Is the economy overheating and when will the bubble burst? This is just one of the questions about the future being asked today and there is no shortage of well-paid commentators and analysts willing to supply answers, usually at odds with each other on this vital issue.
Just which expert has the right answer is another story. Is there anybody out there in the media, academia or business who knows what lies ahead? It is possible no one does and that all the confident contributions to the debate are wrong.
Can anybody remember someone who predicted the Celtic Tiger in the gloom of the 1980s? Was there any voice in the wilderness before 1994 who foresaw the peace process in the North?
William A. Sherden emphasises in The Fortune Sellers that forecasting - the weather, economy, environment, markets, technology - is a big, and inaccurate, business.
He calls it the "second oldest profession" because the earliest written records from 5,000 years ago show that predicting the future was widely practised.
Recent events Sherden lists which caught the forecasting industry by surprise include the 1987 stock market crash and its rapid recovery to record highs; women's entry into the labour market in massive numbers; the collapse of communism; and the Gulf War.
He argues against the determinist approach which sees future events as following rules and patterns. He offers as an alternative to the theories of chaos and complexity which show the future to be fundamentally unpredictable.
Sherden contradicts Karl Marx and says history does not repeat itself.
Economists should make their discipline more scientific by developing theories based on real-world observation and testing them through more observation, "as opposed to academic economists' current arcane practice of making up theories out of thin air".
The Fortune Sellers is not a diatribe against weather forecasters and economists but a fascinating and entertaining intellectual survey of those fields of expertise which dispense advice on what lies around the corner.
Sherden raises serious questions about the stock market and the economy, global warming, over-population and social planning.
He outlines the history of forecasting, looking at the theories of Thomas Malthus, John Stuart Mill, Karl Marx and H.G. Wells, while mentioning Arthur C. Clarke and Philip K. Dick in passing.
Sherden argues that our first response to forecasts - except on tomorrow's weather, the tides and movement of the planets - must be informed scepticism. Then questions must be asked to assess the credibility of the forecast.
At the end of the day there is only the certainty of living in an uncertain world.
jmulqueen@irish-times.ie
