The next phase of human civilization is both mobile and sustainable, and people will move to where resources are, aided by technology. Governments will need to attract these flows of talent or be left behind, argues Parag Khanna in his new book.
«Competition for talent among countries is all taking place amid the backdrop of climate change. And countries that grow in population will emerge stronger,» Parag Khanna told finews.asia in an interview. The global strategy adviser is the founder and managing partner of FutureMap, a data and scenario-based strategic advisory firm.
He is also a prolific author whose newest book is «Move: The Forces Uprooting Us». Khanna spoke to finews.asia ahead of the publication's release this week on Simon & Schuster.
Parag Khanna, your new book is titled «Move». Why did you move to Singapore?
When choosing a place to live, there were lots of options. When I was living in London around 2010-2011, I visited Singapore quite regularly, as I started to do more and more consulting around scenario planning, national strategy and smart cities. And at that point, we wanted to really move to Asia, so the options were either Dubai, Hong Kong or Singapore.
But given my relationships here, it was very clear. I knew very well that this is the place to be, and I began to call it the capital of Asia because of what it represents and encompasses. Of course, given what has happened in Hong Kong, it's fairly clear that's become ever more true. And so that's why we decided to move, and it’s been one of the best decisions of my life.
The publication of a book on global mobility during a pandemic year is very curious, with most of us being stuck at home.
Certainly, the primary pandemic effect in most people's eyes is a lockdown of the human population and indeed the global lockdown of 2020 was the single most coordinated act in human history. However, all of the drivers of migration, like labor shortages in northern countries, political upheaval from Afghanistan to Venezuela, and other drivers that push people to move are accelerating. So in other words, if you think about migration and economic terms, we have pent-up demand.
«Supply and demand should be what drives human movement»
We have pent-up demand for people in some places, while others have an oversupply. I use this language because I believe and argue strongly that supply and demand should be what drives human movement, rather than politics or xenophobia. If you allow supply and demand to be the governing principle, then you will actually have a progressive and productive global economy, and certainly a larger global economy.
What are the characteristics of desirable destinations, now and in the future?
You vote with your feet, based on many factors such as tax, political stability, education, culture, and of course, climate. And what I do in «Move» is to take all of those variables and take a holistic assessment of how they will affect each other in different scenarios, and then to map out which will be the most suitable and desirable destinations in the world, now and in the future.
Switzerland and Singapore ranked very highly. It's worth pointing out that one of my previous books called «Technocracy in America» was explicitly about the superiority of the Swiss and Singaporean models of governance. These places are what I call «islands of stability,» in terms of being very desirable destinations that meet all of the criteria that people could look for: political stability, financial security, a lower tax rate, high quality of life, good health care.
I've now taken those ideas and projected them forward and looked at human demographics and how the human population may redistribute itself as the world population searches for islands of stability.
How can countries set themselves up for success?
- Page 1 of 2
- Next >>
