The 21st century crisis

Does this sound familiar?

Com­munit­ies and even entire coun­tries seem to have less and less con­trol of their own des­tinies. Tra­di­tional power struc­tures are baffled by below-replacement fer­til­ity rates, illegal immig­ra­tion and massive cur­rency flows.

They have unsat­is­fact­ory answers — or no answers at all — to the threat of large-scale redund­ancy in farm­ing and man­u­fac­tur­ing; they find it hard to pre­vent com­pan­ies from relo­cat­ing to other regions, or to muffle inform­a­tion from transna­tional TV and radio; they pause and worry at the implic­a­tions of global warming…

And because the estab­lished struc­tures are fum­bling with these chal­lenges, people are respond­ing with resig­na­tion … search­ing for new struc­tures … demand­ing pro­tec­tion from the global forces for change … and turn­ing angrily against recent immigrants.

It’s from Paul Kennedy’s Pre­par­ing for the Twenty-first Cen­tury. Pub­lished in 1993.

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