By Chandrashekar (Chandra) Tamirisa, (On Twitter) @c_tamirisa
Oh, East is East and West is West, and never the twain shall meet,
Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God’s great Judgment Seat;
But there is neither East nor West, Border, nor Breed, nor Birth,
When two strong men stand face to face, though they come from the ends of the earth!
The Ballad of East And West, Rudyard Kipling, 1889
The earth is divided exactly in half between the Europeans and non-Europeans and the world belongs nearly in whole to the non-Europeans.
The world, as it stands, has 7 billion people. Of these teeming masses of humanity, about 6.4 billion, majority colored and minority white, live outside five countries/regional blocs of the world, in descending order of the top five in global natural resource stocks (population listed in parentheses): Russian Federation (138 million), Australia (21 million), Canada (34 million), European Union (503 million) and United States of America (313 million), majority white and minority colored.
As it approaches mid-century, United States will join the remaining 6.4 billion with a population of about 350 million people of which 60 per cent, the majority, will be colored. The National Capital Region within 30 miles of the Washington monument is already showing symptoms of this occurring shift. New York City, Chicago and the State of California are not far behind.
The geopolitical dynamics of the north-south divide above and below the 40th parallel is now the ballad of east and west, of Kipling’s race and empire, the world split between all that is above 40 degree north latitude (Rome and Washington, DC) and west of 60 degree east longitude (Urals, the boundary of the European and the Asian geological plates, the divide between European and Asiatic Russia) and the rest (see permalink below)
North-West
South-East
This is now the Great Game: Between the insignificance of 6% of the world and the world of 94%. Between the economics of growth of about 600 million and the wisdom of zero growth of nearly 9.4 billion (see my comment as footnote below for the “how” of zero growth). Between the illusion of money and the reality of living and life. Between the anomaly of white and the pervasiveness of color. Between fascism and self-determination.
Game theoretic modeling is not pertinent to the problem of geo-economic convergence though intellectual property is more relevant to harmonize intellectual property rights (IPRs) around the world. Gaming complicates matters and increases risks because of the very nature of game theory in politics and economics which is heavily dependent on non-cooperative games and the ensuing analysis for Nash equilibria resulting in negative feedback loops and destructive competition in systems. Constructive competition can exist in positive feedback loops with intrinsic cooperative constraints for system and species survival outside the prisoner’s dilemma presumptions about human nature (see permalink below).
These are, however, the Nash Equilibria:
1. Fascism (non-cooperative)
2. Global Sustainability (non-cooperative to cooperative)
3. No Nash Equilibrium. The world falls apart due to status quo/conflict.
The white man’s insignificant future is, therefore, the white man’s burden in the status quo world of minority haves and majority have-nots and the minority powerful and the majority powerless. Human nature, unless we speciate, will not change.
One World is the natural consequence of the nature of geopolitics. Who will win and how is obvious but for the necessary delusions of the 6% minority white and resource-rich population since the Renaissance 600 years ago:
Step 1: 2012-2016 North-West Falls. The fall of the dollar and the euro. Has nuclear weapons and used them in war.
Step 2: 2016-2022 South-East enters North-West. Captures existing technology. Has nuclear weapons. Did not use them in war.
Step 3: 2022-2050 South-East innovates and becomes sustainable.
Disarms the world completely.
Step 4: 2050-2100 One world
The antecedents in economic literature for sustainability are few or none. It is a complex problem which involves interdisciplinary work between monetary economics, development economics, growth theory, economics of regulation and information economics (transparency in economics at the macro and firm level by regulation).
Notable previous but disparate attempts were made by Robert Lucas (On the Mechanics of Economic Development, Monetary Neutrality), Amartya Sen (Nobel Lecture, particularly famine and food distribution in Bangladesh), Robert Solow (A Contribution to the Theory of Economic Growth), George Akerlof (Market for Lemons, Nobel Lecture) and George Stigler (Economics of Regulation).
The lynchpin, however, remains Robert Solow’s contribution, which I both integrate with other contributions mentioned above and overcome using a regulatory approach.
Most importantly, the indispensable complement of economics is politics. Institutional political economy is integrated into my sustainability framework in The State, predicated on American constitutionalism.
The zero growth initiative is three fold (keyword is “global”):
A. People migrate around the world to even population densities.
B. Zero global population growth rate (at the moment it is 1.096% for the world, US approx. 0.832 )
C. Zero global growth rate, by keeping total world stock of money supply at a constant level as in a monetary authority cartel, hence some variance from zero GDP growth rate of countries until there can be one world currency and one state.
Technical change happens within these constraints.
The 94% (China, India, South America, Central America and Africa, Civil War confederacy in the United States from East to West) are >> 6% (EU, European Russia, Yankees in the United States, Canada, Australia). So, “global” means the 94% outside the West.
West defined as Russia, Australia, Canada, United States, and EU, the most resource rich countries.
The 94% who need innovation can use their own currencies to do so.
For very early efforts to use game-theoretic modeling in the context of this problem see Tabatchnaia-Tamirisa, Natalia, “Technology Policy in the Global Economy,” April 1997. Doctoral Dissertation, Department of Economics, University of Hawai’i at Manoa. Subsequent co-authored copies of the Dr. Tabatchnaia-Tamirisa’s (with the IMF since May 1997) working papers with Dr. Denise Eby Konan (University of Hawai’i) may be obtained by contacting her at ntamirisa@imf.org
Dr. Tabatchnaia-Tamirisa’s dissertation is preceded by:
(a) short prior working paper in 1996 by Chandrashekar Tamirisa in American Studies (for Johan Galtung et al) at University of Hawai’i at Manoa for the geopolitics of the causes and strategies of economic convergence (currently ideas from this paper form the crux of US-China Strategic Economic Dialog)
(b) A lengthy essay written by Chandrashekar Tamirisa for the Department of Political Science in University of Hawai’i from 1992-1996 titled “Did We Understand Modernity, Yet?” which lays the political-philosophical basis (Professors James Dator, Manfred Henningsen and Johan Galtung) for a paradigm shift in geopolitics from nuclear competition to non-dual use Global Zero predicated only on international economic competition and energy diversification.
(c) a short working paper, written by Chandrashekar Tamirisa for a graduate class in International Relations (of Professor Richard Chadwick) on the specific idea of the paradigm shift itself.
(b) and (c) became a part of Clinton administration’s international economic policy.
The concept of resource scarcity as a driver for space exploration was first articulated by Chandrashekar Tamirisa in an on-camera interview for the program “What Is A Heaven For?” (Video), PBS Space Age Series, WQED/Pittsburgh and NHK/Japan in Association with the National Academy of Sciences, August 1, 1991, Department of Space Resources and Manufacturing, Toulouse, France, Summer Session, International Space University, 1991.