The review of the 2004 Information Society Report to the Parliament of Finland by Pekka Himanen

The review of the 2004 Information Society Report

The 2004 Information Society Report to the Parliament of Finland by Pekka Himanen highlights the serious challenges that the global information society may face in subsequent years after 2004.

Talking about information society we do not always understand what it means but it also can be described as a creative society based on interaction. The information economy is based on innovation, so this is not a surprise that the most important thing for the information society is not new technologies, but a new way to invent new things. Creativity and ideas have always been highly valued and continue to this day.

The report starts with the global developments of the information society, which were in strong progress already in 2004.

One of these trends has been the global distribution of work. This implies that countries with different economic levels should perform work at different levels. Routine work falls on cheap countries such as Brazil, China, India, etc. While more developed countries cannot rely on routine work and specialize in a creative one. This trend clearly makes sense. To date, we can bring China, which remains to specialize in domestic production, while America is an advanced state in scientific research (for example, Silicon Valley).

Speaking about the distribution by age, I can say with certainty that today this trend definitely exists. To prove my words, I can say that in every country there is certain retirement age and it is believed that after it has come, a person should no longer work and most likely they will not be hired anywhere.  In all countries, this age is different, but carries the same meaning - a person is written off. The older a person becomes, the lower his "price in the labour market”. Obviously, the younger generation has more strength and energy, more potential and a better ability to learn new things, so the younger generation is given an advantage in the workforce. This age distribution has certain consequences in the form of problems with the financing of the well-being of the state (both because of an increase in direct expenses and a rising dependency ratio). At the same time, increased global tax competition and a new global division of labour are increasing pressure on the welfare state. In this situation, all that can help the welfare of the state is innovation.

The next trend that, in my opinion, exists today is the growth in the cultural industries. It is quite obvious that today everyone listens to music, watches TV, plays computer games and so on. All this is connected precisely with the digitalization of content and links between information, communication technologies and media.

A further trend is growth in the bio industry. It is safe to say that the growth in the bio-industry is observed to this day. This is not surprising, since this industry is very important and the importance of this sector is increasing due to ageing.

Turning to the development from a geographical perspective, I can say that the description in the report that was written in 2004 fully coincides with the description of development today. There are three regions: the USA, Asia and Europe which were, are and I assume that they will remain leading. Each of these regions has its own dynamic model in terms of technology and economy. The Silicon Valley model is related to the USA, while the Singapore and Finish models are related to Asia and Europe respectively. At the same time, there are poor developing countries and their status is continuing to weaken.

Moving on to values of the reform of the European model, I can say that all values that were described in the review are so essential. Values such as caring, confidence, communality, encouragement, freedom, creativity, courage, visionary, balance and meaningfulness exist, but not all of them are taken into the account by the whole population of Europe. If we are talking about adopting the values described above, then we need to take into account the key concepts that relate to social development and talk about actions that must be taken in order to respond to global trends.

The first key concept is the creative economy. If we take into account the global trends that were mentioned earlier, then all that remains to be counted on is experience and creativity, since only they can "save" the economy. This means that developed countries must increase productivity through innovation. This is how it is happening today. The economy is based on extensive creativity and expertise. Such spearhead sectors that are part of the economy that is based on extensive creativity are IT which is a strong modern spearhead, culture and well-being that are emerging sectors and other existing sectors reformed. All these sectors are creative economies.

The second concept of this creative prosperous society is that people have equal opportunities to realize their potential. All this includes equal access to health care, education, training, etc. This means that the welfare state is based on caring which is to be understood in the sense of fairness.

The next concept is humanly meaningful development. The information society may also be called the risk society, since working relationships have become quite unstable, villainy has risen in the financial markets, and individual citizens are in constant hurry.  In this situation, new ways of promoting a socially, mentally, physically and culturally balanced development are needed. If a more sustainable development model is not adopted, other actions will prove useless.  Conversely, the more sustainable model has a significant effect on people's ability to finance the welfare society also in the future.

And the last key concept of social development is a global culture. This concept means that if we are talking about global development, then this means that it should move towards joint development since it is sustainable on a global scale. If we are talking about developing and maintaining a creative culture, then it needs to be more open and should be an opportunity for everyone.

All in all, I can say that many of these predictions that were made almost 20 years ago in the report came true, however, not all of them are positive (some of them are even cruel to some extent), but this is our reality. All we can do is to develop, eradicate all shortcomings and make the world a better place.