Economic Journalist | Futurologist | Author
Erik Händeler makes the current situation understandable and alleviates fear of the future; he inspires the energy to explore the next structural cycle and to invest in collaboration, health, and people.
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Erik Händeler, economic journalist, futurologist, and bestselling author, began his career at a daily newspaper. He studied economic policy and economics at LMU Munich. Since 1993, he has been scientifically engaged with the theory of long economic waves (Kondratieff cycles).
With the books “The History of the Future” in its 11th edition and “Kondratieff’s World of Thought – The Opportunities in the Transition to a Knowledge Society” in its 8th edition, he became a bestselling author. His new work “History Book for Optimists – Why Most Things Were Worse in the Past and Will Be Better in the Future” is in progress.
The Russian Academy of Sciences honored him in 2010 for his economic-scientific achievements. With his expert knowledge and polarizing theses, he leaves none of his listeners indifferent and is one of the most sought-after speakers in the field of productivity in the information society. Erik Händeler is an ambassador for a cooperative work culture and preventive health policy.
Experience history and future up close: Be in the midst when the steam locomotive loudly chugs across the stage, the Sputnik satellite flies through space, but also when teamwork requires new roles or aliens land on stage. The past crises and technological upheavals make the present understandable and alleviate fear of the future: The prosperity of the knowledge society depends primarily on the cooperative social behavior and psycho-social health of the people who shape and decide behind digital technology.
The economy is facing a recession. However, we can learn from the past: Deep crises have always occurred when an invention was largely over-invested, such as in 1873 after the railway construction, in 1929 after electrification, or in the 1970s with the car. What comes now after information technology? The work that emerges is primarily work on people and knowledge work between people. What defines humans comes to the centre of economic development. Based on the Kondratieff theory (the theory of long economic waves), Erik Händeler analyses the current economic situation: The path to new economic and political stability leads through higher productivity of knowledge work, which depends mainly on social behaviour in teams and on values.
The economy develops in long waves, driven by their own technologies such as railways, electric power, or most recently the computer. Severe economic crises follow when they have largely spread. It goes upwards again when the next level of prosperity is unlocked. In the past 200 years of industrial history, it has always been about material improvements. But now in the knowledge society, productivity depends for the first time on the people behind the technology, says Erik Händeler: On the ability to collaborate among knowledge workers, on their mental health and their attitude, to consider the common good instead of self-interest.
Even before COVID-19, the economy was unstable. For a long time, machines have taken over material work and computers/AI have taken over structured knowledge work like robot control, data analysis, or driving. What remains and grows is work on people and with knowledge – between people. The more work depends on immaterial intellectual work, the more we rely on the partial knowledge of others. Suddenly, everyone becomes important for overall success. This forces collaboration at the same level, transparency, willingness to reconcile, authenticity instead of status orientation, cooperation ability, long-term orientation. Is the world perhaps getting better after all?
In the media, the healthcare system only appears as a problem, with its distribution struggles, rising costs, and excessive deficits. The discussion could take a completely different course – about a healthcare system as a key to solving most other societal problems, such as national debt, unemployment, or faltering social security. Because when companies complain about too high non-wage labour costs, rising health losses are behind it. In the health condition of the Germans, the largest, so far dormant resources of the national economy are to be mobilised – a drive for a long-lasting economic boom. To understand how a system of maintaining the health of the healthy drives the economy, a look at past economic surges is necessary: Steam engines or computers have also saved resources and increased work potential – the same role will be played in the future by innovations and new structures in the healthcare sector.
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