Fifty years ago Norbert Wiener warned that, after the ITrevolution, many people would no longer have skills to offer which anyone else would want. Today this spectre of uselessness increasingly shadows the lives even of the educated middle class. For many, the technological revolution has meant disempowerment, dispensability and deskilling. A conservative - reactionary revolt against market radicalism seems increasingly likely. History gives many examples of greedy, materialistic societies collapsing, only to be followed by centuries of intolerance and obscurantism, deskilling, economic collapse, wars and terrorism.
Many studies show a remarkable global consensus on common values.
When these are acted on, we move ahead. Studies of Global Environmental Accords show that these are overwhelmingly based on shared a moral perspective rather than on cost-benefit analyses. However this flawed view of human nature, based largely on a selective misreading of Darwin, Adam Smith and Ricardo, guides our social, economic and educational policies. It has fuelled a globalization which treats the world as a business opportunity, rather than an extended family. The time has come for those who haughtily claim to be working in the real world to acknowledge the existence of the real real world.