Us, the United States and the future

A witty Arab artist, when asked, “What message would you like to send to future Arab generations?” ironically replied: “I’d tell them not to come.”

This statement has an unsettling implication that reflects the state of the Arab world, which mostly passively receives. The power to influence and drive change is concentrated in the hands of a very few, not just among world powers, but even individuals.

Everywhere, not just in the Arab world or the so-called Third World, the individual diminishes in significance, by the hour, in the face of the alarming technological advancements brought about by the “information revolution” and communication technologies.

Even in the US, executive orders issued by President Donald Trump, endorsed and promoted by figures like Elon Musk, are eroding the role of the individual, amid a rapid deterioration of the value system upon which the country was founded. In my view, this erosion will only accelerate as we fully enter the age of artificial intelligence, which will continue to be the subject of much debate.

The core issue is the same in every country. We are struggling with the difficult balance of “digesting” the pace of technological progress while maintaining social cohesion, political stability and human dignity.

In every country — especially in Europe, which faces a severe demographic crisis — this challenge is visible. The difference, however, lies in how countries approach this issue. Two areas are key: first, how they manage and control the challenge and, second, how they assign responsibility.

The speed of technological changes has led some major Western countries to the conclusion, earlier than others, that full employment has become a thing of the past. They have recognized the need to adapt to high unemployment rates, which will only continue to rise as new technologies, and later AI, erase jobs. Unskilled labor will be hit first and, within a few short years, it will extend to sectors of skilled labor.

A few decades ago, the growing realization that full employment had been an illusion led to the decline of trade unions and, thus, the collapse of the theory of class struggle, which had traditionally divided societies horizontally. Interests were contested, instead, by groups split vertically, between the local labor force and incoming migrant workers.

In some countries, such as Britain, this shift was manifested in the rise of isolationist nationalism, which became the driving force behind the UK’s departure from the EU.

Trade unions had already been dealt a defeat under Margaret Thatcher, as market forces compelled the UK to adopt new technologies. Traditional industries, including the mining sector, took a back seat to services, finance and emerging technologies. This shift was reinforced when the EU, after the end of the Cold War, eliminated barriers between the British labor market and low-wage workers from Eastern European countries where communism had ended. The influx of migrants fueled local working-class resentment toward their foreign competitors.

Thus, two broad conflicts of interests emerged: one between local workers and lower-wage migrant labor, and the second over taxes, as Britain’s prominent capitalists were undermined by European regulations that strengthened the safety nets for the working class. The opposing interests of the left (the labor movement) and the right (the capitalists) converged in opposing European unity, leading to the victory of those advocating for Brexit.

France, Germany, the Netherlands, Italy and other countries experienced similar changes. Traditional left-wing parties rooted in the ideology of class struggle collapsed and then nationalist, in some cases even racist, parties and movements surged. These forces built their strategies around opposition to migration and migrants, whether from North Africa (as in France, the Netherlands and Spain), Turkiye, Bosnia and Central Europe, or from Iraq and Syria in the cases of Germany and Sweden.

Meanwhile, the US, a country built by immigrants, was also undergoing a metamorphosis. The priorities of the Cold War and its prolonged global conflicts had masked many of the cracks in the structure of American capitalism. These geopolitical concerns also allowed leaders in both the Republican and Democratic parties to avoid seriously addressing systemic issues like debt, persistent budget deficits and declining competitiveness — problems that ultimately led to the outsourcing of many industries.

Then, with the triumph of the US at its peak following years of unipolarity, problems and repercussions began to surface, most notably the financial crisis of 2008.

The priorities of the Cold War and its prolonged global conflicts had masked many of the cracks in the structure of American capitalism.

Eyad Abu Shakra

This crisis exposed how the nation that had mastered the art of war had failed to win the battle of peace. It also exposed the emptiness of flashy slogans about economic freedom, shattering the very principles that the US aggressively promoted worldwide, chief among them the enforcement of economic openness, the embrace of free investment and the rejection of tariffs and protectionism.

Today, amid an open economic war on both allies and adversaries through tariffs, along with a war on migrant labor, information technology and communication oligarchs dominate the Trump administration. These oligarchs have been given free rein to butcher state institutions in the name of financial efficiency, leading to the elimination of tens of thousands of jobs.

Amid a rise in extreme nationalist rhetoric taken directly from the “Make America Great Again” movement, Washington is threatening Canada’s sovereignty, clashing with Denmark over the acquisition of Greenland and reopening the debate on control of the Panama Canal.

In these times, two profound quotes are pertinent. One by the Norwegian scholar and Nobel laureate Christian Lous Lange: “Technology is a useful servant but a dangerous master.” And another widely attributed to Albert Einstein: “It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity.”

• Eyad Abu Shakra is managing editor of Asharq Al-Awsat, where this article was originally published. X: @eyad1949