Foreword

Summary

It is more than fifteen years since Joseph Stiglitz wrote Globalization and its Discontents, with the message that there is evidence of much unhappiness with the way global reforms have been taking place and how they have impacted developing and poor countries. Stiglitz concluded that the main issue is not with globalization, but rather that the process of management was very much lacking. And now Stiglitz in his latest book, Rewriting the Rules of the American Economy, has argued that the message he had about globalization is now affecting the advanced economies.

Professor Jørgen Ørstrøm Møller is never one to evade the complexities and subtleties of current affairs. He pursues the issues of the day with an intellectual curiosity, clarity of thought, and completeness that is enriched by his vast experience in the Danish diplomatic service, policymaking and academia. In this book he uses an interdisciplinary approach to discuss the intrinsic issues, including globalization, that are shaping the world.

Professor Møller identifies the pessimism in current affairs and the apprehensiveness in the global economy as a veil over policymakers. He proposes that a paradigm shift is needed to lift this veil. The concept of a paradigm shift — a fundamental change in approach or underlying assumptions when existing ones can no longer serve as a framework to a discipline — is rooted in science and technology. While there is much debate on the effect of science and technology on the economy, they are much more profoundly felt across the human landscape.

In health sciences, advances in biotechnology such as embryo selection, where we can cultivate and screen embryos for genetic diseases, and gene splicing, where we can then proceed to edit out the diseases we have missed, promise to revolutionize human reproduction and healthcare.

Robotics, big data and artificial intelligence form the basis of technologies such as self-driving vehicles, drones and 3D printing that loom over our contemporary workforce. The use and usefulness of social media continue to be topics of debate. The Pokémon Go phenomenon has shown how virtual reality is being inverted into augmented reality.

In the current political and societal climate, where populism and personalities trump logic and reasoning, how do we grapple with political and power structures, societal values and economic theory to reasonably frame and implement a conversation about the impact of these technologies on our future?