and pulled by progress and environmental concerns, power remains in the hands of the banks, financial funds, the largest corporations and the elite from a few Ivy League universities. In some countries, power also still resides with religious leaders and/or the military.
Everything else is blowing in the wind. Politicians have the real ability to make things worse, to focus on their own survival and that of their elite tribe, to cause everything but progress. If we want to make things better, we need to change a lot. And that is what this book is about - change; what things need to change; and how to change them.
We need to, Tax the very top earners in a much more effective way, Established guidelines for future remuneration that is equitable. Control the power of the financial institutions. Recognize people's social benefit to society, not just their monetary benefit. Make education truly equal for all. Accept that historically most of the wealth and income has been created by being a member of the elite and that has not been equitable. Review inheritance. limit the power of the mega companies or split their power. Consider future ownership in space to avoid conflict. Define what a country or a tribe should be. Create a political system that benefits citizens as a whole and limits the possibility of corruption and damage by politicians. Create a framework where wealth can be redistributed. Understand that terrorism has been through history - a response to inequality and a cry for a better life. End the aristocracy and the elite being a self-perpetuating group. Ensure personal freedoms for everyone. Quite a list, but let’s look at the issues in more detail in the chapters below .