The primary political challenge of the next decade will be the improvement of governments. Western democracies have the greatest chances of responding to changes: democracy provides governments with greater flexibility and ways to listen to the people.

Change should be in the direction of greater freedom, and democracy is the freest form of governance. But the West faces the greatest danger: that listening to the people is the reason the Western State has been loaded so much, and politicians are tempted to burden the State with even greater obligations.

At this moment, democracy sometimes seems to be digging its own grave. Whether the West will heed its better or worse instincts is the question that will determine the outcome of the Fourth Revolution.