Instead of pulling at least southern Africa out of this black hole, the new democratic South Africa is increasing its economic development by using the other countries as markets, annihilating potential industries there. An increasing number of people not only are being disconnected, but are reacting to their disconnection. Markets are a fundamental element to ensure the dynamism of an economy, but society needs institutions, society needs values, society needs rules that can interact with the markets productively. In the short term, I fear a nationalist, populist reaction in Russia. This is a script for a nightmare.
Social classes are less and less relevant collectives.
In most of our history, individuals were considered as pre-units in social terms. The network society restores some level of power and initiative to individuals and networks of individuals through movements of information. In that sense, in terms of the classic philosophies, the one that is most relevant to our world is anarchism. If you have a goal in a very complex world of interdependencies and then try to define all the actions that lead toward this goal, you're going to build a rigid bureaucracy that will collapse. Look, the process of change needs knowledge, and research is a necessary tool.