Data and Post Industry 4.0
… A layman’s perspective on the importance of data colonialism in a world order where companies are the new countries.
The last world order we grew up reading about was the world of colonialism and hegemony, and it primarily came into existence during the First Industrial Revolution in Europe and the United States between the 1760s and 1840s. It was a period when countries like the US and the UK, which were the torch bearers of the First Industrial Revolution, started to expand their manufacturing industries. They looked at other countries as ‘markets only’ for the consumption of their industrial products. A couple of decades went by and the First Industrial Revolution was followed by the Second Industrial Revolution between the 1870s and the year 1914, just before the World War-I.
The narratives of how the world benefited from these two industrial revolutions have been limitlessly written, but what we often miss to notice is that these two revolutions also created an enormous and unprecedented economic division in the world. The first Industrial Revolution defined the first world order of modern times where one strong country or a couple of strong countries ruled and had a preponderant influence over many other countries. The enormity of this was well described (as in the table below) by Paul Kennedy (1987) in his book ‘The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers’.
A mere glance at the table above shows us how the share of the total world manufacturing output changed its sides. During the 1750s, the total manufacturing output of Europe and the US combined skyrocketed from a meager 23% to 85% in the 1900s. On the other hand, it shrunk from 73% in the 1750s to a mere 11% by the 1900s for the rest of the world. Nearly a century later, a third industrial revolution hit us with the emergence of nuclear energy, electronics, and computers. This made human lives even better as we advanced through computer-driven automation and paved our way for further research beyond earth, within our human genes, and to the sky.
And now, here we are in the middle of the fourth industrial revolution. I call it the ‘D’ Revolution – ‘D for Data’ and ‘D for Digitization’ of the world. The genesis of this revolution lies in core innovations from the third revolution, i.e. computers and the internet. And, the biggest commodity or output of this revolution so far has been the unprecedented amount of information floating around us in the form of Big Data. This humongous volume of data combined with advanced internet technologies and artificial intelligence today is enabling us to build a new virtual world around us from which we can steer our physical world. And I think whosoever – a country, a company or an individual – hold control of this big data, shall command the virtual world around us, shall have a preponderant control over our physical world, and thereby, become the biggest ruler or the largest hegemon of this new world order in a post fourth revolution era.
Read also: Big Data: Is It More Or Less Important Than Small Data?
By now, the biggest hegemon in the world had traditionally been either a state or an empire, but nothing exactly defines who can be a hegemon. It just so happened historically that countries have always been the entities that match best to the undefined definition of a hegemon.
I remember a couple of years ago, I watched a Bollywood movie in which the protagonist says, “Companies are the new countries and countries are the new companies.” If I were to apply that dialogue from the film on my estimation of the future world order, I think it all makes perfect sense – at least to me. Today, companies are actually deeming to be the new countries and raising their worth and stature to be parallel to a country, and at times even out-growing one or multiple countries combined. For example, when Apple hit $1 trillion in value last year, there were only 16 countries with a GDP either equal to or greater than Apple’s market valuation, as per World Bank reports. That means if Apple were a country, it would be the 17th largest country in the world. Similarly, Walmart, Google, Amazon, and Facebook, etc. are such big companies, which would stand ahead of many countries of the world if they were to be compared against countries on the basis of their valuation.
To say that – ‘I work with Apple or Google’ – gives the same pride to an employee of these companies today, what colonial phrase – ‘The sun never sets on the British Empire’ – gave to Britishers during the colonial period. These companies have grown so huge that Google today is a verb, iPhone – a necessity in the US while an aspiration in a country like India, Facebook – a birthright, and AmazonPrime – an urban lifestyle. Let’s think about what technologies these giant GAFAM (Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon, and Microsoft) companies are working on today? The answers you would get are – Data, Digitization, and Artificial Intelligence – the core commodity or product of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, also referred to as Industry 4.0. And, if colonialism has to be redefined in this new world order post-Fourth Revolution, it would be named as Data Colonialism. Many of India’s leading industrialists including Reliance’s Mukesh Ambani have already cautioned the world and the Indian Government about the opportunities and the threats of Data Colonialism.
The Fourth Industrial Revolution or Industry 4.0 exposes us to the threats of being data-colonized as much as it brings to us the opportunities to make our lives better and countries more prosperous. The growth of the UK and the US in the post-industrialization era was not accidental, it was rather well driven and very well managed. Let’s hope together that Industry 4.0 makes the world a better place to live, without allowing colonialism and hegemony a second chance. And countries like India, who have witnessed the worst of colonialism in the past, become the enablers of Industry 4.0 rather than becoming only a market of consumption or a digital colony of other stronger countries.
