BRICS Business Magazine English Edition No.4(12)
The famous expression that ‘people are the main asset’ will inevitably become imbued with actual substance. What does this mean? First of all, that this main asset will begin influencing everything around us, for example, interfering with what it doesn’t like, from the environment to norms and managerial models. And it will be impossible not to reckon with this. Private initiative will acquire a completely different scope and form. We see the prototypes of this today in what is called philanthropy and social entrepreneurship. Yet the scale and difficulty of such work will grow many-fold, which will transform societies, cities, and countries. This cannot be interfered with.
People will want to see how they are impacting the environment and social, administrative, and business processes and relationships. It will be important for them to keep track of changes in quality of life. However, I am certain that the 21st century will also be headlined by the deliberate participation of people in ultra-long-term initiatives, ones that provide no quick results. True, if you engage with the problem of inequality or are pulling an entire country out from poverty, then there is no other way. In many senses, this positive vector is more important than all civilizational conflicts. Yes, an abundance of unfavorable scenarios exist, each one of which could materialize, although we should not build our lives based only on them. In reality, awaiting us – this is long-term work – is a switch to other categories; we will have to learn to think of ourselves as human civilization. Of course, it is very difficult to measure one’s own existence in terms of the world and be guided in everyday life by planetary interests, although global questions will sooner or later require us to form global answers.
Authors & Experts
Professor and Secretary to the Government of India at the Department of Science and Technology
Director of the BRICLab at Columbia University, where he also teaches international affairs
Doctor of Physical and Mathematical Sciences, Professor, member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Nobel Prize in Physics winner in 2000
Professor of Public Policy at George Mason University, Head of the International Laboratory for Political Demography and Macrosociological Dynamics at Moscow’s RANEPA
Research Associate, Sustainable Business Lab, Institute for Emerging Market Studies of Moscow School of Management SKOLKOVO
Head of the Sustainability Lab at the Institute for Emerging Market Studies SKOLKOVO
Doctor of Economics, Professor, Honored Economist of the Russian Federation, Deputy Director of the Research Centre on International Economic Relations
Cand. Sc. (Philology), Assistant Professor of Blagoveshchensk State Pedagogical University
Project Leader at the Institute for Emerging Markets Studies at the Moscow School of Management SKOLKOVO
Visiting Professor at the Copenhagen Business School, Director of the Copenhagen Consensus Center
Thomas D. Cabot Professor of Public Policy at Harvard University, former Chief Economist of the International Monetary Fund
Chief Executive Officer, Greek Millennium Project Node/Phemonoe Lab, Head of International Cooperation, PRAXI/FORTH
President and Chairman of the Academic Board at the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA)
