Globalização e Desenvolvimento

Mestrado em Antropologia

2º Semestre/Ano 2017/18
Ficha de Pesquisa

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Nome: Camilo Andrés Bravo Molano Nº 224210
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

1 - Dados da Pesquisa:
Fonte da Pesquisa: World Economic Forum
Título do Artigo: The Fourth Industrial Revolution: What it means, how to respond.
Nº de/das páginas: 8 (Identificar se é Parcial ou Total): Total
Autor(es): Klaus Schwab Fonte: World Economic Forum

Referências complementares (se aplicável):

Foro; Desafios de la Cuarta Revolución Industrial

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o1cpiKVsonY

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

2 - Resumo do artigo (Capacidade de síntese):

“The Fourth Industrial Revolution: What it means, how to respond.” is an article wrote by Klaus
Schwab, founder of the World Economic Forum, who explains currently scientific and technological
developments as a process of the coming Fourth Industrial Revolution, as well how this process
could transform the modern social structure and work system. Also, “The Forum: Challenges of the
Fourth Industrial Revolution” was a forum given by the economy newspaper “La República” and the
National University of Colombia, for analyse the impact of the Fourth Industrial Revolution in
Colombian sectors of industry and education. As well, the expositors was based in this article of
Klaus Schwab.

According Klaus Schwab, with the Fourth Industrial Revolution we are altering the way we live,
work and relate to one another. This change involves global private and public polity, academia and
society. On the article he explains the use of energy resources and productive process during four
levels of industrialization. The First Industrial Revolution was characterized for mechanize
production with water and steam power. The Second Industrial Revolution for create mass
production with electric power. The Third Industrial Revolution made a convergence between
physical, digital and biological areas with digital revolution. And the currently Fourth Industrial
Revolution increase the velocity, scope and system impacts of the production, management and
governance.
According this article, the Fourth Industrial Revolution is reflected by mobile devices, with
processing power, storage capacity, and access to knowledge, that could be multiplied for artificial
intelligence, robotics, the Internet of the thing, autonomous vehicles, 3-D printing, nanotechnology,
biotechnology, materials science, energy storage, and quantum computing. The article refers as well
to computing power of vast amounts of data that allows predict our cultural interests, fabricating
technologies, and interacting with the biological world.

Schwab wrote that the challenges and the opportunities of the Fourth Industrial Revolution are the
potential to raise global income levels and improve the quality of life, with more efficiency and
productivity for the consumers able to afford and access the digital world. With lower costs of
transportation, communication, and general trade. But Schwab explain as well that the revolution
could bring inequality, particularly in labor markets with automation substitutes, displacing workers
by machines. Or maybe, it could bring an increase in safe and rewarding jobs.

Also, on the article Schwab analyse that in future production could be represented for talent more
than capital. However, the largest beneficiaries of innovation tend to be the providers of intellectual
and physical capital (innovators, shareholders and investors). According Schwab that could explain
why middle classes are increasingly experiencing a pervasive sense of dissatisfaction and unfairness.

Schwab thought that the main impact are on business for the acceleration of innovation and the
velocity of disruption, that it is hard to comprehend or anticipate and constitute a constant surprise.
On the supply side, are being created new ways of serving, thanks to access to global digital
platforms for research, development, marketing, sales, and distribution, improving the quality, speed
and price. On the demand side, he describes that are also occurring new patterns of consumer
behaviour and growing transparency. On the whole, there are four main effects that the Fourth
Industrial Revolution has on business: Costumer expectations, product enhancement, collaborative
innovation, and organizational forms. Digital capabilities are increase the value of products and
services. The economy focusing on the customers experience, about how customers are served and
data-based services. And for Schwab, that means that talent, culture, and organizational forms will
have to be rethought.

He analyses as well the impact on governance, on the citizen side there are more opinion,
coordination, and supervision of public authorities. But, simultaneously, governments could increase
their control over populations with surveillance systems, and control of digital infrastructure. New
technologies make possible decentralizing the power, and force government to increase transparency
and efficiency. Also, it could impact the national and international security, increasing conflicts.
Technological innovation alter warfare, as autonomous and biological weapons.
Culturally, for Schwab, the impact on people is not only what society do but also who humanity is. It
will affect identity as sense of privacy, notions of ownership, consumption patterns, the time devote
to work and leisure, and how we develop our careers, meet people, and nurture relationships. And the
principal challenge posed is the privacy, the loss of control over data. Yet, according Schwab, the
tracking and sharing of information about us is a crucial part of the new connectivity. Similarly, the
revolutions occurring in biotechnology and Artificial Intelligence transform life span, health,
cognition, and capabilities, which are redefining what it means to be human, they compel us to
redefine our moral and ethical boundaries.

The article finishes reflecting that all of us, as citizens, consumers and investors, are responsible to
shape the Fourth Industrial Revolution with our common objectives and values, and reshaping our
economic, social, cultural, and human environments.

3 - Opinião do aluno com articulação à matéria dada (Capacidade analítica)

According both of this documents, I would like make the following own analyse about the
globalization context. We are living an age of globalization built for connections between mode of
transport and information media. This globalization has changed governance, technology, economy,
ecology, development of the culture, education and knowledges. This globalization started since the
Enlightenment, with colonialism, industrialization process and implementation of the scientific
method.

Globalization phenomenon did a strong transformation of work system, it begun at the age of
conquest and colony, when the main global profession was agriculture. The army technology
advantage established control of global territory by England, Spain, Portugal and France cultures, as
well as the control of their connections of markets and communications. As consequence was made a
flow of wealth to Europe that would development the industrialization until to date. This wealth was
mainly represented in gold and silver, but culturally was the growing of extractivism system of all
natural resources, and growing of global military governance, that would trigger all other
phenomenons of the currently globalization, as world wars, big migrations, big information and
capital flows, faster modes of transport and media, and faster overproduction, as well as opposition
appears new theories about social development, like human rights, global peace and freedom, global
environmental policies, etc.

In this way, the antique wealth and power based on the ownership of land was replaced for capital
accumulation and machines development. Power of religion -based in the spiritual conception of life
and morality control- was decreasing, losing the main role of the society and giving pass to science,
mainly science applied to technology development. As well morality and human conception of life,
turned more rational and productive. According to predictions of the coming Fourth Industrial
Revolution, the next wealth could be production of knowledge.

Anthropology defines that humans characteristics that separate us of animals are imagination and
ability to create tools and manipulate its with our hands. Humanity have built and transformed their
ambient with both of this things until our modern world. Drawing, Writing, printing and digital
computer design, allow humanity explain and development ideas and transforming their ambient and
planning a future. Digital computers increase the human ability of imagination and representing, and
the 3D prints and robotics tools could allow fabricate physically any tool limited only for our
knowledge.

Knowledge has been treated as a good, stimulating knowledge production and transformation as an
exploitation resource. In some universities as National University of Colombia, production scientific
knowledge is priority, the university slogan is “Science and Technology for the country”, in this way,
arts and social-humanities science obtain less financial resources and infrastructure, in other
universities around the world technology programs are been opened but social studies are been
closed.

Whatever, the currently fast performance of globalization, needs faster human innovations and
adaptations, therefore a faster educational system adaptation. Before the first industrial revolution,
education was transmitted by familiar generations, and normally the child learned a job or a
profession for their parents. Religion was the main educative system in Europe before Industrial
Revolution, and was the basis of the actual universities which currently have a scientific system and
technology objective. This educative system was globalizated as well as the economic system,
knowledge flowing depends of transport, media and markets connections and national development
interests. And educative improve is the main challenge to maintain local independence into
globalization.

On globalization supply of work depends of big conglomerate global enterprises, and the
governments are losing control over their territory, population and laws, the international accords and
rights have more importance that the national judges, for example the International Court of Justice
have main legitimation than a national court. But the global laws are transformed more by the trade
interest than for civil citizens needs. The Fourth Industrial Revolution have a challenge to integrate
multicultural governance and the several conception about development, it must to be a global
official laws to control and respect the liberties of migration of people as of capitals.

According to Globalization, Hybridism created for the mixture of trades are finishing the idea of
nations, where the local identity is built depending the connections between villages, that is reflected
in cultural local expressions as in arts. Also, according to glocalization, the local citizens are
demanding new structures of policies and laws that demands global governments more resilient.

According the concept “World System” of Immanuel Wallerstein (1974) the globalizated world
could be divided as core and periphery places. This concept has spacial logic, where the industrial
places produce an urban and technology transformation that could be expanded close theirs borders,
that was called Core, and periphery, and other sides far of this transformations are called
underdevelopment. But currently this places have as well virtual networks, made specially with
families migrations and media communications. But currently the fast flow of information has
changed this concept of “core and periphery countries” for core of reflexive villages-market, where
the connection is more virtual than spatial, making a fusion or hybridism between villages without
geographic connections, that could be similar as the physic concept of “wormhole” that explains the
linking of separate points in spacetime, social development of contemporary cities, is like a
conceptual wornhole, it made with mode of transports and media communication that jump physical
spaces between villages and markets. But, this phenomenon produce jumps of human process as well.

The children currently have more skills and information to teach to theirs parents, and are
transgressing their traditional knowledges, that is an educative and familial paradigm change. As
well, the human relationship are being with virtual connection, with apps that allow jumping social
spaces, and are broking their common spaces, changing and configuring new rituals and new
symbols. Before, relationships, socialization and society was strengthened by the common spaces,
since the industrialization and with the currently acceleration of the 4th Industrial Revolution,
relationships, sociability and society is stronger with the virtual connections. The inhabitants of a city
have more identity with other cities than with closer little village, that depends of theirs connections.
It is a similar “glocal” identity as the academic production of metropolitan provincialism and
provincial cosmopolitanism about Gustavo Ribeira wrote.

Klaus Schwab tell about the probably increase of social inequity, and how innovation and fast
adaptation could be a advantage, this countries that are leading the Fourth Industrial Revolution, the
same that conforms the G8 (the eight group, or seven plus Russia), are the main weapons producers,
it is the main threat that bring the Industrial Revolutions. If there were no weapons, the power
governance should be done with dialogue and coordinated objectives, by other hand the globalization
is a global colony in which local villages are for serving and they will be controlled by the media,
markets and armies of industrial countries.

The main paradigm of 4th Revolution is about capital, what will happen with big wealth produced by
robots? And with the unemployment that it produce? In theory, the answer is, collecting taxes to
machines owners and creating a “basic universal income”. That allow people work for causes other
than money or support. This would make rethinking the reason and the concept of human work and
consequently of educative system. A society no based in obtain money could be a society sincerely
worried for human rights, social and cultural development, and environmental protection.

Cultural transformation becoming with the Fourth Industrial Revolution bring challenges to
contemporary social anthropology in the subject of identity, social communication, and social
structure, each Industrial Revolution changed work, educative and urban systems. Also,
Anthropology have an ethic challenge with the development projects of transnational organizations
and its impact in the local villages.