The estimated one billion people who live in developed countries have a relative per capita consumption rate of 32. Most of the world’s other 5.5 billion people constitute the developing world, with relative per capita consumption rates below 32, mostly down toward 1.
The population especially of the developing world is growing, and some people remain fixated on this. They note that populations of countries like Kenya are growing rapidly, and they say that’s a big problem. Yes, it is a problem for Kenya’s more than 30 million people, but it’s not a burden on the whole world, because Kenyans consume so little. (Their relative per capita rate is 1.) A real problem for the world is that each of us 300 million Americans consumes as much as 32 Kenyans. With 10 times the population, the United States consumes 320 times more resources than Kenya does.
Mr. Diamond goes on after this and suggests the vast differences in consumption lead to terrorism, or the support of terrorists which will threaten our shores again.
There will be more terrorist attacks against us and Europe, and perhaps against Japan and Australia, as long as that factorial difference of 32 in consumption rates persists.
I'm not necessarily buying into this theory. I'm no terrorism expert (nor an economics expert), but politics seems to the primary breeder of terrorists, along with who sides with whom, where we decide to put military bases, where we decide to invade and occupy, etc. etc. His theory sounds a little Bushsimple to me. I know we all recall this absurdity from Bush's address to the nation in 2001:
Americans are asking, why do they hate us? They hate what we see right here in this chamber -- a democratically elected government. Their leaders are self-appointed. They hate our freedoms -- our freedom of religion, our freedom of speech, our freedom to vote and assemble and disagree with each other.
Furthermore, many of these nations would be a hell of a lot better off if their corrupt officials would limit their greed and spread the wealth.
Aside from that difference of opinion (and maybe a couple of others), I still like his what-if scenarios which nicely illustrate what a precariously fine line we are walking.
Among the developing countries that are seeking to increase per capita consumption rates at home, China stands out. It has the world’s fastest growing economy, and there are 1.3 billion Chinese, four times the United States population. The world is already running out of resources, and it will do so even sooner if China achieves American-level consumption rates. Already, China is competing with us for oil and metals on world markets.
Per capita consumption rates in China are still about 11 times below ours, but let’s suppose they rise to our level. Let’s also make things easy by imagining that nothing else happens to increase world consumption — that is, no other country increases its consumption, all national populations (including China’s) remain unchanged and immigration ceases. China’s catching up alone would roughly double world consumption rates. Oil consumption would increase by 106 percent, for instance, and world metal consumption by 94 percent.
If India as well as China were to catch up, world consumption rates would triple. If the whole developing world were suddenly to catch up, world rates would increase elevenfold. It would be as if the world population ballooned to 72 billion people (retaining present consumption rates).
I hate to say "thank God the whole developing world isn't going to catch up" but it did cross my mind. Actually, it would be catastrophic, long before the rest of the world did catch up, so it's a rather moot point, but interesting.
Without a doubt, the United States is probably the one country with the most lifestyle adjustment needed. And that's not going to be easy with so many spoiled egos involved. The change will likely come about by necessity rather than choice, which means later rather than sooner. I suspect it won't be a pleasant transition for many who aren't paying attention.
Read the article and feel free to weigh in with opinions.
Another link is here if the first one doesn't work.
Crossposted at Big Brass Blog
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