Some people can find the Parnassian ‘peace & quiet in the middle of the storm’ by discovering the resource potential of the crisis. ‘Whatever happens is neither good nor bad but just a transition. Meanwhile, crises forge leaders’, says Ruben Vardanyan, the initiator, a co-founder, and the first President of Moscow SKOLKOVO School Of Management, a co-founder of international Aurora Prize for Awakening Humanity and UWC Dilijan College in Armenia.

In my interviews and public speeches of recent years, I have been pointing out our living in perfect-storm conditions. By a perfect storm, I mean a team-play of numerous multi-directional simultaneous processes in different life spheres. All combined, they are sure to change the world system man is used to. It has turned out that until recently, I was not quite right since to find itself in a perfect-storm situation, humanity was still lacking a world war or a global pandemic.

The world and human society will never be the same.

Those born in the second half of the XX^th century have already had to deal with a good many cataclysms. Still, none of them has ever affected all spheres of human life at once and worldwide. Today, humanity is facing a global disaster leaving no life aspect unharmed. This crisis is sure to necessitate large-scale changes and intensify the global processes of the last 30 years.

The Fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 made the US-SU bipolar world order history. For a short period, the world was US-monocentric. Then, some forces tried to make it multipolar. Today’s US-China confrontation looks like trying to return to the bicentric system. Meanwhile, it’s not about ideological differences but all about different technological standards. Still, this struggle might as well become another Battle of Two Worlds.

Fake news, now and then appearing and spread fast and wide thanks to new information technologies, causes governments to restrict information distribution.

The on-going digital revolution and increasing globalization have made human, capital, and resource transborder flows possible and easy. At the same time, to our surprise, we have been witnessing the opposite tendency. After the terrorist attack of 11 September 2001, many countries have imposed international travel restrictions. Now, even though temporarily due to the spread of the COVID 19 pandemic, such limitations have reached an unprecedented level. The global financial crisis of 2008 has entailed a tighter regulation and restriction of capital mobility. Fake news, now and then appearing and spread fast and wide thanks to new information technologies, causes governments to restrict information distribution. Vain are hopes for everything to fall back into its rut after all these limitations are, sooner or later, lifted. The world and human society will never be the same.

One of the most important consequences of the current crisis is growing polarization in all spheres – politics, public and social services, lifestyles, interpersonal relations, and morals. At one extreme are politicians shooting magic bullets, making populist promises, and fomenting nationalist & isolationist attitudes. At the opposite end are cosmopolitans and globalization partisans dreaming of a global citizenship for all. Humanity has made a quantum leap in developing technologies, but our ethics, in essence, have not changed since Plato and Aristotle. In Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell says, ‘The choice for mankind lay between freedom and happiness, and … for the great bulk of mankind happiness was better’. On the one hand are those opting for comfort and safety provided by artificial intellect, ex gratia submitting their personal data to the system and big corporations. On the other are fringe groups resisting digital totalitarianism. More and more million-plus cities appear all over the world. In the meantime, we observe a mass exodus from them to the country and small towns in search of organic food and more natural living conditions. Millions have lost their jobs, while many industries and regions are still in desperate need of workers.

When gaps widen, and extremes refuse to meet, those in-between are most vulnerable. So, it’s the middle class that is to face the hardest effects of the current perfect storm. It’s a big problem because this social group is the core stability factor in the modern world. Keeping pace with today’s middle-class demands and living standards has become a luxury. Higher life expectancy and clouded prospects of getting decent pensions are sure to make people compete on the labour market as long as possible, learning new skills all along. Many are not prepared for that, especially because it’s unclear what kind of training is best to get, what professions will be in demand in the future, and how to pay the constantly rising tuition fees while the incomes remain the same.

The middle-class status used to depend, among other things, on consumption. Now, the economic paradigm is changing to co-using. There is no more need to consolidate funds to possess goods if they can be simply used. The most famous sharing economy formula is: ‘I do not need a drill. All I need is a hole in the wall’. Why own a car and incur expenses caused if car-sharing is available? Why buy real estate and pay taxes and repairs when you can opt for co-living, a modern communal flat version, most suitable for highly mobile young people regularly travelling the world? Why rent an office facility if there are co-working services on offer, and, as the latest business practice has shown, most of the office staff can work remotely as effectively?  

Still, there is a question hard to find an answer to: what shall we do about our legacy in the new sharing economy conditions? Whom shall we leave our properties, assets, and businesses if our children are unwilling to take upon themselves the responsibilities entailed? Nowadays, more and more material wealth owners start thinking not so much about providing generations to come with tangible possessions but rather about what is going to happen to the world when they are gone.

Today, the world economy resembles Leonardo DiCaprio’s character from The Revenant, badly wounded and unable to assess his injuries objectively due to shock and acute desire to survive, pushing him to move on.

The middle class is shrinking from generation to generation. With alternative digital control systems at their disposal, governments, in essence, have few reasons to support this stratum as a social stabilizer. Does it mean the middle class is going to disappear? In the near future, the world social structure is very likely to change to something like the declining Roman Empire life order with 2% of the planet’s population engaged in production, 20% in services, and the rest receiving incomes big enough to satisfy their basic needs without working.

Questions about how long this global crisis might last, what will be its effects, and how to overcome them sound very much like the famous exchange from a good old joke: ‘When shall we see the Light at the End of the Tunnel?’ ‘We’d better find the Tunnel first’. Today, the world economy resembles Leonardo DiCaprio’s character from The Revenant, badly wounded and unable to assess his injuries objectively due to shock and acute desire to survive, pushing him to move on. The sizes of real and fictional economies differ 20 times. Loss-making companies cost scores of billions of US dollars, while investors get the so-called ‘paper profits’ having nothing to do with real ones. Sooner or later, reduction to zero is inevitable. The cost of all assets will be revised. Attempts to find an alternative to the US Dollar or use crypto-currencies are, most likely, doomed to failure, and in many cases, barter will replace money.

With all kinds of negative scenarios possible, reduction to zero can carve out some room for new progress. In this respect, such historical examples as the Renaissance following the Black Death outbreaks and new job opportunities for women due to the loss of so many men in the two World Wars are most illustrative.

Today’s leaders’ guidance for actionshould be Lewis Carrol’s Queen of Hearts’ advice from Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There: ‘Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!’  

What is going to happen to the existing industries in the post-COVID 19 times? Most likely, the fate of certain professions in the robotics era awaits them. Some will decline and eventually die down. No doubt, it will not happen overnight or within a few months but take a while, as in the case of lamplighters when oil and gas street lamps gave way to electric ones. Others will manage to recover partially or even fully. The rest will have to transform somehow or other to keep afloat. On the other hand, the new times have become a real gold mine for a number of industries by revealing or making more acute the needs they can meet in the best way possible here and now. Obviously, many services we are used to will transform, and new ones will appear. Today’s leaders’ guidance for actionshould be Lewis Carrol’s Queen of Hearts’ advice from Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There: ‘Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!’  

Newly-born and reborn businesses, digital control systems, co-using principles, and online cooperation will require a complete workspace transformation. Not only will start-ups opt for co-working, but all creative people will need meeting areas in city centres to exchange ideas, make up and discuss new projects, study, develop themselves, work, and rest.

As I used to be an investment banker, people often ask me what assets are best to invest in. In these times of general uncertainty, I am absolutely certain it is worth investing in human development. It is human gifts and talents that are of greatest value today, unlike the times of the previous socio-economic systems whose main aim of struggle were fertile and densely populated lands rich in resources. Modern man cannot be kept fast through traditional forcible methods and artificial restrictions. He needs an attractive work and life environment, stimulating his self-development and self-realization in his workspace and corporate infrastructure, as well as the city and country he lives in.  

Nevertheless, I feel sure that in the new times, the human family is not going to change radically, and people will be still looking for partners, getting married, and having children.

Human creativity is the locomotive of changes able to make the world a better place and a serious threat to the universe, too. It is already becoming the main target of the system which will be persistently trying to get the best of it over the next 20—30 years.

Now that we are one on one with local and global challenges and cannot fully rely on government protection, with anxiety rocketing all around, we again look for help and support among our like. Dependence on our families, kindred, and like-mindedness will be undoubtedly growing. On the other hand, yet another sign of the on-going polarization is the increasing number of lonely people. More and more marriages end in a divorce, while many make a conscious decision to remain single. Social isolation has become an obvious fact as a lot of individuals find a comfortable shelter in a virtual world instead of trying to build real relationships. Nevertheless, I feel sure that in the new times, the human family is not going to change radically, and people will be still looking for partners, getting married, and having children.

All you need is uniting with others concerned, just like you, about the kind of world our children will inherit.

Whether we like it or not, the changes mentioned above are already underway, and humanity is at a crossroads with many ways to choose from. The choice depends on each of us. Meanwhile, everyone decides on a course of action in the face of the current global problems: escaping the reality, going with the stream, or solving them on his own. You don’t need to have a lot of clout at city halls, a powerful lot of money, or ways of public influence. All you need is uniting with others concerned, just like you, about the kind of world our children will inherit. I am positive it is not the strongest that survive in perfect-storm conditions but the preadaptive, able to build an ark before the deluge arrives. The main thing for us is to keep on working and keep up our spirits.