Thomas Friedman writes about Imbalances of Power today and raises some important issues - specifically the need for a source of energy to replace fossil fuels and global shifts in power. These are things I’ve taken particular interest in and would like to share my thoughts on some specific points made by Tom.
It baffles me that President Bush would rather go to Saudi Arabia twice in four months and beg the Saudi king for an oil price break than ask the American people to drive 55 miles an hour, buy more fuel-efficient cars or accept a carbon tax or gasoline tax that might actually help free us from what he called our “addiction to oil.”
I don’t dispute the underlying facts that (1) we need a source of energy to replace fossil fuels and (2) the current administration hasn’t put forth a plan. However, improving fuel efficiency does not, necessarily, led to less fuel consumption. In fact, more frequently it contributes to an overall increase in fuel consumption. Likewise, taxes on fuel and/or emissions won’t, by themselves, reduce fuel consumption or our dependence on imported oil.
None of that, however, is news to anyone who has paid attention to energy policy over the last three decades. The appropriate place to lay blame is at the feet of the American electorate - not any single politician or even either of the two major political parties. When it comes to energy policy, we - as a nation - have been fooling ourselves for decades.
Mr. Zakaria’s central thesis is that while the U.S. still has many unique assets, “the rise of the rest” - the Chinas, the Indias, the Brazils and even smaller nonstate actors - is creating a world where many other countries are slowly moving up to America’s level of economic clout and self-assertion, in every realm. “Today, India has 18 all-news channels of its own,” notes Zakaria. “And the perspectives they provide are very different from those you will get in the Western media. The rest now has the confidence to present its own narrative, where it is at the center.”
For too long, argues Zakaria, America has taken its many natural assets - its research universities, free markets and diversity of human talent - and assumed that they will always compensate for our low savings rate or absence of a health care system or any strategic plan to improve our competitiveness.
“That was fine in a world when a lot of other countries were not performing,” argues Zakaria, but now the best of the rest are running fast, working hard, saving well and thinking long term. “They have adopted our lessons and are playing our game,” he said. If we don’t fix our political system and start thinking strategically about how to improve our competitiveness, he added, “the U.S. risks having its unique and advantageous position in the world erode as other countries rise.”
I don’t accept Zakaria’s implicit premise that the rising rest - China, India, and Brazil - are more competitive than America because our savings rate is lower and our health care system is comparatively absent. I’ll grant that these countries are ascending competitors in the global economy. However, it would be simplistic to believe their rise is the result of America’s low savings rate and poor health care system. Furthermore, while there are many methodologies for ranking the quality of health care systems, I’ve never seen one where the quality of those in China, Brazil, or India are ranked higher than the US.
I’ll grant that we don’t have a strategic plan to improve our competitiveness, but once again I wonder why that is perceives as a new problem. What previous administration had a “strategic plan to improve our competitiveness?”
Rather than falling competitiveness, I think a greater problem facing America and much of the developed world is the ongoing shift in global power. Tom quotes the author of “The Post-American World.”
“Today, India has 18 all-news channels of its own,” notes Zakaria. “And the perspectives they provide are very different from those you will get in the Western media. The rest now has the confidence to present its own narrative, where it is at the center.”
While he doesn’t state it explicitly, I believe Zakaria is talking about a the ability to project power. Not simply power in the kinetic sense, but in terms of culture. Historically, the greatest factors that enable the projection of cultural power are wealth and manpower. The “rising rest” are getting richer and more populous while the more developed nations are getting older, less populous, and drift toward economic stagnation. The “rising rest” will see their ability to project power around the globe grow as the ability of more developed countries to project power wanes.
Current world wide demographic trends are:
- Overall slowing rate of population world wide;
- Stable populations in more developed nations (< 1% growth); and
- Growing populations (> 2%) in less developed nations.
Currently, the US birth rate is right at the replacement rate. That means we are having about as many babies as there are people dying each year. However according to the RAND Corporation, birth rates in Europe are falling and family sizes are shrinking.
The total fertility rate is now less than two children per woman in every member nation in the European Union. As a result, European populations are either growing very slowly or beginning to decrease.
At the same time, low fertility is accelerating the ageing of European populations. As a region, Europe in 2000 had the highest percentage of people age 65 or older — 15 percent. According to data from the U.S. Bureau of the Census, this percentage is expected to nearly double by 2050.
These demographic trends portend difficult times ahead for European economies. For example, a shrinking workforce can reduce productivity. At the same time, the growing proportion of elderly individuals threatens the solvency of pension and social insurance systems. As household sizes decrease, the ability to care for the elderly diminishes. Meanwhile, elderly people face growing health care needs and costs. Taken together, these developments could pose significant barriers to achieving the European Union (EU) goals of full employment, economic growth, and social cohesion.
Thus, if we want to address the “rising rest” in a strategic manner, we should consider the loss in power facing many developed nations. They face a world where their wealth & populations will diminish. Cultures are not static and don’t exist in a vacuum. They evolve, battle against competitors, and sometimes go extinct - just as species do. Historically, three of the most influential factors behind cultural survival are the will to procreate, the will to defend itself, and the ability to create wealth. Given that, what do the demographic trends of today’s world say about the future of Europe and its culture?
Regarding energy, the problem isn’t simply America’s dependence on fossil fuels. The entire global economy depends on fossil fuels. As the populations of developing nations (i.e. the ‘rising rest’) like India, China, Brazil, and Pakistan increase, so to will world wide consumption of fossil fuels. The reality we face is that the rate of growth in those countries and, consequently world wide demand for fossil fuels, will exceed our ability to switch to an alternative source of energy. America could certainly lead the way in alternative energy R&D, but we are not anywhere close to finding a replacement for fossil fuel based energy.
As Tom notes further along, that another significant global trend is the waning influence of nation-states and international governing bodies. Consequently, the system for addressing global issues among nation-states is more ineffective than ever. We face a future where “Never Again” means only one or two…well, perhaps three genocides every decade. A world we will be forced to share with genocidal tyrants ‘contained’ by international sanctions that will starve a million children each year or, alternatively, where we must form alliances to fight wars of ‘liberation’.
If international governing bodies don’t have the influence to stop blatant episodes of genocide like Rwanda & Darfur, I have little confidence in their ability to address exponentially more complex issues like global climate change and the looming global energy crisis.
