Until recently, political leaders could therefore control all three domains simultaneously. Economic space has enlarged to become global. National borders no longer define nor, to an increasing extent, even affect the patterns and limits of economic activity. Political space, by contrast, has remained defined by the borders of the nation-state. Because political space no longer encompasses economic space, national governments no longer can control their own economies.
Cultural space is thus increasingly synonymous with areas smaller than the nation-state.
Thus major world trends clearly show that economic space has expanded to become global, political space has remained nationally defined, and people's cultural identities have become more focused on areas generally smaller that a nation. Today's fundamental problem is that governments, which have had the historic mandate to provide for the welfare of their citizens, are encapsulated in increasingly obsolete domestic structures that often render them incapable of successfully addressing the very issues that most affect their citizens' social and economic well-being. By contrast, companies increasingly have the transnational structures and outlook necessary to address worldwide societal issues, but lack the mandate to do so. Economic leadership can no longer remain circumscribed within the narrow domain of a domestic economy or the equally narrow domain of economics. Leadership in the 21st century, whether economic, political or cultural, must be inclusive in ways that were unheard of in the 20th or prior centuries.