New
technologies can be great disruptors. Disruption is non-neutral in its impacts:
it redistributes market, social and political power. This in turn shifts social
values and interactions. Yet the risk is that technology and the change it
induces is simply seen as an exogenous force which can’t be shaped. (Painter
& Bamfield)
The
argument of this report takes a different approach: the
i. Degree
to which benefits of change are distributed and costs
ii. Mitigated
depends on collective institution building and adaptive
iii. Public
policy. If the infrastructure and the institutional
iv. Environment
is right then an inclusive and social mobility-rich form of technological
change could be available to us. Benefits of new technology are to be
distributed more widely, we have to act smartly through the public sector
centrally and locally, communities, and the commercial world. The goal should
be an inclusive social mobility where all have the
ability to pursue and accomplish their personal and creative goals. Propose
a goal of inclusive social mobility.
Four
core elements of social mobility:
o
A greater level of upward
inter-generational absolute social mobility to align the people more closely
with the best international performers.
o
Within generations, progression is needed
within classes and income intervals – especially at the lower end and middle of
the class/income distribution.
o
Wide status and class distinctions
undermine inclusive social mobility. This implies the need for a more
democratic distribution of power, income and wider resources (including
assets).
o
Greater access to beneficial networks,
institutions, and opportunities to learn and acquire formal skills is important
as a means to greater upward mobility and individual advancement.
Greater
mobility is not enough alone. Inclusive social mobility means that the
individual (in a community context) has constant access to the social,
educational, and economic resources that enable them to pursue their creative
potential. It also means that status and class distinctions in society are
diminished as these ultimately hinder the open realization of creative
capabilities.
Social
mobility and inequality are knotty problems but they shouldn’t be put in the
‘too difficult box despite disappointing levels of change over the last few
decades. Fragmented learning settings, from school and beyond, to online
learning communities and workplaces, could be brought together in a way that
better meets the frustrated ambitions of many.
The
ultimate goal is to replace the desire to create we
have identified with a Power to Create. New technology blended with
adaptive public policy is one of the means complex and uncertain and by no
means the only set of changes that will be necessary of securing the type
of social change that would a socially inclusive and upwardly mobile
nation expect to see.
Technological
and economic changes must ultimately be anchored in beneficial social change.
Technological and economic changes rely on evolutionary public policy and
institution building if greater social inclusion, engagement and mobility are
to be secured. The macro economic benefits of new technology rather than the
distribution of those benefits. In reality, the economic and social are related
in a series of complex feedback loops. There is a need now to add a stronger
social dimension to the public policy as it responds to and harnesses new
technology. This aligns with broader government objectives around enhancing
social mobility
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