The stakeholders in our modern economic system comprise of lenders and borrowers of capital, and the enforcers of obligations arising therefrom. Admittedly it is an ambitious attempt to simplify the vast complexity of society’s commercial dynamics into just these three counterparts but bear with me.
The supporting logic is like this: a borrower must have an asset at his disposal to secure the resources to put it to productive commercial use; the lender in turn provides the necessary capital which is reasonably secured against the asset. The resulting economic gain is shared between the parties. In the event of losses, the enforcer ensures the security terms of the bargain are met.
Everyone else in society is merely labor in the equation, paid or unpaid. This in a nutshell is the diagram of an economy. To be sure it is not equitably distributed amongst its participants, which, then and now, is the root cause of dissent.
Yet the capitalist system endures on, perhaps more pervasive today than any time hitherto. A handful of billionaires enjoy disparate ownership of society’s underlying assets. Most forms of labor inadequately compensate its contributors; meanwhile the State has extended credit far beyond the income generated from its constituents.
Perhaps worst of all, the socioeconomic contract is enforced by authorities inconsistently and incongruously. The obvious conflicts from shared interests between borrowers, lenders and enforcers have resulted in a tilted playing field where risks and returns are unevenly distributed.
At the cusp of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR), we have another attempt at re-engineering the human experiment using 4IR technologies that decentralize authority and de-emphasize divisions along the lines of color, creed and country — what the Japanese have coined as “Society 5.0”.
The term “Society 5.0” describes the next stage of the evolution of societal communities, following the hunting society (Society 1.0), agricultural society (Society 2.0), industrial society (Society 3.0), and information society (Society 4.0). The key differentiation of Society 5.0 (the digital age) from Society 4.0 (the information age) is the convergence of the virtual world with the physical world.
Covid-19 has accelerated the migration of society from physical infrastructures onto digital infrastructures, but Society 5.0 holds the promise to bring these back together through the use of 4IR technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), internet of things (IoT), blockchain and digital assets (FinTech).
Because of its ubiquitous reach, 4IR technologies raise all kinds of concerns, but actually with proper guidance these can be used to create a better life for all, including new and more meaningful jobs, reskilling of the workforce, better health and education, and smarter and greener cities.
Enduring change will only result from balancing of the underlying dynamics of economic advancement with the resolution of social problems. The quest for Society 5.0 is built around the needs of a human-centered society.
After months of quarantine, with both companies and households in survival mode, we are now emerging from crisis. The ensuing recovery relies largely upon a properly managed acceleration of 4IR technologies