I was thinking that the big Oscar winner “Slumdog Millionaire” is the perfect picture to speak to this terrible time in the world economy not only because it recalls the Busby Berkeley musicals that cheered gloomy masses in the 1930s Depression, but because it exemplifies the energy and ambition of India and other developing countries today. It reflects the strongest global trend of our times, economic and social development.

Of course energy and ambition, not to mention economic development, are on hold right now. And one may hear doubts that the poor–and the rich–economies can recover economic growth anytime soon. But I believe otherwise. The vast societies of India and China and others that have been arduously trying to create better living standards in recent decades will take a beating for a time but they won’t cease or deny their dreams. They are not about to say “Oh, a better life was but an illusion and we must now return to the hard realities of centuries.” No, not at all. Rather, they will endure hardships as they have for generations but continue with risen hope because they see the promise of the new economies. They see how advances of technology, from the coming of computers and the Internet to modern medicine and bioscience, have made even their lives better.

And they know instinctively that the numbers favor continued economic and social development worldwide. What numbers are those? The fact that four fifths of the world’s population is now involved in the global economy, 2 billion more people added since the end of the Cold War. Moreover two thirds of the world’s people between ages 15 and 40–the age cohorts that economists term ‘”the consumer market”–live today in Asia. So development of the poorer countries will not cease; it will adapt. And the world will be changed tomorrow.

Why do I declare this with such confidence? Because for 46 years of business and economic reporting and writing, I have studied the dynamics of economic and social development. From the Middle East and Africa in the 1970s, Asia and Latin America in the 1980s and ‘90s, and Europe and the United States at all times, I have reported on societies trying to increase industrial productivity and economic prosperity. A handful of examples, seen here in links–on the Middle East in 1991, Mexico in 1995, China in 1998–will show that often I have been overoptimistic in predicting success for these societies. But in the long run, expanding horizons are the trend. And it is important that it should be, because the real hope for all our futures is that the massive populations of India, China, Indonesia and other developing countries become richer than they are today. It is imperative that they consume the goods of comfort, entertainment and knowledge that they now have only a small hand in making. As “Slumdog” answered the quiz show questions and then danced with a cast of hundreds in the railway station built for his country by the British Empire, so he will inherit the richer life of the world as his performance merited the Oscar.

But what you ask will be in this for the United States? Simply put, a larger pie, a larger world economy for it to benefit in sharing and serving. The forces that have always spurred the U.S. economy are inventiveness and adaptation of technology and the infusion of new blood through immigration. I have included two links here and here about technology and investment. And I have included a very personal article about immigration, written during the fierce debate of 2005 about an issue that remains unresolved today. Somehow, we know that if we adopt the unbowed spirit of “Slumdog” our future will be as rewarding as our past. Maybe that’s why the industry–and the public–awarded it the Oscar.