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What are you thinking about now? Should we (being among the few lucky on this planet leading a wealthy lifestyle) be concerned that we might lose power, influence and wealth to emerging nations? Are we entitled for our wealth? Will we have to work harder to compete in the future? Can we maintain our position, our prosperity in the long term? Can we draw any conclusions about the future development from data from the past and present?

One thing stands out: Globalization is changing the way we live as much as it changes the way the Chinese live. Will there be winners and losers? No and Yes. Basically, we’re all winners of globalization. It has lifted hundreds of millions of people out of poverty in the last decade alone. Globalization made the world more inter-connected (flat as Thomas L. Friedman  says in his excellent book “Hot, Flat and Crowded”, check out my Amazon bookstore). Globalization spread American ideals, lifestyle and habits around the world, generated demand for American products &  services, consequently made the U.S. the most influential country on this planet. Globalization means more opportunities for those who are open to change, willing to seize opportunities, take on the challenge and are  not afraid to compete in a 21st-century global market. Globalization spreads good ideas quickly, punishes wrong economic policies, forces politicians to make a good educational system their #1 priority (if nowadays education is not taken seriously, the consequences for the entire country will be disastrous). Various places are competing for talented individuals. Knowledge workers have become global nomads, borders have blurred. Unavoidably, there are also people struggling with the implications of globalization. Those whose work can be done somewhere else cheaper, are likely to lose their jobs unless they manage to enhance the quality of their goods or services to justify the higher price. Governments can’t prevent jobs from being shipped abroad in the long term. Protecting  jobs, subsidizing failing industries is a waste of money since it never pays back. Uncompetitive industries will die with or without government-sponsored support. Instead, governments should help to spot new sources of income and prepare it’s people for challenges ahead. Leading in a certain area of business today is no guarantee for a continuation of the success in the future. Industrialized countries have to exploit their most important resource: Education. Neither China nor India are able to provide a broad education to their children in the medium term that is focused on basic  knowledge and skills  AND creative thinking. Finding solutions to complex problems, thinking outside the box, considering a problem from different perspectives, that’s what our educational system should teach. Future leading experts in certain areas outperforming anyone else regarding factual knowledge are likely to come from China. Those who will be able to organize a team, a process, etc. and form a team out of experts, make them work together efficiently, those will come from around the world.

Maybe that China has more young bright-minds than there are children in North America. However, China fails to exploit the huge innovative potential of their people due to a lack of opportunity. In contrast, America is the country of opportunity. In America, almost everybody with a good idea has the chance to turn it into something big. Solutions to today’s problems are not necessarily very sophisticated. It does not even take a college degree to start a successful business. But it takes a business-friendly environment and a well-working, free market.

Most of  the 1,300 smartest people in China have barely a chance to use their talent. Furthermore, the hundreds of thousands of high-achieving teenagers there are facing an incredibly fierce competition that leaves little space for creativity. Due to a number of reasons, China can not use it’s abundance of brain power, but China has great potential. On the other hand, it’s impossible to make predictions about the future development based on what we know today or examining what has happened so far. The world is changing with a breath-taking pace. No country is immune to the effects of the global economic crisis. The same is true for politicians’ wrong decisions. Globalization punishes ruthlessly incompetence and unwillingness to keep up with the accelerating change.

The bottom line is that we may not be afraid of globalization, neither of change. There’s no need to if we are willing to benefit from it and adapt to it. Especially the United States are at a crucial point. With Barack Obama being President and the financial crisis having radically destroyed the foundation of the easy, but unsustainable way the economy worked, America is forced to reinvent itself. Given that we’re just ahead of peak oil, energy technology could prove to be the most promising opportunity for North America in decades. It’s America’s choice whether it wants to lead the energy revolution that is unavoidable or whether it wants to ignore it as long as possible.

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 5th, 2009 at 12:17 AM and is filed under Globalization. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.