Postscript
A picture is attached to all the Synopses and Tables of Contents of the books presented in this site. The pictures represent the main motive of the particular books. So, a map is shown for the Constant Feud, showing the area of the conflict. The famous picture of Abraham, painted by Lilien at the end of the 19th century, is attached to The Patriarchs. For this book, I have chosen a picture of a heavy storm, with rain and lightning. When you see this picture, imagine that you are somewhere out there in the middle of that storm. What can you do to save yourself or stop the storm? The answer is that there is nothing you, or anyone else, can do to stop or deflect the storm. It is there and you can only hope that you will be sound and safe when the storm will pass by, if it will pass at all. This is the impression I wanted to create with the picture and that impression certainly applies to the present state of humanity.
I know that there will be people who will read these lines and wonder where I found my storm? They look out the window and see bright sunshine or a starry, clean night. I might even venture to add that those reading these lines belong to the rich minority, as the poor majority has no computers, electricity and telephone network, without them one cannot read these lines. So, the bright sunshine or the clean, starry nights might be there, but I still think that they are temporary illusions. Look out the window from time to time and check whether you see dark clouds nearing.
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This book tackles a current problem. It is the result of an extreme demographic explosion that shaped the world in the last three hundred years, and it will continue to exist in the foreseeable future. It is a difficult book; it deals with an extremely difficult subject. I attempted to present the problems in an objective way and hopefully I succeeded. However, the treatment of the problems and a desperate, and futile, effort to search for positive solutions, left a bitter aftertaste. Despite the knowledge that the history of mankind saw many difficult situations and so far there was always some solution found, there is a lingering thought that the present is different.
The last time when the world was in a similar situation was at the beginning of the fifth century AD. It was about 1600 years ago, when a Roman looked upon his world and saw the waves of barbarians and the abyss on whose brink his civilization was tottering upon. He could not see the future solution and similarly to the present he might have had a bitter aftertaste. It is possible that when we analyze the present situation we might fall into the same trap the Romans were in the 5th century AD. Their predicament had an eventual solution, although the solution had a price. They had a long period of dark age before came the Renaissance, the nation state, and the rest.
There are a number of elements that are common to us and to the Romans in the 5th century, they are those that cause the bitter aftertaste, and there are a number of important differences, that kept out a ray of hope to the Romans and which are missing from our world. The common elements to us and to the Romans are:
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Both had a sense of decadence. In Rome it became apparent with the lowering of the rate of birth and the denuding of the countryside. At the present there is a similar lowering of the rate of birth, especially in Europe. There are countries in Europe, like Italy, where they predict a colored minority of 35 % within a generation.
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In Rome they had a feeling that a civilization with a past of 1200 years is going to collapse. The same feeling exists today in the western civilization. Jacques Barzun gave his last book a title: From Dawn to Decadence. What comes after decadence?
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In Rome, they had other elements in their world picture that ought to have given them some hope for the future. That they did not see those signs was the result of their being too near to the events. What we can clearly see from our perspective might not have been so obvious in their time.
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The barbarians who threatened Rome were mostly Germans. The name itself is important. Germani means 'cousins', meaning that the Romans saw in the Germans relatives who ask to be let in when fleeing before the Huns who were then the main enemies.
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The German tribes, or kingdoms, settled on Roman territory as allies – 'foederati'. Their settlement helped the Romans as the countryside was mostly denuded. The Germans did not have to evict native Romans or colonials. That they were ethnically and linguistically akin to those within the Empire only helped their integration. If we want to give an example from modern times, there is a sizable settlement of Ukrainians and Russians in Canada. Their existence in Canada has no similarity to the existence of the Turks, Indians, Pakistanis and Algerians in Europe. It is only a question of time, if it has not happened already, that they become an integral part of the fabric of Canadian society. This is not likely to happen with the ethnic islands within Europe.
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The German tribes had no intention of destroying Roman civilization. They intended to enjoy it. That eventually they set up their independent kingdoms on the ruins of the Roman Empire, was a result of the weakness of the center rather than their wish for independence.
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The main subject of the book is a natural catastrophe that caused dire consequences. They are still continuing and there is no knowing whether there will be a reasonable solution, or any solution at all. That natural catastrophe is the demographic explosion that started at the beginning of the 18th century and still continues. There is a point that should be added here.
The demographic explosion, the hero or the villain of this book, is not a natural catastrophe; it is a man-made catastrophe. This statement is true in a sense as claiming that an avalanche of snow is a man-made event. It happens where there are layers of snow on a slope and any untoward action, even a loud shout, can disturb the fragile equilibrium of the layers, and the result is an avalanche. On mountainsides that are prone for avalanches, there are usually signs warning people not to make loud noises or not to throw snowballs, as they might result in a dangerous avalanche. The avalanche itself is a natural phenomenon, the humans, if they do, only provide the trigger.
Demography is the science of predicting the number of people, the trends of increase and decrease. It is true that the raw materials of demography, the births and deaths of people are entirely human activities. However, the statement that the present demographic explosion is a man-made catastrophe is only partially correct.
There are two ways of influencing the size of a population. One is by increasing or decreasing the rate of birth and the second is by increasing or decreasing the rate of death. Of course, extending the life of people beyond childbearing age does not effect much of future demographic picture. It affects only the present. When the mortality rate of children is reduced, it affects both the present picture and the future too. If the mortality rate of children was 50 % of all live births, then the rate of birth per women in childbearing age had to be 4.2 children. 50 % of this to account for children mortality, and the rest as a replacement value. If the mortality rate of children is slashed by half, then the effective rate of birth per woman in childbearing age will be 3.1 children, which is a very high rate.
Manipulating the rate of birth by a government fiat is next to impossible. As far it is known, only the Chinese and the Indians attempted it in modern times; both without much success. The Chinese tried to set the rate at 1.00 by decreeing that a family can have one child only. Apart of a few major urban centers they could not enforce the decree. The Indians attempted to make vasectomy on men, but even that attempt has petered out after a short time.
The claim that the start of the demographic explosion had a human trigger does not mean that the rate of birth has changed. What was radically changed was the mortality rate of young children. That was the factor that initiated the demographic explosion that threatens to destroy the world. Initiating a number of steps that have radically reduced the dangers that affected the mortality rate did it. The actions were not taken by central governments but by mainly local, even private and charitable, efforts. There were three major steps taken in Europe and those steps were the triggers:
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The treatment of sewage was improved. Central sewage conduits were built in most major European towns, The spectacle of raw sewage flowing in the center of the street have mostly disappeared, together with a number of diseases that threatened the young children first who are the weakest elements of society.
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Already by the end of the 17th century they started to inoculate children against contagious diseases, chiefly against smallpox. At the beginning, it was done in a primitive way, by inserting a piece of skin taken from an immune person, under the skin of a child. Later on, it was done in a proper way. Since 1815, there is compulsory inoculation in England, with the rest of Europe following it shortly.
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Building county orphanages or workhouses has greatly reduced the rate of death of very young children. There was a method of birthcontrol, which was to smother the babies at birth or shortly after that. There were abortions but because of the primitive methods used, they were very dangerous. The high risk of abortions frightened the women from making abortion and instead of that they preferred to give birth that was less dangerous and do the same after birth. Having a baby that was born dead, thanks to the midwife, or accidentally smothering the baby when the mother turned over in bed in her sleep, brought the same result. The practice was so common that the mother, whose child was smothered to death, was not even brought before the justice of peace. It was the task of the local vicar, cure or Pfarrer, to impose a penance on the mother. When local charitable organizations set up orphanages, financed by public or private funds, unwanted children could be handed over and saved from being killed.
As with satanic mills, the county orphanages were given a bad reputation
by contemporary writers. What we remember from those orphanages is
poor Oliver Twist who is asking for more porridge, but in truth they saved
millions of children. They might not have been ideal institutions but were
much better than the alternative.
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The result of all those reforms, listed above, was that the rate of child mortality was dramatically reduced and the demographic explosion has taken off. Further scientific advances only added to the impetus. The works of Semmelweiss, Pasteur , Ehrlich and all others, who advanced cleanliness and immunology, only speeded up the demographic curve. Probably the best definition of the effects of the reforms was given by Nicholas Eberstadt of the American Enterprise Institute in Washington DC:
"Rapid population growth commenced not because human beings suddenly started breeding like rabbits but rather because they finally stopped dying like flies." (Quoted by M. Hertsgaard, Earth Odissey, New York, 1999)
It was not a single man who did the change; there were thousands or tens of thousands. There is an ethical problem here. Were all those good people, doctors, chemists, vicars, cures, or just ordinary county do-gooders, who only wanted to save innocent children from dying a premature death, were responsible for the terrible things that were described in this book?
Scientific research is a combination of a number of factors, all innocent and ethical. There is an innate curiosity in humans. It is strong in childhood when a child has to learn all what he has to know to survive. It is common for all humanity in all parts of the world. There are parts of the world that have the social and economic conditions to allow those few whose curiosity survived their childhood, to pursue their quest for greater knowledge. It is not new, it happened in all periods of history. Human talent and the ability to learn seems to be evenly distributed, while there is a fact that scientific advance is restricted to one part of the world.
There is no doubt that in the 16th – 18th centuries, all parts of the world needed those, or similar, hygienic improvements that triggered the demographic explosion in Europe. Why it did not happen in other parts of the world?
The only answer to that question is that there are differences between Western civilization, and the civilizations of other parts of the world. Western Civilization has developed in the temperate zone of Europe with rainfall all year long. The other civilizations developed in semi-arid zones, between Morocco in the west to China in the east, where only central irrigation projects could ensure proper agriculture. The results were that Europe always had a measure of freedom while the others were always ruled by the principles of Oriental Despotism. The ruling principle is that there is a ruling elite and a main body of slaves and serfs, ruled by them. The talent to learn and innovate gets lost in such an environment. Those who have the freedom to act, the ruling elite, have no incentive. They are the rulers, changes may only endanger their rule. Those who might have the interest and the capability, have not the means. It was so five millennia ago, and it is so today.
Despite that the initiators of the demographic explosion, of which they could not have any knowledge, were absolved from responsibility, it does not change the facts. The demographic explosion has happened, it is continuing and is threatening to bury mankind under its avalanche. That one part of humanity, the rich 12 – 18 % of it, locks itself in a fortress, which might or might not be useful in the long run. The same for an even smaller minority, the real superrich of the Global Economy who build retreats in Patagonia, which is probably the most inaccessible place on earth.
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At the beginning of this chapter a comparison was made between the present catastrophe facing us now and the catastrophe facing the classical world 1600 years ago. There are many common elements between the catastrophes: moral crisis, low birthrate, infiltration of barbarians (today called illegal immigrants) and a general tiredness of maintaining the present.
That period is not the only possible comparison to our present crisis. About 1600 years before the end of the classical world, there was a crisis in the Aegean that destroyed the Mycaenean civilization. There too many common lines can be found: a sophisticated civilization destroyed by barbarians having no share in it. 47 urban centers were destroyed without being resettled by those who destroyed them. It was not an outside conquest, the conquerors would have settled in the existing centers. The signs point to people living around the sophisticated towns and who destroyed them out of hatred.
We could go even further back and find another collapse, when the Aegean civilization replaced the original urban civilizations that were centered in Egypt, Mesopotamia and the valley of the Indus. These examples are not brought here to draw attention to some cosmic conspirational theory that strikes every 1600 years. What I want is to draw attention to a fact that tests and challenges are common events in the life of civilizations. Rome was attacked by barbarian tribes in about 100 BC and she did not collapse under the attack. It did collapse after 500 years under a similar attack.
The question under discussion is not the challenge, it is an everyday event, but it is the response. It is indeed possible that there is a period of time, after which the collective will weakens and does not find answers to challenges. So, the present situation is really a collapse of the will to find answers to the present challenge.
It is entirely possible that the present situation is the same type that happened at least 3 times in previous times. That leaves with hopes for the future. The previous civilizations collapsed but after a period of darkness a new civilization crystallized with a new center. When the earliest civilization collapsed, the center moved to the Aegean, from there north to Italy and from there north again to Western Europe.
There is a slight difference, though, between the previous crises and the present. At the time of the crisis of the Roman Empire, the population of the world was estimated at about 300 million people. The population of the world now is between 6 and 9 billion people, depending when the breakdown will occur. Then they had empty spaces to reshape the new civilization. Now, the empty spaces are conspicuously missing. Where will the new civilization be shaped and by whom?
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The attempted comparison with past events has proven that there is no base for comparison. Whatever is happening since the middle of the 18th century is a new phenomenon, without being able to be compared with past events and no existing rules and experiences can be applied to it. What makes the events, of which the Global Economy is a culminating development, is the following:
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The population that has increased from 6 million people at the beginning of the Neolithic Revolution to 791 millions in 1750, has further increased to 6060 millions in 2000, and is estimated to be 8909 millions in the year 2050. In the terms of the rate of increase, it was 0.071 % in the first period and 27.06 % in the second. The rate of increase is 3811 times greater in the second period than in the first.
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The resources that allow humans to exist are near vanishing point. Fresh water is a constant quantity and arable land is steadily diminishing. There is a constant process of desertification and the need to house the additional millions also destroys arable land. The net result is that each year there is less water and less arable lands per capita.
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There seems to be a global warming in existence. There are different opinions as to its origin and to its eventual direction. There are those who claim that the warming is part of a long-range climatic movement and there are those who claim that it is caused by the burning of fossil fuels in the last centuries. As for its direction, there are those who see in it a continuation of the warming process, which started at the end of the last Ice Ages, while others see it as a preliminary to a new Ice Age, Whatever its origin and final direction, the present global warming also contributes to the reduction of the remaining resources. There is one more point to add to this subject.
There are international conferences to regulate the amount of carbon dioxide emitted by industrial plants and cars. How much carbon dioxide is emitted by 9 billion people each day?
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Last but not least, there is the partition of the world into two parts: one rich and one poor. The demography of the rich part is static that of the poor part is in constant increase. However, neither the absolute values nor the rate of increase have much meaning when one examines the gap between the two parts. According the UN development Program, the world's top 20 % of income earners made thirty times as much as the bottom 20 % did in 1960 , sixty-one times as much in 1991 and seventy eight times as much in 1994. The gap is still growing.
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This is the picture of our present situation that urgently needs a solution. As I already have written, the situation is unprecedented and it is doubtful that our past experience can be of any help. At least my knowledge and experience does not help. If anyone has suggestion for a solution, he can use the e-mail portal in my site and I shall publish the suggestions in a separate chapter. You can remain anonymous but you have to send a valid e-mail address. Your comments will be published under your e-mail address, so that people will have the opportunity to enter into an argument.
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