Navigating Systems of Power and What This Means for Young People

Lately, I’ve found myself thinking a lot about systems of power. Not in an abstract or ideological sense, but in a very practical one. How systems shape opportunity. How they enable movement, or quietly restrict it. And how young people are expected to navigate all of this with very little clarity about how the rules are actually changing.

On the surface, the world still looks deeply connected. Education, work, culture, and communication all feel global. International experience is encouraged, even expected.

And yet, beneath that surface, something else is happening.

States are reasserting control over borders, energy, supply chains, and strategic industries. Institutions are becoming more cautious, more bureaucratic, and more financially defensive. Mobility still exists, but it is increasingly conditional (Reuters: https://www.reuters.com/world/china/global-markets-view-usa-2026-01-05/).

For young people trying to build lives, careers, and identities across systems, this creates a real tension.

How do you plan for the future when the rules are shifting quietly and unevenly beneath you?

This is not ideology. It is structure.

Much of what we are seeing is framed as ideological conflict. Left versus right. State versus market. Globalism versus nationalism.

But a lot of it feels less ideological and more structural. Systems are reacting to instability. Governments are managing risk. Institutions are trying to secure their own survival.

This is particularly visible in higher education.

A recent Financial Times article discussed how the UK has dropped its target for international student recruitment, while universities increasingly expand overseas instead of relying on students moving to the UK. This strategy is not new, but the scale and urgency of it feels different (Financial Times: https://www.ft.com/content/a23ce31a-d096-4294-975f-f4e92d12b54a).

Institutions are adapting to political, financial, and regulatory pressure, but often without clearly articulating why these shifts are happening. Young people are expected to respond to the consequences of these changes without being brought into the reasoning behind them.

The result is that many are forced into reactive decision making, rather than being able to understand the system well enough to act strategically within it.

Public goods, markets, and false binaries

There is a growing and understandable frustration with hyper capitalism, privatisation, and inequality. Many people, myself included, believe that certain things should never be left purely to profit.

Healthcare. Education. Public safety. Culture. Information. These are not just services. They shape who gets to participate in society at all.

At the same time, public debate often collapses into a false binary. Either everything must be nationalised, or markets must be left to run freely.

Real societies do not work this way.

They work through design. Through deciding what must be guaranteed, what must be regulated, and where competition can be useful. When that design breaks down, people do not lose faith in politics first. They lose faith in the future.

Globalisation is changing shape, not disappearing

Despite the rhetoric, we are not returning to isolated nation states.

We are moving towards a more fragmented, multipolar world. Trade, education, and work still cross borders, but increasingly through blocs, partnerships, and managed pathways rather than open movement. (Reuters: https://www.reuters.com/world/brics-poised-invite-new-members-join-bloc-sources-2023-08-24/)

Globalisation is not ending, but it is being reorganised.

Why skills alone are no longer enough

What has been clear for some time is that technical skills alone are no longer sufficient.

Young people are being asked to navigate complex systems without being taught how those systems work. Qualifications matter, but so does understanding institutions, incentives, culture, and power.

Knowing how to move within and between systems, rather than simply reacting to them, is becoming essential.

There are organisations doing important work in this space, such as Compass Education, Schools of Tomorrow , and our own work at East To West. But I still find myself wondering why this kind of systems literacy is not more widely embedded yet or discussed as a way of empowering citizens to make informed decisions about their futures.

Perhaps part of the challenge is that moral absolutism is often more compelling than complexity. Clear answers and rigid positions are easier to communicate and mobilise around than the more uncomfortable reality that there are multiple truths, competing incentives, and trade-offs to be understood before meaningful and sustainable change can take place.

So where does this leave us?

I do not think the answer lies in ideological purity. Nor in retreating into cynicism. And I do not think it lies in pretending the old rules still apply.

Conversations about inequality, power, and economic systems are happening, including within mainstream politics. But they are often framed in simplified or absolutist terms that obscure how systems actually function in practice.

If we want young people to thrive, not just adapt, we need to move beyond slogans and start engaging more seriously with how institutions work, how incentives are structured, and how change can be designed and sustained over time.

Young people are not disengaged. They are navigating a world that asks more of them while offering fewer practical tools for understanding how to act within it.