Ontonix:: how much globalisation can the World afford?

Wednesday, 15 February, 2012 Leave a comment

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How much globalisation can the World digest? Have we reached the limit? What is the limit, if any? Is globalisation piloted and induced, or is it just a spontaneous and inevitable result of economic (and human) development? These are not easy questions to tackle. However, with the aid of complexity – which is a meta-KPI combining a multitude of conventional indicators into a single scalar measure – we can gain insight into the dynamics of globalisation. Based on data from the World Bank, we have measured and analysed the evolution of complexity of the World as a system. The analysis (see the end of this blog for a complete list of parameters) has embraced 600+ parameters, spanning the period 1970-2010 and covering the following facets of our global society:

Economy
Industry
Agriculture
Energy
Society
Ecosystem
Transportation
Telecommunications
Military/Defence
Education
Crime
Health System, etc.

In other words, the analysis was not focused on the economy alone. One point we would like to make is that today’s crisis is seen almost exclusively as a crisis of the economy. True, the economy is in a state of crisis but this is more than just a crisis of the economy. There are aspects of the society, such as the loss of values, morals, decadent and wasteful lifestyles, that have fuelled the crisis, and are continuing to do so, and yet almost all analysis focuses on the economy, with particular attention on finance. True, finance has provided fast and deadly mechanisms which spread the effects of the crisis to every corner of the globe, making the system increasingly fragile. However, it is the World as a whole that want to analyse, not just one of its facets.

via Ontonix – Complex Systems Management, Business Risk Management.