What did the Russian, Ottoman and Chinese empires share in common in the 15th and 20th Centuries? In the 15th century all three shunned the reforms and progress of the trading world. What followed was a multi-century decline, culminating with the collapse of all three empires within the span of a mere decade in the 20th century (1912 to 1922).
In comparison, the open “West” thrived in the wake of the industrial revolution(s) despite regular setbacks and achieved global dominance in economic, political and intellectual spheres.
Author Viktor Shvets follows Confucius advice to “study history if you would divine the future”, and takes us on a meticulously researched historic journey in order to consider the future. In his opinion, “the world is on the cusp of…(a) major turning point that in a matter of decades will reshape every human society on the planet.”
In The Great Rupture, Shvets spends more than half the book dissecting the circumstances and consequences of the historic decisions made by the three great empires compared to the west. It makes for enlightening reading, so I will leave it to the reader to derive their own satisfaction from this first half.
In keeping with this website’s stated themes of artificial intelligence and climate change, I have focused on what Shvets sees ahead. In Shvets’ view, there are two main drivers that are leading to a near-future turning point. The first is a New Information Age in the form of robotics and artificial intelligence.
“Just as the Digital Revolution altered music, entertainment, information gathering and financial services, the next ten to fifteen years will witness a massive change in how we build houses,…manufacture and distribute products, who is going to greet us when we arrive at hotels, who will perform our open heart surgery or looks after us when we age.“
The second driver acts as a multiplier on the first. The high level of indebtedness and the toxic financialization of the economy has led to financial instruments ballooning to up to ten times the global GDP (compared to around one times in the 1980s). All of this has resulted in a very fragile system with an excess of cheap capital looking for a home. And what better home than the acceleration of automation to reduce the cost or even the need for labour?
Shvets suggests a number of policies in response to the upcoming disruptions, such as minimum income guarantees, restructuring education institutions, and redesigning competition rules. However the more valuable contribution comes from his exploration of the dilemmas that western societies face. Among these are the degradation of democracy and rule of law, the power of data and (mis)information, demography, the role of employment, and the value of freedom.
These challenges are so significant that according to Shvets, they will overwhelm concerns over climate. Schvets’ conclusion is there is a coming “darkness before dawn” with a protracted several-decades-long painful birth of a new world.
In my view, climate impacts will play a much bigger role in the disruptions to come than Shvets credits, and that his ‘dawn’ may come but with an understanding of the powerful forces of nature that will demand urgent adaptation for mere survival.
I recommend Viktor Shvets’ The Great Rupture as a timely piece which gives both a fascinating and detailed history lesson but also a glimpse of the uncomfortable and disruptive few decades ahead.
The reviewer is a co-author of Court of the Grandchildren, a novel set in 2050s America.
