Tomorrow
The previous chapters have shown a sequence of events that started somewhere at the early years of the 18th century and ended yesterday. If we take the sojourn of our branch of humanity in this earth, which is estimated at about 250,000 years, as the length of human history, then the events of the last three hundred years were only a yesterday. Even if history is restricted to the time elapsed since the Neolithic Revolution, even then the events were comparatively lately, not yesterday but last week or last month. It was also shown that the events were the direct reactions to an unprecedented demographic explosion. It started at the beginning of the 18th century, first in the west and subsequently in the rest of the world. The unprecedented demographic explosion caused an unprecedented movement of people around the world. It started with the emigration of the people from Europe to colonies in the temperate zones of the world and continuing with the reciprocate emigration from the poor parts of the globe into the affluent west.
It is possible that people of the western civilization are more ready to spread out and conquer new lands than other people. They descended from pastoral people who originated somewhere in the western part of the great Eurasian steppe and as all pastoral people they were also used to great yearly travels in the course of the transhumance of their herds. However, past history shows that inclination to travel and conquer is insufficient cause to pull up stakes and leave old homes. The Greeks and Romans were also descendants of the Indo-European conquerors but they started with their expansion only when demographic increase and scarcity of land compelled them to search for solutions. The same was with Indo-Europeans who settled in India in the middle of the second millennium BC. They expanded to the east, to Sri Lanka, Burma, Indochina and Indonesia only when they were compelled to do so. The Spaniards and Portuguese in the 15th -16th centuries and the Europeans in general in the 19th century started conquering colonies only when there was a need for it. People, who are comfortable at home, rarely leave it to seek new homes.
Now, the world is in the consequences of the biggest demographic expansion ever seen. It happened in two phases:
 |
The first phase was that of the west. It started in the middle of the 18th century reached its peak in 1900 and it decreases ever since. According to estimates, this phase will end in 2050, when the population of the western civilization will be equal to the level in 2000.
|
|
The second phase is that of the poor world. It started in 1900, reached its peak in 2000 and it is estimated to decrease after that date. However, according to demographic experts, the present increase will continue well into the 23rd century. |
The position of the peaks, and the rates of increase or decrease, have really no importance, except as signposts to beginning and ending of processes. The absolute figures of the populations and the relations between the two parts of the population have the most importance. The total population of the world in 2050 will be 8909 million people, up from 6060 millions in 2000. The ratio of the people in the rich part of the world, as opposed to the people in the poor parts of the world, was 18 % in 2000. That ratio will decrease to 12 % in 2050. In 1900, it was 30 %. These are the relevant figures; they give a clear explanation to the events of the last few centuries.
Up to now the events of yesterday that brought humanity to the state of today were listed, and we wish to know what holds tomorrow? Of course, no one can know what the future hides; it includes this book too. Tomorrow anything can happen. Our globe might meet a wandering asteroid, or an unexpected acceleration of global warming will inundate the major coastal cities of the world, or some similar scene will occur out of science fiction stories.
Still, one can make predictions to the future and some of them may be pretty accurate. If a doctor tells a patient that if he is not going to follow his instructions, then he will have a grim future, that doctor is not a fortuneteller but someone who applies years of learning and experience to a specific situation. Even then, he usually adds a warning note about exceptions and border cases. Professional predictions, whether doctors, engineers or accountants, are always hedged by ifs, meaning that a prediction may come true if a few preconditions will be met, and even then it can be a matter of statistics.
In this case, there is no intention of making predictions. The reason for this decision is that the situation of the world is so unique that one cannot apply past experiences to predict any solution to the present problem. The most that such an analysis can do is to separate the main problem into its parts and explore a few possibilities as for their probable solutions.
The description of the present, meaning year 2000 AD, is the following:
The population of our globe is around 6 milliard people. Out of that population, about one milliard people live in the rich part of the world, the continent of Europe, north America, Oceania and the island states in the northern part of the eastern Pacific Rim. These people are organized in an economic system, called Global Economy, connected by computerized networks. They are represented by loose alliances and institutions that are called the New World Order. However, there are no accurate definitions to either of them. The economic rule of the Global Economy is absolute. There are no competing economic centers, similar to the competing economic centers that were developed during the late Cold War.
The rest of the world, about 5 milliard people in the year 2000, are either providers of cheap labor or raw materials to the Global Economy, or are customers of agricultural, industrial and cultural products, or both of them. The connections between the two parts of the world are on a sliding scale, ranging from close cooperation to next to nothing, apart of occasional humanitarian aid. The nearness of the countries to the Global Economy is in direct correlation to their political stability, also ranging from stable, western-type governments to near anarchy and dissolution.
It is thought that 40 % of the population of the poor countries, about 2 milliard people, are in varying commercial contact with the Global Economy and have a more or less stable political system. The rest of the population, which was about 3 milliard people in the year 2000, is outside the confines of the Global Economy. This definition assumes that divisions are not only between countries but also within countries. It is possible that a country, like India, with a population of over a milliard people, can have a flourishing hi-tech industry, that is closely connected to the Global Economy, and at the same time it has hundreds of millions of people, who are beyond any economy. At best, they are subsistence farmers. The same division might exist in China too, with the provinces near the Pacific in one camp, and the internal provinces in another.
The population of the world increases each year by 50-60 million people, with most of the increase swelling the already swollen population of the third category, and a small minority to the second category. The population of the rich world is constant. According to Chart 2, the population of the rich world remains constant between 2000 and 2050, while its share in the total population plunges from 18 % to 12 %.
The present situation is clear. The world is separated into two parts. There is the rich minority occupying most of the moderate parts of the globe. It has a stable population; there is no factor that would lower automatically the standard of life. This part of humanity accumulated most part of the wealth of the globe and in addition it has a monopoly on scientific development. It means that it can increase its already high standard of life by science and technology.
The second part is the poor majority that has a low standard of life, which is being constantly lowered because of the ever-increasing population, without a corresponding increase of resources. This part has no science to talk of. It should be pointed out here that talent in humans is distributed fairly equally. When it is stated that one part of humanity seems to have a monopoly on scientific research and the second part having next to nothing, it means solely that individual talent alone is insufficient in scientific research. It needs also suitable environment that is missing in the poor parts of the world. Whether all the talented people from the poor countries reach the scientific hothouses in the west, it cannot be known, but there are plenty of individual successes to prove the equality of distribution. The irony of the present state of affairs is that the contributions of those who reached science from the poor countries are mostly wasted as far as the poor countries are concerned. Countries having no electricity or clean water cannot make use of new developments in computer science or molecular chemistry, even if their son made the breakthrough.
The connection between the two parts of the world is on the level of supply, One side provides the second with cheap labor and raw materials; the second provides finished products that include cultural products too.
It is an unprecedented situation; there are no historical antecedents to it. The main question in connection with that state of the world is whether such a world, consisting of two parts, separate and unequal, can coexist for a sustained period. However, this question is so big that if had to be chopped into two simple parts. The two parts do not answer the whole question, but at least they give some indication as for possible future developments. It must be pointed out that the answers are not predictions; they are simple analyses of possible reactions to given situations. Still, one cannot preclude that unprecedented situations can create unprecedented reactions. The questions are:
|
According to the United Nations 1998 Revision – World Population Estimate and Projection, the population of the world will increase to 8909 million people in 2050, up from 6060 millions in 2000. Are there any possible causes, apart of mass violence on an unprecedented scale that can affect this prognosis?
|
|
If the prognosis will occur, and the population of the rich world will be only 12 % of the total population, what will be the possible relation between the two parts of the world?
|
The yearly increase of the population of the world between the years 2000 and 2050 is about 57 millions. There are a number of factors involved in the calculations that predict increase or decrease of populations. The factors are:
|
The fertility rate of a country. It was shown that the replacement value of a population is 2.1 births per women. Such a rate assures that a population will remain constant.
|
|
The average age of a population is an important factor that can extend the population boom, even when the fertility rate is below 2.1. It means that if a country had a high rate of increment, even if it reaches the replacement value, it will be a few generations before the slowdown is felt. The United States had a fertility rate of 1.99 in the year 2000, still its population is expected to grow from 274 millions in 2000 to 349 millions in 2050.
|
|
Diseases, wars and natural catastrophes can and do influence size of populations. However, the World Population Overview that is one of the sources for the demographic data used in this book, has already took into account the influence of known diseases, prominently that of AIDS, in their prognosis to the year 2050.
|
According the prognosis of the United Nations, the population of the world will reach 8909 million people by the year 2050, which is a yearly growth of 57 million people, if the growth is calculated linearly. This prediction has already taken into account the diseases. It could not take into account the possible looses due to famines, wars and massacres. Judging from the history of the last decade or so, there is no doubt that there will be many, but still one has to be realistic, although there is a nagging doubt that realism today will not be a realism tomorrow.
The yearly growth of population will be about 57 million people. This figure is about equal to the total losses of the Second World War, including soldiers and civilians. It was spread out over 6 years and it was a terrible human catastrophe. Such a loss within one year is unimaginable now. One can assume that there will be wars, starvation and massacres and they will cause huge losses but they will not make more than a dent in the graph of population increase. Maybe, we are influenced by our memories and make our predictions upon those memories, but we also have to take into account that we are entering uncharted territory, and anything can happen there.
Until 1994 the world has thought that nothing could match the cruelty and efficiency of the Nazi death machine in the extermination camps in the Second World War. It was a process of industrialized murder. Then in 1994 the world has learned that in Rwanda the Hutu death squads succeeded to exterminate their enemies by machetes and axes, at a rate that was three times the rate the Nazis were doing with their industrialized efficiency. As it was said before, anything can happen.
* * *
Before answering the second question, one has to estimate how the swollen population will survive, and in what condition? If there will be a world divided into two parts and both sides will have a decent standard of life, then there should not be any untoward conflicts. However, such an idyllic prediction is not very realistic. Analyzing the available data, there seems to be no chance at all of an idyllic existence within the next 50 years.
As a basic minimum, people need food and water. All others are dispensable, but without food and water, and of course without air, there is no life. When we are talking about food, we really mean arable land, and we are talking about water, we mean fresh water that is about 1 % of all the waters on earth.
Water is a permanent quantity, it does not change. In year 1 AD there was the same quantity of fresh water as in year 2000 AD, except that in year 1 there was 5 % of the population of year 2000. There are already 31 countries on earth facing a shortage of water. By 2025 17 more countries will join the list, including India. China will join that list a short while after that.
Rich countries can solve drinking water deficiency by desalination. It is expensive and it is doubtful that it is economic to use desalinated water for agriculture. Poor countries, which is the majority, do not have that option. It has been estimated that new dam constructions will increase the available water by ten percent within the next 30 years. It is also estimated that world population will grow 4 times as much during that period. Water is an irreplaceable resource. There were already wars about water and it is the main cause of constant frictions in the Middle East, between Egypt and Sudan, and in the Indian subcontinent. These frictions might turn into shooting wars.
Fresh water has a permanency. That is missing in the case of arable land. The available arable land per person is constantly shrinking because of two factors. The first factor is desertification that destroys arable land and the second is because of demographic explosion. It is simpler to realize the importance of arable land if it is translated into output of grain, which is the main staple of the people everywhere. In 1998 the per person grain output was 700 pounds. Since then, this output is thought to increase by 1 % yearly, while the world's population increases by 1.33 % yearly. World's average is important, but for a future projection it is worth while to analyze key countries. Doing that, the inherent danger becomes frighteningly clear.
In 1981, Pakistan had the best harvest per person in history. It reached 410 pounds per person. Since that year, the grain output per person had decreased 1 % every year, making it a yield of 330 pound per person in the year of 2000. Pakistan is among the countries that doubles its population in less than 30 years. Even if the yield of grain will remain constant, in 2025 Pakistan will be the fifth most populous country on earth with a population of about 300 million people, and the per person output of grain will be less than 200 pounds. It is an insufficient ration by any standard. India will not be far behind Pakistan. So any time within a foreseeable future there will be two nuclear powers with an age-old enmity between them, in a conflict over bread and water. Even the thought of it is frightening.
* * *
The second question was whether the present bi-polar world can co-exist in a condition that a runaway, inflationary demographic process will generate. Something similar to what was described in the previous pages.
At the moment, in the year 2000, there is an ever-increasing pressure on the borders of the rich countries. People from all over the world, from China in the east to South America in the west press on the southern borders of North America, between California and Texas, on the southern and eastern borders of Europe, between Spain and Poland and on the northern shores of Australia. People are willing to take desperate measures and risk even death to reach the prosperous countries. It is an obvious escape for the young and capable from the nightmarish life of the Third World. It is nightmarish even now, and it will become even more so in the future. So far, the pressure has been successful and the affluent countries do not seem to be able, or maybe do not want to, to stench the immigrants. France and England are already ten percent Muslims and Africans, and the rest of Europe is going after them.
So, the invasion of the rich world will continue and the invasion might result in one of the two scenarios:
The first scenario was described 27 years ago in France. Jean Raspail, a French writer, published a book in 1973, Le Camp des Saints. It is an apocalyptic book about the invasion of France by a fleet of immigrant ships. The immigrants eventually swamp France, together with the whole of Europe. Immigrants already living in France assist them in their invasion.
Jean Raspail listed in his book the people who made that invasion possible: the left-wing journalist, the radical priest, the TV commentator, the self-serving politician and the publicity-seeking actress. He should have added the civil-right activists too, but in his time they were not so prominent. These people are still around in the western world. Jean Raspail gave no generic name to them, today they are called 'multiculturalists'.
The scenario of Jean Raspail is a real possibility. France and England already have over ten percent immigrant populations without real connections to their host countries, but hatred and demands. There is no doubt whatever that those groups of immigrants, already in place, do help the new waves of illegal immigrants to cross the borders and will do so in the future. They have their local assistants who are prepared to go to any length to squash outdated ideas like those that say that maybe France ought to be a French country and England an English country.
One of the real possibilities is that the western world will be swamped, western civilization will disappear, together with western science. With the disappearance of science the last hope of reversing the debacle will disappear too. There is only one science and it is western science. It is not the place to explain why it is so, but everybody can look around and see with his own eyes that the statement is true.
V.S. Naipaul wrote in his book 'Among the Believers (New York, 1982) about Maulana Maidoodi, a prominent Islamic spiritual leader in Pakistan who was always in the front of those denouncing western civilization. Naipaul wished to meet him, but he found out that the Maulana fell ill, went for treatment to a Boston hospital and died there. Naipaul remarked with a little irony:
"…he went to heaven by way of Boston, and he went at least part of the way by Boeing".
The main question is if western civilization will be swamped, and the hospitals in Boston will be like the hospitals in Karachi, where will a future Maulana seek treatment? Where will the citizens of Boston seek treatment?
The biggest problem with the immigration and multiculturalism is that it does not solve the main problem. It might be a solution for the few who succeed to enter the affluent west until the accumulated weight of the immigrant communities will destroy the affluence. It certainly has no solution to the poverty to the poor countries. It might cause that the presently rich countries will be as hungry as the poor countries today, but it will not bring the poor countries to the level of the rich.
The second scenario is not much better. It is possible that before the west will reach the stage as was described by Jean Raspail, there will be a violent reaction from inside with the result that right-wing parties will grab power, helped by the votes of the silent majority. It will be a repeat performance of the rise to power of Mussolini and Hitler. It is a feasible scenario, probably even more than the first one.
The first scenario depends on the power of the elites to force acceptance of the ideas of multiculturalism. It might be a very good cover for having cheap labor but it is against every biological imperative in human nature. The immigrants themselves prove the fact that multiculturalism is a false ideology . They are the first who are against the mixing of cultures. Europe today is an ethnic mosaic, with islands of Turks, Pakistanis, Indians, Algerians, etc. with their culture intact, together with religion, newspapers, dress code, behavior, language, and everything else, which they brought with them. The very existence of those ethnic islands is an affront to all around them. They might survive until the economic conditions are good, but once the indicators turn down, they might be the first to suffer. Anyone looking for explanations and comparisons can study the history of Germany after the depression in 1929.
Both scenarios are bad and both are possible. Either the western world will be swamped and it will disappear or it will close itself into a fortress, like a hedgehog, and keep out the waves of invaders with brute force, However, none of the options would be able to survive for any length of time. After that they would revert to barbarism or to something taken out of the Mad Max films. The meaning is obvious. The present rate of population increase and the fast depletion of resources must bring humanity to the edge of an abyss, whatever way will be chosen.
The third option would be to raise the standard of living in the poor world to match the standards of the rich world. It is an impossibility on two counts. The first is that in some cases it would mean the reestablishment of colonies and the second is that the resources are not there. If the world's population would be like it was in 1750, when the world's population was less than the estimate for 2050, it might have been possible but not with the population of 2050. However, in 1750 there was no problem yet. With the population of 2050, or even with the population of 2000, there are two options: bad and worse.
|
|
|
