The age in which we live, characterised by speed and information, sees limited our forecasting capabilities. We are no longer able to know whether the choices we make today will have the expected results tomorrow. It is enough to follow the rapidity and frequency with which economic forecasts have been constantly changing for some years now to realise the difficulty (or impossibility) of constructing future scenarios that are at all certain. We move within a social and economic context marked by growing interdependencies, where everything holds together; where every action has more or less widespread repercussions. As if we live in a large 'global apartment building', the actions of one tenant reverberate on all the others. There are many examples: from the possible consequences of the Crimean crisis on international balances, to the indicators of China's economic growth vis-à-vis the global economy; from the Renzi government's reform hypotheses, to the balances within the EU.
In the words of Ulrich Beck, we act in 'global risk capitalism'. Where social and economic interrelationships are on a planetary level and the risk consequently lies in the fact that we make decisions with less ability to determine expected results. Because the playing field has widened enormously. Unlike a time long gone by, our future destinies are less foreseeable and determinable. No one can say whether, by embarking on an educational pathway, one or a young person will find consistent employment on completion. At the same time, however, individual pathways are becoming more open and with a range of opportunities so wide that no generation before had been able to. Traditional reference points are changing profoundly and rapidly. Paradoxically, one could argue that the only certainty we have today is uncertainty. This does not mean, however, that we are no longer able to express planning. But that these necessarily decline with tighter timeframes, with short and flexible schedules: because they are more manageable, verifiable, re-adaptable. With an adaptive process to the external environment, we try to pragmatically realise what is possible.
