Future World

This is a subject I have touched on in a number of posts, but I have never hit it head on. The world is changing and changing very fast. The implications effect many parts of our life including our financial future and the future of the church in America. It is my opinion that in the lifetime of our children (meaning 30 years old today and younger) neither the “normal” American employment experience nor the “normal” American church experience will be anything they can even imagine today.

There are two powerful opposing forces at work in our culture and political economy. One is centralization of power, command, and control. Since the late middle ages, power has tended to concentrate in fewer and fewer hands. This has led to the rise of the nation state, a phenomena that might be coming to an end, as globalization drives humanity towards some form of supranational government. Do I hear the warning of Saint John the Divine?

Revelations 13

[16] And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads:
[17] And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.
[18] Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six.

Satellite communications and computer networks have made this prophecy a technical possibility.

There is a second force that is tearing our world apart. The same technology that allows the micromanagement and dehumanization of the workplace is also leading to the destruction of the workplace as we know it. If not for the massive infusion of capital by the world’s central banks and treasury departments, the destruction of a number of the great concentrated centers of financial power would already be complete. The Internet and cell phone networks are rapidly making positional authority obsolete. Phyllis Tickle, an Anglican philosopher of history, notes that ants have no centralized authority, no queen ant, only the constant interaction of small self organizing entities moving towards mutually desirable goals. New authority does not come with a job title or a degree. It occurs when a number of independent agents coalesce around a center. Seth Godin describes these phenomena very well in an important little book entitled, Tribes.

As I write this blog entry, the war is being fought on a thousand fronts. Recording and movie companies are fighting a losing battle against illegal file sharing. They have even stupidly resorted to suing their own best customers. It will accomplish nothing. Almost no one under the age of 40 sees anything wrong with copying CDs or sharing mp3 files with their friends. If the big companies really want to stop file sharing, all they have to do is offer a higher quality product for so little that no one will want the illegal version. After the failure of prohibition in this country, almost no one buys moonshine when high quality brand name liquor is available at a reasonable price. When DVDs are sold at grocery store check out counters for $5.00 a copy, nobody will want to download a second rate version from the Internet. By the way, DVDs were originally intended to be just such a low cost item. Then the lawyers and accountants got greedy.

The newspapers are screaming bloody murder because they are rapidly becoming irrelevant. Who wants to pay for day old news, when it is available for free as it happens on the Internet and cable TV? Also, Montgomery County insists that I recycle newspaper, but only on Tuesdays if it is not raining, what a pain. The papers and even the pornography industry are howling they can’t compete against free and have demanded Federal bailout money (really!).

Of course you can compete against free. Jimmy Buffett gives away free music on Radio Margaritaville 24-7. He also advertizes his concerts and sells a wide variety of Jimmy Buffett stuff. He is not selling music. He is selling a dream. Millions of parrot heads have bought into that dream and in the process, Jimmy Buffett has made a fortune.

Today, this conflict is more intense in China than in any other country on earth. The Chinese government is the most repressive command and control authority that can be found in the world outside of insane rouge states like North Korea. They are censoring the Internet, free speech, religious minorities, even monitoring text messaging. What a boring job that must be. Imagine reading the text messages of a 1,000 teenagers in love every day. It isn’t working. The new capitalist elite and the traditional Chinese family corporations are weakening and corrupting the central authority. Christianity, Tibetan Buddhism, and Falun Gong continue to grow in the face of sometimes brutal persecution.

A new world is rising around us. The old world is fighting back. We can not return to 1950. The center cannot hold.

I believe this little video was played at our church some months ago. If you haven’t seen it, check it out. I wish I knew how to put live links on this blog but cut and paste does work just fine.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EOpA9kNb3fk