Int 750 - Seminar in International

Business

P OW E R F UL TI M E S
By Eamonn Kelly

Book Review

Oscar Lozano
October 2010

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 Powerful Times

The world is in a constant process of metamorphosis, where these

changes can be compatibles or incompatibles, constructive or destructive,
optimistic or hopeless. Technology and Globalization are making the world a
smaller place, where protagonist are changing constantly and witnessing the
breed of new economic, political, religious and social powers. A new world
order is conquering the planet Earth, presenting neoteric challenges to its
habitants and nations. The world of today may seem complex, ambiguous
and risky. It is a butterfly effect where the world is in constant friction in
different scenarios involving time and space to diverge at the moment of a
seemingly minor event resulting in two significantly different outcomes. The
outcomes that are the main ingredients for chaotic motion. However, the
human must develop the capacity to predict this complex system to discover
the pattern in chaos to find the path to evolve the future into marvelous
opportunity of awareness and understanding.

Eamonn Kelly has been at the forefront of exploring the emergence

and the consequences of a new economy for more than a decade, and in his
book Powerful Times he analyzes the necessity to realize that humanity can
create a new future and that the world is moving toward a change of age and
is not going backwards. Kelly exposed seven dynamic tensions that will
revamp human life in the coming decades. Kelly illustrates his insights into
how these tensions will conflict, and how they will reverberate, creating
waves of change beyond anything humanity has ever faced before.

Humanity has made mistakes through the course of history and

sometimes it seems that humankind just learned from them to make the
same mistakes again. The current problems and events are rooted in past
problems and events. They are related in a cycle of eternal return. However,
the actual world faces problems that are not restrained within national
borders because they have become borderless and global. The order of this
new world must require new forms of political organization to respond to
these new challenges and make new assumptions. There is not only one
truth. Every action and every step have consequences that are directed right
or wrong according the decisions of the executers, and that action can
generate goodness or wickedness. Whatever is the result is true.

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 Eamonn Kelly explained seven pair of forces that are in dynamic
tension and all of them exist simultaneously and none will prevail. These are
the complexities that make this epoch be characterized by powerful times.
The seven forces that Eamonn explained are:

1. Clarity and Craziness

Technology... is a queer thing. It brings you great gifts with one hand, and it
stabs you in the back with the other. ~C.P. Snow, New York Times, 15 March
1971

Technology is the most important factor in the development of today’s

world. This scientific and technical knowledge has led the planet into a stage
of interconnectedness enabled by the Internet. Information is available faster
and easier than in the past and at the same time easier to control. This
situation can create commotion and craziness if this experience is used to
generate fear and confusion in the general population. Information can cause
bias against minorities, countries, among others when it is coerced by
ideology and/or political/economic benefit for a third party. Misinterpretation
and misjudgment can be precipitated by the excess of access to information
due an overload that can generate confusion and misunderstanding.
Information influences our perception that is largely based on our
experiences generated and determined in part by information, and it is
difficult to anticipate disruption to something that is already implanted in the
mind.

At the same time, the access of information can open our eyes to
events, people, and culture around the world. The correct access to
information can be a strong weapon to fight injustice, impunity, crime, public
and private corruption, etc. Information can be helpful to generate balance of
power between corporate sectors and consumers, government and people,
to create safety and a better place to live in.

Technology can help to regulate better our lives and help to live in
better harmony in society. However, the use of technology can invade our
privacy and regulate our lives. Orbiting satellites, sensor monitors, biometric
identification will change forever the idea of privacy in this century.

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 Technology creates the tools and the man dispose of them. Nuclear energy
can be used to create energy for civilian purposes but at the same time can
create weapons of mass destruction. With technology must come a new age
of education to explain the new role of these tools and techniques that help
to control and adapt our lives to the diverse natural environments.
Technology must no alienate but must form minds to think. However,
technology cannot do it by itself. It needs to work together with governments
and private sector to create leaders and no airhead followers.

2. Secular and Sacred

Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and
by the rulers as useful
Seneca
During the second part of the Twentieth century, religion in the
modern world was declining and it was conceived that it was continuing to
decline until its eventual disappearance. The nations that had put more
emphasis on secular rationality based on science and economics became
richer, healthier and more democratic than ever before. However, at the
beginning of the twenty-first century, religion became resurgent across the
globe with incredible power to feed political mobilization and a cleavage into
society. The current world’s religions are reinforcing states and others that
bringing space for opposition.

The main religions of the world believe that their perception of life is
the only correct and valid one. In Christianity the problem is based in the sin
and the solution is salvation. In the Islam world, the problem is pride that
must be resolved with submission. In the Judaism the problem is exile and
the solution is return to God. In Confucianism the problem is chaos and the
solution is social order. In Buddhism the problem is suffering and the solution
is awakening.

Eamonn uses the word "sacred" to describe both a very religious and
fundamentalist set of beliefs and a more inclusive spirituality, almost a
make-it-up-yourself combination of practices from meditation to holistic
health to self-improvement. Also, Eamonn declared that the emergence of a
deep spirituality that becoming increasingly aligned to environmentalism,
too. However, James Inhofe, senior Senator from Oklahoma has argued on

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 the Senate session that “man-induced global warming is an article of
religious faith." In addition, Rep. John Shimkus, member of the U.S. House of
Representatives said at a Congressional hearing that anything climate
related was God's will — so trying to fight against it was heathenistic. These
statements do differ from Eamonn belief that fundamentalist religious group
are in accordance to fight to save the environment.

The scientific and technological advances and the interconnected

globalized economies have not been able to calm down the furiously
religious individuals that with religion create a colossal influence for good
and for evil in today’s world. It seems that the rational and scientific have not
been enough to enrich the human experience that have fall in reductionist
and emotional dissatisfaction. The fundamentalisms in the Western religions
have been promising the rules and path for ethical conduct and behavior to
reach the spiritual level to satisfy their lives on Earth and beyond that. Some
members of humanity are in constant fear of a changing world and in a
interaction with the different cultures of the world. Their lacks of
understanding lead them to judge what they do not know and/or do not
understand as an opposite of their unidimensional view of the world. Albert
Einstein said It was the experience of mystery, even mixed with fear that
engendered religion.

3. Power and Vulnerability

It is not power that corrupts but fear. Fear of losing power corrupts those
who wield it and fear of the scourge of power corrupts those who are subject
to it.
Aung San Suu Kyi
The conflicts on the world have always presented the dichotomy of the
good and the evil. The ones who have the reason and the others who also
claim to have the reason. With the fall of the Berlin’s Wall and the dissolution
of the Soviet Union, the habitants of planet Earth smiled at the new age of
freedom and peace. The new balance of power was showing the United
States as the only economic and remaining superpower. This balance had its
Achilles tendon in a world of unexpected and radical changes that were

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being ignored for the ones holding the power. The pinnacle of this new
coming order was the attacks on September 11, 2001. Terrorism was not
only presented in Third World countries. The feeling of vulnerability foster
feelings of fear, and fear is a powerful stimulator.

This new stage refocused the American domestic and foreign policy on
terrorism, forging a new presence in different battlegrounds and new kinds
of warfare. Now, the United States are the carrier and advocate of
democracy and freedom with its military superiority. However, the United
States’ military power and sustainability cannot just acquire and maintained
through spending of the American government and a new order is created
with new coalitions. The alliance is based in human and equipment
resources, positioning afar and at home, the use of technology and
intelligence with surveillance, infiltration, monitoring and interpretation. The
most important element of the alliance is amalgamating the power of the
military with the power of the diplomacy.

Vulnerability is the new old strong feeling that leads people toward
being fearful. This sentiment can be easily exploited by the media that can
use it to infiltrate fear in the people and gain money with bigger ratings and
bigger sales. Vulnerability before everything that cause us fear such as
seasonal flu, AIDS, severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), cancer, music,
climate changes, among others. Humanity must learn to live without fearing
the future.

4. Technology Acceleration and Pushback

Humanity is acquiring all the right technology for all the wrong reasons.
R. Buckminster Fuller
In the last twenty years, the computers technology has increase the
speed of change into this first decade of the present century. The
technological innovations continue to lengthen and improve life on a planet
sustaining an ever expanding population, and maybe modify the human
capacity and link their existence to a computer.

Every change in every epoch always generates resistance and

criticism. The problem begins in using technology to raise fear and anxiety in
the general population. Eamonn commented this topic citing the example of
Frankenstein about the uncontrollable reach of medical and energy
technology. The pushback becomes of those who based their life in

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intangible beliefs and are afraid that the fragile meaning of their lives can be
proved, created and modified by science and technology.

The nations of the world have the difficult task of the vigilance of
technology. The use of technology in wrong hands can give them the
capacity to create a personal profit, support any fundamentalist ideology and
create disharmony in the global environment. Technology is here to help
humanity to move forward but some members of the society is using it to
move us backwards.

5. Intangible and Physical Economies

I find that because of modern technological evolution and our global

economy, and as a result of the great increase in population, our world has
greatly changed: it has become much smaller. However, our perceptions
have not evolved at the same pace; we continue to cling to old national
demarcations and the old feelings of 'us' and 'them'
Dalai Lama
The evolutions of the economies in the preindustrial and industrial eras
were based on physical objects that the human created, transported and
sold. The actual economy is postindustrial and the physical objects have
been substitute with the markets of people services. The development of
technology has give value to knowledge, especially to knowledge intensity.
Knowledge is intangible values that can be translated into the tangible value.

The economy of today is characterized with services that represent 1/3

of global trade. Knowledge has been the driver of economic value while
physical has declined. In addition, it is not only service that has value. Also is
the experience that added value to the service that is offer in the market and
that the consumer is willing to pay. The alienation of services has created a
new market for aesthetics, beauty and art that provide a personality to its
consumers and make them believe in their expression of individuality.

The world’s infrastructure is antique and overloaded. The world

dependence of the same roads, power and water suppliers, among others
are not enough to keep the rapid economic and population growth. The
solution to these problems will come mainly from developing countries that
will need to invest big percentage of their GDP to keep up with the economic
growth. However, the big problem is in the water, a natural resource that is
finite and some habitant of the planet are unable to reach it. This

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complication can create a “controller” side and a “controlled” side. People
will have to pay for the “black gold” of the present century. The care of the
planet’s natural resources is vital for the existence of the next generations.

6. Prosperity and Decline

Armaments, universal debt and planned obsolescence - those are the three
pillars of Western prosperity
Aldous Huxley
The era of capitalism and industrialization generated an uneven
distribution of the wealth creating tension between two sectors of the
society: rich and poor. The gap among them has been increasing with the
years due a system based on markets, property rights, technology, capital
allocation and education that were introduced in the nineteenth century.

Now, the world integration and with access to technology and services
is reshaping the traditional world order. Brazil, China and India have been
exploiting their goods and services to move the globe’s wealth to the
different corners of the planet. These nations are not playing with the
dictated rules of the traditional First World Nations, and are adapting the
rules to their necessities and capacities to improve their economic growth
and help their citizens. A perfect example is Brazil that is ignoring the laws
regarding proprietary and generic drugs to help their battle again HIV, where
the high infection rate is still an alarm for the local government.

The reshape of the world creates new challenges and opportunities.

Miserable poverty still keeps some areas of the globe beyond the benefits of
an integrated world and those areas are doomed to survive without any help.
The structure of the world’s poorest nations still is in benefits of the
oligarchy, leading their hopeless population to malnutrition and sickness.
These areas are a nest for the breeders of violence because they are left
without compassion and the social structures of the prosperous nations keep
feeding the gap of poverty and forgetfulness.

7. People and Planet

The planet is fine. The people are fucked

George Carlin

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 It seems that the human is not able to live in harmony and balance
with the environment, and behave like a virus spreading sickness and
devastation. The latent dangers of the overpopulation, even with the birth
rates going down in the industrialized nations are creating new global
tensions.

The people of rich countries are aging while those of poor nations are
getting younger. The lack of opportunities in the developing world will lead
the habitants of these nations to migrate to industrialized countries in search
of better opportunities and better life. Even with the strong opposition of the
first world nations, immigrant workers in coming decades will keep energized
their economic growth. However, with or without immigration, the increment
of human population will continue to destroy ecological niches, lead plant
and animal species to extinction, and dry the earth with the huge use
amounts of energy. Humans still consume fossil fuels that intensify the
greenhouse effect that affect climate.

Migration is been use as a political frame during election campaigns

around the world and as a lame excuse to blame their own economic, social
and political mistakes and failures. In the present world, humans are
commodities, where they offer their services according their talent and
capacity. Globalization is characterized for the free movement without
restrictions of goods and services between nations, and one of them must be
people. However, the industrialized nations opposes to migration and not
practicing what they are preaching. The world is so interconnected that it
does not matter the nationality, the skin color, the language, the religion to
be able to work when the person is needed at any place of the world.

Eamonn explained that the actions must take place today to make the
planet a livable place in the future. He stated of five tracks: learning,
mitigation, retrofitting, retreating and transcending. This is the process of
planning and action. The use of green alternatives is imperative to keep the
planet livable to the coming generations.

The world’ stage is in a new economy of power relations, directly

related to the present situation of each nation. The nations are organized in
power relations through the antagonism of strategies, where the stronger
step over the weaker. It’s a strategy of struggle, where is a reciprocal
appeal, a constant concerning and a constant reversal. The world is in a
constant relationship of power and strategy of struggle that sometimes may

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lead to a confrontation between two adversaries. In the same way, the
relationship between adversaries in our society gives place to mechanisms of
power. This situation leads to a state of instability. However, the
governments around the globe must develop the ability to decipher the
controversial events and look for the transformations either from inside their
own history of struggle or from the position of the power relationships. Every
nation must develop the capacity to resolve their own issues to be able to
resolve the issues beyond their frontiers. On the other hand, this task cannot
be developed by only one individual but for a society as a whole. Nobody is
totally right and nobody is totally wrong. The world is not just black and
white, is grey. Our society must learn to see through the haze and realize
that the differences are what make our lives richer and better. Our minds are
in constant evolution and knowledge has no limits. Technology and science
are tools to lead our world to a better future. If some part of the humanity
are not able to understand and adapt the constant changes of the world The
human must put aside their irrational mentality of judge the rest of the
humanity because they are dissimilar of what he/she believes.

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