March 2017 Credit Management magazine

OPINION
THE FUTURE IS NOW
Pierre Haincourt MCICM looks back at significant advances in human
technology and ponders what’s next
LAST year, invited by the French Credit
Managers Association to represent the
CICM and CICM Kent Branch, I went
to L’Association des Credit Managers
et Conseils (AFDCC) Credit Day which was
held on 18 November at the sumptuous and
prestigious Pavillon Dauphine in Paris for the
third consecutive year.
Just as the CSA featured Andrew Neil at
its 2016 conference, AFDCC secured Nicolas
Bouzou as its guest speaker. On his twitter
feed, Nicolas describes himself as a flying
economist, writer, avgeek, space geek…
his 10th book is called Innovation will save
the world. Along the lines of: ‘Should you
believe Schumpeter or Malthus?’ and ‘Would
you rather follow the Sparta or the Athens
model?’ Nicolas Bouzou presented his vision
of Evolution.
Starting from today’s tech revolution and
in the light of the key changes that have
taken place in the past centuries, here’s what
Nicolas’ flamboyant, futuristic and optimistic
presentation was about.
The greatest technological mutation ever
experienced by our world is underway. So,
let’s try and understand what is going on using
our experience of previous economic and
industrial revolutions in our history. Such huge
changes are always ‘creative destructions’ as
Schumpeter liked to call them.
10,000 YEARS AGO
Antiquity: the fourth, fifth and sixth centuries
BC (the Age of Pericles) saw the move from
a neighbouring barter economy to a distant
and impersonal monetary economy. This
was the start of globalisation, banking, first
currency payments and maritime loans – the
ancestor of credit insurance. The ‘ancients’
(Spartans) and the ‘modernisers’ (Athenians)
had conflictual ideas about what constituted
progress. The Spartans were protectionists
and the Athenians, who invented democracy,
wanted to continue conquering the world. In
the end, they had a war, the Spartans won
it and imposed an authoritarian regime that
lasted for a very long time and diminished
Greece’s economic power.
The Renaissance: since the end of the
13th century, innovations such as the windmill
would stimulate everything that was going to
happen at the end of the 15th and early into
the 16th centuries. This is very similar to what
is happening today: many innovations and
many more to come. Florence was the richest
city at the end of the 15th century. At that time,
the great countries of Portugal and Italy had
protectionist policies in place. Why? Because
they were scared of change. This would mark
the start of their downfalls. At any time in
history, wherever you look, protectionism has
resulted in decline. The Renaissance started
in southern Europe and travelled to northern
Europe.
The 19th century brought the Industrial
Revolution. In fact, it started in 1770 with the
steam machines – trains, boats, electricity,
cars, aeronautics…economic growth seriously
took off all over the world. This time it started
in the north of Britain to gradually descend
towards France and southern Europe, the
reverse journey to that of the Renaissance.
FUTURE OF INNOVATION
Innovations are still coming in thick and
fast – robotics, genetics, 3D printing…these
innovations are happening around the
three key sectors of health, mobility and
sustainable development, exactly as during
The Renaissance and the 19th century. These
innovations are still disruptive, but for the first
time they get deployed over a short period of
time and everywhere on the planet at the same
time, sometimes with huge surprises; nobody
anticipated that Rwanda would be the largest
hub for technology and innovation in Africa!
The current issue: climate change. We
have never had so many resources in energy
as we do today. We have 80 years’ worth of
reserves in fossil energy. Our problem is global
warming, a real issue that can have drastic
consequences. Good news however: we’re
in our fifth consecutive year of reductions in
CO2 emissions on the planet, and for the first
time in 2016, China has contributed to that
reduction. Germany has increased its CO2
emissions. This illustrates that the price to pay
for the right to pollute is still too low.
22 March 2017 www.cicm.com
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