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This week the world witnessed an eruption of protests in Egypt. These protests stem from deep-seeded civil unrest, and were organized through online social networks. This instance of uprising perhaps foretells what could become a growing trend worldwide. Although protests like the one in Egypt seem troublesome on the surface, they in fact expose what is necessary to expand freedom in oppressed nations.
The digital age has opened up global interconnectedness and interdependence, which inevitably will create non-zero-sum solutions for democracy worldwide. What that means is that digital technology will expose the entire world to freedoms they may have never conceived. And in turn individuals will demand those freedoms and stop at nothing to achieve them.
So then why is this a non-zero-sum game? Aside from the obvious implication of world peace, global interdependence is sound economics. A major problem with U.S. economics is that American manufacturing can no longer compete globally with nations who starve their citizens of freedom. Thus lower wages for a worker equals lower costs of goods and so on. It is no coincidence that we are losing American jobs to nations with sub-par civil liberties, and until nations around the globe expand freedom, this trend will not be reversed. To level the playing field, every citizen of the world must be privy to the same freedoms we Americans are accustomed to. Then, and only then, will interdependence fairly rely on a competition of efficiency and innovation, rather than a competition of rock bottom prices steeped in oppression.
Today, a global democracy may seem mythical or even naïve. However, the American ethos of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness is something that is intrinsically shared by all of mankind, and it is a matter of time before it spreads globally. The World Wide Web will likely be the vehicle that delivers that ethos to the hearts and homes of every individual around the world. Likely it will take generations for such feats to be accomplished. However, for now the table has been set, and the future may be promising.