10 IDEAS ON THE WAY OUT

By 40, Many Things We Take For Granted Will No Longer Exist

The Sanctity Of Life

During the next 35 years, the traditional view of the sanctity of
human life will collapse under pressure from scientific,
technological and demographic developments. By 2040, it may be that
only a rump of hard-core, know-nothing religious fundamentalists will
defend the view that every human life, from conception to death, is sacrosanct.

American conservatives have for several years been in the awkward
position of defending a federal funding ban on creating new embryos
for research that prevents U.S. scientists from leading an area of
biomedical research that could revolutionize the treatment of many
common diseases.

When they are honest, conservatives acknowledge that giving up some
medical advances is simply the price to be paid for doing the right thing.

This is fast becoming an untenable position, especially with the
advance of cloning technology. What's more, as the sophistication of
techniques for producing images of soft tissue increases, we will be
able to determine with a high degree of certainty that some living,
breathing human beings have suffered such severe brain damage that
they will never regain consciousness. Hence, a decision to remove the
feeding tube will be less controversial, for it will be a decision to
end the life of a human body, but not of a person. By 2040, an
increasing proportion of the population in developed countries will
be more than 75 years old and thinking about how their lives will
end. The political pressure for allowing terminally or chronically
ill patients to choose when to die will be irresistible.

When the traditional ethic of the sanctity of human life is proved
indefensible at both the beginning and end of life, a new ethic will
replace it. It will recognize that the concept of a person is
distinct from that of a member of the species Homo sapiens, and that
it is personhood, not species membership, that is most significant in
determining when it is wrong to end a life. We will understand that
even if the life of a human organism begins at conception, the life
of a person -- that is, at a minimum, a being with some level of
self-awareness -- does not begin so early.

And we will respect the right of autonomous, competent people to
choose when to live and when to die. Peter Singer is a professor at
Princeton University and the University of Melbourne, and a
well-known animal rights activist.

Political parties By Fernando Henrique Cardoso We take it for granted
that political parties are vital to modern political life. Yet their
prospects are not bright in today's large democracies. Political
parties have based their platforms on ideological and class divides
that are becoming less important, especially in more advanced
societies. Although class consciousness still matters, ethnic,
religious and sexual identities now trump class, and these
affiliations cut across traditional political party lines.

Today, the labels "left" and "right" have less and less meaning.

Political dislocation exists alongside a growing fatigue with
traditional forms of political representation. People no longer trust
the political establishment. They want a greater say in public
matters and usually prefer to voice their interests directly or
through interest groups and nongovernmental organizations. And,
thanks to modern communication, citizens' groups can bypass political
parties in shaping public policy. Voting, of course, remains essential.

But voting doesn't require political parties, either.

Indeed, the more important the issue, the more likely governments
will seek legitimacy directly in referenda rather than through
parliaments or legislatures, the traditional stomping grounds of
parties. Political parties must design flexible agendas not dependent
on traditional class and ideological divides.

Otherwise, the party may be over. Fernando Henrique Cardoso was
president of Brazil from 1995 to 2003. Monogamy By Jacques Attali
Monogamy, which is really no more than a useful social convention,
will not survive. It has rarely been honored in practice; soon, it
will vanish even as an ideal.

The continued rise of individual freedom will permanently change
sexual mores, as it has most other realms.

Likewise, jumps in life expectancy will make it nearly impossible to
spend one's entire life with one person and to love only that one person.

Meanwhile, technological advances will further weaken the links
between sexuality, love and reproduction, which are very different concepts.

Widely available birth control has already stripped away an important
obstacle to having multiple partners.

Just as most societies now accept successive love relationships, soon
we will acknowledge the legality and acceptability of simultaneous
love. The demise of monogamy will not come without a struggle.

All the churches will seek to forbid it, especially for women.

For a while, they will hold the line. But individual freedom, once
again, will triumph.

The revolution will begin in Europe, America will follow, and the
rest of the world will eventually come around.

The implications will be enormous.

Relationships with children will be radically different, financial
arrangements will be disrupted, and how and where we live will change.

To be sure, it will take decades for the change to be complete, and
yet, if we look around, it is already here. Beneath our hypocrisies
- -- in movies, novels and music -- the shape of our future is visible.
Jacques Attali is a writer; president of PlaNet Finance, an
international nonprofit organization; and a contributing editor to
Foreign Policy. Religious hierarchy By Harvey Cox It is easy to
forget that, for centuries, most people were unaware that they had
any choice in religious matters.

They were surrounded by people like themselves, and only a few ever
met believers from other traditions. No more. This is the age not
only of the "cafeteria Catholic," but also of the cafeteria Buddhist,
Baptist and Mormon. More and more people view the world's religious
traditions as a buffet from which they can pick and choose. In this
environment, religious hierarchy is crumbling fast. The notions of
consumer choice and local control have stormed the religious realm,
and decentralization of faith is now the order of the day. Religious
leaders who once could command, instruct and expel now must cajole,
persuade and compete. Protestant Christians, of course, have always
been suspicious of hierarchy as a matter of principle.

In practice, however, they have often let church bureaucrats run their affairs.

Today, local Methodist or Lutheran congregations often ignore the
dicta of church leaders, and denominational "brand loyalty" is a
thing of the past. Even the Catholic Church -- the lodestar of
religious hierarchy -- is vulnerable to decentralization. Christians
are not the only ones straining against the religious hierarchies of
old. Although a casual observer might assume that hierarchy is alive
and well in Islam, the opposite is closer to the truth.

Indeed, the present crisis in the Islamic world may stem from too
many loud and conflicting voices, all claiming religious authority.

Religions without unassailable leaders and with hungry competitors
may find themselves marketing as much as ministering. Meeting buyer
preferences may be essential in business, but it can eviscerate the
integrity of the religious "product." And, yet, just such carefully
tailored messages may be the key to the spectacular success of the
so-called megachurches. Of course, the lack of recognized authority
could also lead to fragmentation. But even that has an upside.

Pentecostalism, for example, has no hierarchy, but its divisions and
rivalries have generated an entrepreneurial energy that has made it
the fastest growing Christian movement in the world.

They have proved that sometimes religion without hierarchy can
endure, and even thrive.

Harvey Cox is professor at Harvard Divinity School. The Chinese
Communist Party By Minxin Pei It may appear the Chinese Communist
Party has never had it so good. Inside China, the party faces no
serious challenges to its authority. Internationally, talk of "China
rising" is in. But inexorable forces are arrayed against the
long-term survival of the Communist Party in China. Ultimately, the
party may fall victim to its own economic miracle.

The party's unwillingness to establish the rule of law and refrain
from economic meddling may yet slow the remarkable growth of the last decade.

But if not, 35 more years of solid economic growth would mean
professionals, private property owners and hard-working capitalists
will number in the hundreds of millions. It will be next to
impossible for an authoritarian regime to retain power in such a
modern society, let alone one as large and diverse as China's. If
economic success does not end one-party rule in China, corruption
probably will. Governments free from meaningful restraints on their
power invariably grow corrupt and rapacious.

That is true in China today. Autocracies that are expanding
economically contain the seeds of their own destruction, mainly
because they lack the institutional capacity and legitimacy to
weather economic shocks.

A ruling party without core values lacks mass appeal and the capacity
to generate it.

A party capable of reinvention and regeneration might be able to
skirt these looming dangers.

But the Chinese Communist Party is growing arthritic.

By 2040, it will have been in existence for 119 years and in power
for 91. Today, the world has no septuagenarian one-party regimes --
and for good reason. Minxin Pei is senior associate and director of
the China Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Doctors' offices By Craig Mundie The nuisance of seeking health care
is quickly becoming a crisis around the world, as declining
birthrates and aging populations put a crushing burden on national
health care systems.

Soon, governments, insurers and taxpayers around the world will be
forced to confront a complicated and inefficient system that focuses
too much on managing disease when it arrives and not enough on
preventing people from getting sick. A critical step in reforming the
system will be making visits to a doctor's office a last resort
rather than a first step. This shift will require all kinds of
structural, legal and financial changes, but innovations in
computing, communications, biology, nanotechnology and robotics will
ease the way. The Web is already allowing patients quick access to
quality health information once dispensed only by white coats.

Soon, patients will access customized health plans online. Diagnosing
and treating many everyday conditions will be as simple as depositing
a drop of blood in a machine and, within moments, having the computer
tell you what you have and how to get rid of it. Doctors won't be
obsolete, of course.

In fact, general practitioners will be more important than ever, but
they'll spend more time assessing options for preventive action and
less time shepherding patients through their offices. Doctors will
increasingly rely on highly personalized treatments -- such as new
drugs targeted specifically to personal needs, or even nanomachines
that attack bad cholesterol or eliminate tumors too small to detect
today. Specialists, in turn, will be free to focus on highly
difficult procedures and push the frontiers of health care.

Craig Mundie is senior vice president and chief technical officer for
advanced strategies and policy at Microsoft.

The King of England By Felipe Fernandez-Armesto The British monarchy
will not drown in a wave of republican sentiment, nor will it be
discarded because it fails.

The crisis, when it comes, will be provoked by the unwillingness of
the royal family to carry on with the job. In theory, royals should
symbolize collective national purpose -- if and where such a thing
exists -- and embody common values.

That was the role for which Queen Elizabeth II's brood seemed
perfectly suited when they were young. Courtiers, counselors and the
media cast them as an ideal of bourgeois gentility.

Then history took over. The royals turned out to be all too
representative of their times -- more like a sitcom household or a
soap-opera dynasty than a model family: dim or daft, undisciplined,
self-indulgent, driven by petty enmities and animated only by
infidelities. Their pomp and glitter now look tawdry and overpriced
- -- a gold tooth in a mouth full of decay. Soon the royals themselves
will lose the will to go on. Even the Prince of Wales, who yearns to
be king, no longer likes the country he is called to represent. The
next generation -- the duo of Wills and Harry -- has no appetite for
the job. Both take after their mother.

The shallow, meretricious egocentrism of Diana's life and times
represents the only future these postmodern princes can hope to enjoy.

Deracination, anomie and future-shock separate them from the
traditions to which they are supposedly heirs. After what their
parents have suffered from the public and the press, the young
princes can only face their fate with dismay, longing to be pensioned
playboys rather than dutiful royals.

Felipe Fernandez-Armesto is professor of history at Tufts University
and a professorial fellow at Queen Mary, University of London. The
war on drugs By Peter Schwartz The war on drugs will soon be over. It
won't have been won or lost, and we certainly won't have wiped out
illicit drug use. People will still pursue their personal pleasures
and uncontrollable addictions. No, the war on drugs will end because
drugs as we know them today will be gone. The model drug of the
future is already here in the form of crystal methamphetamine, a drug
that is sweeping the United States and making inroads abroad.

It's cheap and easy to make. One hundred percent of the profit goes
to the manufacturer; no intermediary or army of couriers is required.
The drug's production is nearly impossible to stop. Only the stupid
and incompetent get caught.

Thirty-five years from now, the illicit professionals who remain in
the business will be custom drug designers catering to the wealthy.

Their concoctions will be fine-tuned to an individual's body and
neural chemistry. In time, the most destructive side effects will be
designed out, perhaps even addiction itself.

These custom drug dealers will design the perfect chemical experience
for those who can afford it. And they will all be designed to make
their use invisible to others -- no red eyes, nervous tics or lethargy.

But as the violence of the drug trade dies down and as drugs become
safer, drug use will blossom.

The boundary between legal performance enhancement (Viagra) and the
illegal drugs of pleasure and creativity will blur. The political and
social pressure against drug use will remain, but it will
increasingly resemble the campaigns against performance-enhancing
drugs for athletes. Users will be harder to hate. They'll look a lot
like you and me. Peter Schwartz is chairman of the Global Business
Network, a Monitor Group company. Laissez-faire procreation By Lee
Kuan Yew Demography, not democracy, will be the most critical factor
for security and growth in the 21st century.

Booming populations are a drag on developing countries, and low
fertility rates are sapping growth in developed societies. Sex,
marriage and procreation may not be beyond the reach of government
influence for much longer.

Governments facing population explosions and implosions will soon
have no choice but to grapple with matters generally considered private.

Efforts to cajole and educate populations into more positive
procreation trends, such as attempts to reverse declining fertility
rates, have had only limited success.

When public campaigns have partially succeeded, as in some
Scandinavian countries and in France, they have forced society to
reconceptualize the roles of marriage and the family, with the father
taking on more of the mother's role. Even then, these countries are
unlikely to get fertility rates to exceed replacement levels.

Barring a dramatic change, of course, they will need immigrants to
keep their economies vibrant. But open immigration policies also carry risks.

New waves of migrants will be ethnically different, less educated and
sometimes unskilled.

They will often be among the very religious in otherwise secular societies.

Many will move illegally.

The greater ethnic diversity they create can cause social tensions
and have profound effects on cultural identity and social cohesion.
It will gradually dawn on governments that immigration alone cannot
solve their demographic troubles and that much more active government
involvement in encouraging or discouraging procreation may be necessary.

Those governments most able to think imaginatively about these
problems will save their societies and their neighbors much pain and
suffering. Lee Kuan Yew was prime minister of Singapore from 1959 to
1990 and is now minister mentor.

Sovereignty By Richard N. Haass Sovereignty -- the notion that
governments are free to do what they want within their own territory
- -- has provided the organizing principle of international relations
for more than 350 years.

Thirty-five years from now, sovereignty will no longer be sanctuary.

Powerful new forces and insidious threats will converge against it.

Nation-states will not disappear, but they will share power with a
larger number of powerful nonsovereign actors than ever before,
including corporations, nongovernmental organizations, terrorist
groups, drug cartels, regional and global institutions, and banks and
private equity funds. Sovereignty will fall victim to the powerful
and accelerating flow of people, ideas, greenhouse gases, goods,
dollars, drugs, viruses, e-mails and weapons within and across borders.

All of this traffic challenges one of the fundamentals of
sovereignty: the ability to control what crosses borders. Sovereign
states will increasingly measure their vulnerability not to one
another, but to forces of globalization beyond their control.
Implicit in this is the notion that sovereignty is conditional, even
contractual, rather than absolute.

If a state sponsors terrorism, develops weapons of mass destruction
or conducts genocide, then it forfeits the normal benefits of
sovereignty and opens itself up to attack, removal or occupation.

The world in 2040 will be semi-sovereign. It will reflect the need to
adapt legal and political principles to a world in which the most
serious challenges to order come from what global forces do to states
and what governments do to their citizens, rather than from what
states do to one another. Richard N. Haass is president of the
Council on Foreign Relations. These essays were adapted from a recent
issue of Foreign Policy magazine (www.foreignpolicy.com), which is
published by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington.