Chapter 3 The Great Revolution

The Great Revolution

In this third chapter the author chooses to elaborate a very pessimistic scenario by foreseeing a stock market crash followed by a huge recession and a revolution. Doing so he wants to emphasize that there are momentarily (2016) many critical world issues that may escallate further if not properly addressed. These issues are the biggest refugee crisis in this lifetime, appalling terrorist attacks, extreme nationalism, the climat change and more. Let us hope however that we can divert from the doomscenario the author chooses and that we have the resilience to turn those critical issues into opportunities for mankind.

The issues the two brother discuss in this chapter are the collapsing world economy, increasing repression, ressentiment among citizens in all continents of the world, the impact of migrations and not the least the unprecedented level of unemployment. These issues will lead in the storyline of the book to a major world wide revolution, but fortunately also to a revival from this near apocalypse.

Economist Andrew McAfee suggests that probably robots will take our jobs -- or at least the kinds of jobs we know now. In this far-seeing talk, he thinks through what future jobs might look like, and how to educate coming generations to hold them.

Other references to this chapter:

•  How Technology Has Affected Wages for the Last 200 Years.There always has been a timeline mismatch between new technologies and the adaptation in new skills and implicit consequences on wages. See the April 29 2015, Harvard Business Review: 

• What Will Happen to American Jobs, Incomes, and Wealth a Decade From Now? Read in the Huffington Post in may 2015: 

• Experts predict robots will take over 30% of our jobs by 2025 — and white-collar jobs aren't immune.

• Rainer Strack: The surprising workforce crisis of 2030 — and how to start solving it now.