Name: Mckinseys Bradley: Were in a new economic era
Uploaded: 2026-01-17T13:41:28.617Z
Duration: 5 min 21 s
Description: James Bradley of McKinsey argues that humanity is entering a new economic era marked by significant technological and societal shifts. He notes that while the past century has seen dramatic improvements, progress has not been linear.

James Bradley of McKinsey argues that humanity is entering a new economic era marked by significant technological and societal shifts. He notes that while the past century has seen dramatic improvements, progress has not been linear.

James Bradley of McKinsey argues that humanity is entering a new economic era marked by significant technological and societal shifts. He notes that while the past century has seen dramatic improvements in global income and life expectancy, progress has not been linear, with periods of upheaval and inequality.

Bradley emphasizes that, despite concerns about inequality, aggregate global equality is at its highest, and technological advancements—especially AI—are expected to drive future productivity and prosperity. He envisions a future where all citizens could achieve a standard of living comparable to Switzerland today, with technology playing a key role in overcoming demographic and economic challenges.

Mckinsey's Bradley: We're in a new economic era

Just looking at your book, let me just start off. I'm a glass half empty kind of person. Your book was very optimistic. And I am curious as to why. Well, that's the lesson of history, is that the single truth that's characterized the last 100 years is almost unstoppable progress. And progress happens nearly everywhere. In fact, in the last 100 years, average incomes around the world went up sixfold. And we added 40 years to human life. So it really is the pattern of the last 100 years to see amazing progress. The question we ask in this book is, when our grandchildren and their children look back from 2100, will they see a plateau of humanity, or will they see another century of abundance? Well, that's what I'm curious about too, because I don't think anyone can argue. We're way better off in 2026 than we were in 1926, probably even 1956. But of course, we know that has not been linear in terms of the progress. There's been tremendous upheaval over that. Obviously, the Great Recession, two world wars, several other regional conflicts, and a lot of other stuff in between that we don't have time to mention here. It raises a question as to whether we're in one of those periods right now of pain, if you will, even if that does mean that when we get to the end of this, that pain ends up turning into some sort of new prosperity. Well, we've been talking for a few years now that we're on the cusp of a new era. And in fact, I think we're in a new era. And it feels confusing, doesn't it? You know, I can see why we talk about things like uncertainty indexes and things like that. Our tech's actually a little different. We think we're just in a new era and the direction of travel is actually quite noble. It feels noisy, but that's because we're tuned into the old network. We all grew up in a world, which was an actually unusual period of history. We call it the era of markets where you had globalization and unipolarity and digital technologies. Now we're dealing with multipolarity. We're dealing with humanized technologies. We're dealing with energy contention, all of these things. But the lesson of history is, we go through these era changes all the time. It happens about every 30 or 40 years. And guess what? The story of humanity is one of continuing progress through it. It's one thing to look at the aggregate numbers, whether whatever measure we wanna use to look at progress and say that it's all up. I think one of the issues we've seen, certainly over the last decade or so, not just here in the US, but around the world, is this idea of inequality in those gains. The idea that, yeah, overall we're improving, but a lot of that improvement is being accrued to a small cohort of people. That's led to revolutions in other countries. It's led to some interesting political decisions here in the United States. And I do wonder how much of a factor you see in what's happening now and whether that arrests progress going forward. Well, I mean, you started the segment by saying you're naturally a glass half empty person, but you're not alone. Most people are. And certainly the thing we had to confront in this book is kind of almost pervasive beliefs that growth's not possible or growth's not good or growth's not for me, it's for someone else. Actually, the world has never been more equal, if you look in aggregate, today than it's ever been. Sure, there's some nations where inequality goes up or down a little bit, but the general, for example, even in the US, the bottom quintile, if you take into account taxes and transfers and all those things, since 1980, their incomes have doubled. It doesn't always feel that way. So the book, we kind of try and write it from a place of empathy of, hey, we know life can be tough and we've got to bring everyone forward. And that's why for 2100, we imagine a world where every citizen on the planet can live a life that's as good as Switzerland is today. And that's an epically good life. And you use Switzerland as kind of that benchmark. I think you've referenced something like 82,000 bucks in GDP per capita for that nation. When we talk about that standard, though, and what brings us there, talk about the role of technology. I mean, we've talked a lot about AI over the last few years. You either get one extreme or the other. Either AI is going to kill us all or it's going to lead us to salvation. But we've seen technological progress before in past decades and centuries that ultimately have led to not just greater productivity for businesses, but greater comforts for its people. Do you see AI replicating some of that? We're very bullish about the role of technology and this is nothing new. If you go back to 1925, where we start our book, 15% of people worked in jobs that we call non-routine cognitive, like creative work. But now that's 45%. So what's happened as technologies have taken hold is that people have just moved on to do things that I'd say feel even more human. Now, why is it that AI gives us a particular sense of optimism? And that's because we've got a few challenges to get over. One of them is a demographic challenge. You know, for example, take China. By 2050, there'll be half the number of under 25 year olds in China. So we need automation technologies that can help people, that can help humanity. And we see AI as kind of a general purpose technology that can give a real shot in the arm to productivity. Because after all, if there's one lesson from our work, it's that productivity is the engine that makes wealth possible for everybody.

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