The World as 'world'
Thanks for the piece, Chris.
Lots to talk about. I mean LOTS.
One thing that you don't treat, and which will play a huge role, is the paroxysms of geo-political mayhem that will be precipitated by the rolling denouement of the multiple story lines that you describe and of which we are all, mostly (even if only at a certain level) aware.
China's place in the global economy is growing by leaps and bounds. They do not have --and no such large state could have-- a truly stable society and government structure. Their one reliable available strategy for forcing domestic discipline is the demonization of foreign states and cultures. In full swing, and once the size of domestic markets challenges the export markets upon which they depend, they can easily create the most advanced and largest military capability in the world at a much smaller fraction of GDP than is achievable in the Western economies now. And in that same vein of discussion. The current economic crisis befalls a heavily leveraged US economy that has spent vast amounts of its domestic and foreign debt on what is the world's currently largest and most powerful militaries. The Chinese and US respective climb and decline curves will cross; probably within ... hmmm ... fifteen years? Ten? Eight?
China and te US are merely the two largest single factors on our political and economic landscapes. But since, alone, they are capable of bringing about complete, sudden, alteration of the status quo, the mind cannot even bring itself to boggle when we think about everything else than can be served up by any number of combinations of other players: the prospect of too much confusion is a sedative.
I think that this is basically what this is all about. Psychologists are finding that the only way to make people resist or even deny a hard truth is to explain more about it.
