MEGATRENDS 2000

Another orderly package of forecasts on the socioeconomic, political, technological, and allied changes that could shape the 1990's. As in 1982's best-selling Megatrends, Naisbitt and Aburdene (his collaborator on Re-Inventing the Corporation, 1985) focus on prospectively major shifts whose influence promises to be relatively long lasting. Their listing of and commentary on possibilities ranges from the obvious (the rise of the Pacific Rim, privatization of the welfare state) through the mildly surprising (a worldwide multidenominational religious revival) and oxymoronic (the emergence of free-market socialism). During the premillenial years of the upcoming decade, the authors also look for: a prospering, even booming, international economy; a business environment that rewards individual initiative; a greater incidence of women holding leadership positions in corporate hierarchies; and intensifying debate over what they characterize as ""unnatural selection,"" i.e., the awesome opportunities afforded by advances in the biosciences, which have supplanted physics as engines of growth. In the meantime, Naisbitt and Aburdene anticipate a renaissance that could make the arts more popular than sports as a leisure activity, plus concurrent transitions to global life-styles and cultural nationalism. While the authors' upbeat analysis of dominant, earth-shaking swings may be longer on breadth than depth, they provide a credible, accessible road map for those seeking to identify the near future's highroads and lowlands.