Conflictual uncertainties
Digital plutocracy and broad decline
- Multipolar geo-architecture in a Nation-driven world order leads to instability, numerous conflict lines and strong global migration
- Lack of global perspectives: Western Values are on the Retreat and China is sheltering – and thus jeopardizing its economic success
- Today‘s world financial system is eroding without new global approaches taking its place: Blocs, nations and companies have to work in a world of financial uncertainty
- Rudimentary global climate policy – short-term interest still dominate
- Small elite drives global plutocracy – low subjective well-being among the masses
The world finds itself in an age of manifold uncertainties. Universal human rights and Western values such as freedom, the rule of law and tolerance are losing their appeal, while nationalist ideas and (partly) authoritarian forms of rule are increasing. Global institutions are unable to counter this development and are even blocked by the countries that support them. In this largely leaderless world order, numerous conflicts occur, which also repeatedly trigger large migration flows.
Both the United States and China are failing as world powers. While the United States is increasingly shielding itself from the vagaries of the global crisis environment, China is pursuing a more aggressive foreign policy, but is unable to finance it or enforce it globally due to flagging growth momentum. The European Union faces internal conflict to the point of disintegration and is therefore unable to fill the power vacuum. Instead, more and more former second-tier powers such as Russia, India, Japan, Australia, Brazil or Turkey are pushing into the emerging gaps - leading to new conflicts due to the low level of international cooperation.
With the general move away from free trade, the global economy is slipping into a prolonged phase of structural weakness. Occurring challenges can no longer be solved within the existing financial system, but global alternatives are not available. Most companies are operating in crisis mode, leaving little room for ethical considerations and social responsibility.
Many people around the world have to limit their demand for consumption and the global equalization of living conditions is reversing. While the Western industrialized countries are able to maintain their position, the global middle class in Asia is stagnating and the global South is falling further behind. A double divide is also emerging in the digital world, both in digital participation within societies and in digital penetration within individual nations. This is creating a digital plutocracy that develops its own dynamic due to the lack of political control.
The development is exacerbated by the global consequences of climate change, which in numerous countries of the global South are jeopardizing the functioning of state institutions, leading to a lack of societal support. There is no real global climate policy in sight.
