The Future I Predict Today Is Not Inevitable
Paul Barnett
This is my first post of the year, 2025. It is a prediction, but not an inevitable one!
By nature I am usually described as optimistic, but it sometimes makes more sense to be realistic (to see things as they truly are) and pragmatic (acting on what is true, rather than on what we might wish to be true), both being grounded in reality. We are living in such a time. If you are not convinced of that already, I think you will be as we go through 2025.
Business leaders use the PESTLE (or PESTEL) framework to assess external risks. The letters relating to Political, Economic, Societal, Technological, Legal and Environmental factors. They are also the systems we depend on. Take any one of them as a lens to view the prospects for the year ahead and it is hard to be optimistic:
Political
Democracies, already in decline, face the greatest threat in my lifetime due to pressure from the far left, and even more so from the far right. At the same time, international relations are becoming increasingly strained.
Nationalism is on the rise, being fuelled by populists with extreme views.
All of this is the result of disappointment, fear, and disillusionment with governments, international institutions, and the elite.
Economic
The political realities we face in 2025 are largely a consequence of economic crises, stagnant economies, extreme levels of inequality, increases in inflation, and increasing interest rates.
Related issues are stagnant or declining household incomes, and unaffordable housing. Plus large increases in public, corporate and household debt.
As governments try to balance the books post-covid, the pressure on public services intensify.
At the same time, aging populations are increasing healthcare costs, and the cost of pension provision.
Societal
Nationalism and populism are being fuelled by the leaders of political parties and governments that create division and hatred towards various groups - refugees and migrants in particular.
Matters have been made worse by the tensions in the Middle East, and among populations from those countries who reside in other nations.
Identity politics is the poison populists use.
As nations try to balance the books, public spending cuts reduce access to services. Meanwhile tax increases and other pressures leave many facing a cost of living crisis.
For the first time in generations children are increasingly worse off than their parents.
The rates of mental illness, suicide, and substance abuse give some indications of just how bad things are getting.
Technological
Though technology, used wisely, offers the potential to alleviate many of the problems we face, there is great concern about the continued impact of digitisation, and more recently AI of on Jobs. The question is, can new jobs be created fast enough to replace those being lost, and will they be?
As international tensions rise there is also the danger of technologies will be used in more advanced forms of warfare, and the cost of defending a country is significantly increasing defence spending. The is result further pressure on government spending.
Legal
Given the political trends mentioned above, legal and regulatory systems will find themselves under greater pressure, to pander to the will of autocrats, plutocrats, and wannabe dictators. The evidence is already clearly visible in many countries.
Environmental
In addition to future concerns about the sustainability of the planet, and threats to our national resources, there are huge concerns and costs already being born by those impacted by climate related disasters.
Whilst each of the PESTLE issues highlights problematic matters, it should be clear from the commentary I have offered that they are all interrelated and interdependent in many ways. It therefore looks like we may be facing a perfect storm in 2025, or soon after - what some are calling a metacrisis.
All that said, I do want to offer some reasons to be optimistic. So, let me offer some inspiring words from Charles Handy who sadly died a few weeks ago after a long and well lived life. (See my post on his death). The words are echoed in my opening sentences and my closing remarks to this post.
In one of his best books, The Age of Unreason (1989), his opening paragraph read:
“The future we predict today is not inevitable. We can influence it, if we know what we want it to be.”
To which he added, “we can and should be in charge of our own destinies in a time of change.”
The book was about change, and why we should embrace it. In it he cites George Bernard Shaw saying he, “once observed that all progress depends on the unreasonable man.” Shaw’s argument was that the reasonable man adapts himself to the world, while the unreasonable persists in trying to adapt the world to himself, therefore for any change of consequence we must look to the un-reasonable man,” or woman as Charles noted.
In the book, and on the cover as shown above, Charles goes on to say that while in Shaw’s day perhaps most men were reasonable…
“We are now entering an ‘Age of Unreason.’ when the future, in so many areas, is there to be shaped. by us and for us — a time when the only prediction that will hold true is that no predictions will hold true, a time, therefore, for bold imaginings in private life as well as public, for thinking the unlikely and doing the unreasonable.”
With these words from Charles in mind, I urge you to join the Enlightened Enterprise Academy and explore what many may consider unreasonable, and to take part in the bold imaginings that I will be curating as I work on my book, The Better Way: Enlightened Enterprise.
Find out more about the book on the Substack site. It offers more details on the book, the process I will use to write it, the dialogues I will run related to it, and ways you can be part of the process.
Finally
The future is there to be shaped by us. We can influence it if we know what we want it to be. We can, and should, be in charge of our destinies. We must be unreasonable men and women if the future I predict for 2025 is not to be inevitable.
And, I will quote Margaret Mead once more….
“Never Doubt That a Small Group of Thoughtful, Committed Citizens Can Change the World; Indeed, It’s the Only Thing That Ever Has.”