Table of Contents - Earth Our Country

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All rights reverved and exclusively owned by Earth Our Country LLC, San Francisco, CA.
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Martin Luther King
The National Cathedral, Washington, D.C., March 3 1968
“ I would like to deal with the challenges that we face today as a result of the triple revolution that is
taking place in the World today.
First, we are challenged to develop a World perspective. No individual can live alone, no nation can
live alone, and anyone who feels he can live alone is sleeping through a revolution. The World in
which we live is geographically one. The challenge that we face today is to make it one in terms of
brotherhood.
Now it is true that the geographical onenness of this age has come into being to a large extend
through modern Man’s scientific ingenuity. Modern Man through his scientific genius has been able
to dwarf distance and place time in chains. And our jet planes have compressed into minutes
distances that once took weeks and even months. All of this tells us that our World is a
neighborhood.
Through our scientific and technological genius, we have made of this World a neighborhood and
yet we have not had the ethical commitment to make of it a brotherhood. But somehow, and in some
way, we have got to do this. We must all learn to live together as brothers or we will all perish
together as fools. We are tied together in the single garment of destiny, caught in an inescapable
network of mutuality. And whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly ...”.
“Secondly, we are challenged to eradicate the last vestiges of racial injustice from our nation. I must
say this morning that racial injustice is still the Black Man’s burden and the White Man’s shame ...”.
“There is another thing closely related to racism that I would like to mention as another challenge.
We are challenged to rid our nation and the World of poverty. Like a monstruous octopus, poverty
spreads its nagging, prehensile tentacles into hamlets and villages all over the World. Two-third of
the people of the World go to bed hungry tonight. They are ill-housed; they are ill-nourished; they
are shabbily clad. I’ve seen it in Latin America; I’ve seen it in Africa; I’ve seen this poverty in Asia
…”.
“I want to say one other challenge that we face is simply that we must find an alternative to war and
bloodshed. Anyone who feels, and there are still a lot of people who feel that way, that war can
solve the social problems facing Mankind is sleeping through a great revolution. President Kennedy
said on one occasion, “Mankind must put an end to war or war will put an end to Mankind.” The
World must hear this …”.
God grant that we will be participants in this newness and this magnificent development. If we will
but do it, we will bring about a new day of justice and brotherhood and Peace. And that day the
morning stars will sing together and the sons of God will shout for joy”.
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Table of Contents
. Apology of Curiosity
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. Big-Bang to Big-Crunch
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. Mankind’s Amazing History
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. Our Great Transition
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. The Reaction of Civilisations
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. Democratic Universalism
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. Totalitarian Risk
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. The Stronghold of Religiosity
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. The Great Mix
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. The Globalized Economy
10 . The Great Waste
11 . One Earth, Many Countries
12 . A Vision for Mankind
13 . The Power of Global Governance
14 . Priority 1: universal Peace and Justice
15 . Priority 2: Zero Carbon
16 . Priority 3: Sustainable Development
17 . Priority 4: Feed the Planet
18 . Priority 5: Natality, Migrations and Identities
19 . Priority 6: Truly Global Economy
20 . Priority 7: Universal Education et Communication
21 . Priority 8: Space Exploration and Colonization
22 . Challenging the Establishment
. Second Start
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Because of my work in technology, I’ve passed international borders several thousand times in my
Life. With this kind of travel, borders begin to blur. After a number of years, I began to ask myself
if the countries are here to stay forever or if they’re just a construction inherited from the past. I’ve
concluded that as our World gets smaller, borders make less and less sense. The problems of our
World have taken on a global dimension, while the countries are by their own definition unable to
put any resolution to these problems. We can see this disconnect growing bigger every day. The
political tools of the past are no longer helpful in solving the universal challenges that we, as a
species, now face.
Earth our Country is the thesis that I have developed as a holistic solution for the next phase of
human development.
Let me start with one disclaimer.
Like many of us, I live in this intensive period of History as an avid spectator. I’m involved in the
business of technology and travel constantly, which offers a dissolution of the perception of
international borders. It is the prism through which I look and it allows me to share a more global
space for my life; more universal, less national. This prism makes me endlessly curious and
welcoming of the Men, Women and landscapes that I discover around the World. Also, the
professional context in which we meet often erases cultural differences. People feel closer, as if we
were all part of a common project.
The unifying angle of this prism has a benefit: it offers the advantage of a privildged point of view,
one that values the homogeneity of people, rather than their differences. It makes me question the
need to make constant divisions among the people of the World, either via geography or heart.
I’ve tried to make respect and tolerance my guides over the years, and will endeavor to follow a
similar approach with this book. I will try to respect everyone, which is not easy when addressing
critical issues that touch taboos and the hard-core beliefs of people. Clearly, I do not feel capable or
authorized to impose on others my own traditions and preferred habits – for the most part received
in heritance – or even my own beliefs – built though my experiences. But I may browse a few
feathers, and want to present my apologies upfront, for those who may feel offended.
I’d like this book to be a tool and a guide towards a positive universal future. I’m absolutely
convinced that a continued greatness for our species is at our fingertips, but this greatness slips a
little more each day, as our governments fragment any logical holistic resolution. The anarchy of the
countries ruling this Earth has us in constant chaos.
It doesn’t have to be this way.
The time has come for us to shift from the legacy of the once isolated human tribe – to the
emergence of the “Homo Sapiens Universalis” (Wise Universal Man) – global Men and Women
united, through a coherent and elected global political governance.
Two events have profoundly transformed the state of the World since I was born: economic
globalization and the derangement of our climate.
Economic globalization has penetrated our lives irretrievably. It can’t be ignored in any material
detail of our daily Life – almost everything we consume comes from somewhere else. Despite this,
we haven’t integrated globalization into a genuine cohesive context – one of full globalization. The
fragment of globalization that has impacted us first – the Economy – is insulated from its holistic
logic because it happens in disconnect of a broader complete globalization of the society.
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Economic globalization shatters the World instead of helping it to stabilize. Because there is no pilot
for a global Economy, as exemplified by the crisis that has become endemic since 2008,
globalization seems to enable economic chaos and the acceleration of our ecological derangement.
The only certainty is that all people bear the impact of all its effects.
Economic globalization will be a great, long lasting developpement, if and only if we also truthfully
globalize Mankind, not in fragments, but within a consistent, cohesive, organized and legitimate set
of social and political structures.
Why is now the time for full globalization ? Why can’t we let political and social integration
develop at their own pace ? The answer is simple: economic globalization alone is dangerous for
Mankind. We need global cohesiveness and fully aligned global political systems together with
global economic Freedom. Without this holistic view, the economical engine runs full speed, out of
control, and risks to blow up everything.
Economy has to remain a tool for society. With no governance, the slave turns into a rein free
master. As it stands, the World has lost its balance between the Economy and its society, as the
former is global and the latter, local.
As a result, we are seeing a destabilization of our fragile human ecosystem, going back to old evils –
religious extremism, risk of European disintegration, constant economic turnmoil, explosive Middle
East. Now is the time to start thinking differently and to press the accelerator for true globalization
in order to avoid that the historic forces pull us all back in time.
Throughout our Prehistory and History, our species has seen phenomenal expansion. We have
spread across the Planet, and have dominated natural resources that were apparently infinite. This
“first” period of expansion is now hitting a ceiling.
History as we know it, from the first human civilization through the colonization of our immense
planetarian setting, is over. The Earth has gone from infite to finite and is therefore shrinking.
Humans have completed their conquest, and made a village from their surrounding out of the
infinity.
Resources and physical space are virtually dominated. Soon, our accessible resources will be
extinguished. Therefore, any positive evolution of our species must go through a rationalized
globalization of the management of our finite setting. We need a coordination of the human race
itself, through a political tool that is totally missing.
We have learned to take control of the Earth via the mastery of dominance. At this point, we
dominate the Earth more than any other species before us. Unfortunately, just at this blessed
moment for Mankind, when Earth seems totally unresisting, she has begun to give signs of
rebellion.
The first symptom is in the Earth’s deregulation. Losing her own control, she deregulates herself.
We have learned domination but we have not yet realized the implication of our victory. In simple
terms, we have won the war over all other living beings, but we have yet to learn how to win
sustainable Peace with our dominated ecosystem.
With the deregulation of our environment, we have taken away its capability of natural self-control.
From a finite Universe, our Planet has become our island and maybe already our cage …
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She warms-up. She gets dirty. She becomes tired. The Earth isn’t able to regenerate fast enough her
natural species, while facing her quasi-divine predator – ourselves - whom she has fed with her own
breast.
Mankind, while reaching its absolute success, has condemned itself to totally reinvent the rules of its
future. If we do not react, the “Big-Bang of Man’s expansion will be succeded by the “Big-Crunch”.
After the great expansion, there will be a great collapse.
Whatever our future brings, the evidence of a big wall obstructing the horizon of our species gets
closer every day. We are preparing to hit it at breathtaking speed, at the timescale of the Universe.
We are nearing the point of impact. Nobody knows how long it may take. Ten years ? Fifty or a
hundred ? Our children will tell. It’s anybody’s guess, as no one can predict how the Planet can or
cannot adapt – or how our national political systems can resist to such secular economical and
environmental changes.
The great news is that it doesn’t have to be a negative re-invention of our future. Our future depends
on how well we deal with the obstacle, and how well the obstacle responds to the current stress we
put on it. It can be a kind of “sound wall” – positive vision of an eternal progress – beyond which
we manage to catapult ourselves. One in which we reinvent ourselves, as we did during the
Neolithic revolution.
The conundrum of our era is exciting, engaging and can be managed, as long as we share the
problem and open up to solutions. With such an extraordinary challenge ahead of us, we can head
towards a positive regeneration of our World and future. We can elevate ourselves from
unconscious dominators of our Planet to careful architects of our own Universe.
We have evolved from animals to dominant humans. Will we be able to become responsible and
sustainable stewards of our Planet, or will our combattive genes - egoistic, opportunistic, shortsighted - drive us to our self-destruction ? Will we reveal ourselves as our own worst enemy, slowly
cutting the branch on which we all sit ?
This question – how do we react to the globalization of our limited resources – is the central inquiry
of this book. From this simple but fundamental interrogation, I’ve drawn the conclusion that, there’s
only one possible solution: Earth our Country.
It is up to us, collectively, to build the future. We cannot continue to isolate each other as we share
the same finite garden. Not only do we all use the same phone made-in-China, or drink the same
soda - we share almost everything else. It simply may not seem that way, because we have borders,
languages, religions, traditions, colors of skin, and our own political systems. All these things
collude to make us feel different from one another. It isn’t easy to see through such a construction –
it was tens of thousands of years in the making. It will take a concerted effort to undo the belief of
separateness.
We can be the generation who initiates this grand metamorphosis. We can become a Homo Sapiens
Universalis. This is a profound, Darwinian step in our evolution. The key is in our hands – but first
we have to go beyond the Utopia of a United Earth. Utopia it will be, as long as we do not get
started with the capabilities of execution of the idea. To me, a unified World does not at all imply a
Utopia. It’s not an imagined place of perfection, nor a childish dream. The idea of a Unified World
is, in fact, a taboo. One pool of resources, one People, one strategy for Mankind appear as a selfevident dream, but taboo it is, because as you look deeper, you see that it threatens every political
and identitarian millennia old construction around us.
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In all fairness, the execution of the idea is so difficult, because it requires a new lexicon of thinking
that acknowledges a finite World. For thousands of years, we’ve cultivated our most dominant
instincts and have become the most successful of the predators. We won the war of the species. To
win the Peace, different attributes are required. Our species has won the war through Earth’s
imminent chaos. Now, we need to learn how to protect our vanquished Mother, because we only
exist through her. This is a border-free exercise, no question at all, because no national government
can fix Mankind. If a local government thought that it could, this would be a genuine Utopia.
Unfortunately, local governments rule everything, every day, at all levels of all societies on Earth.
They are the ones we employ to take care of our fragile destiny.
Let me ask you to be open-minded as you go through these pages. I implore you to be curious, and
to think laterally. Pay attention to the taboos that are often deeply rooted and unconscious inside of
us.
Please employ your tolerance as well, because this search is much more than a simple exercise. We
are trying to think big, together, to try to discover where this idea takes us. Social revolutions often
require us to challenge our Faiths or beliefs. It’s what makes them so powerful.
By no means do I pretend to be one hundred percent right. My sole objective is to facilitate an
intriguing and disturbing conversation. The questions are easy; the answers more complex. Also,
this book is not written with the help of a pool of World-class experts, so there may be a few
misstated facts and mistakes there and there, I rely on your foregiveness and your own curiosity, to
go and research by yourself. Please alert me with your new findings on my website.
To be even clearer: I am interested in opening the door to a more holistic way of existing in the
World. I believe that the idea of a so-called Utopia for a Unified Earth, actually brings answers to
our most immediate and burning questions, and can enable extremely powerful solutions. We can
create a great “sound wall” together, a positive big-bang acceleration, just as our ancestors did with
their Neolithic revolution.
Think Big. This is a call from the brain and the heart to move forward with curiosity and tolerance.
These two qualities are mothers of any progress. Mankind must think big, as it faces its most
compelling challenge to date. The tools employed by the boundaries of the past don’t work any
longer. A new World is waiting for us. Let’s take an immense perspective, on our shared destiny.
Together, let’s bury the Homo Sapiens Sapiens (the conqueror), who despite his name (Wisdom
Wisdom) has led our Planet to its current state. Together, we can invent the next step and give birth
to who we already unconsciously are. Let’s wear new universal glasses and become the first Homo
Sapiens Universalii.
San Francisco, September 2013
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I have rarely seen a pessimist succeed. Many fear the collision with an ecologic wall, and predict the
apocalypse. After the Big-Bang of Mankind over the last millenia, they see the Big-Crunch. Many
predict destabilization of the environment, and point to the non-sustainability of our consumerist
society, but there is no offer of a workable alternative.
I agree with the risk analysis. But, more importantly, I see a solution. We may be approaching the
point of impact with the ecologic wall in front of us, but this forces our reinvention. When the
horizon darkens, it’s time for innovation. This is precisely why humans have won the animal
competition. We can invent. We think big. We can innovate and we’re unbeatable when we match
our survival instincts with our intelligence. Unleashing our imagination is the way forward.
Ten thousand years ago, our ancestors faced a similar challenge. They had shot most of the big
game and they were seeing their resources dwindle. Starvation was imminent and some experts
estimate that Mankind was even at risk of disappearing. This is precisely when Mankind discovered
the magic of the seed. Just as Nature was showing the limits of its available resources, Man invented
domestication of Nature by developing farming. This went well for a few millennia. But
domestication of the environment has led to a saturation of the ecosystem. The extraction and
transformation of fossil fuels has led to the climate itself being transformed. We are yet again facing
a challenge to our future survival.
Once again, Humanity can win. We can aim at making this new challenge an opportunity. We can
avoid the crash and invent a new way to catapult our society above the collision that our current
pace is driving us toward.
First, we must search for a systemic solution to avoid the potential impact of our human success,
before our World gets overstressed due to climate change.
But also and as importantly, we must use the needed change of trajectory in a positive direction, as a
new engine for the optimism of Mankind, based on a vision that continues to give us strength and a
reason for living, rather than falling prey to divisive evils, caused by restrictions and nostalgia for a
better past.
Today, everything has become linked to the health of the Economy. Growth, goes the phrase, is
happiness for all. Recession (negative economic growth) a disaster of endless impact. Is there a way
to think a little differently ? Can the Economy become the servant of Mankind’s overall progress instead of a servant with cannibalistic properties ?
Since Mankinds’s quest is no longer about conquering the World (we already have), our new quest
must now be to turn the World into a sustainable paradise. The realization of our finite resources
must become a stepping-stone towards a better future.
Seen from space, our Earth is the Blue Planet. The blue of the sea and of the atmosphere distinguish
our Earth from the rest of the Universe.
Our spherical Earth is limited by her crust. Her thin and fragile atmosphere is a vapor so precious
that it has made Life’s eclosion and its evolution possible. It has also protected the Earth’s surface
from external aggressions.
For Mankind, Earth is an enchanted island, in the middle of a still and hostile spatial ocean.
We have succeeded in canoeing to our nearest islet – the Moon – at great cost, effort and risk. Our
travel was limited to a visit, as the Moon remains uninhabitable. Our Earth appears to be the
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ultimate limit for our living framework. Until a conquest of space, she remains the permanent and
unique setting for Mankind. Earth is our paradise or our jail. She is our golden cage.
Until very recently, a few nanoseconds in the timescale of our species, the spatial limit that Earth
assigned to us was invisible. It had no limiting effect on our development until the 20th. century. Our
setting appeared to be infinite, and forever open to the expansion and conquest of Man. It has only
been in the last few decades that we have begun to realize that Earth is our single precious
neighborhood.
Since the first female primate gave birth to our hominid ancestor; since we began leaving the trees
to become walkers, discoverers, gatherers and hunters; since we dared to move in the open, we have
met no limit to our expansion and colonization of Earth – until today.
It seems that no living species before us has ever met a spatial barrier, except the ones constrained
by landscape.
Life began under the sea, until it reached a very high level of development – one only needs to
watch a dolphin to be impressed with its agility and intelligence. Then, the most adventurous of
aquatic animals started to go beyond their sea or river, they dared to attack new preys on firm land.
Over millions of years, their fins have turned into paws, and some have even begun flying …
None of these more highly evolved beings has attained a level of conquest on Earth similar to our
current level. We have won all the battles of domination over other species. Dinausors,
Mammouths, Bisons, Wolves, Lions, Sharks, Eagles, all have succumbed and are disappearing at
various degrees - outside of our zoos. Only those that we have domesticated or carved for our meat
consumption have persisted in mass (notwisthstanding insects).
We are the species who has won absolute domination of all others. We reign as master on Earth, and
even the Planet herself appears to bend before us. Congratulations to us all. We have reached
absolute conquest of the Earth and perhaps tomorrow we’ll achieve the conquest of our Galaxy.
However, while completing the takeover of our island, our Universe has revealed itself as finite. We
are now the caretaker of our temple, our unique temple, our diminishing village.
Earth is conquered by Man, but with this conquest comes responsibility. Earth is our giving Mother,
who must continue to nurse us. She is the branch that cradles us. She is not another enemy or
territory in the game of expansion. After her, there is nothing left. Without Earth, no Man.
Earth is us. Or rather, Man is of Earth. We are her children.
Can we risk losing what we’ve won over millions of years of positive Darwinian evolution ? If
Earth rebels, we lose the fruits of this Pyrrhic victory, the effort of which is represented by hundreds
of thousands of generations, and all the chains of Life that have preceded us.
Maybe we are the ultimate outcome of the alchemy that has led to Life on Earth. Maybe this is all
supposed to make sense, and we do not yet have the capacity to understand. Perhaps we have been
elected to become so powerful, so that we may either fail, or attain the next level of the divine game.
Are we evading the immense responsibility that we have created through our domination of the
World ?
The answer to this question is in front of us, but we no longer see it, because we have become blind
in our environmental habits. We have reimagined our space to the image of our own needs.
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Pollution, the disappearance of natural habitats, human overpopulation and animal and vegetal
depopulation come with this Man-made re-invention. We are used to it and have become
normalized to it.
It’s not uncommon to witnesss the awe of children once they have seen a cow for the very first time.
These same children have little to no understanding that the hamburger eaten before coming to the
zoo, came from a cow like this one. Our culture hermetically seals its products and in so doing,
separates us from the World in which we live.
Earth does not rebel in an emotional or intellectual sense. She reacts chemically to our actions, in
particular to our abnormal generation of gas, in a completely passive manner. Earth is a limited but
extremely complex universe of resources, established around an equilibrium that has been delicately
stabilized over billions of years. She is an ecosystem that will transform itself according to the
whims and influences of its setting, and will renew itself as much as possible, under internal and
external stressors. It’s been a tough road for her since she has engendered modern Man, and it’s
gotten exponentially tough since the industrial revolution.
We have become the main catalyst in Earth’s transformation. In the course of a mere century or two,
we’ve deeply modified her. We’ve become like a virus in the Earth’s body.
Al Gore has largely contributed to the mass recognition of the environmental problem, which
previous to his efforts seemed of concern only to an enlightened minority of scientists or hard-core
ecologists. A quiet majority of the public is now open and receptive, and our politicians are taking
some symbolic, and maybe distantly effective actions. President Obama seems to be hopping aboard
the bandwagon as well. Regardless, the big debate has clearly just started. By no means has anyone
dared to contemplate a holistic solution to the big challenge facing us all. And the reason is this: the
solution challenges the global anarchy of the empowered countries.
Let’s try to recap – how did Mankind reach such successful dominance ?
We systematically conquered our habitat and its resources. We acquired the capacity to use those
resources for our sole benefit resulting in our continued proliferation. From just a few in the original
hominid herd, we have multiplied into thousands, millions, billions, and will soon be ten billions.
We dared to leave the tree in the Afrian Rift where we found shelter; we turned into a migrant
predator chasing his prey, and later domesticated the vegetable and animal World. We even
accelerated Nature with the addition of fertilizers. We then shot beyond agriculture, by inventing
industry and drawing our energy and our raw materials from the bowels of the Earth. We have
nearly depleted the accessible underground resources in coal, oil, gas, drinking water and minerals.
We’ve worked very hard, day-by-day, while bewildered animals have abdicated space to us,
escaping to remote reserves in order to continue their simple and unchanging existences in parallel
to our ever-increasing empire.
It all really began with our courageous ancestor, who first dared utilize his rear paws to move from
his protective tree. Nearby hunting and gathering initially progressed the development of our lower
limbs. We learned to enlarge our territory by inventing new hunting techniques and tools that
expanded the number of potential targets within our reach. We became able to feed a larger family
and clan. We then shaped rudimentary tools, recognized the value of fire to protect ourselves, and
learned to cook and improve the flavor of foods, thus enlarging the spectrum of the edible. In
becoming omnivores, we became capable of surviving on almost any kind of food, meat or root, and
were able to better resist starvation. Then, as we migrated to follow game, we left our original tree
behind. We made our legs the actors of our spatial conquest, while our arms became the extensions
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of our inventive brain, shaping our weapons and tools.
So we managed, throughout the millennia, to populate most of the land. We utilized ice bridges such
as the Bering straight and continued our epic journey, looking for the best hunting ground and
exhausting the best available prey. Mankind, numbering in the millions, became more uncertain
where to find his game; and the berries, mushrooms and wild roots became scarce.
At this defining moment, when all could still shift for the great predator (it seems that Mankind
reached an almost disappearance), we discovered the magic of the seed. In understanding the plant
cycle, we learned that by preserving and planting a seed in the ground, we could supercede – or
rather boost - Nature. When Man invented agriculture, he revolutionized his destiny. From the crisis
of near starvation – his first Wall - came the rebound. From hunger came the abundance, from the
nomadic quest, the establishment of the landlord. The Neolithic revolution engendered the Homo
Sapiens Sapiens (or reciprocally). Agriculture was the tool to cross the starvation Wall –
transforming it into a sound wall: a projection into a suddenly facilitated future. If not, we would not
be here – certainly not ten billion of us in any case. Eventually, we would have completely
disappeared.
From a simple predator, we evolved into the grand domesticator.
We learned to cultivate the land and to surround ourselves with animals that only lived or died to
serve our needs. We built fences and invented property, in order to protect us from other predators,
but mainly to protect against our likes, the more conservative nomadic clans still wandering and
starving.
We learned about war and pitched battles between clans, to protect our new wealth. Man, while
becoming non-migrant, anchored himself to a land, to a fixed location that became his plot, his
home, his village, his country.
As a result, a multitude of new resources emerged from our hands, such as domesticated and
hybridized plants and animals. We learned to tame Nature to our own benefit and started to
specialize tasks among the members of the family and of the clan, in order to improve the standard
of living of all. Everyone concentrated on what they could do best, to most efficiently contribute to
the general interest of the community. Mandatory labor was born.
The clan became tribe, then lordship, then kingdom, then empire. The parties became nations. The
fights and battles turned into real wars with more and more efficient weapons, and war replaced
hunting. Dialects became languages, beliefs religions. The Big-bang of Mankind – its expansion
from almost nothing – suddenly accelerated, with the birth of civilizations.
And Man adapted himself – in his Darwinian evolution – to the new environment he had shaped for
himself. Better fed, he grew taller, his legs outpaced his arms and his cramped brain developed his
cranium. By covering himself with skins, he lost most of his hair. Stuck to his land or territory,
depending on the climates he faced, and of intermarriages, he became white, black or yellow and
learned how to communicate within his tribe in Wolof, or Celtic, or an array of other languages.
Like any living being, his body and brain continued to better adapt to the setting, differentiating in
order to become even more powerful. The species divided itself into races, people, and linguistic
families. And the migrations continued, towards every rock in the World. The new hordes drove out
or mixed with the old. The migrations made it possible to colonize every viable space of the Planet,
by ground or sea.
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In order to protect his assets and/or steal the resources of other tribes, war between Men became the
principal and most strategic activity for survival and domination of a territory. The true enemies
became other Men - foreigners – and less and less the animal which in the meantime had gradually
turned simply into a resource. Primitive societies organized themselves around war, dividing into
groups of professional warriors and those who remained behind to nourish and equip the troops.
Weapons became the priority in the development of technology, and have remained so until very
recently.
The tribes became civilizations that dominated an ever expanding territory – country or empire.
Following and destroying one another, and mixing and regenerating themselves, they conquered the
World, and printed upon it their first borders. Before the maps were invented, unvisible lines were
drawn on the soil, mirroring the wars, immigrations, victories and defeats.
Brain development in humans took us beyond simple instinct, and enabled us to discover ignorance.
We became afraid of what we could not understand, namely to raise immaterial questions. We faced
the complexity of Nature and the temporal fragility of our own existence, and we became crushed
by the weight of the mystery of death and the irremediable certainty of our mortality. Questions
spouted out, causing more questions – which no living being raised before. This void - filled with
ignorance of the answer - created terror.
Like any void, it filled itself little by little, with structured answers, which became beliefs. The
existential mystical beliefs were carried from generation to generation. The legends became
absolute truths and while human groupings were transforming into institutions and civilizations,
their beliefs turned into religions.
In becoming formal and structured, religions divided and ruled, and forced themselves from one
group to another, powered by wars. The doubts and fears of human beings, so fragile in the face of
an incomprehensible Nature, gave birth to powerful religious institutions that also yielded great
social power. The answer to the mysteries of birth and death became an official one. Political rulers
made themselves priests or living gods and justified their credibility to govern others by resolving
the greatest mysteries. Organized religions became the instrument of power for the Shaman, the
Chief of the tribe, the King, and the Pharaoh.
Beliefs turned into Faith and each specific Faith penetrated a specific culture, leading to groups with
dominant Faiths, for which they would sacrifice and ultimately kill. Religions coalesced with races,
ethnic groups and languages, reinforcing again and again the differences between human
communities. The more these groupings spread around the Planet, the more differentiated they
became moving them farther and farther from the original homogeneity of Mankind, from this
African tree from which the first hominid started to walk.
The human species became an infinite mosaic of diversity, with enough differences to compel a
permanent fight, which went beyond the quest for space and wealth.
The more Man learned to domesticate his environment, the more the population grew, and the more
he had to fight against his fellow kind to remain alive. He had to find increasingly rare resources for
his many inventions and required more and more than his environment could naturally provide.
An infernal circle, full of Machiavellian implications, was developing, created by and for this
species alone. The more it succeeded in drawing Life improving resources from Nature, the more
populous the tribe became and thus the more resources and space it needed. Consquently, the tribe
had to conquer again and again, while defending itself from its neighbor tribe, which was expanding
19
in a parallel manner.
It is this cycle that has generated the growth of human population, at the same time indirectly
destroying available resources. And the cycle continues to be amplified and industrialized by the
greatness of our modern civilizations, and lately by the globalization of consumerism – the
emergence of most of the World to the Western standard of material prosperity.
The cycle has perpetuated and whirled around borders and civilizations since the eve of time, since
there were so many Men that they must keep fighting and that they must endlessly work to nourish
themselves, to get to where we are today: Masters of the known living realm, Earth.
In this model of permanent conquest, lasting Peace is uncertain. Peaceful coexistence can only work
between well-fed neighbors when their respective religions are identical or mutually tolerant –
which represents a point of historically rare and fragile equilibrium. Peace has seldomly lasted more
than a few decades, at any specific location, anytime in History.
Within a few million years and at an exponential rate since the invention of his extraordinary tools,
Man has projected himself well beyond any other animal before him, and has multiplied himself
faster and faster. Language and the capacity to transmit his acquired knowledge have enabled him
to educate his children, who in turn have become increasingly more successful adults. Progress in
technology has further accelerated his initial capacities; he has managed to maximize his access to
the resources and their transformation, ultimately multiplying his species into billions of beings,
always ready for the next conquest – military or lately economic.
The first explosion of the human population took place approximately twelve thousand years ago,
with the acceleration of inventions related to agriculture, war and defense. This period gave rise to
the first ancient civilizations.
Then, during the 18th. century the great modern migrations of global European colonization started,
as well as the scientific dominance of the West, which transformed the Planet into a grand garden
and factory for the “civilized” Man.
Finally, during the 20th. century, after two global wars of insane destruction, Man became the first
species to acquire the capacity to totally destroy his Planet including himself, and eventually his
enemies, with the atomic bomb.
The industrial revolution precipitated the movement with its pesticides, mines, worship of oil,
carbon emissions, and systematic extraction and utilization of all available resources, without
concern of their scarcity or the impact on future generations – as Man had always found a way
before to make resources unlimited.
The dominant idea was that Earth and her resources would remain infinite, since they had always
been, as Man would always invent new ways to discover, utilize or transform them. One would
always need more and more in order to produce and satisfy the growing demand for consumption
and progress.
Until, rather suddenly, at the turn of the 21st. century, the fragile ecosystem’s balance, under the
pressure of Man, started to give tangible signs of nearing a significant breaking point.
We are the first generation who inherits this unsettling discovery. It is disruptive and inconvenient
and is loaded with heavy consequences and responsibilities.
20
Man is approaching a barrier in his historic development. The model on which our civilization has
been built reaches its limits. While just beginning to recognize the gravity of the problem, we are
bewildered by the scope and difficulty of its resolution. The idea if not the day, of the Big-Crunch,
is starting to make sense. And its timing is approaching faster, for those who dare to recognize it,
although there is more denial and debate than meaningful action.
All of a sudden, the heavenly island that we have learned to turn into an almost minuscule global
village, can become our jail. We communicate in fractions of seconds by phone, videoconference
and the Internet. We move all across the globe in a few hours. An illness spreads around the whole
Planet in a matter of days, carried by travelers or containers. One continent consumes what another
one produces. One continent finances the deficit of another, so it can enable the other to buy what it
produces itself. One continent invades another without battle, simply through migration and the
search for a better job and future. Continents are preparing to invade others because their climates
will turn them even more into frigid zones.
For all of the World to reach the same level of economic wealth as the Western economies have
(certainly a legitimate aspiration), energy consumption will have to increase tenfold.
Such an explosion of energy and natural resources consumption is clearly not bearable on an
ecologic point of view. Our Mother Earth will not keep up with it. The consumerist model of human
civilization reveals its ultimate limit: it will not be possible to create the wealth needed to let us all
become as rich (materially) as the richest of today – everything in the energy useage and resource
transformation chain remaining equal. In other words, putting it in a simple and brutal way: there
cannot be as much wealth for all as there has been for the West at the peak of its wealth. Something
has to give: the wealth, or the way it is constructed materially and perceived as such, or the
willingness to share.
We have to fundamentally rethink the model for our progress, knowing that the pressure of the
developing World, which continues its double-digit annual economic growth (although slowing
down lately), has no intention of being on the waiting list.
Our latest global economic emergence indirectly accelerates the pace of our greatest challenge ever
- the Wall - the unbalancing of Earth against the way it was when she enabled Mankind to first exist
and flourish. It raises a barrier against our future, which stands at the horizon.
I have no crystal ball – it stands maybe … fifty years away ? The day of the Big-Crunch is ahead if
we do not reinvent ourselves. This frenzied and successful conquest is our History, behind us, but ill
conceived in front of our now finite and shared pool of resources. From the Big-Bang of the
Universe to the making of Earth; from the evolution of Earth to the day it enabled Life; from
primitive Life to the first hominid; and from the first Homo Sapiens to this holy day when we
reached the top of the mountain and contemplated our journey.
After such a long and hard ascent, comes a sudden and hard wake up call. Do we need another
invention – like the use of the seed – to make a new positive revolution, and re-invent the
foundation of our next steps ?
We have won the mountain, our Earth. We have molded her with the hands and the brains of a
million generations and then with our machines. She is the source of our body and our blood. She
is both our Mother and our grave. And her response to our success is one of disturbance, of her
warming, transformation in a direction that will make our existence more and more challenging.
Still, we are collectively trying to ignore it, because of how much it challenges the establishment of
History and of our future. Yes we can see the ice melting, now we all agree (or almost), but
21
fundamentally what can a single nation do about it ?
We have to learn how to move ourselves towards the next stage of our development. A stage that
cultivates our Planet like our garden and not like our trash-can, treats our neighbors like our family
and not our competitors and the others like our partners and not our enemies. We have to think
about our new need for consuming better instead of infinitely consuming.
The atomic bomb is ready and in the hands of a growing number of governments, with varying
degrees of responsibility (soon Iran). Several of them could, in the next hour, initiate the BigCrunch, by pressing the button first. All the machinery has been prepared over the last few decades
and the results would be like watching dominoes fall.
The unformal alliance of large Democracies has protected us so far, from an immediate crash. But
they do almost nothing to prevent a mid-term collision: the damage to the Earth and the vanishing of
resources. These factors will cause a fight for survival between populations, starting with those who
could be submerged due to the rise of the oceans, and those who risk being invaded by the desert
and forced into exile.
The Big-Crunch is here, just in front of us, and will only disappear with the profound transformation
of our society.
It raises the problem that Mankind will have to resolve, or we must be prepared to see the regression
of our civilization. The risk is probably not the ultimate destruction of the species in the next
century or two, since a few hundred survivors would be enough for the transmission of our genes. It
is more about our capacity to exist in the billions, the risk of destroying ourselves in order to
conquer and defend, while we also push the limits of our environment.
Maybe we can avoid the Big-Crunch during our lifetime. Maybe even our children will succeed as
well – but probably not theirs. The clock is ticking …
The climate clock seems to be accelerating, bringing us closer to a great upheaval. The second part
of this century is shaping up to be the period in which all the dangers will potentially begin,
although the most pessimistic scenarios from UN’s GECC (Group of Experts on Climate Change)
see it coming by 2050 already.
The British magazine “New Scientist” asked a group of experts to paint a picture of what our Earth
would look like, at the end of this century, adopting a scenario of a high-median temperature
increase of four degrees celcius (as opposed to the extremes of the most recent scientific forecasts).
Here is an extract of their conclusions:
“Deserts will prevail. They will gradually invade the whole strip located between the tropics of
Cancer and Capricorn, a zone where resides today half of the World population. For some, the
Sahara will even progress up to Central Europe (...). Finally, large zones of the Planet will become
totally unhabitable – a loss which by far won’t be compensated by the gain of new useable lands,
freed from ice in Greenland, Siberia, Scandinavia and maybe even Antarctica, regions where
important populations will be led to come and settle. The massive arrival, in the timeframe of one
generation, of billions of climatic refugees will not happen without confrontations (...). Conflicts to
protect basic resources, water and energy, or to win their access, will intensify. The “selection” will
be so intense that we won’t be more than a billion by the end of the next century according James
Lovelock (...)”.
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Is it a realistic scenario, or excessively overblown ?
It is the scenario of a 4ºC increase by the turn of our century. The minimum that the scientific
community has accepted so far is 2.8ºC, and the maximum 6ºC, while others deny it altogether
claiming some sort of Machiavellian conspiracy. The margin of uncertainty remains enormous since
it is a jump into the unknown, one that none of us has ever faced before, and with no irrefutable
scientific reference. Nobody can scientifically demonstrate with certainty how the Earth will
continue to react, but rather they can simulate a series of forecasts or predictions based on historic
data.
One thing is certain: the risk is absolutely real, and its probability appears to be high enough that we
need to take our destiny into our hands, and not wait any longer. We are the first generation to learn
of the risk, and therefore we are the generation who can still influence its impact.
The time has come for us, the first e-connected citizens ever, to actively and positively engage in the
journey of enabling our new global political model. We must use the new tools at our fingertips to
assert a new global stake, a position that stimulates our politicians to start to think across their own
boundaries, to propose and to act.
How do we recreate our social and political domain, and potentially rethink our way of life as a
result ?
How do we migrate to a more sustainable society, which transforms our growth-based approach to
the consumption of our resources and energy, industrial and economic models ?
Earth our Country.
23
24
How did this lovely four foot, ninety pound little monkey, with a life expectancy of less than half a
century, and with a nine month gestation period, successfully evolve into the Homo Sapiens Sapiens
we have become, the pinnacle and ultimate culmination of the animal kingdom?
The first Man was neither the strongest, nor the largest, nor the fastest, but of course, we want to
believe that he was the most intelligent; that his brain – his capacity to imitate, learn, create, and
especially to communicate his knowledge – have made him superior to all.
Darwin and his disciples have shown how our continued adaptation, demonstrated by the string of
our discoveries and inventions, has led us to become the Masters of our ecosystem.
However, we know precisely less than one thousandth of our complete History – the last five
thousand years – and lacking historical sources, we have given up on re-creating vivid details of our
more remote past, and have consigned ourselves to relying on an anthropological approach, namely
prehistory.
We follow our Prehistoric progress by exhuming the skeletons of our distant ancestors, and studying
the evolution of our body and the size of our cranium. In caves we discover layer upon layer of
fossils, representing ancient debris, or painted or engraved art on cave walls as well as statues, tools,
and the traces of a meal.
There are few remains that can help us reconstruct the daily reality of the thousands of successive
generations that brought us to the dawn of our historical knowledge. Obviously, no books, and few
suggestive ruins still exist, that would enable us to rediscover the lives and the thoughts of these
men who preceded our History.
Prehistoric fiction fills this vacuum and its mysteries with imagination, like in the superb series,
“The Children of Earth” by Jean Auel, who inserts us into the daily existence of the still free and
wild cavemen. The behavior of these Paleolithic beings is so close to our own, but also one can feel
the enormous difference, in their relationship with Nature: they do not yet dominate it, instead they
respect, venerate and fear it. They are physically strong, and they already unconsciously fight to
become the future dominant being, but they still behave as if crushed by the weight of the
immensity of the Nature surrounding them.
They are hunters and gatherers, thus nomads; they rely on their environment, of which there are
intimately integrated with, at each step and every moment. They implore the sky for support to
survive another day, they are totally submissive to their dominating natural setting. With the
invention of their first tools, they only get a first glimpse of their future strength, its immoderation is
yet unimaginable. Their temporary house is a cave, stolen from a cave bear. Property does not exist
yet. They defend their short life, and the survival of their clan, each day advancing on a new search
to fill their bellies, and they find the flesh of their enemies delicious. They mate on demand,
probably without even knowing that the act leads to procreation. They are still “animals”, but
already men, they still see themselves as carnally integrated into their natural setting. The other
animals are their brothers, and Earth their Mother, they still feel like an integrated part of the natural
family.
This rustic lifestyle evolved with a relatively gentle progress, and Mankind succeeded not only to
feed itself and survive against its predators, but also to increase its population slowly but constantly.
From the first few hundred hominids who were located in the valley of the Great African Rift six to
seven million years ago, the species grew to half a million souls just one hundred thousand years
ago, with the emergence of the Homo Sapiens.
25
Such moderate, demographic growth demonstrates the fragility of the original Paleolithic Man, and
the difficulty of his constant fight with his environment, from which he had not yet separated.
Hence, there was only one Man for every 120 square miles of firm land 100,000 ago. Assuming that
a clan consisted of, on average, thirty souls, there would have been one clan per 3,600 square miles,
or three clans for the whole of Belgium or Massachussets.
The conquest over Nature was, therefore, slow, risky, and painful, with a permanent fight for
survival – and a constant risk that the species could disappear from a given territory. The other
predators didn’t give way easily, and human dominance had not yet really established itself. When
things were turning too tough at some place, they were fast to be on the move and follow some new
or better game.
Nevertheless, nomadic tribes successfully spread out over half of the Earth’s surface, colonizing
Africa, Asia, and Europe, where they finally settled. After a long adaptation to their distinct climates
and ecosystems – isolated from others by distances and slow travel - they evolved into the three
dominant races we know today.
They mastered fire, invented many innovative tools with bones and stones, protected themselves
with skins, and even started – for the most innovative - to melt iron.
As they had to always find more food, every day searching farther, their courage had to increase,
and the complete, aboriginal colonization of Earth accelerated. All human beings were pioneers and
adventurers in the virgin wilderness. With climate changes, such as the last ice age that enabled
Asians to connect with America through the Bering straight, and dominant winds pushing primitive
boats to discover Polynesia, men were discovering new lands and were permanently on the move.
It seems that ten thousand years ago, the whole Earth finally was colonized by this nomadic species
who hunted its game with sophisticated weapons and tactics, who protected itself from the elements
with huts and tents, who buried its dead and painted its body, and who communicated more and
more precisely through sounds and gestures.
Man did not dominate “his” Earth yet, but he was becoming her uncontrollable predator. He was
starting to slightly transform his surroundings, and his favorite prey, hunted so successfully, was
becoming more elusive. Though he was still an animal among animals, he had become their
strongest hunter. He occupied the summit of the animal kingdom, whilst still living among them,
and as one of them.
Immense distances separated these small human groups; people rarely met each other outside of
their own clan. They lived in almost complete autarky.
Their learning of communication techniques was progressing from generation to generation, with
sounds, gestures, and constructions all different from one geographical area to another. Old legends
could now be shared during the long winter evenings, and the constant fear of not understanding the
phenomena surrounding them was stimulating an infinity of supernatural explanations and prereligious shamanic beliefs that would become the foundations of their collective cultures.
However, Man was learning to talk to his close-by relations, and geographically separated tribes
were inventing their own dialects: slowly but surely cultural centers of identity were taking shape.
Inexorably, during these millions of years of evolution, each population was forming an ethnic
specificity and a cultural identity in the great vastness of the Planet.
26
During the course of their evolution, Men differentiated into races and ethnic groups; through both
physical characteristics, and their acquired culture. Mankind, in spreading itself out over the Planet,
and then by existing in isolation due to the immensity of the space, had become increasingly
diverse.
Then, around ten thousand years ago, came the great Neolithic revolution, which projected Man into
our modernity, and accelerated his ascent toward the domination of his surroundings: he invented
agriculture, and domesticated animals.
Leadership of the species was assumed by modern pragmatists, who decided on a way of life that
was radically different from the past: a sedentary life. They made the revolutionary decision to push
aside the model of their ancestors who, still instinctively, were pursuing a free but dangerous life
following their game.
These early settlers quickly understood the benefits to, and the security of, growing their own
harvest, raising their own cattle, and settling under the protection of their own increasingly
comfortable houses, loaded with a full granary, which insured their subsistence for the foreseeable
future.
These first modern men were perfectly identical to us. They had the same capacity to think and to
imagine, in a body looking exactly like ours. Strengthened by this revolution, they built, in only a
few generations, the most flourishing civilizations. A few centuries - after millions of years of slow
evolution – were sufficient to transform their lives in a way it never had been before, through the
learning of the domestication of their setting. In a few generations they managed to cross the
steepest sound wall since the species existed – the domestication of Nature. They innovated, to
transform an issue that could have killed them all – the lack of available food – into their biggest
opportunity. They became the Homo Sapiens Sapiens.
Man was the first and only animal to rise above the others by manipulating other species. He created
hybrid living beings – plants and animals – and industrialized their “production” on his farms. From
this moment on, Man’s conquest of his environment, and the speed at which his population grew,
accelerated exponentially.
This is also when the concept of ownership originated, as a result of agriculture and breeding. The
idea that property must be defended and defendable, fostered the formation of the first civilizations,
which emerged around six thousand years ago, and turned quickly into elaborate structures, that
came from nowhere. Civilizations such as Atlantis, or even more ancient ones, are described by
ancestral legends but cannot be substantiated. For what we factually know, civilization was almost
suddenly born in Egypt or Mesopotamia, four thousand years BC. On the evolutionary timescale of
the species, Man transitioned from nomadic lifestyle to a luxurious palace in a quasi-flash. His
advancement was propelled by technical possibilities and the social specialization that came from a
sedentary lifestyle.
Learning is a continuous process, which also dramatically accelerates at times of decisive
innovation. Men in this area of the Middle East, which links Africa, Asia, and Europe, certainly
benefited from the heritage of an exceptional mix of human knowledge. They likely accumulated
material and social inventions over centuries, until they unleashed the cities and monuments that we
view today as the ground zero of our World History.
In any case, we are certain that in a short period, large cities started to spring up almost like
mushrooms, with structured social systems; kings and armies with professional warriors, specialized
weapons, officers and battle strategies; struggling farmers, fantastically rich landowners and their
27
miserable slaves; genuine religions with gods, priests, temples, sacrifices.
These civilizations were socially almost identical to the ones we live in. They had their politics,
their poor, their rich and famous. There, one started a family, worked hard, dreamed, loved to play.
Many believed in terrifying Gods.
Nothing fundamental has changed in the six thousand years that separate us from these first
“civilized” men. They had also started to distantiate themselves from Nature. There was a big
difference though, for them the World and its potential was still infinite, the saw a flat infinite land
around them, ready for a permanent conquest:
• Communications were limited to those distances that could be travelled by man or animal,
allowing for easier control of an area when it was relatively small. But, this also created a
separation between the known World and the unknown, making the Planet appear infinite,
and leaving the unknown to be contemplated through imagination and mystical legends.
• The quantity of natural resources that men could continue to cultivate or acquire also seemed
infinite. One might pick away at the territory of the next barbarian, but beyond that place,
stretched an unknown mystery.
Thanks to his immense success domesticating Nature, Man flourished quickly, growing his
population to hundreds of millions. Mankind is estimated to have reached half a billion people
already at the birth of Jesus-Christ. This represents an increase in the population by a factor of 5,000
in 100,000 years or a doubling every twenty years. There were twice as many humans to harvest the
Planet’s resources with each new generation …
This amazing number explains the constant pressure on the “model,” the need for conquests or
invasions, and the expansionist internationalization of the strongest civilizations: facing such
extreme internal population growth, incomparable to any other species, slowed down only by war
and disease, the expansion of their empire was, undoubtedly, the only logical solution for political
leaders. War and conquest was the necessary jump into the future.
Consequently, the history of civilization is mirrored closely with the history of war, irremediable,
due to competition for the conquest of resources, always in short supply. The preferred solution for
nourishing more mouths was to increase one’s territory, seizing fertile grounds and slaves to
cultivate it. As a result, one attacked his neighbor, and extended his civilization by concentric
circles. Civilizations grew, feeding on people like a fire feeds on brush to grow.
People were trained on new techniques by watching their neighbors or enemies, and the nucleus of
civilizations subsequently migrated from the inner civilized core to the outer unknown. Mainstream
History proves that point: if one considers the simplified expansion of civilization for the last six
thousand years, a consistent, concentric expansion appears to be the ruling principle, with only a
few exceptions, and can be summarized as follows:
• First, Egypt and Summer-Akkad were no more than twenty days walk from each other 6,000
years ago. One thousand years later, the civilization of Indus emerged – a thirty-day walk
from Summer - constituting altogether the first circle of the original civilization.
• Four thousand years ago, all civilizations were still concentrated in a radius of less than thirty
days of walking, or a short crossing: Egypt, Crete, Hittites, Babylon, Assyrians, and Elam.
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Then, two exceptions to the concentric expansion rule occurred: two new civilizations, that were
much farther away, entered the scene. China blossomed, though it was at a two to three months
camel walk from the Middle East; and on another continent, in South-America, the Olmecs and
Chavin sprung up, though they were located at a distance of more than two months sailing from
Egypt.
A first possible explanation to these apparently isolated and mysterious civilizations is that great
travelers shared their knowledge with people they found along the way. China was the age-old trade
source with the Middle East for the exchange of mutually exotic products. America was the
unexpected destination for sailors lost at sea, drifting in trade winds off the African coast: it is
impossible to eliminate the chance that Egyptian ships, taken by the trade winds behind the Pillars
of Hercules, were passively and unwillingly dragged along the coast of Central America. When
arriving there, treated as Gods (or slaves), they could share their knowledge - that of pyramids, for
example - but were, alas, unable to return to tell of their discovery, lacking the necessary navigation
for the return voyage, or not being allowed – turned too precious - to leave their new friends. This
type of accident may have reproduced itself multiple times throughout Antiquity, perhaps even in
these two directions, and appears statistically and completely probable considering the regularity of
the dominant winds.
The other possible explanation is that an independent and indigenous blossoming of civilization
occurred with a completely separate and isolated population, a series of similar innovations, leading
them to the same revolution. It appears intellectually less satisfactory, but the answer has not yet
been found.
• 2,500 years ago, the Mediterranean basin – Mare Nostrum - developed naturally, almost in its
entirety, and along with the Persian civilization, it became the great central inner core of
civilization, whereas China and the Zapotecs in South America continued to perpetuate their
separated spaces.
•
Other than in Central America, the civilized space was completely consolidated
geographically around year zero, representing a large core that extended in one single block
from the Mediterranean to the China of the Hans, passing by India and the Kushan empire.
•
From year zero to 1,500, this South-Central and East-West Eurasian core never stopped
expanding, Christendom grew and conquered to the North, Islam expanded; India, China,
Indonesia, Japan, Korea, and the Mongols emerged and grew, and the area became the
historical centerpiece of the Planet. South America continued its brilliant but seemingly
independent evolution, until 1492. Definitely such a huge ocean had comforted its
independence until the Conquistadors.
• Christopher Columbus put an end to this concentric expansion, launching the great era of
discoveries and colonization – colonization in the sense of Men being dominated by other
more “civilized” ones – first in America, then on a worldwide scale. An extreme domination
of European civilization over the rest of the world followed – master over slave and
Christian over heretical – from the Great Russia up to Africa, India, China, Americas, and
South-Asia. Civilization expanded – by force - suddenly everywhere.
• Through the growth of colonization, the World of the 19th. century became, for the first
time, globalized and completely known. Colonization was the first step of globalization.
There was no sunset on the empire of Queen Victoria. London was the capital of the World,
with treasures and materials imported from all over being transformed and re-exported.
29
In 1800, there were one billion people in the World. We had doubled since year zero. However, the
rate of growth had greatly decreased since antiquity – doubling in 1800 years instead of a
generation. The catalyst for our species’ progress – the spread of agriculture and the general
improvement of the standard of living - had slowed, due, most likely, to an evening out between
human population and the resources available. Farming yields were still directly proportional to the
surface being cultivated, with little technical progress since Neolithic times.
Moreover, the first eighteen centuries had seen an impressive destruction of Men, by Men: the
devastation brought by the invasions of the Roman empire, the constant wars in medieval Europe
and Asia, the almost complete elimination of native Americans (who were as many as Europeans in
their totality at the time of Columbus), and the significant draw from African slavery took a huge
and permanent toll on Mankind – adjusting headcount to resources quite efficiently. Also, science
and techniques in agriculture and medicine evolved very little during this period, generating static
use and transformation of resources, and, therefore, calibrating the capacity of the farmed land to
only provide for a proportional quantity of people.
Then, over a long period, decolonization took place, starting with the liberation of the United States
in the 18th. century, and finishing with Africa at the end of the 20th. century. From the American
constitution - the first of the Modern World - to Mahatma Gandhi, and finally to Nelson Mandela,
the established model was turned upside down. Forced civilization to the periphery was taking its
own political destiny over, having learnt through “technology transfer” from its former masters.
A system of political and economic domination was replaced by one of economic only domination.
Politically all countries had won freedom from their Western masters through decolonization. Some
even drew an obvious economical benefit from it - as of course the USA, Canada, Australia, India,
and later South Africa. Others – the majority – however, could not draw progress from it, and
underwent instead a recession and a political insulation, like most of Africa and many states turned
rogue by lack of true logical political alternative.
The bonds between the colonizers and their ex-colonies endured, and passed from political
domination to a privileged economic relationship, while maintaining relents of pre-dominance. A
new balance was set up, not always equal or right, but more stable and legitimate.
Considerable progress was made in medicine. Where colonization had before replaced ancient
economic systems, the modernization and destabilization of antiquated societies now allowed the
new political order to establish a strong increase in food production in the USA, Canada, Russia,
Asia, and to a lesser extent in Africa.
International exchange exploded, the ex-colonizers bought the resources of ex-colonized which they
had contributed to develop. The model continued to allow for the economic predominance of a
Western minority over the rest of the World.
At this point in time, Europe, at the peak of its success, economically dominating most of the Planet,
did something quite amazing. Europeans ruled the World, but were divided among themselves by
their nation-states. More forcefully than ever before in their turbulent History, due to powerful new
“industrial” military technologies, they went for radical self-destruction, through two fratricidal
wars, and because of their international zones of influence, the rest of the World was pulled in,
resulting in the first World Wars.
Europe has not recovered to this day, and probably never will, from this quasi-suicide, both in terms
30
of demography, balance of power with the rest of the World, and ultimately guilt complex. Europe
passed the torch of economic predominance to the USA, in bipolar opposition to the USSR, which
emerged at the end of the WWII through its military success and in acquiring the extensive EastGerman and Central European capabilities.
In 1960, the World population was three and a half billion, more than three times the population of
1800. Demographic growth had strongly re-accelerated in the new model of post-colonial economic
globalization, despite the European humanitarian collapse.
Today, fifty years later, our population has already reached seven billion, representing a doubling of
our population in only two generations - we have almost reached the same speed of expansion as
was seen during Neolithic times, but on an incomparably larger scale. Of course, the developing
countries are those with the highest birthrate, whereas the rich countries are aging and seeing a
decrease in population.
Since my birth, in a half of a lifetime, our number on Earth has doubled, whereas it took eighteen
centuries - between year zero and 1800 - for the same proportional increase to occur. Though this
figure is already vertiginous, it is generally recognized that there will be approximately ten billion
people by the middle of this century, the statistically expected time of my death.
In one lifetime, therefore, I will see the human population triple.
Much more important than the estimated demographic growth, is the expansion in the amount of
resources and energy that this number of inhabitants will consume.
Let us assume that the rich countries of today maintain only their current standard of living until
2050, with no relative economic growth (which is pretty much the anticipated scenario for Europe):
they will continue to consume and emit about as much CO2 as today, with a weak – maybe slightly
negative – population growth. Let us now make the logical hypothesis, on the other hand, that the
emerging and poor countries grow richer at a double digit annual rate - around ten percent per
annum - which has been the average rate observed for the last two decades for China and its
followers (Africa was slightly slower at around five percent and is now catching up), and their
population will increase by three additional billion.
With these reasonable assumptions, developing countries will be consuming between twenty and
one hundred times more resources at the time of my death than today. Mathematically, a 10%
increase in wealth per annum over forty years, increases the potential of consumption by a factor of
forty-five, with the poorest countries using the most polluting and least expensive goods.
All in all, we are probably leaning toward a ten-fold increase in our overall demand for energy and
resources between now and 2050, assuming that we maintain the current, long-term economic
global outlook. We will continue to see an increase in the requirements for cars, oil, gas, decent
residences, drinking water, food and in particular meat, electricity, breathable air, and, as a
consequence, an equal reduction of our forests, open and natural spaces, fish, and wild animals.
End to end, and without putting the brakes on any of the above trends, the resulting demand will
represent such an extraordinary challenge for our environment that it presents the obvious potential
for plunging our Planet Earth into a state of serious disorder, which I call the Great Wall …
Let us imagine that our ecosystem could resist this disaster for the duration of our lives, which of
course we would hope for: then we have the option of a political approach that we call “IBGYBG”
(I'll be gone, you'll be gone). If we will no longer be here to see it, what good is it to worry ?
But what will happen to our children, and their children ? And in a century, a thousand years, a
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hundred thousand years - whose responsibility is it but our own ?
Our civilization has become irreversibly global. It is impossible for any head of state, democratic or
totalitarian, to make decisions that benefit solely his country, without also, directly or indirectly,
impacting all the others. Those who try to forget this fact do so in spite of logic, and to the detriment
of their people, and all people.
Country-based political leadership obstructs global solutions. It is almost impossible to be
responsible for the best outcome of a country, while at the same time trying to ensure the best global
outcome. Countries end up behaving collectively irresponsibility, because the addition of local
agendas cannot make for a cohesive global one. The total independence and freedom of countries
imply the anarchy of the countries, when taking a planetary perspective. Even assuming that each
country would have the most virtous nationalistic agenda, it wouldn’t make for a great global one,
and it doesn’t today.
The fundamental problem is structural: there is no local solution to a global problem. Our forest is
planet Earth. Of which our nations are only single trees. At the dawn of this era of planetary
challenge, the solution for each country, and for Humanity, must follow a vision of a World that,
from now on, is inter-connected and interdependent. Global and local have become our Yin and
Yang.
We are all sitting on the same large anonymous blue aircraft - which is, in reality, a small Planet on
the fringes of the Milky Way, in an innermost recess of the Universe. This plane is
compartmentalized in as many classes as we have countries, and all men are its passengers. It is not,
however, managed or maintained by any airline company, and oddly enough, it does not have a pilot
at all. The cockpit is very much like a large conference room where hundreds of national
representatives listen to conferences using simultaneous translations, with the valuable objective of
maintaining a dialogue among themselves, but without ever making a common decision on the
guidance of the plane. Secretly, they all are already informed by their respective national scientific
control towers that our common plane is running up against a large, dangerous and never before
seen cloud (the Great Wall). Are they, consequently, in the process of deciding on a change in
engine speed or direction so that the plane succeeds in jumping above the cloud, while passing the
sound wall ? Or, are they individually thinking about how they will successfully evacuate their own
national passengers, so that their own people at least can avoid the general catastrophe, while
blaming the announced disaster on the others ? You can make your own guess …
We have entered the information society. The Internet connects almost everyone - and we should
wish with fervor that soon every Man will have access, to the Information World, which it should,
unless it is a question of censorship in totalitarian states.
The physical means of communication - image and voice – have developed in a way that was
unimaginable even a few decades ago.
Borders are becoming permeable, and thus migrations - or non-violent invasions - are a
phenomenon of an unequalled scale, comparable in volume with those of the greatest invasions of
our History. The difference is that they are, to date, relatively peaceful, with or without identity
documents. In the short run, they are disruptive because they have expanded too quickly to allow for
immediate integration. However, in the long run, they have the potential to redefine Mankind,
moving us toward an interbred majority, a reunification of races and ethnicities – as we were at our
origin.
Science and innovation reinvent each facet of our lives, their immediate applications on consumer or
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industrial products and services generate new offers, create new needs, and stimulate a new,
additional wave of demand for their consumption. Humans need to consume more to feel secure,
satisfied, and happy. It is necessary to accumulate at least as much as their neighbor. A bipolar life
has developed for the city dwellers between work, and the consumption of its product. A principal
civilized leisure activity has become “shopping”. Cities have, consequently, organized themselves
and spread out into working areas, living areas, shopping areas, all linked by an overlay of
transportation routes with streets, roads and highways, and public transportation of all sorts.
Our reference points have reached a planetary scale: products and their brands, multinational firms
and their names, films and actors, Google search, Facebook, Twitter, CNN and their immediate
worldwide dissemination; we all eat pizzas, drink tea, coffee or Coke, and wear jeans. Most of these
symbols, once local now turned global, have become recognizable throughout the World.
In spite of the historical weight of our identities, we have homogenized ourselves, in many fields we
have already started to become a Homo Sapiens Universalis.
But, in spite of the extraordinary universal convergence of our evolution, we continue to govern
ourselves as if each of our countries had its own local garden, with its own atmosphere, independent
of the other, as if each passenger in the plane had his own cockpit.
Distances and time have become minuscule in our World Village, but the weight of our past prides
and wounds, has not really disappeared. We are unified in our imitation of each other and our ways
of life, our leisure activities, our tastes, our work, our readings, our education on the state of the
World. However, while carried by the current of this universal ocean, we continue to be attached to
our particular historic past by the anchor of our identity, by our belonging to an old linguistic,
religious, and national group.
Many of us often feel torn between this universal modernity and our roots, and we still tend to return
to our comfortable national or local roots as soon as we feel they are endangered by the dominance
of a generic modernity.
Globalization assembles us, it does not make us certified copies. It places us where we genuinely
are anyway: in a single ecosystem, of which each one of us is an integral part. We are all the
children of Earth; our atoms belong to her, and will sooner or later return to her. A cloud coming
from Chernobyl or from Iceland contaminates all on its passage, according to where the wind and
the currents push it, same as an epidemic of AIDS, Influenza A, or malaria.
Ancient civilizations, our History, our borders, our geographical fractures, our beliefs: they all are
still here, they exist and cohabitate, they are the fruit of the accumulated cultures of the people
before us, who have grown and developed in their geographically separated clusters, and though we
unify, they will remain the property of our cultural inheritance.
Identities should not be hidden or masked so we can move toward the globalization of Humanity,
but, on the contrary, they should be inserted into its integration process, a part of its components, its
elementary building blocks, the bricks of the large tower of Mankind.
Instead of waging war on globalization by cultivating our differences, and pitting those differences
against the inescapable universalization of our planetary civilization; and instead of denying the
ecological Wall that faces us by letting each nation regulate its independent path: we must quickly
arrive at a place where a majority of the people build a forum, aligning themselves around a
common point of view, establishing a course of action for the state of the World.
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Only a lucid universal public opinion, committed to the pooling of all the tools that we can leverage
at the global level, can converge to achieve the imminent solution needed to rescue (and beyond)
our universal civilization. However dramatic, it has to be realistic, reasonable, and sufficient: the
security and future of the species, and of our Planet - in its capacity to continue to be the Mother of
our life - depends on it.
What an amazing History. From the first tiny hominids, spreading everywhere from a single place
in Africa, settling with agriculture, slowly diversifying as separate people and cultures, dominating
everything else on Earth, becoming their own sole enemy endlessly fighting with each other across
borders, and finally reaching the point where the Earth if full with billions of them, linked by
instant communications and a globalized economy, competing for resources now becoming
unsufficient for all of them to keep growing, unless they finally take a break, sit down as a universal
team, and decide what do do next, in oder to optimize their common space and continue to develop
in harmony for a very long time.
Are we now reaching the end of History the way we have known it ? History has matched the
Neolithic era. We are now preparing for a jump into a new dimension, as we did with the Neolithic
revolution.
During prehistoric times, humans were on the move, border-less, all one people hunting and
gathering. They belonged to Earth as a whole, inserted into to Nature, and survived with difficulty,
following their prey for another meal, to win another day.
With the Neolothic revolution, the Homo Sapiens Sapiens learned to domesticate Nature, and
stopped starving. He suddenly became the winner of the animal realm. He settled down in one place,
he invented borders, languages, religions, identities, diversity and wars, which led to the countriesmodel, and to his organization of the methodical exploitation of the resources of Earth.
With the Global revolution, the Homo Sapiens Universalis is learning to become a global citizen,
and the limits of his unlimited harvesting of the resources of Nature. He lives in one or many places,
and travels around the Earth, for his job, for his education, for pleasure. He develops a common
knowledge and a shared information base. He is belonging to a diverse global tribe of ten billion
people, who live in a global village that is dramatically shrinking every day. Since he understands
that he has saturated his Planet, he wants to invent a new sustainable society, try new things,
globally, to learn how leverage most efficienctly with what is left available.
If pre-history was the World before the civilisations, History the time of the countries and wars, we
may be turning the page of post-history – and enter in a borderless World again, ruled by a new
paradigm. We are turning global, as already has our culture, education, economy, but not yet our
political model. It is just the beginning of a great transition, the wall is just is ahead of us, and we
must figure out how we are going to jump … or fly over it at the speed of sound.
Earth our Country.
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35
Five centuries ago, the dreamer Christopher Columbus, followed by the greedy Fernando Cortes,
initiated the first era of globalization: after them, our World shrunk. Columbus’s discoveries
allowed us to connect all the missing pieces of the globe, and proved the truly finite and circular
identity of our immediate universe: Earth.
Mankind, now aware of the vast space available, was compelled, and increasingly obsessed, with
conquering it. The King of Spain first, and behind him all the great European powers, were together
engulfed in the chapter of colonization, and then in the next one: the industrial revolution.
Over the course of four centuries, Europe had a fabulous run at making the World its global empire
– politically and then economically. And thus, at the dawn of the 20th. century, the European
civilization, at the height of its dominance, was swamped by the bipolar ideal and dilemma of an
always conquering future: with the prevailing ultra-liberal capitalism on one side, and universal
socialism pushed by the popular intellectual opposition on the other, both looking for the global
domination of their opposing visions.
The great empires were heedless of their impact over the resources they raked up and transformed
during their expansion – including the natives, which they viewed as a simple labor resource.
Technology was in full bloom. The discovery of combustible fossil energy soon allowed for
complementing human labor with engines, and moved development into an era of great innovation
for Humanity: fast transport, cheap textiles, steel mass production, sophisticated industrial
machines, electricity, revolutionary medicine, chemical agriculture, tap water, and central heating,
to name a few – opening the capacity of production needed for mass consumerism.
The economy became international and imperial with London controlling half of the World, but also
with hubs like Paris, Madrid, Berlin, and New York. The fruitful global and imperialist mercantile
trade in the colonial World, allowed for a while to diffuse a lot of the conflicts of interest between
the European nations, projecting the battlefield in remote areas of Africa, Asia or the Americas, and
less on the mainland Europe.
Then, in 1914 in Sarajevo, a terrorist attack of secondary importance reminded all of imperial
Europe of its internal demons: nations and identities. A war of unseen proportions spread in a few
weeks like wildfire due to the intra-European and intercontinental alliances. Suddenly and without a
worthwhile reason, almost the entire World plunged from the euphoria of universal scientific
progress, to the deepest horror of the first mechanized World War. From Europe to Africa, Asia to
America, the World saw an immense butchery, killing tens of millions of Men and destabilizing the
European population pyramid, as well as ruining its industry and the flourishing World trade.
The First World War was the first global political and military development, and it opened the
second chapter of globalization (colonialism being the first one). The internationalization of our
national destinies put one of the worst human disasters on a global scale. One wanted to believe that
this horror would force the World to finally unite politically after the War, given so many miseries.
On the contrary, the instability created between the winners and losers seeded the case for the next
conflict, and the economic crisis, which started in the USA in 1929, ultimately re-ignited the fire for
the Second World War.
The war of 1914, for the first time, truly globalized a conflict. Destabilizing Russia, it enabled the
birth of the USSR, which tried to implement in real life a model that had so far only been an utopian
philosopher’s dream: Communism.
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International socialism finally became a grand-scale reality, and bifurcated the nations of the World
in two archrival clans. The World became bipolar. Communism spread throughout half of the World
to China, Latin America and elsewhere, creating a second pole that challenged the historical
Western colonial empires, themselves often internally shaken by a strong socialist movement.
The economic crisis of 1929, itself a consequence of American post-war economic overheating,
destabilized the World economies that were still weakened by the war, and shook their newly
established fragile stability. It increased unemployment levels in Europe that had still not recovered
since WW1, and threw the shaken democracies into a gigantic storm, tearing them apart between
National-Socialism - in Germany, Italy, and Spain - and Socialism – the Front-Populaire in France.
The war of 1945 was an all-out war. It was the losers’ great revenge for 1914 and for the perceived
injustice of the armistice - a hazardous geopolitical cut. They were compelled by their desire to
reclaim their lost territories and pride. But also, the political implications of the game of
international alliances pushed each country of the World to take a position in this conflict, and to
join in the fighting. This infinitely barbaric war, full of extreme devastation, occurred in the middle
of the 20th. century - a time otherwise illuminated by scientific innovation and progress. It generated
disastrous episodes like the inconceivable genocide of the Shoah, the horrors of the war in China,
and finally the bombs of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It demonstrated to Humanity that under duress,
all of Man’s evolution had not eliminated his ugliest predatory animal instincts. It happened only
sixty years ago at a grand scale, and it continues to happen every day, at a smaller scale (for instance
in Syria) – it can happen anywhere and even everywhere, again, tomorrow.
The Second World War finished at Yalta, leaving behind a bipolarized and ruined World. It was
full of new imperial lines, immured between the zones of influence of the two large winners, each
one exalted as high priest of conquering and incompatible societies: British-American liberal
capitalism and Soviet Communism, both powered by the atomic bomb – the engine of the Cold
War.
Because of the real threat of total destruction of the species with the simple press of a button, the
balance of terror during the Cold War ensured sixty years of World peace (despite permanent
peripheral conflicts), and solidified the bipolarized World. Each pole was the survivor of one of the
two modern Western political ideals: the liberal model, or the communist model.
The economically dominant Americans brilliantly controlled Liberalism. The war had provided
them with an economic boost and had saved their infrastructure while destroying others – including
the ones falling under the new Russian ruling. Americans rebuilt the economies of their allies in
Western Europe, Japan, and Korea, with superb success thanks to the visionary Marshall Plan. They
financed their ruined allies who later became their avid customers, and who, in return, emulated
their new economic master by reaching record growth in the thirty years following the conflict.
Soviet Communism, on the other hand, locked itself into complete Totalitarianism, destroying its
original dream. It developed an imperialistic, militaristic, and increasingly unpopular one-party
system, which finally imploded under failing infrastructures, a pathetic economy, and a poor
standard of living, all in immense contrast to the West. In trying to reform a rusted and corrupted
system, Gorbachev - who did not become glorious or popular for it at home - reached a pragmatic
and peaceful exit to the internal obstruction of the apparatus of the Party. The peaceful opening of
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the Iron Curtain in 1989 tolled the bell of the socialistic society, and, consequently, opened almost
the entire World to the market economy and free trade, after the seventy-year interlude of
Communism.
For the last twenty plus years, we have thus entered a new third phase of globalization: the World
has become seemingly uni-polar. The United States of America has brilliantly taken the role of
“winner” through influence rather than the need for military victory. Thanks to their model of
democracy, their federal constitution, their non-exclusive, multi-racial nationalism, their multinational corporations that spread the American Dream, their contagious liberalism, Hollywood, Bill
Gates, Steve Jobs and Walt Disney, the US has taken the virtual seat as planetary tour guide.
For the first time in History, one nation truly became the clock-keeper and role model for most of
the rest of the World. Its final supremacy over the USSR has converted the hesitant and even
recalcitrant to its economic model: the fall of the USSR killed the alternative collectivist model, but
its weaknesses were disconcerting even before its fall. One only had to cross the Iron Curtain as I
could in the eighties, to anticipate the evidence of an imminent collapse. The contrast between the
two Worlds could be seen vividly at “Checkpoint Charlie” in Berlin – crossing it was a mindblowing experience (I have never managed to cross the border between South and North Korea, it
may still provide a similar shock).
America’s force of influence grew so formidable in the eighties or nineties, it became the rule that
there could not be tangible progress outside of the free market. Thus, in an extraordinary way, even
the number two loser in the political model - China - learned from the winner, and metamorphosed
itself into a champion of the liberal economy, with the success seen by all. Following the trend, the
hesitant ones, from Brazil to India and even Russia (with its own way though), turned to full
Capitalism.
The World became the large open market it is today, and everyone started to consume as much as he
or she could afford. The standard of living of most people progressed like never before: those were
magic decades for the World economy, which proved that in a World with no - perceived – limits of
resources, the liberal model could enable the progress of an open World, better than any other.
Clearly no economic model worked better ever to boost and share wealth – the panacea of an
economist - again with the caveat of the perception of unlimited resources.
The limit of the model came with the ransom of its success: it consumes the resources and energies
of the Planet at an exponential pace. The model is supposed to maximize a single outcome – growth
in profits – but is not optimized to protect the resources that it consumes, as part of an altruistic and
long-term design – a higher level constraint for the society as a whole. As I will explain later, I
believe that this constraint can be embedded in the model while protecting its well understood
benefits, but it is no secret that so far any such constraint has been avoided or minimized.
If the now disciples of the USA-like model continue – as they should in all fairness – to be given
enough chance to ultimately catch up fully with the per capita GDP of their American master in
game, without a global regulation on resources management, then Mankind will generate such an
increase in stress on its fragile setting that the model of universal free trade will most likely be
unable to survive any longer. Countries will protect each other, to put a hand on the rarefying
resources, while they will fight the economic growth of countries which challenge their own
ecologic balance. And, most likely in anticipation, a crisis will unfold before most of the World
reaches economic Nirvana.
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Americans have taught the World how to globalize their economy as part of a cohesive model imitating the US one. In doing so, they helped themselves to establish their own predominance.
However, they apparently missed the full consequences of their success: what are the ecologic
implications – including on America itself - of having the World reach the economic level of
America ? Maybe our US rulers had discounted upfront such a scenario as unrealistic – or they
didn’t plan for the long-term outcome.
And yet, many contenders are on their way to reaching that point, the success of the lesson is
superb: following Europe is Asia, Latin America, and, on a more distant horizon, Africa. Yes, even
Africa, last but not least, is now taking a path towards sustained economic growth – if I am not
mistaken, they may have become lately the fastest growing part of the World.
Remember: if tomorrow, each human being reaches the consumption level reached in America
today, if each consumer from the less-developed World reaches the standard of living of the average
American consumer; then half of Humanity will explode its pollution footprint on the Planet. Thus,
it does not appear very likely that the World economic upturn of the last decades can be prolonged
indefinitely without a major upheaval in the environment and its resources. The Western model
cannot scale up to the whole World – unless in the meantime the model accepts a substantial
resource protection constraint - globally.
The second Iraq War, after the election of a neoconservative American leader and the 911 Twin
Towers massacre, led the US to crusade against a so-called “Axis of Evil”. This “war against
terror” – from the US to the Middle-East - introduced a new – fourth – phase in the History of
globalization. Suddenly against most odds, the virtual (American) universal tour guide and cop –
finally respected by almost every country on Earth - was perceived as loosing itself, or getting
exhausted (given the toughness of such a “crusade”), or both, while at the peak of its glory and
generic global influence. In short measure, America lost the respect and, therefore, its immense
silent influence. It showed the World its leadership limitations – both in its ethics (why Irak ?) and
military capacity (could not win the Peace). The tide started to turn away from America’s virtual
dominance, as if its global empire had become too large for its influence to continue, and already
some vassals such as China wanted to show their alternative way – eventually starting to build
another bipolar model.
Therefore when – on top of this unsettling political and military dimension - the American-led
financial crisis blew up in September 2008, its impact was felt immediately around the World. It
fcame out like an additional straw of destabilization for the indisputability of American global
leadership: weaken militarily, the great power now appeared to overheat, hesitate, and its hegemony
was shaken. Something had to happen – or not - to replace America’s global role, or to reset
America’s recent leadership style, or even both. It is in such circumstances that a new President –
evidently with the opposite style - arrived to lead the US (one who was also “virtually” elected in
the polls of the rest of the World, as the savior of the free World after the pain of the former era).
President Obama claimed he wanted his country to remain the leader through the other countries,
rather than against them – and he rose huge universal hopes. However the part was already
somewhat played out: the USA was already past the point of being the sole master of the World. In
fact, considering the weakening, both economically and politically, of America, a leadership-free
Europe, and a totalitarian China, the World was starting to be in search of a new order, because any
vacuum of power, typically calls for a new power scheme.
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History will tell that Obama made progress in repositioning the USA in its role as global guide and
pilot, but he well knew that he wouldn’t succeed alone any longer – and he became paranoid about
not starting any new war (aka Libya, and the hesitations on Syria). The time of full US hegemony
had passed. While he still could federate (and nobody else could), he could not impose, especially
after a predecessor who demanded so much without ever succeeding. In my view, he was the first
in the role of US president since Reagan for whom a totally new phase had opened up. The number
one super power had lost its absolute and totally undisputed hegemony, in part for having naively
misused it, and, as a result, the World before us became of greater uncertainty.
Before we expand on the negative aspect of the new risks before us, we must recognize the
enormously positive economic progress and increase in wellbeing for most of Humanity that this
last half-century has allowed.
We should acknowledge the longest global Peace since the globalization of the World: it has been
seventy years since the last global slaughter. There have been many conflicts, some terrible, but all
localized. Global Peace, including the Cold War, has managed to last, so far , for almost seventy
years.
Of course local and secondary conflicts constantly emerge on the borders of the tectonic plates of
civilizations – particularly those of a religious-centric nature, around the Arab-Israeli conflict, as
well as the interlinked clashes between Islam and the Occident (911 - Al-Qaida - Iraq – Taliban).
But, since Hiroshima, this code of conduct - “bad peace better than good war” - remains a wise bet.
The Cold war, then the economic war, is preferred over the never experienced risk of a true all-out
atomic war.
The global economic revolution, which has reaped the benefits of this wise Peace, has turned the
Planet into a “peaceful” and growingly wealthy World Village. Of course, the borders, political
regimes, and historical spaces of identity and civilization are still there. But overall, the World has
become more peaceful and integrated, more like the image of a multinational company that
produces in certain places, sells in others, and develops a widening elite of citizens of the World.
We are living in an extremely interesting situation, evolving at a fast pace; at a crossroads of
globalization while suffering from a weakened global (US) leadership, with the West weakening so
fast, and the East boiling in its fast paced emergence. A reaction of the identities against such an
unstable globalization is therefore to be feared – economic globalization is at risk of moving
backwards.
The USA, Europe, and Japan (with developing countries following suit) have been for the last halfcentury the primary consumers in the planetary field of free trade, for which development and
production were done in China (and India), and from which the raw materials came from Africa
(ores) and the Middle-East and Russia (oil and gas). All, except some anachronistic rogue states,
(several of them blew-up with the Arab Spring) have aligned with this model, which embeds the
shared and understood interests of the majority. There isn’t much choice given the lack of any
systemic holistic alternative after the collapse of the Communist model.
The economic upturn of the last twenty years (softened since 2008), while politically beneficial to
liberal democracies since the fall of the Iron Curtain, has also allowed the sudden and amazing
molting of the ex-Communist totalitarian states, turning them into hybrid systems, politically
totalitarian but economically liberal – or, at least, of liberal appearance. China has been the most
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fascinating example of this “planned” liberal change: it used the freedom of other countries’ markets
to develop its own in a classically controlled and autocratic way. Is it the emergence of a new model
of liberal Totalitarianism, or the swan’s song of Totalitarianism (the poison pill that will kill it) ? It
is still too early to judge - but the question is of extreme importance for the developments to come,
and there is no definite answer to be given just yet. The success of China is great, but the fact that a
totalitarian regime, ignoring human rights, can succeed so well, with the free World’s support, is
troubling. It could give the message to all other dictatorships or fragile democracies that there is a
liberal totalitarian way that is worth pursuing. Therefore, I am building the case later on for a
forceful democratic alliance, to make sure that human rights and Democracy re-win their seat, ahead
or in parallel to short-term economic greed.
The economic imbalance of the World has ensured an extremely fast transfer of wealth from the rich
consuming countries to the formerly poor supplying countries. In twenty years, China has become
the principal creditor of the United States. Insidiously, rich democratic countries, by agreeing to
trade freely with totalitarian states, have reinforced their non-democratic political model, at least up
until now. Nobody can predict how the Chinese model will evolve: will the political system explode
under pressure from the nouveau riche who enjoy an increased standard of living and aspire for
Freedom, as anticipated by American policy makers ? Or, will Totalitarianism endure, thanks to its
newly acquired dominant economic credibility, which would allow it to shake-up the short-term
goals of indebted democracies, that are already suffering from double-digit unemployment ?
In this battle of the titans, between the first third (the West) and the second third that is emerging
(BRIC – Brazil, Russia, India and China – and beyond), there is still another third that has not yet
had its economic emergence. The countries in this latter camp remain in the background, watching
the game of dominance of the first two camps, unsure how to play. Africa, in spite of its recent
progress, still trails behind, although now really starting to take off. A majority of the World has
achieved definite progress, but yet the last third has only started to emerge.
Still, the World of total free trade (with or without political freedom) and globalized interdependent
chains of production and consumption, have allowed an economic progress never seen before by the
majority of Humanity. However, it brings along its own worst enemy: non-sustainability. This
system stimulates an overall acceleration of consumption and burns more resources than ever
before. Moreover, as we saw earlier, if linear expansion continues, with the poor catching up to
the rich and the “American Way of Life” spreading globally, there will be at least a ten-fold increase
in our ecological impact over the next half century.
Our free market World has resulted in shared progress and improved living standards as well as into
immense imbalances, and has only been maintained through the stabilizing action of a global
watchdog, one that has been strong enough both economically and politically to try to control its
worst excesses: the USA.
We are somewhat chaotically entering the post 2008 crisis phase – now five years later, in which the
Western World - with the USA in the lead - needs economic growth to rebuild its financial balance,
to recover its employment, and to pay its record debts; whereas the emergent countries wish to
continue their unrestrained catch-up, all trying to repeat the economic performance they achieved
before the crisis. Unfortunately, the blessed period that led to this crisis cannot possibly happen
again. We have gained so much, but can lose as well.
The scarcity of our resources and the implications of climatic risks are combining to create a new
41
tri-polarization of the World between:
• The former rich countries playing defense - wanting at least to preserve their assets,
• The new emerging countries playing attack - whose objective is to join and even surpass the
first group,
• And those still left behind, the emerging countries of the future (ex-Third World) – often
isolated due to religious or ethnic identity extremism. This situation is exacerbated by the
never-ending Israeli-Palestinian conflict, in which, in the minds of Muslims, the Western
economic winners give favor to Israel.
The conflicted ambitions of these three poles could steer some violent winds carrying a Worldconsuming conflagration at the slightest ignition. The fire is at the corner of the woods, and a
relatively weakened America needs a more universal approach to be prepared to extinguish it. The
last decades have offered a great lesson: policies have remained local, whereas the free market
economy, which has established itself as the grand conductor of the World, has completely
globalized, and culture and communications – boosted by the Internet - have converged toward a
freer and more multicultural World. America, which was the original core engine of the system, has
gradually lost steam - and part of its relative power. However, the US remains indispensable – at
least until China and the other large emerging powers reconfigure complementary or alternative
poles of leadership. This may never be accomplished, since other than Brazil and India, these
emerging countries are not founded on a comparable integrative multicultural mould, that is based
on human rights and a universalist inclination.
The United States has to date been the only non-imperialistic (in the rigorous sense) catalyst of
globalization, as the UK was really a pure colonialist empire, last century. Though it has limitations,
the US allows us to foresee the possibility of an enlightened World leadership. While imperfect,
their leadership fills a need, and in their absence, a great power vacuum would exist. Without a
true political voice for Europe, the US alone has guided us in the World, and helped us sail through
our phases of development, over the last few decades.
Now in the second term of its current President, America continues to recover the morale respect of
the World and reaffirm – differently - a role of defining influence (if not one of clear economic or
military leadership). A path towards a less dominant, but more influential and respected US is
opening up, making possible a more cohesive approach to international governance. What was
impossible to achieve with one dominant (US) or two opposed leaders (US and USSR), becomes
more realistic with the softer touch of an influencer, providing a banner of global continuity and
consistency, and eventually playing the stepping stone toward a new universal model.
It is of my opinion that a relatively weakened and non-gregarious US can win even more respect if
behaving wisely and with some sense of integration of common interests, as it is quite evident that
nobody can compete as an alternative – even China – and “somebody” has got to play the clockkeeper one way or another. I am building the case that it is in the general interest of the nations to
see the re-aligned United States build a political relay between the nations. And if we look at it
under such an angle, it is more comforting to read the policies of the Obama administration as of
late: no direct troops in Libya but supporting the Brits and French, no intervention in Syria – so far –
accepting the veto or Russia and China (but all seeing the madness resulting from that), playing it
firm (sanctions) but not confrontational with North-Korea and Iran. A softer handed US influence
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helps defend with determination the proven benefits of free trade, acquired over the last half
century, continue the promotion of human rights, and fuels the emergence of all technology IT and
communication tools and vehicles that start to provide the invisible foundation of the emerging
World village.
I can see a case for a new global political system, which would be the global mirror of the model of
the US federation – way beyond fifty states ... I could see the US somewhat using its influence – not
force - to act as an active founding member of the federation of The United Democratic States of the
World. President Obama, after his two terms, will hold in his hands an historic chance for
Humanity, that the Nobel Prize perhaps unconsciously foreshadowed.
His first term has been a disappointment to many, including myself given how great my initial hope
was, and how easy I thought it would be to look great after the economic and military debacle that
preceded him. Will he rise higher against expectations in the latter part of his second term ? I think
that he can, as the US economy starts to take off, and as he minimizes the risk for any military
adventure abroad. Also, he will not need to seek re-election again, so he will be more logical. At
this point, could he raise to a new challenge, above and beyond America – make himself the catalyst
of a new global order ?
But let’s take a step back. Some first signs of a remaking of our World order are starting to take
shape. For example there has been the expansion of the G5 to the G7, and to the G20. The choice
was made though to select candidate countries according to their economic size and not through the
political legitimacy of their regimes (by not limiting this group to only democratic states, I fear that
the union is weakened, as it gave de facto recognition to illegitimate regimes). However, the G20
marked a first logical step by recognizing emergent countries within the leadership of nations.
Consequently, 85% of the World’s GDP is now integrated into the mainstream international
decision-making process (if one exists). It enables more weight to any alignment reached by the
group (which remain rare), and opens the way for these nations to have a forum to debate the
general interest, as opposed to force exclusively local decisions. Once again, the USA acts as the defacto leader of the G20 (even if he cannot impose his views any longer). In practical terms, the
tangible successes of this new forum still remain limited. It endeavors to facilitate communication
between principal actors who must work within the imperfect coordination of economic trends. For
example, recent exchange rate fluctuations have been dramatically destabilizing; for a while
benefitting the US and mostly China, while asphyxiating Japan and Europe, they have recently
bounced back with a destabilization of the Euro. All in all, the G20 cannot mask the growing
instability of the overall system. The imbalances of liquidities and debts oscillate even more in
these fluctuations and are further amplified by the pressure of speculation.
The pace of economic change has accelerated; what took centuries, now takes decades. This
acceleration further highlights the urgency for increased global coordination in order to carry out a
renovation of our precarious World system of governance. The most recent wave of the economic
crisis that started in 2008, with successive waves since, is testimony to the failure of international
organizations to control the World economic clock in a preventive manner. A crisis with such wide
reaching implications would have been unthinkable if a real system for correcting World imbalances
had existed and had been exerted on the states who had almost total freedom of monetary and tax
matters. As we noticed previously, there are global influences with local interests, but no decisive
leadership for the World, thus there is really no pilot at all in our aircraft.
Should we take this “state of the disunion” for granted - as it has always been that way – or can we
build a better way forward ?
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Now that the Internet enables individual voices to raise freely all over the World, don’t we have for
the first time ever a forum for an global public opinion to shape itself, to emerge, to guide
politicians towards a new way of thinking – globally ?
I am fundamentally convinced that only a great universal leadership, carried by the support of
millions then billions around the World, can take on the challenge that we face – the challenge for
our species. The local or regional obstacles to the installation of necessary political governance are
profoundly retrenched by the individual policies of the states. This is where we reach the limitations
of our World economic village: it lacks a political equivalent to its now global economy, so that
they both temper each other.
For example, though the World Bank does the important task of monitoring and giving financial
support to the most fragile nations, its stabilizing role for the overall economy is at best limited. The
United Nations, on the other hand, remains the only true platform where everyone can communicate
but suffers from a myriad of bureaucratic problems – as it is only a bureaucracy, by design, with no
delegation of power from the states, with no leader elected by popular intent. Moreover, the World
Trade Organization exhausts itself with symbolic cases of commercial anti-discrimination - between
the USA and the EU for Airbus against Boeing, between the USA and China for the opening of the
cultural products, or between Japan with the EU against the USA for their methods of imports
limitations: few concrete results have materialized at the end of infinitely slow procedures. The
International Monetary Fund has been pigeonholed, until recently, as lender of funds to countries in
crisis. It has not had leverage over countries that were not its creditor, and has seemed unable to
address the problem of commercial imbalance, exacerbated by the artificial rate of exchange,
between the US and Asian countries (which falls to the IMF in theory). Very recently though, the
depth of the crisis has thrown the IMF into a more active role, as demonstrated by its direct
involvement in the rescue of the Euro zone through the Greek bailout, and now eventually the
backing – or not - of the whole Eurozone depending on how things unfold.
If we simplify the situation to its basic reality - appreciating that some rare exceptions exist - we
can observe that important international decisions are made directly between the concerned
countries, or just the great powers. Most of the genuine action remains bilateral, while most of our
problems have become global and impact everybody.
The intrinsic weakness of international institutions is that they are condemned to be only the
intermediary of bilateral solutions, that are always negotiated co-operatively: there cannot be an
official loser, because a refusal by the loser cancels the solution suggested. Typically, Russia, China,
or the United States will never agree on a given solution when it relates to their direct or even
indirect interest - for example, persuading China to revisit its artificial rate of exchange, or fixing
the civil war in Syria. Thinking positively, these countries may end up eventually one day even
agreeing on how to handle North-Korea or Iran or Syria or Palestine (really ?) - but they will not
make a direct national sacrifice for the benefit of resolving a global fundamental issue. Local
interests prevail – always – even in front of an imminent global threat. There is no voice, no power,
no preference for the dominant interest of Mankind. There never has been, and we all take it for
granted, this is how it is, and will always be. We’ve made it “hardware” in our mindset – could it
become “software” though, as the global tools around us “commoditize” and pervade everything
else ?
Even on the rare occasion that an international organization would try to make a non-consensual
decision for all, it does not possess the mechanism to enforce it, and thus would bench its own
credibility. International organizations have been intentionally designed to be weak enough that the
nations prevail: they represent the minimum link between countries, so that the countries can
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dominate. Consequently, there is little willingness to add more cases to the backlog of the
international institutions. The pragmatic solution is that they will continue to act as the official
facade of World governance, but in reality the individual relationships between countries govern
almost everything - on a case-by-case basis - without the guidance of comprehensive global
agreement. And it is fair game to criticize the international institutions, as the proof that nothing can
be done globally – well, should we mention that they only are who the nations designed them to be
in the first place ? Who are the masters (nations) and who is the slave (UN) ?
In spite of reassuring, smile-filled group photos at international meetings (it always look like
everyone is so happy), the World is controlled by a chaotic balance of powers between states, G20
included. I am convinced that the solution to the problem we face can only come through a reinvention of the role of the international bodies: from many institutions to one constitution,
empowered above the countries. Somehow, there must be a transfer of power and of ultimate
sovereignty for international affairs - from the national to the global level. A universally elected
international entity – in whatever form - should represent all the states, in the general interest of all
men, and deal with the overarching issues that all face. Only by superimposing a World government
over the current anarchic autonomy of our hundreds of sovereign states, will Humanity be given the
means to stabilize its current transition, and take the decisive actions needed to pass the ecologic
“sound wall”, bringing us to a sustainable society for the very long term. It is so evident, so
obvious, so logical … and at the same time so - impossible, isn’t it ?
Utopia, fantasyland, wishful thinking ? Why would everything be possible in the World of
technology, which strives in constant innovation, and everything would be so impossible in the
World of politics ? For those who dream of a global social network, they could make Facebook a
reality - in just a few years. But for those who believe in the need for a true globalization of
Mankind’s governance, it can only be about hope and imagination – just forget it, right ?
Why ? How do we start, for the first time ever, to get the ball of politics to roll into a cohesive
direction, that copes with the fundamental changes and possibilities around us – as well ?
We should hope that the great powers awake to the increasingly evident reality that the weakness of
international institutions - which they alone can reinforce by granting their support – is working
against themselves, individually. But it doesn't appear to be the case, they play by the rules of the
anarchic game, and their individual political constructions prevent them all to think laterally (as a
team) – even when they try hard to build a multi-national construction - like Europe - we can see
how hard and discouraging it seems to be. So while the global plane makes its zigzags, nobody
seems to accept to realize that an unstable and uncontrolled World, that lacks a shared governance
and responsibility, is heading for a potential crash, which will ultimately destroy most national goals
and benefits, instead of protecting the selfish interests of the nations.
As soon as there will be a general public acceptance that our biggest issues can only be solved
globally, we will start viewing the legitimate tensions between our civilizations in a more
constructive, positive and serene way, given that we will finally have a seed for an understanding of
what kind of solutions make sense at the level that ultimately matters. A form of cross-national
leadership can then emerge with legitimacy, as there will be citizens to support it, who can influence
events above the borders of their countries, to learn together how to harmonize a sustainable
concert, in which the American piano will tune to the Chinese violins, without the Russian trombone
interrupting the European choir.
We are clearly not there yet, but nothing prevents us from getting started, at the grass root level – us,
the citizens of this World which has now become small enough, to be managed as a larger country –
a larger US, the US of the World.
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Being realistic though, I don’t see yet that we are even trying to move in the right direction, at all. I
am constantly amazed to see the ongoing globalization of the economy while, at the same time, our
nation states remain unshakably attached to their power and the idea of their “independence.” Most
people see their country as the ultimate construction and identity above them – while the borders of
such countries mean nothing to Nature beyond our collective imagination. As bizarre as it may look
to an outsider – an alien coming from another planet would look at all of us as “Earthlings” not
seeing any boundary from space when landing on Earth – while our borders it look absolutely
normal and natural to any of us. We continue to zoom on our differences – mostly blind to our
universality – in order to cultivate our survival. And the more we do so, the more unstable we
become, as we keep searching for local solutions which turn more and more inefficient.
We have not seen yet that the nations are primarily the inheritance of the past, and the impediment
to the future. However, I believe that we are reaching a turning point. As we cross this chasm, we
will complete our great transition, from a gregarious identitarian Homo Sapiens Sapiens – unable to
deal with the saturation of Earth - to the Homo Sapiens Universalis – who starts to learn how to
build Peace with Earth, and makes possible a potentially eternal future for Mankind, even beyond
Earth one day, towards Space.
It is time to change gear …
In continuing to cultivate our good old local recipes which nurture our global instability, as new
powers emerge and the West looses its grip, as the resources become more scarce and our natural
setting warms up, somebody could make the case that the relative global Peace that we have seen
since 1945, first owing to the Cold War, and then to the leadership of a relatively dominant US, may
come to an end.
There is at least one thing that we all know and will agree with: Peace is not a natural state in a
World solely governed by the anarchy of independent countries. As we all want War to become old
news, what does it take to eradicate its never ending stimulus ?
One World – for all of us. It is time for the Great Transition.
Earth our Country.
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47
As we just analysed in the last chapter, the period opening up before us will be characterized by a
relative lack of World leadership, certainly in comparison to the last half-century. With the US less
engaging themselves in constant proactive interventions abroad – which is a good thing overall - it
raises the question of how we will deal with the desires of each country in face of the individual,
though interlinked, challenges and opportunities that pave our horizon. No global power seem to be
willing to stop any longer a horrendous situation such as Syria (as I write these lines). The
fragmentation of our World, with still an overarching although “softer” (or tired) American
influence, draws the end of our most unipolar World ever – short-lived between 1990-2008 – with
cracks after 911 and definite derailing in September 2008.
A civilization may choose a strategy that will protect and defend their identity, as in Switzerland’s
policy against building minarets. Or, a civilization may choose a long term visionary strategy of
enhanced future predominance, such as China’s courtship of Africa. It is unlikely that these
competing individual objectives will converge into a cohesive objective for us all – as there will be
no-one powerful enough to lead across the trees to care for the forest.
Of course, some emerging or mid-size powers are trying to build a multi-polar World, but it is easier
to see a World without pole than a multi-polar one at this point in time, again notwithstanding the
overall influence of the US, which won respect again under President Obama, but limits its effect
intentionally concentrating on internal priorities, made so much harder with the current bipartisan
lockout.
Despite the extraordinary economic progress that has recently been accomplished, and despite the
convergence of economic and cultural models in most of the World, the “Clash of Civilizations” so
dear to Samuel Huntington is more relevant now than ever before. The danger of a feudal-anarchic
Earth is re-emerging as the rogue states are left alone and the emerging powers challenge the
Western legitimacies of the recent past. I am not saying that a cataclysm is at the horizon – but I see
our Great Wall, which can turn into one if we don’t start a transition.
As there is no case for a humanistic universal civilization yet, we face three main risks that
challenge each individual civilization and leave them with the choice of disappearing, resisting, or
dominating.
The overconsumption of resources:
In a system of complete global economic competition, each country, each society, and each region
must know how to buy, finance, or produce, and thus generate the wealth necessary to balance its
own economy in a World in which resources are becoming scarcer. In such a context, the model of
rampant consumerism practiced by Westerners for these last decades has unintentionally created its
own limitation. How many billions of people can the Planet support if each one has the same
carbon footprint as today’s average American or Australian? How many individuals can own and
use multiple cars with six or eight cylinders, own several air conditioned houses, commute by plane
on a regular basis, and eat so much that obesity has become a widespread disease ? This lifestyle
generates twenty tons of carbon dioxide per head per year – almost 2,000 tons in the lifetime of one
single hominid who weighs less than 200 pounds. That is 20,000 times our own weight in carbon
output.
Our sudden climate warming seems to indicate that for at least the last one hundred years we have
begun to unknowingly derail our ecosystem. If we maintain the current worldwide status quo in
terms of resource utilization and greenhouse gas emissions, and if we stop any further development
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and stabilize our annual damage at its current level - which is unrealistic and politically explosive
considering the double digit growth of the emerging countries – with the inertia of accumulated gas
in the atmosphere, we already risk a global warming of of around three degrees celcius above the
pre-industrial level within forty years (2.8 degrees is the last one I read). The CO2 concentration
will have to be restricted to about 450ppm and we are just reaching 400 today, from 300 in the
1950’s. To put these numbers in perspective, the last time we saw such values on Earth, jungles
were covering northern Canada – four million years ago during the Pliocene era (source: the Economist May
11, 2013). Such estimates, of course, keep changing since predicting the future remains a difficult and
somewhat unpredictable exercise, but the trend is absolutely indisputable – just look at Bangkok
under water, the North Pole freeing up, the glaciers disappearing, or the increased intensity and
frequency of hurricanes. The UN climate chief Christiana Figueres just confirmed: “With 400ppm
of CO2 in the atmosphere we have passed an historic ceiling, and have entered into a new zone of
danger. The World must wake up and acknowledge what it means for the security of Manking, their
well-being and economic development. There is still a chance to escape the worse effects of climate
change, provided a political response genuinely addresses the challenge”.
Unfortunately, the more realistic scenario is that our rate of development will continue on its current
path. To be clear, this assumption simply considers what will occur if we project our growing need
for resources and our increased level of future emissions based on our historical increased rate of
consumption. The experts then count on a mid-century warming of around three degrees, and some
see that if the trend persists and nothing massive is done to react globally, we might be trending a
few decades later towards an increase of five degrees (on the higher end), in which case no one can
really predict how the system will react, else than drive a chain reaction of extreme climatic events
of unpredictable consequences, that no Man before us has experienced – ever.
Looking at it from other angle, these numbers comfort a definitely worrying reality:
First, we must add the impact of demographic growth - due almost solely to the developing and
emerging countries - which will be almost fifty percent between now and the middle of the century.
This will put us at a total population of nine to ten billion in 2050, which in itself presents a specific
challenge since these “newcomers“ will originate in areas where the local ecosystems are already
the most fragile, such as the subtropical zones.
Second, the emerging countries will continue to develop and progress and in so doing will copy the
model of growth and enrichment pioneered by their Western predecessors, furthering their impact
on the global ecosystem. This point is hugely important since today poor people from Africa or
Asia emit only one hundred kilos of CO2 per year. That is two hundred times less than their
American neighbors who, together with their Australian friends, occupy the other extreme of the
spectrum. If we anticipate a humanistically “ideal” World in which by year 2050-2100 the progress
of all men levels out to about the level of today’s Americans, the CO2 discharges could be ten times
higher than today, and accessible fossil fuels will have started to disappear. This is, indeed, quite an
apocalyptic scenario. This would be a Big-Crunch, one where Mankind would basically be forced
to shrink dramatically to survive – or someone somewhere would press a red atomic button ...
This economically and politically realistic but ecologically unsustainable scenario should be the
nightmare of our political leaders since it is coming our way with a material probability. Again, not
to say that it will happen, but it can, if we keep going.
At this point, I can hear more than one of you thinking loudly: obviously this nightmare cannot
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occur as such, because the cars will be electric, heating will be solar powered, and the new rich
“emerged” people will be so much more reasonable than their predecessors have been, right ? And
I am responding: great ! Perhaps this virtuous trend is on the horizon, and we can see some timid
signs already.
But - perhaps it is not ! As an example Shai Agassi’s “Better Place” Israeli clean-car company
ended up in bankruptcy in May, after burning $ 500 millions – people wouldn’t buy an electric car
just yet, and they didn’t have to, as no government incentive would sponsor it. So who knows if we
are turning the corner or not – but let’s be fair with ourselves: do we really think that we are turning
it – and are reinventing our society at the appropriate pace and depth ?
What happens if no magic wand comes into play, and everyone keeps fighting for what appears to
be best for his or her own country – and the scenario above continues to be the one actually
developing in front of us ? While this scenario could be discounted as too much of a simplification
of the genuine complex challenge ahead of us, it enables us to at least calibrate the size of the risk
we are facing, to appreciate the urgency of the preventive reaction needed, and to understand the
limited time left for us to adapt. Without a radical move toward concerted political anticipation, and
an engagement of all (or at least most) countries to quickly and drastically reduce their emissions,
the future scenario is that of a military conflict or a protectionist economic blockade between the
rich, the new rich and the future rich where a few will forcefully prevent everyone else from their
right to highly polluting accelerated growth.
Third, the environmental hot spots are worst precisely where populations grow the fastest and
develop their economies the most quickly: the zones between 30° and -30° of latitude are most
vulnerable. It is unfortunately there that the risks associated with climate warming will be the
greatest, creating shortages of drinking water, famines, and an acceleration of migratory flows peaceful or not.
On the positive side, the good news is that the growth in human fertility rates will likely decline
following a peak in 2050, after which point the population would see a reduction thanks to a free fall
of birth rates that is already occurring in some developing countries like Brazil, Indonesia, and
certain parts of India. A 2:1 ratio is the mathematical turning point of fertility. It represents the
equilibrium of replacement between the old and the new. Already half of Humanity has dropped
below this line, and if the current trend continues, the species will stabilize in 2050. At that point,
we will become an aging population, with fewer children, which will be similar to what has
happened – in isolation - in more developed societies.
Therefore, if we can anticipate population abatement on the demographic front, the essential
problem to be attacked and resolved becomes one of individual consumption and pollution per
capita. The issue then is the upcoming waste of resources by the emerging and developing countries
rather than their birth rates. The growing impact of individuals on the environment has become
more important than the number of human beings, and is the absolute factor of destabilization.
The disparity of political models:
From the time of Athenian and Roman Antiquity to the 18th. century, only Switzerland experimented
with the democratic model, as an exception to the rule.
Since human beings regrouped into civilizations, the conventional unquestioned model of
governance relied on power claims based on heredity, religion, strength, or the choice of a previous
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despot. The totalitarian model ruled, as a rule. Countries were directed by Kings, Emperors, Princes,
Khans, Shahs, Maharajah, Popes, or Caliphs. Wars, pacts, alliances, and submissions were all dealt
with individually, leader to leader, following the logic of divine, kingly, totalitarian, decisional
power.
Democracy only existed under the form an ancient and mystic Utopia, limited to the scale of a city
or a canton, sublimated by the Athenian example, and only materialized later on by the Swiss – both
at a small scale. Indeed, Democracy was as an intellectual idea, as ludicrous and unrealistic - if not a
stupid and futile one for the serious spirits – as a World Federation might be to most sensible minds
today. A dream held by some Western intellectual luminaries, the idea of Democracy only existed
in old books, and its weaknesses were well ascribed: it could only work on a small scale, so that the
democratic process would be manageable, its decision making process would be slow due to its
need for consensus, there would be a risk of dominance by the majority over minorities, and it
would be chronically fragile, lost in a constant electoral mode. In practice, except with Switzerland,
it actually never survived for very long, and sooner or later a strong general would overthrow it in a
coup d’état. Its appeal remained fiercly alive though, mostly for idealists, but solely as an
unrealistic, though potentially wonderful, theoretical model. For most people, Democracy was
unsuited to human brutality, which can only be effectively managed through strong individual
leadership. Politics were therefore much simpler and homogeneous until two hundred years ago:
there was only one model to choose from – one dominates and rules many.
In Europe, coming out of the obscurantism of the Middle-Ages, the Age of the Enlightenment
reinvented the belief and the reality of the democratic dream, following an overdose of feudal then
extremist monarchic absolutism. It reached the American colonies and was amplified there by the
hope for Freedom from the mainland, and the will to escape the old ossified consanguineous
European monarchies (which sustained themselves with absurdly high taxes). In the New World,
there was suddenly a case and an opportunity for inventing a new reality, if not yet a model. A new
vision could break from the legacy of monarchic obedience, especially since there was no King
there (in America) in the first place. This formidable context, in a land new to all, led to the
fantastic political innovation of the American Revolution and the first democratic Declaration of
Independence in 1776, and then the Universalist Constitution in 1787. The French Revolution
followed in 1789, and sparked off the great European popular awakening and turmoil of social
revolutions of the 19th. century.
America and France gave birth, at the dawn of the 20th. century, to the quasi-general advent of
Democracy on the European continent. It all happened practically in a single flash of transformation
of the European society. In a few decades, Utopia had become, not only reality, but also the
dominant rule for the West – it embodied the Western political model, and its cultural dominance.
In one century, from nothing else than a humanist idea, the democratic Utopia became the statusquo of governance for the new dominant industrial Western civilization; human rights and the
concept of equality for all citizens became the foundation of rights in a republic - except for the
incidental fascistic period in Germany, Italy and Spain.
Since then, other forms of government have appeared inconceivable or illegitimate, or a necessary
evil for any enlightened citizen in the World. Utopia has turned into the new rule, because suddenly,
there were enough “enlightened” Men and Women to overthrow the apparently unshakeable inertia
of secular monarchist tradition. From this Western core, the democratic movement continued to
expand. The countries under non-communist influence followed suit, with mixed outcomes, in
particular at the time of decolonization.
At the beginning of the 21st. century, we find ourselves in a World of extreme political complexity,
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seeing all the models that have existed throughout History as if looking at the World through a
kaleidoscope. So that a century after its took off, Democracy is at a crossroads: it seems to prevail,
but maybe not …
Of approximately two hundred listed countries, there are eighty-nine so-called “Democracies” - with
variable transparency – and a hundred or so states with other modes of governance, with the
majority of them under a totalitarian model. Among large countries, the only totalitarian states are
the ex-communist republics, China and currently Russia, or Islamic republics such as Iran. Though
Russia wants official recognition as a Democracy (and had won it in 1990), President Putin’s heavy
hand controls the country, and Iran, officially a republic, has elections that are not sufficiently
transparent.
Since the fall of Communism, the democratic model has at least firmly established itself not only in
the occident but also in Japan, South Korea, Turkey, but also with the multiethnic relay of India and
Brazil, and many more. It had become pervasive, that no country could raise successfully to global
economic power without Democracy (or reciprocally that economic success would bring
Democracy). Lately though, the stellar emergence of the one party ruled China – unshaken and
instead glorified by its economic success – raises a strong question if not a direct threat to the
dominance and further pervasion of Democracies.
When all started to believe that only Democracy could win in our modern era – China asserts itself
with a long term strategic plan that fascinates even the democrats …
So can the democratic model further prevail, or resist or survive, also to the always surprising
political swings of Russia, or worse to the nuclearization of Iran and of North Korea ? Nobody
would have raised this question twenty years ago, after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Democracies,
with America and Europe at the forefront, represented the well-understood future, when the USSR
was exploding and China and all other “non aligned” countries were turning towards liberalism.
But since then, the question arises, because of the increasing power of China Inc. – what a
metamorphosis, and to a lesser extent Russia’s continued massive control over raw materials. They
are the only two large powers to have reached the top of the economic and political concert of
nations, with no democratic culture, instead ruled by a one party communist system in the case of
China, and what looks more and more like an opportunistic dictator in Russia.
China, the oldest civilization of all, a multi-millennia empire, has never experienced its age of the
Enlightenments. Its Maoist revolution was of and for the farmers and eliminated the intellectuals,
more recently Tiananmen was effectively muzzled and did not succeed in opening political
discourse – and even now the Internet got turned into a controlled system. Is it possible then that
China, having never been a Democracy, could finally become – or already be - the number one
economy, the 21st. century World leader – ruled by a one party system, with which implication to the
rest of us ? Was Democracy born to be universal, or just a tide that came quickly from the West and
then the East would lead us all back to our previous natural state of a more forceful top-down
leadership ?
Since the raise of China, the debate over the Universalism of Democracy remains open. In spite of
the immense progress that has come about during its short tenure, could Democracy only be a
Western invention, and not appropriate for all ? Can those who have never known Democracy feel
the need for Freedom? Or, would they prefer to continue following their sacred monarch or
accepting the ruling of their luminary single party ? The Arab Spring gives a message in the right
direction, but its punchline remains uncertain, as the Muslim Brotherhood – even elected - didn’t
match any democratic model, then came the coup of the generals ... quite a messy picture, and an
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insult to the sacrifices of those who fought for Freedom there.
Nevertheless, there seems to be overwhelming evidence that when a country’s citizens reach a
degree of cultural and educational evolution, inspiring in them the goal of Equality and Freedom for
all, Democracy is unmatched as the model of legitimate governance. From the moment an educated
individual can think beyond himself in his identitarian roots and consider other Men his equal, when
he can respect and learn from the ideas of others, a totalitarian mode of governance will become
unbearable and unacceptable. Despite its weaknesses, we have never found anything better than
Democracy. Democracy is not a choice of governance among others. It is not a good solution for
some and a bad one for others, nor is it a passing fashion. Instead, it probably embodies a stage in
the development of civilization, and of the evolution of Mankind. It is the only model of human
governance that respects human beings’ rights to know, to desire, and to choose. It grants the
Freedom of choice: for a set of ideas (party), for a government (election), and for the rights of
everyone, regardless of sex or origin, with a presumption of innocence for all.
Consequently, if we see that a positive future for our World can only be democratic, the current
tendency to tolerate totalitarian alternatives within the concert of the nations - in anticipation that
improved living standards will move all countries toward Democracy sooner or later - is an overly
passive approach that carries extraordinary risks. It under-estimates the capacity of totalitarian
governments to manipulate nationalism and religion in order to impose themselves on their people –
Facism was ruling Europe less than sixty years ago. China is soon to be the World largest Economy.
We are over-estimating the force of the resistance of the Democracies themselves, against the
totalitarian risk, in moments of major disorder and popular concern, in face of the temptation of the
simplifying populist promise. When I see Europe today challenged by its debt and growing
unemployment, I must confess that I am starting to scratch my head with growing concern – could it
all happen again ?
Obviously, the greatest weakness of Democracy, which must be kept in perspective considering the
courageous policies needed to limit climate warming - is based in its very nature of being a
consensus based system. Politicians must please the majority of their potential constituents to be
elected or stay in power. Therefore, the politicians’ capability to do well is limited by the capacity of
voters to understand the issues. To be elected democratic leader must appeal to his voters, and it is
difficult for him or her to propose unpopular policies even if virtuous. Moreover, democratic
leaders are too often tempted by the myopia of the short term impact, by the need to show the fast
effects of their policies, rather than to prepare virtuous strategies and plans with an effect too distant
to be an electoral benefit. Consequently, the quality and depth of the policies can rarely exceed the
political awareness of the majority of the voters, and they must see results in time for the elections
ahead.
Is there another way then ? Could the historical alternative to Democracy be a form of monarchy or
a regime with an enlightened single party ? This concept is stimulated by past periods of striking
progress achieved by some monarchs or exceptional chiefs of single parties during History: the
freedom of dictatorship allowed them to implement long-term visionary policies of modernization
or extension of empires. In this context for instance, we can today observe and admire the ongoing
metamorphosis of the Chinese Communist Party for the last three decades, to a planned liberal
economy – it does consistently delivers stunning results.
Democracy was – or still is - the universal future, with totalitarian states imploding under the
pressure of their public opinion, which although still muzzled, are informed by the Internet and
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satellite television. Will countries resist their own enrichment, and avoid the ambitions of Freedom,
that typically has resulted from it until … China ?
The fight between competing political models, once isolated behind borders but now submerged and
invaded by the common economic universal forum, is a challenge which can bring progress towards
Democracy, but at the same time represents a risk of potential regression, since enrichment of the
populace can reinforce the legacy governments which have enabled it, as China currently
demonstrates.
On one hand there is the force of the people demanding more rights, as their education and standard
of living progresses, on the other, the incumbent government gets credit for the progress
accomplished.
Until now Democracy has won this exchange, until China has become the stunning exception,
which challenges the otherwise accepted rule of Democracy winning with economic progress.
The field of politics always brings surprises, so it is hard to predict what will happen – a revolution,
a coup d’état, or a terrorist attack could occur tomorrow almost anywhere on the Planet, opening a
conflict that could have a domino effect – as it did in 1914. This is particularly true because of the
tectonic pressure that the World must bear while slowly exiting the 2008 recession and dealing with
increasingly scarce resources. Just over the last year we have seen regimes fall like dominoes in the
Middle East, which was a huge event that nobody could predict even days before it unfolded.
Time will tell. One side of our current momentum shows sustained traction for a convergent
democratic universal model, while a darker side seems to reinforce the risk of divergence, and
eventually the return to a bi’ or multi-polar conflict.
The expansionism of religious and nationalist extremisms:
The thesis of “The Clash of Civilizations,” which predicts a devastating conflict between the West
on one side, and Islam and Asia together on the other, appears too reductive, and polarizes Islam
and to a lesser degree China. However, it directly inspired the neo-conservatives of the former
American administration in their quest to squash Islamic terrorism, and can explain their heavy
handed reaction, following the attacks of September 11, 2001. Under this theory, it is presumed that
9/11 was actually a catalyst for an international offensive, rather than a simple defensive mission,
and that in fact, the genuine objective was to eradicate the armed forces of Islam (like Saddam and
the Taliban) before they gained more strength. Such a thesis should not to be ignored, because it
remains steadfast in the base of Western politics, and is certainly not going away anytime soon.
As a result of the progress of our rampant globalization and universalization, there has been a broad
counter reaction to the loss of identities and beliefs, so much so that we could also qualify this
period as a rebirth of religious and identitarian cultural expansionism. It is hard to identify if this
renaissance is a reaction to the parallel rise of universal culture, or if it simply belongs to the eternal
Man, who, even when confronted with a revolution of communications - bringing along with it a
discovery of universalism - still needs to take refuge in a form of identity idolatry.
We see more and more every day, that universalization can bring together cultures, traditions, and
habits, and even if all these diverse ideas are not always convergent on everything, they are at least
learned by an increasing multitude, making them a new part of the cultural inheritance. Look at
cuisine for example; we have adapted and adopted pizza, sushi, burritos, and hamburgers into our
daily lives in a universal melting pot of nourishment. When cultures, civilizations, or religions are
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humane, integrative and open, they do not pose a risk to our universal future, for these things have
molded and shaped our identities and the contour of our diversity. They are the positive founding
elements of our universal human mosaic in the making.
Truly, the fundamental risk is religious or nationalist extremism, because it is irrational and blind to
any shared reality. It is a refuge in the event of crisis, and a catalyst of fears. It uses the cover of
culture or customary belief, often based on deep ancestral ignorance, to exacerbate intolerance and
racism, and to deny that Men are all citizens of the same World.
Regardless of the group represented, or of the cause being defended, extremists pose a risk to the
future of Humanity and to our great global village, because:
• They are deniers of the evolution of Man, life, Earth and of the Universe while scientific
knowledge deepens;
• They continually refer to immutable ancestral and legendary beliefs to decide about current
and future affairs;
• They venerate the supposed superiority of their ethnic origin as an elected group of people, by
making and personifying others as evil; • They prioritize the cause of a party or a nation ahead of the survival of Humanity or of its
Planet;
• The cause of their combat cannot be rationalized or called into question for any reason –
because it goes beyond reason and questioning; • They refuse Democracy and secularism, which risk to disconnect them from their collective
one-sided fascination.
Whoever they are, on either side of our multifaceted World (race, religion, region, or extremes of
the political spectrum), they represent the essential risk for the future of Humanity and for our large
common village or Country. They will block and fight religiously our global convergence with any
possible weapon, and prevent the emergence of unified solutions – making them appear as
irremediably alien to their unchallengeable traditions.
These three risks – control of scarce resources, fragility of Democracy, and raise of extremisms –
will further stimulate the reaction of the civilizations, widening the risks of frictions between the
tectonic plaques of our nations and cultures, and confronting the logical outcome of an universal
society.
Out of the three risks, one can be managed by all of us, citizens of our country, and of the World:
Democracy. There is only so much we can do individually against the other two – as resources get
challenged through our consumerist model and extremists only respond to their beliefs. But
Democracy is won, protected and owned by each and all of us. If we reflect on how each culture has
evolved, and how it regards itself in the present and future, there is the invisible line of Democracy
that cuts through the current framework of our principal civilizations. I offer that the compatibility
of cultures to more universalization in the future will be intimately linked to their capacity for
integrating Democracy. It will determine their ability to absorb cross-boundary convergence, or to
fight against it. The more a country defends a policy of personal Freedom and respect of human
rights - internally, and the more it enforces a clear separation in its constitution and political
practices between government and religious beliefs through republican secularism - internally, then
the more that country will have the internal capacity to tolerate and absorb the external differences
that must be bridged in a model of unified global diversity. Only Democracy can act like an engine
of political and cultural integration for the Planet. Totalitarian regimes can leverage some benefits of
55
an economic globalization, but ultimately authorities beyond their borders can only be a threat to
their own internal legitimacy. Therefore, at least as a protection, they all cultivate nationalism under
some form, if not religious extremism. Conversely, the longer people accept a totalitarian political system, the more they get used to accept
the false legitimacy of state racism and to venerate their ethnic superiority, and the more they will
confuse love for their nation – legitimate patriotism – with xenophobia. Ultimately, they find
themselves willingly and unconsciously captive, to a country that will oppose a solution to the
World’s biggest problem.
For the governments of these countries, the paramount issue of globalization is the risk that it
spreads beyond the Economy, and touches over time their core political model. With the increase in
education, standard of living, and the use of the Internet, it risks to destabilize the internal popular
opinion – make it more astute. Therefore, for these rulers, the management of the globalized valves
of external influence – the Economy, the Internet, traveling abroad - require careful management.
They must manipulate the balance between their burning economic need for participating in the
global free trade and the control they must maintain over the cultural opening. Conscious that in the
long-term, globalization will likely weaken or collapse their political system, they will maintain a
harsh internal populist policy of nationalism or religious propaganda, with the intent of assuring
their popularity or, at least, their appearance of legitimacy.
I know that you may find that these statements are generalities, already well understood.
Unfortunately, since 1990, this latter risk – democracies having to control the totalitarian legitimacy
– has been dropped. Short-term greed has prevailed over strategic thinking. At the peak of their
success, democracies have dropped their guard to compete more effectively against each other, in
order to capture markets or cost advantages. While they suddenly had the upper hand by a long shot
at the collapse of the USSR, they lost it almost willingly, in their quest for fast profit, leading in my
view, as I will try to explain later, to the 2008 economic bubble.
The overlap of a dominant globalized liberal economy, with so many different and incompatible
political systems, has created a unique situation in the History of Humanity. It forces all the
political enemies to marry in the great fraternity of free trade, under the weakened role of the once
inspiring American leadership. Democracies still have the upper hand, if they want to see it. But
maybe not for long, as the democratic tide risks to go backwards, with its liberal greed which
reinforces totalitarian regimes.
Everyone hopes in this game to find an economic or political strategic benefit. However, under this
seemingly federative economic order - or rather organized disorder - hides the potential for a great
multi-polar conflict. Such a risk is brewing between Democracies, which are on their way toward a
universal culture, and the totalitarian states, which have now become the economic conquerors, and
which are naively or tactically integrated into the foreground of the economic concert.
Complete democratic globalization, that goes beyond the single-minded brutality of free trade and
integrates our various identities into a tolerant and diverse ecosystem, is the only way ahead for
passing the Great Sound Wall.
Earth our Country.
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57
Re-invented on a large scale only two centuries ago, Democracies have become a vehicle of
globalization. Their universal message is one of values, and respectful of all human rights. They
shelter half of the countries of the World, still two thirds of its economy, and the majority of its
population. But, regardless of their reach, they remain fragile. Their Achilles’ heel is built into
their inner appeal: their governance is fully ruled by the votes of the public, so their direction
reflects the fluctuations of public opinion, and are not equipped with the strength, courage, or longterm vision needed to face dictatorships (abroad) or unpopular moves (internally).
Still, despite its weakness and fragility, Democracy is vibrantly alive, and may ultimately end up as
the pervasive model for all. The Arab Spring, regardless of the final results, provided the most acute
testimony yet to the modernist power of Democracy and its global realism. People there showed
extreme courage to get rid of their dictators, and to this day continue to challenge the resulting
regimes – as they fear the old rulers are still hiding inside. “The power of the people is stronger than
the people in power” declared Wael Ghonim, a Google executive who helped to spark the Egyptian
revolution with a Facebook page in memoriam of a victim of the regime’s violence.
As they are the potential foundation for our universal World in the making, let me propose that we
do a quick tour of the largest democratic nations, as they are so diverse, and facing the Great Wall
with very different situations and “psychological” legacies.
We begin our review by first looking at the historic ones: the USA, Europe – in its new political
union, and Japan.
The United States of America
The US remains the leading economic, military, and political World power, and it is also the true
modern founder of economic and cultural universalization. Americans have a unique capacity to
fascinate the whole Planet with their culture and lifestyle: the American Way of Life. They have
made it the universal reference, adored, criticized, but still never matched in its global appeal. The
American spirit, when it wins, does so without weapons, using instead soft power and cultural
pervasiveness. Its enormous capacity for influence and seduction over the rest of the World including its enemies - remains the universal reference, the symbol of our modern civilization. Still,
the multitudes of the World dream of the American society; they are flooded by scenes of
Hollywood movie stars, fascinated by the technologies of Silicon Valley, and seduced by the
superiority of American universities. Its edge narrows on every front and fast economically – but
still, America remains a reference for all.
Much like recent developments in Brazil, the United States represents a positive ethnic future with
its evolving mosaic and constant cohabitation of Europeans, Asians, Hispanics, and Africans. Soon
Caucasians will be a minority – in San Francisco where I live, they have been for a while already.
Newcomers very quickly learn how to become American, and how to integrate thanks to the
“Melting Pot” culture, that functions there – still - better than anywhere else. The American model
integrates, digests, and transforms. One may speak Spanish, but will learn also to speak English.
They greet the flag, swear allegiance with the constitution, and stand up to sing the national anthem
with their hand over their heart and an uncontainable pride for having become American and for
belonging to such a great nation. Americans inspire the World with their fabulous positivism, their
spirit for relentless undertaking, and Faith in their country, which is defined by justice and
modernity.
Of course I am completely simplifying, and the model comes with its weaknesses: extreme
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economic and social inequalities, record overconsumption and pollution per capita (second only to
Australia), a desire and tendency to believe itself to be the center of the Word, often disregarding
other countries and even the Planet as a whole. But having lived in five countries, I have not seen
anything better yet.
Inequalities are a side-effect of Freedom for all, which, while allowing the strongest to unleash their
full potential, will also leave the weakest defenseless. This has been a subject of national debate
with the never-ending saga of medical reform as its latest incarnation.
Finally, the model is so liberal that it too often turns opportunistic; just as water runs to the sea by
the shortest path possible, simplicity and effectiveness in a liberal society prevail - sometimes to the
detriment of strategic interest. China Inc. has mastered its leverage of this US weakness - greed. For
instance, products that are “Made in America” are now nearly impossible to find, while China’s
cheap labor has, in twenty years, transformed that country into the chief importer for the US, and the
World. This has created an extraordinary imbalance and potentially dangerous interdependence
between two vastly dissimilar ideologies that are now condemned to work together in the future –
either China becoming democratic, or the two countries having to deal through a protectionist or –
hopefully not - military conflict.
The average American – who feared nothing coming from abroad for over a century - now fears
China, seeing it as a large cloud coming to eclipse his blue sky (and it is). But, oddly enough,
Americans continue to buy products made in China because they remain less expensive, and there is
hardly any local industrial alternative left to compete any longer. We’ll come back to this peculiar
set up later as it hugely matters to the future of everything else.
The USA have built – after the Athenians then the Swiss – the truly first main scale historic
Democracy. Their enlightened founding fathers drew up an exemplary constitution for the times,
based on Freedom for everyone, but maintaining a stable ruling for a majority. It had the support of
a discrete but strong decentralized federal model, and, very importantly, a president elected by all.
Their federal system offered enough flexibility that states could be added as situations surfaced,
until it spread over almost an entire continent. As I will try to elaborate later, I believe that this
constitutional construct appears to be the only one so far which potentially could play as an
aggregator for a broader geographic perimeter than just the USA, or even North America, and could
even be the nucleus of a worldwide constitutional project.
The current “Vetocracy” that has unfolded over the last 5 years in Washington is concerning. As a
quasi-outsider, I would dare to call it masochist. It is unclear if the current situation comes from a
constitutional problem in need of adjustment, or from an overly tense bipartisan argument between
the Republican side, pushed to extremes and rattled by the Tea Party, and a democratic president
struggling to put forth his vision for the future in a way acceptable to the other side – and seen as
business unfriendly. Maybe our ideas promoting a universal platform, always a central and positive
theme for the US nation, could help rally a majority of the political forces forward, and stop this
nonsense.
As we all have seen, the US has weakened lately, there is no argument about that, as the rest of the
non-Western World has incredibly prospered, and at the same time the US has suffered from selfinflicted wounds.
I see the cause of this relative weakening over the last ten years as twofold.
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First, the US economic model overheated after massive “off shoring” to Asia. This allowed for
unrestrained growth in imports, which was financed by the globalization of their cheaper purchases,
and debt.
Secondly, US leadership and influence came into question following the American response to the
attacks of September 11, 2001. The World had immense compassion for the USA in the immediate
aftermath of those attacks, and almost everyone felt American in their heart that day, with
compassion. The cruelty of the terrorists made us all around the World share in our shock and
disbelief. America could have reacted with grandeur, civilized and controlled wisdom. They would
have impressed the World with their balanced response, and would have marginalized the
fundamentalist terrorists by treating them as isolated criminals. This would likely have won over a
majority of Muslims sympathetic to the American cause.
Instead, the American government reacted forcefully and somewhat irrationally by declaring a war
on the “Axis of Evil”, as if it was about declaring war to other countries, and not to individual
criminals. This was quickly translated by the Muslim people into a war against Islam, in which they
read a confirmation with the attacks on sovereign states, for which there was no direct proof of guilt
in the crime of 911.
Consequently, instead of rallying the World behind the power of compassion, the US lost the Peace
in the Middle East and showed, for the first time since reaching absolute World leadership in 1989,
the clear limits of their military strength, and strategic acumen.
This delegitimized the great US morals, and also displayed the vulnerability of their army and
foreign policy as a whole. Up to this day, this syndrome continues to show its effects – with no
military reaction in Lybia, Iran, North Korea, Syria, and an extra-careful policy and visible fear to
start another war.
By neglecting the United Nations and the majority of its allies, the US’s image shifted from victim
to aggressor, which took a toll on the global image of the World leader, at a time when the World
was looking at them, more than ever, as the missing pilot of the World order, following the
Communist failure.
Al-Qaeda and its associated religious fundamentalists have been the surprising winners in this shift
of the public opinion around the World, and it now takes time for the new administration to repair
such a damage, in particular in the Middle East. By attracting the then gregariously led US into
their own arena, the barbarians of Al-Qaeda have shaken the standing of the great leader of nations.
And so, America has left this chapter with a long lasting political weakness – affected in its moral
credibility - and as well economically fragilised with the debt burden created by the cost of these
Wars. The troubles in the Middle East turned the US allies in doubt, and have been further
compounded by the financial crisis of 2008, the national debt, and the acceleration of the rise of
Asia.
Nonetheless, following a decade of healing, the US remain the best active conduit towards a positive
stabilization of the World order – with no one else at sight to play such a role.
The new American government has slowly started to erase this historical stain and to rebuild the
legitimacy its morality as and influencer if not leader of the modern World – to no one’s entire
satisfaction for sure, but plaing it extremely carefully not to repeat the same adventures.
This position of influence is essential to prevent total global anarchy; it is a precious missing link
that no other country can fulfill, within our current geo-political fragmentation. But it is a long
journey of recovery, since the damage to America’s image and prestige has been deep and long
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lasting – almost irrecoverable in the Middle East – and that in the meantime, China continues to get
stronger, building - together with a deliberately hostile Russia - at least a capability to say “no”, if
not to propose and steer international solutions. It partly explains – justifies - the relative
“weakness” of Obama abroad; his difficulty in being assertive on key issues illustrates his need,
more than ever, to build international consensus in order to achieve results - for instance his struggle
to “control” Israel, or to drive a clear policy towards Iran or Syria.
In the new chapter ahead of us, America’s influence over converging World cultures will need to be
based less on economic domination - from now on shared with Asia or even co-driven by China
soon - and more on morale leadership, one that is founded on its civilizing and democratic nature:
the leader of the “Free World”.
The re-conquest of the hearts and brains of the World has been a challenging priority for Barack
Obama - crowned Nobel Prize of Peace - but one can see his vision and efforts in many areas,
balanced by an enormous caution, that also comes from his personal character. His strategies are
both subtle and thankless, and, unfortunately, have ended up positioning him as a weaker and more
hesitant leader, a less reliable ally and less scary enemy, compared to the decades before.
Obama must at least continue to demonstrate strong symbolic decisions, that prove the honesty of
his message – and he is doing that (unfortunately the NSA spying issue has not helped his recovery).
I am quite convinced that Obama is becoming more assertive, and will continue to capture a
renewed international trust and confidence, and help his key democratic peers and allies beyond the
American borders. Finally, it will give him and the US renewed recognition as a universal guide,
and potentially a platform for an Obama’s “third term” – a post-US president role that I will paint
later.
Sometimes symbols pave the way for dreams to become reality. For America, and the World,
Obama is a symbolic chance that may never happen again. He is a first in many ways. He is multiethnic and somewhat multi-national - culturally between America and Africa, and more distantly
Asia. He represents a breakthrough, the first inflexion point from a WASP nationalist dominated
past.
While he fulfills his job as a solid performing American President in a time of extreme crisis – the
US economy and employment start to recover through an aggressive policy of monetary quantitative
easing – he has not be able to make his mark internationally as a historic milestone in the concert of
the nations yet, and to be fair, he had to be careful not to break as much glass outside as his
predecessor did. But in doing so, he has not unleashed the potential of a more internationalist US
President. Would the other World leaders allow him to be the badly needed agent for change toward
World governance ? Has he won enough of their respect during his tenure ? I think that there is a
case to be made for trying, provided he has the will and can win the necessary support base, to lead
us to a new place, with a new scenario which could unlock the World order.
Frankly I am consciously stretching Obama’s current instincts: his objectives so far are to “fix
America”, and not yet the World. But we need someone to take over this global flag – and I do not
see anyone else. He is here standing, as the unique option for humanist universalists … No, it is not
his current job to save the World. But as Madeleine Albright once said, he leads the “World’s
indispensable nation”, which makes him the only viable candidate on the list. Bill Clinton is still
young enough, is not of mixed race but has strong credentials, however he could only be a candidate
if Hillary does not want to run for US president, which seems unlikely for now.
The European Union
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Nobody would guess, but Europe is still the World’s number one economic power when
consolidated as the European Union. Sadly, a single political voice does not reflect this power, and
remains every day a more distant hope.
As I am writing these lines, Europe is getting itself further away from what once looked – only a
few years ago – like an ultimate federative success. There is a possibility that the current turmoil
could actually be the foundation for the bold political decision that has missed the regional agenda
for 50 years, but it doesn't look like it is currently in the cards, with a weakened France, and a
stronger Germany that lacks the flexibility, vision and regional acceptance to play the number one.
While currently under harsh criticism, we should, nonetheless, pay homage to what has been
achieved by the former generation of its Peace-era politicians, despite their misstep on the Euro
construction model. Now with twenty-eight member states (and soon to be more as eastern Europe
continues to mature), it is the first time in History that a great power has been created through a
deliberate popular act. After so much fratricidal hate, European unification was the dream of my
generation. Half a billion people enrolled in the journey of uniting themselves around the relatively
recent concept of “Europe”.
Rather vague in its geographical limits, it has a simplistic, if at all sufficient federative conviction:
war against each other, never again. Though no longer opulent, Europe is still rich. The EU has
built around a societal model of strong social values, based on a central Christian-Democrat
heritage.
In memory of the last war and of the deliverance of the Marshall plan, the USA has remained the
big brother, with the odd result that Europe, in spite of its enormous economic power and its role as
the founder of the Western civilization and influence, refuses to even control its own defense. It still
relies on the USA - through NATO - as the guarantor of its safety, in particular with respect to
Putin’s Russia, who is the only military power still able to worry the pacified and pacifist Europeans
with its never-totally-ending imperialistic ambitions.
Also, the unshakeable resistance of the Germans to return to any militaristic adventure following
their 1945 trauma certainly prevents such an awakening, as illustrated lately by their refusal to join
the Libyan intervention.
Europe remains the number one market in the World, and thus maintains a relationship of relative
symbiosis with the USA and their multinational companies. It is also the headquarters of half of the
World’s largest companies, benefiting from its highly qualified human resources - though they are
not as workaholic as their American or Asian counterparts.
The European culture balances between work, leisure, and History. The role of money remains
much less central than in the USA, not any more the lure that it has become for Asians, and is
viewed as a means of reaching wellbeing, and not as an end in itself.
European unification is a very fragile movement as illustrated by the debt crisis, and is still in a
course of implementation – or of dislocation. The EU is in the middle of a tiny bridge, has by no
means reached its end destination, and is agonizing about the risk of moving backwards, to its pre1945 fragmentation.
The independent will of the member states is its main strength, but therein also lays its biggest
weakness: only the states can rule and decide. The Euro proved it; there is one currency but multiple
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economic policies. It has turned into a mission impossible. If not moving forward or backwards,
they may end up falling from the bridge, all together …
The European Union has developed in three concentric circles :
•
The trio of the large founding countries is comprised of the Franco-German couple - an
historic impossibility turned into a rather strong modern reality - and the United Kingdom,
which often acts as the hinderer in chief, with its permanent dream of secession, for which
Europe is only a necessary Evil. They compose the first circle - an odd one, that sets the tone
for Europe, or its lack thereof, with any of the three refusing the leadership of any of them;
•
The other Western European countries make the second circle and, together with the first,
form its active and decisive body, with its successful North and struggling South;
•
The new Eastern European countries – New Europe as they are sometimes called – are still
at the periphery. Though they long dreamed of joining this elite European Western club,
they felt outdistanced and disappointed as soon as they were accepted. However, they need
Europe, at least because they fear the increasingly hostile Russians more than anything else,
and they feel that staying within the EU pack protects them better than being alone.
The creation of the Euro has transformed this improbable confederation into a striving economic
reality, until the 2008 crisis started to spread, and highlighted the stubborn limitation of its political
structure, convoluted by the independence of the states in search of an impossible consensus.
Europe is now no longer able to manage itself, its political un-existence forcing it to remain a dwarf
within international politics and an economic problem child instead of a defining World’s engine in
partnership with the US.
Greece alone was enough to plunge Europe and the World into a messy saga, which, frankly, is
completely ridiculous, and should have been a salutary wake up call for Europeans to react and fix
their model – but they didn’t. Could Delaware - just to pick on a tiny US state among many others take the US and the rest of the World down to its knees ?
The Treaty of Lisbon could have equipped Europe with its first complete constitution, a relative
milestone, but true political leadership and a recognized elected president did not accompany this
feat, because the states wished to preserve their prerogatives. In ensuring that they would engineer a
waeak enough central EU governance, that would not threaten their national turf, they created a
multi-headed beast, which has run out of anyone’s control. I really don’t know what is coming next,
as it would take political vision and sense of the general interest from the three leaders of the inner
trio – and instead their divisions and tactical preference spark loud and clear, none of them carrying
a defining message at the scale of the EU’s challenge. Lady Merkel has the upper strong hand, and
tries to stubbornly protect German economic strength first, while also avoiding Europe to fall apart
– it is hard to do both not taking a long-term strategic perspective, and she doen’t. David Cameron
wants nothing to do with the continental mess, and even tries to use it to its internal political
advantage. Francois Hollande struggles more than any French president in recent memory, and
appears to be disconnected from his peer group, really not knowing what to do and at least partner
efficiently with Merkel. Once upon a time, we had an Helmut Schmidt or an Helmut Kohl, a Tony
Blair or even a Maggie Thatcher, a Valery Giscard d’Estaing or a Francois Mitterrand, or even a
turbulent Nicolas Sarkozy, who tried to take some bold risks, to step on History, to carry a vision for
Europe. Today we have an abysmal vacuum – and that is more my worry than what could actually
been done. Who could take the necessary step ? Nobody is at sight to take over from the EU
founding fathers, and take another step to the European construction, let’s keep the faith though ...
But the risk of the UE going backwards unquestionably dominates the current agenda, which is a
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real shame.
Another unique angle to Europe as a region, is its military un-existence. Having conquered most of
the World through colonial empires, and having made war at the four corners of Earth, Europe has
destroyed itself twice in the last century, and has become antimilitarist due to its acquired wisdom
and recent disdain of war. Because Europe hates war and prevents it at all costs, Europe doesn’t
frighten anyone anymore – benefitting many, and paying the price of appearing coward.
Finally comes mass immigration. The EU’s standard of living and culture of tolerance and of deep
Democracy make it strongly appealing to the populations of its old colonies. Europe builds
nowadays more mosques than churches - which is reasonably explained by the number of churches
already in existence and the weak penetration, until recently, of mosques. Nevertheless, the symbol,
with all its turbulence, is in the forefront, and seals the challenges ahead.
The migration of tens of millions of Men and Women, primarily from Africa, over the last forty
years, has deeply destabilized the traditional “national” model, and has caused great tensions in
many Western European countries, both culturally, religiously and economically.
Europe, which was gently relegating its incumbent Christian religion, relegated to an almost
secondary post within to its cultural heritage, is suddenly confronted - in its own territory - with a
conquering and lively religion: Islam. The consequences of this accelerated migration of Africans
who have a strong root in Islam are still difficult to anticipate. Clearly, this is not just another wave
of immigration, to which Europe has been familiar and successful with over the centuries. This is so
big, fast, culturally religiously tinted, that it deeply challenges the local cultures and political
establishments, who seem at loss to properly react.
For the first time in recorded History, and since the great European invasions that precipitated the
collapse of the Roman Empire, nearly a quarter of the European population is either a direct
immigrant from Africa, or is a second-generation immigrant, each carrying the force of their own
traditional customs and religions into a secular modern Europe. An integration that took centuries in the wide-open Americas, must now be done instantaneously in
Europe, and done so in a tight and densely populated space, where newcomers must infiltrate
themselves into their new society, together with a very tough economic climate where jobs are
scarce. This immigration wave is unique in its impact; in the last fifty years, ninety-five percent of
the non-qualified immigrants of the World, who are often illiterate, have landed in Europe.
This new stress is both positive and unsettling for the future of Europe:
It is positive because it transforms Europe into another village of the World and forces the
emergence of a much more diverse European culture, less frozen into its centuries old nationalistic
roots. It moves them toward the American mosaic model, and should, in the long-term, transform
European societies, which for some have been ethnically closed for thousands of years, into
societies that are open to the diversity of the World. At the end of the day, it should make Europe
rejuvenated, reenergized, and ultimately stronger – from “old” Europe to “diverse” Europe.
It is also very unsettling in the short term, because the volume of immigrants is already so huge, and
is virtually unlimited moving forward. There is no end at sight to the immigration flow, and this is
the real threat. At a point in time, everything saturates, people get overwhelmed – even the most
altruistic, it is becoming just too much for any society to digest effectively such a permanent influx
of uneducated people who are not prepared either to integrate with the modern European society.
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Their education, cultures and religions are so different that, when imported in mass and with much
higher fertility rates, they recreate at destination their original homogeneity – they can scale in the
UK, France, Germany as well as at home and do not need to integrate any longer. At this point,
they fundamentally challenge the fragile balance of the whole of European society, of which the
model is strongly centered on religious tolerance, and universal redistribution of wealth, such as free
public school, free public health, unemployment benefits, and retirement support.
This propels the traditional European society into an unknown situation, unsettling the social
equilibrium, and generating reactions of xenophobia that have to date remained relatively well
controlled but are worrisome for the future, particularly in countries such as France where the flow
of immigrants from their former colonial empire is the largest. Nationalist political parties feed
themselves from this deepening social fracture, as they did during the thirties with the misery and
fears coming from the Great Depression.
In addition, the newcomers - especially of the second generation - struggle to be positively
integrated into this new environment, which they discover quickly is actually not very promising for
them. As a result, they develop a rebellious counter-culture, one of nationalism for their original
country, and of rejection of the new nation that has welcomed them. They stand in the middle of
two opposite cultures, losing track of where they individually belong. They therefore create their
own sort of cultural track instead of trying to integrate, developing a situation very different from
the American integration machine.
To the World of tomorrow, Europe can bring its stability – if it can fix its regional political model,
the strong development of its civilization, its wealth (or the inertia of it), and a population that is in
an accelerated course of transformation: more European and less national, more diverse with its unintegrated minorities whose birth rates alone promise a continued flow of future growth if they find
their way to at least economically integrate and to find jobs.
The future of Europe is uncertain, as it copes with a political vacuum, mass immigration, a
weakening economy and no self-defense as a region. It makes Europe a giant with no global
political clout any longer. However, Europe is capable to play a supporting role to the USA in
continuing to lead the World with a stabilizing influence, and will be an even stronger ally if it
succeeds creating a stable system of governance for the region. What Europe won’t conquer any
longer on economic or militarist ground, it will save on moral grounds with its humanistic values,
and on an environmental front because European public opinion encourages faster progress and
sustainability.
With a new ethnic diversity that will bring it closer and closer to Africa, from which it is only
geographically separated by the tiny Mediterranean sea, Europe will have to articulate itself around
a social and political integration that is still not well understood since politicians continuously
attempt to bridge the new reality with the old struggling legacy instead of inventing a new model
that could cope with such a dramatic change.
Faschism becomes a risk again, sixty years later. It could end up being the winner. When we add the
issue of endless immigration, to the weirdness of the European political integration, and the pressure
put on the Economy by the fast raise of emerging competitors, there is quite a perfect storm in the
making that populist nationalists could leverage benefits of.
I personally continue to hope that against all odds, Europe will further reinforce its political
unification, at least for a core of the founding members of the Union, unfortunately without the UK
(which would be such a great balancing force inside vs. outside). In parallel, Europe must tackle
with the re-invention of its social welfare model, since the current system is not sustainable under
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the pressure of internal immigration and external competition from the rest of the World. The transition toward this double re-invention will create serious social and political turbulences.
Only after this double whelming is successfully completed, will Europe be a global player again.
To be successful, it takes much more vision and fast paced decisiveness from the key European
leaders. America and Europe together still represent 50% of the World’s GDP. A tight collateral free-zone
agreement is their only chance to continue to put their weight on global affairs. However, America
is shifting towards the Pacific – while American investments in Europe remain three times the ones
they make in the totality of Asia. The bonds US-Europe are under utilized, missing the grand
democratic family. If the EU cannot work, then, why don’t we put the whole family together,
leveraging the US leadership, which we miss within the EU alone ? Europe, with its lack of political leadership, risks to be marginalized. Each country still tries to deal
for itself. Still, America and Europe together united are able – probably not for very much longer –
to set the democratic rules of the global game. By default, in a few years, the emerging countries
will have the hand, and these two historic giants will find themselves marginalized. Together, if they
stand up in unison with the other Democracies, they own their last chance of defining a humanistic
future for the Planet.
Japan
Japan has a great independent culture, long isolated from external influences, with an unequaled
sophistication. It remains one of the top four economic powers after the US, now China and aside
Germany. It is also the first non-Western country to have challenged America at its own economic
game, back in the eighties. Since the bomb of Hiroshima, the evolution of Japan has exemplified the
success of a large independent country under strong American influence.
This influence provided a plan for accelerated liberal economic recovery, complete military
dependence with respect to the USA, enormous economic growth, increased living standards, and
consequently, a deceleration of its birth rate. Following WWII, the USA masterfully transformed an
ex-enemy into their best student of the post-war economic renaissance, and into a contributor (on
top of Europe) to the liberal capitalist model; in contrast to Russia who asphyxiated its satellite
countries into simple vassals of a centralized militaristic empire. Japan built a superb success around its technology, heavy and automotive industries. It was firt to
initiate the decline of US made products, and led the World with its unmatched quality for a lower
price, which it later off-shored to lower cost countries such as China. Going from student to
master, Japanese companies have brought business lessons to the World; from a country emerging
from nuclear ashes, an archipelago shaken by earthquakes, of only a hundred million inhabitants,
without any natural resources or international tradition - except for a painful regional colonial
historic chapter – Japan has undergone a truly remarkable transformation. In three decades, their
integrated conglomerates – Keiratsu’s - have managed to conquer whole slices of the global
industry, by leveraging a vertically integrated industrial model, specializing in specific industries
with strong added value and a qualified labor, ultimately becoming the unquestioned leader in
these target sectors.
History will position post-war Japan and its stunning economic miracle as the pioneer of the Asian
renaissance, an example followed first by South Korea, Hong-Kong and Taiwan, and finally by
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India, China, and Southeast Asia.
Japan became a great, apparently unshakeable conquering power in the nineties. This position was
shaken at the turn of the century by the surge of an emerging competition from the rest of Asia.
Japan started to lose its cost advantage with the West and to other cheaper Asian competitors, and
then struggled with its interior structural crisis, and finally the handicap of a strongly valued Yen
disadvantageous to its exports.
Not benefiting of a large internal market like China and India, or the US, Japan was solely relying
on exports, and therefore entered a long phase of recession, then stabilization, as it started losing its
role of hyper exporter, and as a result its regional leadership.
The rise of China - its formerly dominated vassal turned irresistible Asian powerhouse – evolved as
the ultimate competitor to its weakened economic order. A “Peace of the braves” with China will
eventually occur, through a sort of historical mea culpa for the colonial era, and will be tantamount
for Japan to find growth again, and possibly allow them to continue to capture a favorable share of
the Chinese market. Anti-Japanese sentiment in China and the historic Japanese superiority
complex vis-à-vis of China doesn’t make it easy, as demonstrated lately by a wave of strikes at
Japanese factories in China, and the dispute over the Senkaku islands.
Over the last year, the re-elected prime Minister of Japan, Shinzo Abe, is trying to revive the
Japanese economy and pride, and take Japan away from the lethargy of the last decade - through an
aggressive monetary (printing money), fiscal and growth policies known as Abenomics. While it
won’t change the fundamentals of Japan’s weight in the World, it seems to get it back to a land of
more positive thinking, as quantitative easing did in the US (hopefully the EU will follow soon once
Mrs. Merkel softens her obsession for austerity).
At the dawn of the 21st. century, everything is bringing these three great dominant Democracies –
USA, Europe, Japan - closer together, and to this group we should add South Korea, Canada,
Switzerland, Australia, and New Zealand. Under the influence of the American liberal model, these
Democracies still drive the majority of the World’s economy, and they continue to lead in terms of
standard of living. They still represent the gold standard against which the rest of the World
measures itself and strives to achieve.
Whatever happens in the future, this nucleus of globalizing democratic powers have proven that
Democracy can be the foundation for a peaceful civilization, that is liberal and socially tolerant, in
which universal justice compensates most inequalities, and offers everyone the possibility to climb
social levels. They personify “development” as we know it and at a level never seen before.
If we take 1980 as a base 100 for economic development (GDP per head in constant prices), the
2015 predictions from the IMF are: Brazil 152, India 473, and China an incredible 1950 (China’s
GDP will be 20 times bigger in 35 years).
Such an economic progress has led to a massive improvement of poverty levels. On June 1st. 2013,
The Economist quoted “Towards the end of poverty”, arguing that nearly one billion people have
been taken out of poverty over the last twenty years (since the end of the Berlin Wall and the
emergence of total economic globalization led by Western democracies). The magazine launched
the challenge to the governments of the World to further reduce extreme poverty by another billion
by 2030.
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Truly, the last couple of decades have been an amazing ride, facilitated by the US led liberal model,
and we can already see – vividly since the crisis that unfolded in 2008 - that such a catch-up race
(the rest of the World catching up as Democracies globalize their procurement) will have three
fundamental implications:
• A general ecological saturation;
• Increased military risks as the emerging countries are now truly challenging the old
“establishment”;
•
An extraordinary rebalancing of wealth, which undoubtedly creates a decline in living
standards and social rights for historic democracies as they attempt to manage and control
their own competitiveness against economic systems that lack social benefits – and until they
start building their own as well. It is quite obvious that the golden years of superior wealth and dominance are now behind for this
group, and that under the new challenge – that they have initiated – there is a need for some form of
new approach and strategy to the future.
The great Democracies, however, do not yet appear to have a true common strategy to confront the
coming risks. They continue to facilitate the forward march of economic globalization and the
accelerated growth of the emergent countries, despite the increasing challenges they are now facing
at home. “Bringing factories back home” is a louder motto, but still with little practical validation.
So far, while the rest of the World is in a mode of energized attack of a better future (and endless
economic growth), the Democracies tend play soft defense. Won't the day come though that they
will see protectionism as the means of defending their acquired assets ?
The evident achievement of the last decades is the never-seen-before economic growth of the
formerly called “third World”. However, I question the sustainability of this trend long term for the
whole Planet. The truly good news of the period for me, the big long lasting prize, is that the
established Democracies – ex-colonial powers – have given birth to a new vibrant breed of
emergent democracies, which have built their development on a set of political values compatible
with their own, and thus ensure the opportunity for great strategic convergence of democratic and
progressive groups. The prosperity of the recent past has put into orbit the fortunes of India, Brazil,
Mexico, Turkey, Indonesia, and other stabilizing Democracies, which help to shift the long-term
global pendulum in the direction of the Free World.
If it was not for them, I would really look at the future with gloomy glasses, and wonder if the
enablement of a new Economic order doesn’t come with a new political order – dominated by
emergent totalitarian regimes. But no, here they are: India, Brazil, Turkey, and more with different
shades of grey in Latin America and South-East Asia, and lately the possibility of more new
candidates to the democratic experience in the Middle East, although they are first going through a
very painful transition phase.
India with its variety of ethnic groups and religions, is the World’s most populated Democracy,
with over a billion citizens – within a decade the largest workforce in the World – and a lot of young
people. Who would have bet, before Mahatma Gandhi, that this ethnic mosaic with strong,
thousand-year-old traditions that are built on an antiquated social system of fundamentally nonegalitarian castes, could become the largest Democracy in the World? Gandhi has proven that
Democracy pacifies, and that Democracy, poverty and diversity are not antinomic. With the Indian
people, he showed that even without a democratic tradition, even in an immense and poor country,
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even in a split and formally colonized area, Democracy can show the way for a stable, modern, and
secular government.
India – together with Brazil – are my strongest hopes for the future, as they prove the adaptability of
the democratic model to the entire World. If India, in spite of its historical cleavages and its
democratic inexperience, succeeded in unifying politically and taking off economically, then every
other country on Earth can also reach that point: India is an example for the World. And, India will
soon have the World’s largest population along with an always-expanding diaspora.
For sure the story is not that rosy. India still has a long hill to climb because of its extreme
inequalities, disparate education (only a tenth of its young people reach college), and a lack of
resources and infrastructure. However, India is the first country to emerge due to pure brain power,
in service and software, and not through the “classic” path of cheap and unqualified industrial labor:
cheaper brains instead of cheaper hands.
Its colonial heritage enables its citizens to speak English, and its longstanding tradition for
emigration provides support to a strong diaspora in England, the USA, Africa, and most of Asia.
Admittedly, its borders are sensitive, in particular with Pakistan, one of the most neuralgic lines of
the Planet, keeping it in a state of permanent military readiness.
India is an emerging great power and a human mosaic that rests on a solid internal political stability,
but dangerous, non-democratic neighbors surround it. It must be more closely integrated into the
concert of the great democracies, and helped as it deals with such turbulent and disputed borders.
Cross-border relationships with China and Pakistan are challenging to say the least. Most Indians
want closer ties with America, as they see China not only as an economic but a long term security
threat. The economic relationship with China is soaring though – soon a one hundred billion dollars
bilateral trade – but it doesn’t seem to calm concerns down, and Pakistan’s instability and religious
extremism represent a constant tension to deal with as well.
Brazil, as India did previously, has shown under the presidency of Lula, that Democracy can
catapult an ethnically diverse and economically non-egalitarian country to success.
Even one step further, Brazil has proven that inter-ethnic mixing can be a factor for national
cohesion: the mixing of skin between the descendants of Africans, Indians, or newcomers from the
entire Planet, transcends the ethnic origins of each one, and directs the entire population to identify
itself as an integral part of a democratic World.
Also, strong economic progress, prompted by a new social consensus, has allowed Brazilians to
drop their suspicion and timidity of a developing country, and to start considering themselves as an
important actor in the concert of the leading nations.
Unfortunately the progress in their development has coincided with damage too, and shrinkage of
their immense primitive forest, which remains one of the last lungs of our Planet left for all of us to
preserve.
Most amazing to me about the Brazilian society is its universality. This universality sets a more
positive precedent for the future than even the US or India. Because millions of Brazilians have
roots elsewhere, they view the World with more familiarity and tolerance, and with less prejudice
than any other people.
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It has only been a few years since Brazil joined the circle of the nations that matter most, and it has
cultivated a triangle of affinities between Europe and the United States. Its voice, stronger and
stronger, will be one of an open Democracy that is integrated into the World’s diversity and is nonconquering and peaceful, though it will remain slightly withdrawn from a completely liberal
economy , as it needs to smooth its internal economic inequalities. Brazil is a very exciting model
for a diverse and universal World to observe and support, and a real footprint of what’s ahead, for
the other ethnically purer countries.
Brazil does not yet see any real enemies or opponents. It has, on the contrary, the potential to
federate a group of nations around its model and prosperity, bringing Latin America away from
fragmentation, endemic political fragility, and social and ethnic inequalities, which have until now
stifled its development.
Even so, Mexico, Argentina, and Chile now represent the next wave of development, and this
ensemble must prepare to find a common identity that emerges from a South American ethnic mix
that is at the crossroads of Europe and the USA.
This region hosts more than half a billion people, the demographic size of North America or Europe,
and benefits from a continent still full of natural resources. The collective conscience of Latin
America as a unit has come a long way already, and the economic progress, solidified around the
Brazilian pillar, augurs well for a promising common future.
In Asia, genuine democracies are also developing in Turkey (a blend of Asia, Europe and of the
Middle-East) and Southeast Asia.
Atatürk opened Turkey, with its Ottoman Empire heritage, to the West and to Democracy. Inspired
by European values, he concentrated on attaching Turkey to Europe in order to gloss over its
difficult internal struggle between a move toward modernization and globalization and the lean
toward traditional Islam: West or East – the eternal Turkish dilemma. Close to America, eventually
joining the EU one day, still truly Muslim, Turkey is also a fascinating (and challenging)
construction, a little bi-polarized between an pro-occidental secular faction, and its heritage of the
Ottoman empire which pulls it more to the East, which is probably where it will end up anchoring
itself, as a stabilizing factor to the whole region, which definitely needs such a calming influence.
Turkey, a respected Democracy and the only one in the region, has begun to be viewed as a leading
model for the whole Middle East and Eurasia. Its economy does very well, and it remains politically
stable despite its internal uprisings – as I write these lines in June 2013. A promising future indeed,
that could take the leadership of the Middle East, if the region shifts to sustained Democracy.
Southeast Asia, is a huge region, with a mosaic of mixed ethnic groups descended of India, China
and Australia. But, finding political inspiration in the European club, it has built its own ASEAN
(Association of the Southeast Asian Nations) to solidify itself into an economic unit, if not yet
political, in spite of very diverse roots.
This strong though recently developing pole is now at the heart of the Asian transformation. With a
quarter of a billion people, Indonesia, along with the Philippines and Malaysia, seem to be
winning against the post-colonial agitation and turmoil, because of their new and promising
economic growth.
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These new Democracies (in a shade of grey) are still fragile, and employ very interventionist
policies - especially in the agricultural field, where they harm a fragile ecosystem. Economic ties
with Japan, India, and China, are maintained by the large diaspora that resulted from the historical
mix of populations found on this continent, rich with ethnic diversity.
From a History rich in crossed migrations, Southeast Asia is another mosaic territory, which,
although still politically fragmented, will perhaps evolve into the epicenter of the open - nonnationalistic – Asia of tomorrow.
A cultural mixing zone for millennia, and still with a complex against its three powerful neighbors,
Southeast Asia could unify the whole region, bringing the historic nations into the future
amalgamation.
Already, aside India, it is emerging as the best regional student of a more universal and opened
society.
We could list and review more Democracies in the making. But already, we can see the overall
picture: an historic core which still dominates the World but is losing its once dominant influence
and belief in its future, and a stunning group of new democratic nations, economically emerging, but
challenged by the totalitarian powers developing around them. Overall, a dedicated help from the
older Democracies would be a precious advantage that they miss, they would benefit from the
preferential treatment of a “Democratic Club” which would reward their democratic liberalism.
However, despite no visible club or alliance, Democracies are more compatible and convergent than
one might judge at first sight – as they all share a moralistic beauty and a frustrating short-term
political agenda. Their leaders however, seem to counter-intuitively navigate, and build
undifferentiated ties with their totalitarian peers, as if totalitarian vs. democratic or human rights vs.
right of the despot had become a futile nuance rather than a clear differentiator.
The end economic competitive result has outpaced the ideological and societal dimension, and
political ambition has surrendered to the need for economic success. Please allow me to pretend that
this doesn’t have to be. Yes, everyone must deal with everyone else, and ignoring the despot doesn’t
lead to his collapse. But we are in a situation where the “Democratic Club” could still rally the two
thirds of the World’s economy – why to compromise so heavily with the “political realism” vis-àvis the remaining third, despite the risk that it represents against the democratic foundation, and the
harm to its people ?
I am convinced that there is an opportunity for Democracies to re-establish a global democratic
alliance, as their united voice can still prevail, and lead. They can be the cornerstone of an Open
World for the future, provided they aim at such a goal.
Democracies share an unmatched and convergent set of morals and geopolitical interests that should
stimulate tighter relationships and community. Older, established Democracies should welcome and
reward emerging democratic friends (vs. their totalitarian economic partners) and help them become
more intimately involved in their shared sphere of political influence so that together they might
create and foster a democratically based future for all.
Democracies should not take a democratic future for granted, as they have rewarded lately
totalitarian regimes with red carpet treatment in the concert of nations – not to name anyone. They
should prioritize this issue – truly agree as a Team to sponsor the democratic incumbents - and work
beyond greed and short-term partisan interest, because Democracy must be cultivated, protected,
and expanded. The universal model to be – or not to be - is still very much in the air, and needs peer
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support. Old Democracies need to pave the way for the newer ones to win, and eventually take over
the leadership from them over time. New Democracies nurture pluralism. They prepare the future of
Democracy as a whole. Together, they can peacefully, by the example of their model, invite and
help the rest of the World to join them. What they need is much more unity among themselves.
With a more united democratic front, Totalitarianism can be turned into a house of cards, as it
happened with Communism. The force comes from the people themselves, as each person who
lives in a democratic regime supports the legitimacy of his or her elected political leader and the
constitutional state they represent, even if they don’t support their policies, personalities, or party
line.
Democracies will have to prepare for fierce tensions with the non-democratic part of the World, at
the forefront of which China - I am naming the government of China and not its people - now holds
a tremendous economic and military power, and challenges the model, as it exemplifies that a nondemocratic state can rise stronger and faster in the World than ever before – and than any
Democracy could.
Democracies should make relentless efforts to seduce the people who want liberation from their
despotic regimes. Even if totalitarian governments neither hold the hearts nor the spirits of their
population, they are quite adept at cultivating the prevailing feeling that the Occident, with the
United States at the forefront, stole their right to protect and embrace their cultures and traditions.
With specific regard to the Arab World, this frustration is clearly fed by the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict, as well as by the post September 11th. American policy. While the Arab people are now
strating to fight for Democracy, often with bare hands for a chance to be free, and accessing the
Internet and strengthening one another through social networks, it is time to show them that their
aspirations are compatible with those of the established Democracies, and resolve for instance the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict once for all.
Democracies must put forth a stronger and more cohesive effort to offer a truly fraternal and
inclusive bridge for all Men and Women, who currently suffer under a totalitarian state. They must
help them overcome their state-sponsored nationalistic desire for conquest or revenge, in order to
find the inner strength to build a more open and free model. The years of hesitation to help the
insurrection against El-Assad in Syria are understandable, but all in all, not acting early was
probably wrong. This weakness demonstrates the lack of a democratic cohesive alliance, even in
front of its enemies. The democratic flame must be stronger than its opponents, people must
anticipate help and protection when they dare to stand up, or they will abdicate.
In order to allow everyone to believe in the force of the Democracies, and in their capacity to stand
up against the resistance or the invasion, the solution is unification. To look with confidence at a
democratic and tolerant universal future – we need to build The United Democratic States – the
formal alliance of all Democracies of the World, so that all democrats around the World, wherever
they live, know where to look for support, protection and universal justice.
Earth our Country.
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We just reflected on the opportunity for Democracies to pave the way for Universalism, if they
finally decide to start acting as a Team. We also sense their fragility, as totalitarian states emerge
from their isolation, and get recognized within the G8 and G20, with the World’s first economy in
the making – China – masterfully and strategically ruled by the unique “Communist” Party.
We see a new World order (or disorder) shaping itself so suddenly, with a speed of change in the
balance of powers never seen before, that it emits contradictory signals, which long term effects are
hard to decrypt in the day to day news.
As a result of this dramatic transformation in the making, do we see that economic globalization has
enabled a new dawn for tyrannies – a now legitimized future with the re-emergence of China and
Russia at the top ?
Or has time finally come for the last sunset of tyrannies, as a new modernity shapes the minds of
their oppressed citizens, who now inevitably also start to gravitate around a planetary culture, travel
more abroad as their income raises, and access more unfiltered information from the Internet ? Is
this sunset exemplified by the new democratic aspirations of the Arab world, with the fall of
authoritarian governments in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and the civil war in Syria ?
Surfing above the puzzle of the despotic regimes of the Planet is not as crisp as the tour we just did
for democracies, because these regimes do not constitute one or even several homogeneous group,
and we risk an over simplification. Each regime comes from the legacy of a specific local History,
and solely relies on its own internal control mechanism, inner circle’s indoctrination and military
power to survive. As a result, they typically all want to master the atomic bomb technology, as a
necessary safety net to their survival.
But, as different as they may be to one another, their differences with Democracies bring them
under one roof: they all lack a government that is freely, transparently, and democratically elected
by their citizens. As a result, their population is, to varying degrees, made up of the willing and
unwilling. They are hostages to their illegitimate leaders.
Since Stalin’s Russian gulags and China’s Cultural Revolution, these two countries have achieved
limited progress toward Freedom and openness, although it is probably better now better than it
used to be. However, their governments now play, quite surprisingly, prominent roles with full
respect of their democratic peers, in the concert of the nations.
The brilliant American idea that governed international bi-polar relationships for the last sixty-five
years, was that economic development and wealth for the masses would inevitably bring
Democracy. Though it worked wonderfully in Europe, Japan, South Korea and beyond, it has not
worked in the case of China or Russia - it did just for a short time in Russia though, before the
current ruler managed to take the regime back to the future. China has totally escaped the
anticipated US rule so far. The success (for China) and recognition of these two World powers
constitute a dangerous “exception” to the former vision that economic progress and Democracy will
go hand in hand – this exception could turn into the new rule for the future (as it had been for
millennia before), and turn Democracy into a short-lived parenthesis of History (a couple of
centuries).
Therefore, we really want to look at China, as we reflect on this group, because this is the case that
is really relevant in the context of the reaction to Democracies, the one that can really shift the
pendulum one way or another.
At the other end of the authoritarian spectrum come the “classic” totalitarian crowd - the rogue
states that, though not involved in the global economic system, still carry some power and influence
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through the strength and unpredictability of their dictators. From Cuba to North Korea to Iran to
Syria, these medieval kingdoms still survive, ruled by a dismal camp of governments (usually one
headed) who took their power from some historical military coup or stolen revolution. Events in
these states have been changing quickly since the removal of Saddam, their emblematic figurehead,
then Gaddafi, and we are still waiting to see what will happen with Assad. Iran, a sophisticated
society, is a more complex case.
In the middle, in between these two extremes , with China the World leader on one side, and the
extremists on the other, comes the majority of the group, a multitude of countries not well inserted
in the globalization - essentially post-colonial assemblages in Africa, Asia, Latin-America, or postUSSR states in Central-Asia, some micro states in the Middle-East (Emirates). Finally comes
Russia, who aims at being a Democracy but hesitates on the fence, due to the personal grip and
style of its nationalistic leader. They struggle to become true constitutional states, achieving
varying degrees of (non)-democracy, while undergoing sometimes deplorable conditions of
development – although most in Latin-America, Africa or Asia are now also joining the wagon.
Let’s review the players that most matter, since they can influence the pendulum of the World’s
governance in the future.
China
China is the most fascinating example of modern re-birth of an old authoritarian empire. In front of
the dead-end of the Soviet model, the then truly Communist Party took the wild bet, in the late
eighties, to join and leverage the Western liberal capitalist model, while not falling into the
anticipated US outcome for the emergence of a Chinese Democracy. In a short time, from an
antiquated agricultural society, the country catapulted itself to a point of industrial and technology
mastery and near domination, while also successfully - so far - isolating itself from the potentially
implied consequences on its political survival. The internal popular pressure for Democracy, while
omnipresent – as illustrated by the Tiananmen square massacre – has been kept under total control.
In fact, the Party has managed to completely avoid the ultimate American “trap” of dealing with its
“human rights” issues (the war name for Democracy) while its people become wealthier, and deep
misery vanished for half the population. In this case, it seems that prosperity has stimulated people
to accept the iron fist of the regime.
The American strategy to help them to build wealth for the middle-class, to create popular strength
for democratization, has totally failed in China until now, resulting in unexpected consequences: a
non-Democratic government has managed to achieve World leadership, to fund and defend other
parts of the non-democratic World, and to be tolerated for what it is, instead of what it should be.
The Chinese Communist Party has shown the strength that visionary totalitarianism can build in a
free-trade liberal modern World, managing freedom as a one-way road. Its leaders have fully
inserted themselves in the global economic game, while successfully rejecting the political system
that the game indirectly promotes. They are either moving toward irresistible Democracy, or they
are setting themselves as the example that could blow up weakened democratic political systems as
a whole.
China is the only country to be purely totalitarian in its politics while also extraordinarily successful
in its economic development. It is the amazing counter-example to the Western democratic freetrade construction, a mega-power in the making, derailed from all the well-thought anticipations of
its Western enablers and incubators.
China has become so powerful that it has completely escaped the controlling American model; it
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may end up having the potential to be the agent for change to the American free-trade system that
has ruled the global economy for the last decades.
Despite a strict policy to reduce birth rates, China is still the most populous country in the World
with nearly 1.3 billion inhabitants, and one fifth of the World’s population – although rapidly aging,
and soon to be taken over by India.
China is strengthened by its ethnic cohesiveness. It is not a mosaic like other populous countries.
Instead, it is a true nation state, one of oldest on the Planet, composed of 1.2 billion ethnic Hans.
Also, it can count on an immense diaspora, the largest in the World, as a relay to its trade and to the
influence of its culture.
Modern China is a case of extraordinary metamorphosis and demonstrates the re-emergence of a
civilization with four-thousand-year-old idiosyncrasies. After a peculiar historic journey marked by
a succession of colonial then revolutionary troubles and difficulties, China has re-positioned itself,
in just two decades, at the top of the World scene. The Chinese “Communist” Party deserves credit
for its pragmatism in reading the leaves. Only the name of the Party remains Communist … In a
heartbeat, it has lead China from the most extreme communist isolationism into the global free-trade
economy, all while maintaining a sort of “state sponsored” capitalism. In a lucid and planned way,
the Party has opened its country to external and civilizing commercial influences through strongly
controlled but seemingly unrestricted trade.
Its genius lays in the way it has succeeded to use the liberal model to its own best benefit – as a oneway street – by leveraging the economic shortsighted opportunism of the West and luring
Westerners with a ridiculously low priced labor force - almost entirely unqualified and agricultural
by then – due to an artificial exchange rate - floating for all but for China.
The Party has opened its empire, door after door, to the capitalist system, while officially remaining
a communist controlled state. Though shrouded in a velour glove for commercial operations, the
Party continues to manage its domestic politics in a mercyless way, and with a tight control of
minorities such as Tibetans.
The Chinese government planned the development of each province as a sequence – one after the
other, using pilots first. Thanks to the irresistible short-term appeal of incomparable production cost,
China got Western multinationals to build and invest on its soil, granting this country a gigantic and
ultra-modern industrial tool, immediate access to technology, and a “quasi-infinite” external resale
market - the Western market itself.
In very little time, the Chinese industrial tool has replaced most of the Western industrial fabric.
Though made possible by an artificial and strategically set currency valuation, the success of
Chinese pricing appeal has been unmatched in its scale and speed by anything else in History. In
less than a quarter century, and under precise strategic leadership, China has become the “Factory of
the World,” the World’s leading industrial power, and is now challenging the USA as the World’s
first economic power, with an average sustained double digit annual growth of its GNP - as per its
own internal calculations. First exporter since 2009, China is the first commercial power since
2012.
This grand economic opening has of course deeply impacted modern Chinese society, which is
looking stronger and more globalized due to an improved and widespread education system, and
somewhat freer exchange of ideas among its population. China, equipped with its monolithic state
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controlled governance, is able to plan and execute its long-term visions - a unique difference
compared to the unstructured democratic liberal systems it mostly competes with - and now has the
unequalled assets of the largest industrial tool, largest human resources pool, and, therefore, the
largest domestic market.
China now sees science and innovation as the next frontier for its World economic conquest and
geopolitical future. Homegrown Chinese innovation – fast-paced because of possibly illegal
technology transfer - is nurtured by the Party as the tool that will peacefully enable China to become
the major actor in the concert of the nations, and the World’s first economic power. Clearly,
innovation is a much more difficult animal to domesticate than the accumulation of factories or
skyscrapers, and appears alien to a totalitarian regime. However, the vision is there to pave the way
for the next phase of expansion, and while Steve Jobs was not Chinese, his products are clearly
made in China (by Foxconn until they announced that they will now build their own phones as well,
having learned enough from the master).
Like Japan, China’s biggest weakness is that it greatly lacks natural resources. So it has started to
position itself abroad over the last decade, particularly in Africa of which it has already quietly
secured twenty percent of the trade.
China must also learn how to exist geo-politically, and in doing so, how to face the influence of the
United States, with which it is now competing for World leadership. To be fair, I do not think that
the Party contemplates a monolithic leadership the way America used to own it. As a pragmatic
international power, China rather maneuvers to create a multi-polar World in which not all and
everything is US led, and instead China is powerful enough to fragment and block global initiatives
that it does not support. The objective of the Chinese policy is to multi-polarize the circle of the
hegemonic nations, in dividing the Democracies in particular, and attracting the emerging ones
which so far have found some comfort in the US influence. If it succeeds, it will become the leader
of a second pole, with an extended Chinese sphere of influence, and the US left to lead a shrinking
West. The Party has already tried to build a strategy to eliminate the Dollar from its role as currency
of reference without ruining itself since it is also its principal holder, as well as through adjustment
of its own currency’s fixed rate.
The question then becomes: what is the Chinese Communist Party’s ultimate dream ? Is China,
through the pragmatic and Machiavelian exploitation of Pax Americana, preparing for War in the
long tem, or is economic dominance sufficient ?
Xi Jinping, the new Chinese President, used the June summit with President Obama to assert his
views of the Chinese dream, position China vis-à-vis of the American dream. It is quite interesting
that he would do so upfront, as a “mission statement” preceding an ambitious grand plan for
international influence. And really, it could have been Obama himself speaking about America’s:
“The Chinese dream must achieve power and wealth for the country, national renaissance and
happiness for the people. It is a dream for Peace, development, cooperation, mutual benefits, linked
to the beautiful dreams of other people of the World, including the American dream”.
War or preparation for it, is not at the official agenda. My read is: pragmatism again rules the
agenda. While military investments are ramping up as China truly fears the American military
power, and wants to at least control Northern Asia, there is no evidence of a military grand plan. As
long as Pacifism works as well as it has over the last twenty years for them, there is no need for a
military master plan. The challenge is: how long can this Peace last if it is based on a relationship
that will have such imbalanced outcomes for the two sides involved, with China only winning ?
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When will the US stop playing as nice as they have so far ?
Ecologically too – largely under internal pressure as air quality in Shanghai or Bejing has become
most alarmingly unbearable - China is taking a new, braver “cleaner” approach, and has started to
genuinely embark on a path to reduce the growth of its CO2 emissions. To be clear: a reduction of
the growth curve is the objective, not a straight reduction of the emissions themselves.
Still – if only Xi could be democratically elected and would stop his criminal fight against
opponents and minorities, I would have a blast … Modern Chinese society do so, feels invested in a
compelling, conquering, and winning grand plan. It’s exciting. Since its economic revival, nothing
seems capable of stopping its promising destiny, not even the World economic crisis of 2008 from
which it has, almost alone, miraculously managed to escape, thanks to a forceful policy of internal
investments and consumption stimulation - although annual growth has now slowed down to around
“only 8 %”.
It has not been easy to control the landing of the Chinese economy and to prevent its system from
exploding, under the Western purchasing freeze, since 2008. The government had to take the leap of
faith of launching a national investment program financed by loans, worth a trillion and a half
dollars in infrastructure projects, industry, real estate, and consequently driving internal
consumption, at the increased risk of unused future capacity, which could at any time destabilize our
fragile balance of global supply and demand. Just an example: Chinese capacity for surplus
production of cement already equals the combined annual demand of the USA, India and Japan. But
so far, it has worked. China continues to forge ahead, trying to make sure that permanent growth
continues to fuel its industrial model, needed to maintain its political stability.
The Chinese economic engine has reached such a scale that it has to concentrate on its domestic
market – which only represents a third of its industrial consumption today. It certainly can no longer
afford to solely rely on exports, which are tied to more fragile Western economies, that are
becoming more aware of their own lack of industrial jobs and increased unemployment rates - and
therefore will repatriate jobs at home, sooner or later.
Leveraging its internal economic pump, in the second phase of its renaissance, China will succeed
in financing its own internal growth, and in doing so will minimize the impact of the global credit
crunch on its economy. However some fear that the current economic model is unsustainable, and
the IMF has just warned China that it must implement drastic economic reforms to take control of a
growingly unbalanced growth: speed up interest rates deregulations, and stabilize a growth model
which does not primarily relies on credit and infrastructure investment – easy to say ...
As it survives the threat – and it seems to have succeeded through the worse of the crisis so far - it
will definitively establish itself as a great stand-alone economic power, rather than simply a giant
offshore factory for plastic and steel, which relies on others to fill it up.
Indeed, the Party probably has no choice, but to pursue this headlong rush. An internal downturn,
reflecting the shortfall in global demand, would not only challenge its recent successes, but would
also work against its own survival. Could it withstand a serious internal economic crisis, generating
lines of millions of starving laid-off workers who would have to return in mass to their underdeveloped villages in the countryside ? Probably not, and this risk is the Party’s worse current
enemy. The new fast growing urban middle class needs to be at least economically satisfied in order
to stay quiet, and continue to tolerate the one Party rule.
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The Party has condemned itself – for better or worse – to continue creating the conditions for
sustained economic growth. It will do everything it can to avoid, at any cost, the political risk
created by of an economic downturn. As long as there is a flourishing economy, there is no sign at
sight that the regime will be threatened.
As a result, military expansionism is not at the agenda for now, as its visibility would not be good
for business. And for the reason highlighted here above – business must prevail for the Party. China
Inc. must attract always more investors and exporters on its soil. What is good for business is good
for China, and Chinese diplomacy is currently focusing on finding new markets for its products
(free-trade agreements) and resources (natural resources supply frame agreements) to fuel its
politically virtuous economic growth.
In the meantime, the most vibrant nationalistic and militaristic issues are wisely put on the back
burner (Taiwan, Japan, access of the South China Sea to American vessels), as military spending
continue to rise discreetly, and America is still much too strong militarily, for now.
Russia
I am more worried about Russia’s stability. As China’s economic success stabilizes its rulers, it is
saddening to see that Putin’s Russia keeps sliding towards the rogue state category, against all odds
twenty years ago.
Following the coup of Gorbachev and until the first mandate of Putin, it first appeared that Russia
might become a promising Democracy after all. In 1991, it all seemed as if it had left the camp of
totalitarian states to engage in a modern post-communist democratic era. In contrast to China, the
single Soviet Communist Party was unable to survive to the pressure of its people, the opening of its
empire, and imploded. At this point, since the central government was out of control, the people of
Russia had a hand at their destiny again – for the second time after 1917 - and the quest for Freedom
joined on top of their agenda, with a new political construction, and a return to more historic borders
- from the USSR back to Russia.
Unfortunately, the illusion faded away as Vladimir Putin came to power, and started to take control
of the just liberalized economy, monolithically centered on natural resources after the collapse of
more or less everything else, through his corrupted oligarch system. An ex-KGB chief, Putin
crowned himself a re-born neo-communist Tsar, reeking of single party racketeering and
nationalism, as if Russia would again have to abort its opportunity for a historical shift towards
progress and Democracy. He succeeded to stick to power now for the fourth time, using the
alternating trick with his debtor Dmitry Medvedev.
Russia’s economy has not been able to flourish after the end of the USSR. The whole system relies
on oil, gas and natural resources, very much like a “Third World” economy. So the mood moves up
and down as the price of oil goes, in heaven above 100$ a barrel, and struggling below. The illusion
of Russia becoming an emerging economy has disappeared - at least for now – while it has huge
potential.
Foreign investments are careful: the military crisis with Georgia put a brutal end to the flood of
foreign money that followed the fall of the Wall. This seemingly useless, self-inflicted conflict,
which was to symbolize the great return of Russian power, only succeed in freezing international
economic momentum and dashing the hopes that Russia was a promising emerging economy.
Everyone began to view this “opportunity” with greater circumspection and concern, and since then,
Russia has depended on its energy resources as its sole leverage, using it as a weapon against
Europe as well.
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The regime wavers between a return to a post-communist imperial past and a jump to a truly modern
Democracy. The new Russia of Putin, just like the USSR before, dreams of its past and of restoring
Russia’s immortal greatness: the fall of the Soviet Empire in 1991 was a seismic event to nationalist
pride, whose trauma and loss are still not cured.
Russian’s economic emergence is at a relative standstill, awaiting a readable internal and
international political direction. It does well owing to its oil and gas, but fails to build a genuine
economy around it, due to a lack of both internal and external trust. Lack of trust in president Putin
is the core issue that the country faces. Russia is ruled by one man, not even one party, and that’s a
lot for one single man to deal with, and this one-man-show is turning more and more scary to my
taste, given the scale of Russia: it could all end up abruptly, in a Syrian-like situation.
Medvedev was more pragmatic and tried to “modernize” alliances with foreign leaders to attract
technology, and look for new friends abroad, but he lacked the true power to drive the change. Since
Putin’s re-election, Medvedev friends are leaving one after the other, so he must be himself on the
end of Putin’ rope.
Nobody knows how to deal with Russia any longer, maybe with the exception of China. Mrs.
Merkel has rightfully taken a strong stance, so is the UK. Obama has the softer on this front,
probably too much, and he now starts to turn the knob with the cancellation of his trip in July, and a
clearer stance against the “don’t touch my Assad” leitmotiv. Certainly, Putin has completely re-shift
his external policy in alignment with the former Soviet era, saying “no” to everything, and the
pressure with the West keeps mounting, as he falls internally into a dictatorship. The Kremlin, even
more since last year’s contested re-election, struggles to come to terms with its post-Soviet identity,
which it still associates with wartime victories, and keeps scaring its neighbors despite some sweettalk always seen as too sweet to be true. Internally, Putin is slowly but surely tightening the screw,
many protesters have been arrested since the Pussy Riots, and a decade later his opponent Mikhail
Khodorovsky is still in jail.
What happened to the burst of Freedom that carried the reformists Gorbachev and Yeltsin, and
fueled the superb economic upturn of the nineties – when Russia was starting to be a Democracy ?
How did Putin steal the feast ? Although elections define a Democracy, there must be opponents to
the min actor, or it is just a dress up. The muzzle on the opposition and legal systems now place
Russia in the totalitarian camp. Political challengers are not tolerated, the political elite is being
purged, and as a result no political party is allowed to emerge without the blessing of Putin.
Elections are manipulated and the opposition marginalized. It is getting a difficult play though, and
Putin’s crackdown on protesters may be more a testimony of his own fragility and fear than of his
reinforced grip on power.
He can only be worried with the turn of events, as the political climate keeps reinforcing the anemic
economic outlook. The more he tries to freeze reforms and favor the corrupted status quo, the less
help he gets to modernize his obsolete infrastructure. As he polarizes – with success - the
nationalism and xenophobia of his supporters against the West and all foreigners, he continues to
justify his use of force and confrontational style, since the “enemies” are at the door.
If the Chinese system is strategically “enlightened” (and wins on the economic front), the Russian
one is “darkened”, and fails to build the foundation for the country and the Economy to develop. It
is about the lack of a state of law - the risk level for foreign investment - and the endemic lack of
infrastructures. While clouds line up at the horizon for Putin’s Russia, I also believe that the
country has a terrific long term potential, once put behind its obsolete ruling system.
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Beyond its ossified politics and lack of legal independence, the relative decline of the country is,
above all else, due to its lack of infrastructures. Russia badly needs long-term strategic investments
– internal and external – with some support of the technologies of the West. But in this context,
nobody invests – the rich take as much money outside as they can, and foreigners are scared. So it is
a non-virtuous circle: Putin stands still, by fear of further destabilizing (so nothing changes),
therefore less investments, even older infrastructures, and less growth, thus more discontent, and so
on. Short-term speculation and corruption are a much better business than long-term investments in
a dubious future. The enormous amount of Russian “Petrodollars” are then wasted, and don’t help
the country at all. Putin doesn’t not know how to win on the economic front, because of the endemic
corruption in his system and the decayed industrial complex, and foreign investors are not willing to
finance in a politically risky renovation, and so they continue their safer and well-rewarded Asian
investment rush, and China among others keep winning.
It is hard to believe how bad infrastructures are in contemporary Russia, outside of Moscow, Saint
Petersburg and Novgorod. Moscow is actually just fine now, flashing like any other European first
class city. But not much functions beyond these strategic hubs, the distant country is miserable, and
the majority of the population retains sympathy for the times of Communism when everyone ate
their fill - at least according to the dominant collective memory.
Russia is still far from becoming a modern country, although its new elite quickly grew rich sharing privately the then state owned oil and gas concerns - and live in grand style, another “Third
World” symptom. They have bought palaces on the French Riviera and League One soccer teams in
England.
Russia has turned into the largest and richest undeveloped country in the World, as we speak, with
immense potential. Huge geographically and stretching to three continents, it posesses an
unmatched wealth of natural resources, which grant it exceptional long-term importance, and
constant leverage against Europe, which cruelly lacks anything fossil to power itself. The flow of
natural gas channeling to and through Ukraine helps to understand the importance of oil and gas to
the Kremlin’s power - especially in our all-fossil-fuel society. So Europe is condemned to pay
tribute to Russia, as long as fossil rules.
Russia also benefits from its immense geography. Siberia will become more and more livable due
to climate warming, and will be potentially able to host hundreds of millions of migrants on its soil
in the future. The passage of the North East is now unfrozen most of the year, and will enable
cheaper and faster commercial routes to flourish, as new natural resources become available in a
region until now totally frigid.
Finally, Russia’s future is limited by one of the World’s lowest birth rates, and highest mortality
rates if we compare with developed countries. Russians are now less than a hundred and forty
millions, and the number keeps declining. There are twenty Chinese or Indians, and three Western
Europeans or Americans per Russian today, and more tomorrow. It will be difficult to remain a
leading nation with such a growing handicap. Not only the birth rates are low, but Russian’s male
mortality is one of the only ones to shrink among all industrialized countries, with a life expectancy
of sixty one years in 2008, and possibly moving now below sixty as we speak – due to alcohol, hard
conditions of life, high suicide rate - which represent a gap of ten to fifteen years against the
developed peer group.
Militarily, Russia still inspires fear, in particular with Europeans, no longer with Americans – China
has taken over there - and policies to intimidate its neighbors – tanks in Georgia or pipelines in the
Ukraine - continually cultivate this fear, further isolating Russia from the World economic
mainstream. They are also very active selling their most advanced weapons to the most dangerous
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rogue states. Frankly, the benefits of such a forceful policy do not appear obvious to anyone, except
perhaps for the popularity – and therefore political survival - of the president, which is all that seems
to matter in Russia lately.
As long as its leader doesn’t seem willing or capable of a clear “a la Chinese” strategy, and its
people not ready to initiate another “Russian Spring,” time is just being wasted. There is hope but
tiny: like the Chinese who are discretely planning to become the World’s leading R&D powerhouse,
the resurgence of “Smart Russia” has been Medvedev’s vision. He wanted to paint a future with
brains, rather than oil or bombs, and tried to revive the Yuri Gagarin days and the significant
technological achievements of the Soviet era. Too little, too late is better than never. Investments in
science, which were then six percent of GDP, are now below 1.5 percent, and half a million of
Russia’s top brains have in the meantime left for exile, a lot to the US. There is now, at least, a
statement of direction; the positive dream for a new Russian Silicon Valley - Skolkovo – together
with the “Strategy 2020,” which envisions that the tech sector should reach ten percent of GDP.
However a revitalized technology sector will need to be protected from one main enemy, the same
enemy that threatens Russia’s future: the rapacity of the Russian bureaucracy, politicians, and
police.
Russia holds the World record for state-employee corruption, with 71% of enterprises reported
being abused in the 2009 Price Waterhouse survey. No country can flourish when its state apparatus
acts as a vampire.
Russia has immense long-term potential but remains a short-term disappointment due to its political
gridlock: its GDP and industrial production have fallen by fifty percent since the 60’s. It built just
over 500 miles of new roads last year compared to 30,000 miles for China – just over one percent,
while the country is almost double the size of China. It wastes the very things that could make it
essential to globalization: its well of resources, its geographical position as a potential gateway
between Europe, Asia and America, its mosaic of ethnic groups, and finally its sheer size spanning
to the borders of the largest players of the World. Just looking at a globe, Russia is the only country
that reaches almost all the continents. What an asset it could become, if its vision was to lead toward
a better Humanity.
I wanted to dive a little deeper on China and Russia, because of their renewed importance in the
globalized Economy and politics. Their ascent helps to put in perspective the soft touch of
Democracies, as they have made Russia part of the G8 and China the G20 – which one could read as
an irremediable stamp of approval. Such a stamp reinforces their despotic political model, which
helps the other totalitarian states - the group of “non aligned” here below - to find a new legitimacy
as well. We cannot ban from others what we tolerate with China or Russia.
The game changers
Let’s now complete our geopolitical tour, and look at the less prominent totalitarian countries. They
don’t have much in common – each individually represent a legacy of their own local History - but
somehow they share a form of resistance to the universal modernity and globalization, and remain
more insular in the concert of the nations. It is quite a heteroclite assemblage – with a moving
flexible perimeter depending on their political events.
Let’s call them improperly the “game changers” – they can be the potential new Democracies of
the future, or the irremediably totalitarian defenders. They can and will shift the global pendulum,
one side or the other, for Humanity.
Here is why. The Democracies, while still dominant, don’t know how - or don’t want to - grasp their
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advantage and leverage their “Club”, as long as they still can. China’s - and maybe Russia - rulers
are building a new legitimacy on the foundation of free trade, but know very well that their political
base is growingly illegitimate, and an uncontrolled popular revolt can throw them out any day. It is
obvious in the case of Russia, less for China who’s grip on the society is broader and more cleverly
controlled.
So the balance will come from the rest of the crowd, the silent of today can become the “game
changers” of tomorrow … Who knows where this uneven group is heading to ? There are many
countries in there, billions of people who have never have the even distant taste of Democracy, ever
in History. When they wake up – as so many Arabs did massively and surprisingly lately – suddenly
they can change the whole planetary game, as they have the power of the fresh political innovation.
The game changers may be just on the way to join global progress and continue to translate their
popular uprisings into stable regimes, first in the Middle East, then in Africa, which is the new
frontier. Or they can fiercely continue to oppose to everything more international – at least for the
“Rogue States”.
We live in a World in flux, but this group is really in flux, more than anywhere else. People there
are as smart as everywhere else, they see the extreme appeal of the new World (the people not their
rulers), but also they feel so weak individually, dominated for generations, that it is hard for them to
join the free World with a winning spirit, as they fear that they could continue to be the losers, as
they have been for so long.
They don’t trust that Democracies are here to help them – this was the mistake of not supporting the
Syrian opposition. I fear that people there will end up being frustrated pragmatists instead of free
idealists. They will watch what the big guys are doing - who ultimately wins and loses, namely
America/EU or China/Russia - and will try to anchor down the insanity of their political and
religious reality into the winning camp, instead of taking the risk of winning the Freedom that they
aspire to.
See Tunisia, see Egypt, see Libya, see Syria, see the Emirates … it’s all here, boiling. We can hear it
over the Internet. It only takes a sign from the West, confirming that they will be supported and not
die in vain if they go to the street in the open and get shot without defense. They feel so vulnerable,
so much abandonned, they can’t from where they are that ultimately, they own the power to change
everything, and can drive the World to universal Peace and justice. They are the weak courageous,
and the Democracies have become the soft belly, the powerful cowards.
For these extraordinary individuals, we must take our hat off – “Bravo! Kudos!” - because we really
do not know if we would ever dare to match their courage. We do not see any more what we have to
lose. We feel protected. They need us, but we don’t know how much we need them to revitalize our
democratic system, make it pervade, and flip the domino game on the side of Freedom. Millions
have already sacrified their life in the Middle East over the last couple of years, with no Western
boot on their soil, all by themselves. Their sacrifice should give us a lesson, and instead of our
paranoia of Al Quaeda, we should stand united and strong, to help them win and invent their form of
Middle Eastern Democracy, which may not be exactly what we like, just yet.
It is tempting to try to simplify a geopolitical map of the World, by following a virtual border
between Muslim and non-Muslim countries, and to find there - as did Samuel Huntington - the
epicenter of our global and local conflicts. We have observed recently that “modern” (meaning in
this case ultra-conservative) Islamic “republics” have turned into global conquerors, which seem
unable to accept non-Islamist states, as if lateral ideological development was limited by their own
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intolerance, therefore making them a political force of destabilization in the World. The unfolding events in the Middle East show how fast History is in motion in the Arab World.
Let’s clarify a definition that creates constant misunderstanding and complexity: the Arab World
does not embody Islam. Arabs represent only a quarter of the Islamist population, there are three
hundred million Arabs out of 1.2 billion Islamists. However, the two (Muslims and Arabs) are
traditionally associated in the Western mindset since Islam is always the national religion of Arab
dominated countries. The Arab League, strengthened by its twenty-two Member States, endeavors to be the representing
body of the Arab nations. But in spite of a very strong religious cohesion, a single language (of
sorts), a homogeneous cultural identity, and a well-understood genuine Arab nationalism, it
struggles to internalize a consistent pan-Arabic policy.
The various levels of economic weight and influence of those who have oil and those who do not,
typically paralyse consistent and homogeneous decision-making, due to incompatible economic
destinies. Without this great financial divide - which favors particular interests - the Arab World
would undoubtedly be much more unified (although majority Sunnis and minority Shiites are a very
material additional complication as of late).
The Arab World also suffers from an endemic governance problem that is not confined to those
countries protesting in the Arab Spring. Though this revolution has had immediate implications on
Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Syria, Kuwait, it will also have mid to long-term implications on the whole
region. The two most important regional pillars are going through an important transition: the
chaotic post-Hosni Mubarak regimes in Egypt, and the retirement of King Abdullah in Saudi Arabia
(most likely replaced by his son Prince Miteb). Both are pillars to the Western relationship and both
are running their once absolute autocracies into an unstable transition, at least for Egypt. While the Arabs gave birth to brilliant societies centuries ago - in which they pioneered innovation
and culture in fields from astronomy to algebra, and architecture to technology - they have stagnated
since then; and this despite the immense wealth coming from their oil based economies, and their
global religious influence (they are evidently at the core of Islam, the fastest growing religion). The record-low electoral Freedom of the twenty two Arab countries is unrivalled, even by subSahara African standards. Amazingly, there is not one single true stable democracy yet in the Arab
World - maybe Tunisia soon ? Instead, the few non-absolutist regimes, such as Lebanon, struggle to
survive with any sustained independence under the suffocating influence of military-driven
neighbors and their obedient militia. This is why the so-called “Arab Spring” (a true grass root democratic revolution) was an amazing
and unexpected event, which surprised everyone, inside and outside. In places apparently alien to
democracy (with no record of any), people took the streets and tried to give birth against all odds to
a new free government. They succeeded to take their tyrants down, and time will tell if a true
constitutional system emerges over time. Instead of nurturing their obsession against the secular West, Arabs have given to all a stunning
lesson. They are fighting once and for all to get rid of their dictators, and aim for a state of law,
justice, free media, general education, and ultimately succeed to eradicate their pervasive
corruption. They dream of a government and of an economy in which professionalism rules, as
opposed to tribal or family ties or friendship. The West has struggled with how to react – support
them, or fear them, or let them fight among themselves and see what happens. 84
Of course, we know that the outcome can be disappointing - Napoleon succeeded to 1789 in France,
Stalin to 1917 and Putin to 1990 in Russia – not a good outcome. But there were external
destabilizing factors in these cases: all were fighting with fear the French revolution abroad,
Communism in Russia, and even a democratic Russia in 1990 was watched with some fear by the
West - in case military strength would come back too quickly. None of that external pressure seems to be the case for the Arab Spring, it was purely a grass root
movement. Of course Al Queada fighters have sliced themselves in there, but it is a small extremist
militia, not a potential governing body. Iran as well, clearly dangerous but a declared enemy, even
more of a reason to make sure that Iran doesn’t take control of a people led situation. Almost
everyone abroad favors a stable state of law in the Middle East - the only fear is that Muslim
extremists would leverage the chaos to take over, but as we just saw in Egypt, it is not so easy, as
Islamists – Muslim Brotherhood - in power can’t cope with Democracy, and the people fight back.
Now a couple of years after the first uprising in Tunisia, it is hard to say how long it will take for a
form of true Democracy to settle there, but it is getting slowly better. Let’s help them to get it right,
instead of just watch them. Somebody could make the case, after the military coup in Egypt, that the Arab Spring has failed, as
titled by The Economist in July 2013. The millions of protesters in the streets of Cairo and the
military reaction in Egypt raises a fundamental question indeed: can the Arab Islamists – who are
able to capture so much of the less educated electorate – be pulled into responsible democratic
leadership and be good leaders - when duly elected like Morsi or in Tunisia ? Or will they always
leverage any democratic election to turn their legitimate ruling into a religious despotism ? They
have such a tradition of being an underground movement, that it will take at least several years for
them to become pragmatic and tolerant leaders –with more of a Turkish style – but we cannot bet on
them disappearing or being ignored by the democratic process. It will take some time until they
decide if they want to part of the democratic agenda – and eventually win and rule - or remain
extremist politicians. Given the consistent uprising of the educated middle-class and women
shouting for a social existence, now ready and fearless to take the street when their revolution is
hijacked, fed with more universal education, the Internet and social medias and television across
boundaries, I think that they – the Brothers - are forced to mature, and adapt to a democratic tidal
wave in the Middle-East, which is here to last, if the West learns how to “help”, with a light but
determined hand.
Saudi Arabia – the “Land of the Two Holy Mosques”, an absolute monarchy, complying with
Sharia - Islamic law -, is the leader of the rich countries of the region, sitting on the World’s largest
oil reserves. It is also, on the surface, the grand ally of America in the region, and the main
financial arm of the Arab World. Its monarchy defends a rigorous practice of Islam – Wahhabism. It
is the only country that bans women from driving, and is rumored to use its enormous funds to
support and feed, under the cover, the extremist religious movements that it holds dear. As such, it
becomes difficult to assess who truly controls the nation – big money or radical Islam. All in all, the Arab World has turned into an extremely complex equation, central to the stability of
a more universal World. It has resources, money, powerful kings, millennia old traditions and
culture deeply rooted into Islam, fundamentally an immense frustration against the West, and lately
a will of the people for revolution and Freedom – potentially a renaissance in the making. A
solution to the tensions that this region exports to the rest of the World is not in sight – rather, it’s
like a big pressure cooker, unstable, unpredictable, with bombs and deaths and coups unfolding
daily in the news. At the core of the issue, the Arab World is frustrated. It feels that Westerners - especially Americans
- treat them as virtual terrorists, categorizing them as the Islamic enemy instead of evaluating them
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on their individual behaviors. They do clearly aim for a separate sort of development and a return to
a society more centered on spiritually. As the heirs to a long and brilliant civilization that radiated
throughout the Middle East and the Mediterranean, and that was built on intellectual, moral, and
military values as opposed to almost purely economic incentives, they see their traditional path as
being stolen by the West. The Arab World is uneasy with capitalism and its materialistic driven
logic. It rejects the accelerated race of most of the World towards over-work and over-consumption.
It likes to take its time. Time is not a value to measure productivity, but for prayer and reflection. It
does not always feel this need for monetary satisfaction to which so many other Men adhere and
dedicate their full life and energy – spiritual life matters at least as much as material life, and
represents quite a fundamental incompatibility, between this society and Western capitalism. Time matters and runs slower in the Middle East, and prayers sequence the pace of time. It is
demonstration enough, to see a medina suddenly empty out at prayer time, or the song of the
Muezzin put an end to all discussions; in order to understand that in the Arab World – more than
perhaps anywhere else – life is calibrated by the practice of religion, by the power of Islam. At the
turn of the 21st. century, the force of Islam still controls a mass of individual practitioners, probably
more profoundly and more deeply than any other religion does.
Because they are twins and neighbors, and therefore direct competitors for over a millennium, these
two parallel civilizations - resulting from the Islamic and Western Judeo-Christian religions though both of an identical monotheist origin and from the same geographic nest, have been fighting
each other for as long as they exist. They carry two different versions of a same message, but have
become the least compatible. Does Islam react out of fear that it will disappear under the pressure
of Western globalization, and fade from a religion into a tradition like Christianity in Europe ? Does
Christianity fear that now embedded in secular societies more and more distant from religious
practice, radical Islam will destroy its loosened grip over more indifferent Christians ? Does
geographical proximity, exacerbated by the shocks of colonization and now the massive European
immigration, support this confrontation ? Yes, these are the core issues, but there is at least one more. The acidic cherry that tops such an
already rancid pie, came with the creation of Israel, which delivered unintentionally a fatal blow to
any dream of cordial entente on the foreseeable horizon.
I carry a strong admiration for the Jewish people, for their capacity to survive during millennia far
from their original homeland, while protecting their culture, for their courage in the face of
adversity, for having built in Israel one of the most modern states in the World, for their research
and technology which is always at the forefront, for the dynamism and innovation that their
companies succeed to demonstrate despite their minuscule domestic market, and for a flourishing
economy in spite of an absolute geographical insulation. I spent enough time in Israel to be totally
impressed and respectful.
Although deeply legitimate for the Jews after the holocaust, the creation of Israel was carried by the
immense and justified remorse of Europeans towards the Shoah. It has been, on the other hand,
received and rejected by the Arab and Islamic World, as the ultimate symbol of injustice imposed by
the ruling Occident, making each single Arab a Palestinian in the heart. Israel carries the profound
weight of a “Jewish State” - a country made only for the Jewish people. It was a simple and pure
idea, with the noblest intent at the time, but it carries the consequences that we now all know. I
believe that the resolution of the tensions, between the Occident and the Arab World – of which the
resolution is necessary to a universal society - will occur only through an unambiguous settlement of
the Israeli-Palestinian problem.
The case of the creation of the Israeli State is unique in History. Thanks to a decision by Western
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powers, the Jews were able to recreate and reinvent a legendary state, which had disappeared two
thousand years earlier, give new life to a dead language, and rebuild a nation around customs
preciously conveyed during an exodus of two thousand years. But justice for the Jews was the
unintentional seed of a profound injustice for the temporal occupants of this land: a few thousand
Palestinian shepherds became the Muslim tribe wandering without a homeland, just like the Jews
millennia earlier. Though this was originally the land of the Jews, the Arabs of Palestine lost the
land which had also been theirs, after them, for centuries, so both sides have a legitimate view in a
historic perspective. Of course, Israelis have won all wars since Israel exists again, and as a result, the pride of hundreds
of millions of Arabs has been further lapidated and ridiculed by – only - a few million Jews. Arabs
lost face because they were unable to wash away this perceived affront and injustice from the
Occident, who artificially planted a Jewish-only state in their core, like a needle in their heart,
making this besieged fortress the 51st. American State, right in the middle of the Middle East. Finally, leveraged by pan-Arabic nationalism, this conflict has been turned into a golden political
opportunity for Islamists and local despots, because this situation perpetuates and fertilizes the
popular feeling of such a great injustice, and makes their cause stronger. It solidifies the great rift
between East and the West, justifies the Jihad as a daily pill of anti-Western energy. It has made
fundamentalist extremists like Al-Qaeda, the armed hand of goodwill for many.
The suffering of Palestinians has indirectly made it possible for the Arabs - who in all candor have
made little effort to welcome the Palestinians on their own individual lands, or to try to facilitate the
existence of Israel - to cultivate a logic of martyrdom, revenge, and Jihad, more easily justified by
the Palestinian situation and their constant sufferings. The wound remains wide open and bleeding,
and no one has been able to heal it, despite the laudable efforts of each American President in
recent History - each one has given the case its best shot.
Israel, unfortunately, has done little to avoid this trap, partly blinded with the evidence of its
legitimacy, and probably even more by pure fear of disappearing from the map. And so, Israel has
integrated the Palestinian dilemma into the its national psychosis, becoming more and more radical
over time, as the other side gets more desperate. The bombings of Tsahal, within the Palestinian
enclaves, are marked as criminal dots of evidence by radical Islamists, and reciprocally each fanatic
suicide bombing in Israel, further entrenches the hate of the other party – a perfectly endless loop of
mutual vendetta. Israel is a true Democracy, but a Democracy carried by and for a single ethnic group, with a single
religion – this was the original definition of the “Jewish State”. From there lies the impossibility of a
solution of compromise. Jerusalem is the city of the temple of Solomon. Therefore Jerusalem is
Jewish, and therefore it has to be Israeli, and it cannot be negotiated. The fact that the city also
hosts the fifth most holy place of Islam and the first of Christianity may count as important for those
religions, but not for Judaism, and thus not for Israel. Jerusalem must be Jewish – this has become
the eternal political red line of Israel.
This is a situation in which everyone is both right and wrong, and there is no perfect solution, if the
initial rule of ethnic purity – which was probably wrong in the first place – remains. This rule has to
change.
It is hard to imagine a possible end to this conflict, either with a Peace or a winner, because all have
too much to loose, and find themselves engaged in an endless fight, with their backs to the wall.
But the lack of realization of their reciprocal psychosis, destabilizes and takes as hostage the World
equilibrium in its entirety. 87
Time matters, and makes it worse. The case for Israel is not strengthening over time. Its moral
image is becoming more blurred in Europe, and more Muslims now live in Europe. In America, it is
also weakening, and America is slowly retreating from its active role in the Middle-East. Iran is
building a nuclear weapon capable of hitting Israel, and the Arab Spring has potentially empowered
popular Islamic regimes all around Israel – what will happen in Egypt is extremely important in this
context. In my view, the only logical possibility for a peaceful solution will require a very bold move, one
which challenges the original idea of a pure “Jewish State”, the lines must shift beyond entrenched
partisan emotions. Irael has to become a land of diversity, as well.
Israel must dare to give up Zionism, compromise its ethnic and religious unity, and sacrifice its table
of law which dictates that in order to be free forever, the Jews can only live in a Jewish state. It has
to become a multi-ethnic Israel.
On their side, Palestinians have to accept the reality of the Jews, and recognize their presence. They
must accept to co-own “their” Palestine, give up their quest for revenge, abandon the ill-conceived
idea of a “pure” ethnic Palestinian State, and learn to live peacefully on the same land.
Basically all need to move from an Apartheid-like situation, to the one of the new South African
model. Simple, logical, but obviously impossible ? As a voluntary settlement between the two
parties, I do agree. Neither party will ever unilaterally and willingly come to such a dramatic
paradigm change.
Therefore, the solution can only come from the outside – forced and/or guaranteed, in particular the
protection of the Jewish minority – by a higher level global authority, authority which created the
problem in the first place - the post-WW2 powers. Israel was inserted there, as a seed rejected by everyone around it. It now needs to take root in its
environment as an integrated part of its region and people, not as an isolated implant. Times have
changed since the Shoah. The World is universalizing and becoming ethnically blended everywhere
- why not this piece of land as well, which, like any other, has faced waves of migrations and
colonization over the centuries ? The Jewish people are the most universal of all. Their diaspora
spreads across all the continents, resulting in terrible hardships and great successes.
Shouldn’t they be the ones to accept the symbolic and marvelous example of universalist Peace,
them who were the martirized target of the terrible Nazis; agreeing to let Israel become a
multiethnic state and a true Democracy for all people regardless of origin or religion, the first in the
Middle East ? Isn’t this a much more fulfilling path for the Jews of Israel, than continuing toward
the dead end of defending an isolated fortress - for which even their best friends are loosing hope
and belief ? Seriously, who truthfully still supports the idea that creating a fake Palestinian “prison
state” along side the small Israeli fortress, makes durable sense ?
Let’s face it. The endless fight for a pure monolithic ethnicity and religion in Israel, and another
distinct one in Palestine, cannot continue to take the rest of the World as its hostage. This conflict
has much broader ramifications because it perpetuates the rift between the West, who defends Israel
with relative loyalty, despite Israeli perception, and the Arabs, who dream to eradicate Israel and
demonize the West as a whole. The founding definition of Israel as a Jewish-only country is a
handicap to any reasonable solution, making all non-Jews in Israel second-class citizens, and thus
implying the unrealistic solution of a mini artificial Palestinian State that, located on the Israel’s
doorstep, can only exist under full Israeli dominance. The concept of the modern Palestinian State,
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though not intended, is not much different of the black enclaves – the “homelands” – fenced off
around South Africa at the time of Apartheid. Frankly, I do not see how this will ever work - even if
miraculously a Palestinian State was created. It just doesn’t make sense, a microstate cut into two
minuscule and economically non-viable pieces of land - further confused with the insertion of
Jewish settlements - with Israel still in the middle like West Berlin inside of East Germany, and
Jerusalem being “something else”… This is just nonsense, I must say. The only enduring solution can be a single, secular, multi-ethnic and unique Israeli-Palestinian
State, where all religions and ethnic origins can be tolerated and protected in absolute independence
by the constitution of the state, with the forceful backing of a higher level international authority.
This State has to take the risk and the chance – like modern South Africa – to demonstrate that
people can live together – Jews and Arabs - in a place that was previously dominated by just one
community. Israel must learn how to live with its neighbors like any other country, re-invent its
own regional ecosystem and be able to exist without the US life line which won’t be eternal.
With the help of the rest of the World, Israel can become a showcase, perhaps the epicenter of the
reconciliation between the Arab World and the Occident, while re-inventing itself as the first
secular, multi-ethnic state of the area, in the image of South Africa paving the way for the entire
sub-Saharan continent. South Africa, under the light and guidance of Frederick De Klerk and
Nelson Mandela, has become the great opportunity of Africa, its first modern and pluri-ethnic
democracy.
The settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict opens up the same opportunity, amplified by its
cascading impact on the Islam-Occident tectonic plaques. To stimulate such a resolution however, a
strong World leadership is needed, as I do not see it possibly ever coming from the parties
themselves.
Moving to Africa, the birthplace of Mankind, where undoubtedly, for the first time, an animal
turned into a Man. Also, Africa is the original cradle of the Black Man. This is where it all started,
when we all were the same species, probably the same tribe even.
While Nature has been most generous there, life remains tough. The African birth rate is still the
highest, in spite of a lifespan shortened by fifteen years compared to the World average, due to
endemic diseases from Malaria to AIDS. Africa is the land of our ancestors, but also the continent
with the youngest population – it is harder there to reach an old age. Africa is a key geopolitical
player. From hundred and eighty million people in 1950, to a billion inhabitants already today,
heading toward two billion in 2050 – soon twenty percent of the Planet, and fourty percent of the
World’s workforce, according to John Kerry, or twenty three percent according to the UN – still a
huge number.
Africa has an immense landscape, almost an island-continent, the richest in natural resources, and
perhaps the most gorgeous - to my own taste - because it has been mostly protected from the
civilization of consumerism. Africa accommodates almost a quarter of the Planet’s forests. It is a
land of beauty and magic scents - and quasi-infinite resources. It nurtures extreme human and
geographic contrasts. Muslims in the North and Animists in the South; the Maghreb and Egypt at
its Mediterranean top, cultivated and dynamic; the immense and formerly fertile sea of sand of the
Sahara, rich in oil and in permanent sunshine, which pushes its barrier of dunes further and further
under the pressure of the climate change; the steppe of the Sahel, with its civilizations of old
kingdoms and then Ethiopia; Black Africa starts with its savanna and its dense and still protected
equatorial forest, its rivers and its large lakes, and its people, so robust that they were used
miserably as slaves, by Europeans and Arabs, at the times of the “Ebony Coast”. Finally down
South, the superb South Africa, “A World in One Country,” which has now become officially a
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multi-ethnic society and emerges economically as the force of the Continent, even if it has not
completely stabilized politically. While the Arab World has intentionally removed itself from globalization through cultural,
religious, or political choices, sub-Saharan Africa does not appear to have taken any deliberate
position. Instead, it has simply happened that way, as it struggled to align and integrate its postcolonial societies with the demanding rules of a performance-based World. The region is now
finally opening up to globalization, slowly but surely, led by South-Africa, with a sustained
economic growth rate, lately among the World’s highest. Other than with a desire to exploit the
extraordinary natural resources found here, the globalization explosion of the nineties first ignored
this remote region, because it didn’t appear immediately compatible with the global economic
model - no infrastructure, fragmented, corrupted, most unstable dictatorial regimes. Africa was the
never-opening last frontier, the last region remaining, with the politico-cultural exception of the
Middle East, somewhat isolated to the overall advance of modern civilization, and to poverty
elimination.
Always left behind, Africa needed also to redeem itself, by placing the blame on its former
colonizers, who demolished original societal frameworks and then evacuated, leaving political
borders that were disconnected from local History and that stemmed ethnic conflicts. The once
stable traditional economic system was brutally replaced with the import of Western civilization,
which was followed by the sudden disappearance of its actors and capital, leading to the failure of
the post-colonial economic re-launch.
Reality or excuse - probably both … Sub-Saharan Africa is accustomed to positioning itself as the
victim of its colonizers, martyring its non-development and explosive misery. Its survival still
greatly depends on external assistance and donations, though the corruption of local potentates has
partly diverted those funds to bank accounts in Switzerland.
However, the time has apparently finally come for a re-birth, for a post-colonial and “post-excuses”
Africa. Sub-Saharan Africa is now, for real, attempting to transform itself, with a new impulse of
modernity, which is beginning to challenge the established African Third-World syndrome. Urbanization is accelerating, with rates of up to sixty percent in certain countries, and is quickly
blending with its original ethnic structures. Two societies are superimposing each other: the
traditional villages - poor but rooted in their secular traditions - which can no longer manage to
retain young people; and the exploding cities, which are transforming into megalopolises. Already
fifty African hubs exceed a million inhabitants, and several are nearing ten millions …
The new urban Africans are very young and are the new link with the outer World, together with the
many expatriates. They are confronted with a shock of culture, between their traditional tribal
villages and their growing access to modernity and diversity in the cities. They dream about the
universal civilization and its technologies in cybercafés. In spite of the precariousness of their
everyday lives, they aspire to own a cell phone, to buy a car, and to live in their own apartment.
With the rise of African soccer, they open up to a passion for African and international sports. Thus develops, slowly and with difficulty, a national regional identity – by country but at the same
time even more Pan-African. It transcends the ancestral tribal system and reduces the future risk of
the local conflicts and genocides that have traumatized post-colonial Africa so far. At last, Africa is
starting to change and move toward a more homogeneous African and Black identity, which is built
on ethnic diversity and the feeling of African membership. In parallel, and despite so much past false hope, it seems that the African economy is finally on its
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way to a soft but sustained growth, with a higher rate than the World average, by a couple of
percentage points over the past several years.
Even with the handicap of its poverty and its archaic political systems, Africa is finally showing the
signs of a positive future potential - as already demonstrated by the new Chinese strategic
investment plan there. The lack of a tight connection to the global market has recently been an asset
for Africa, as it spared it from global financial shocks and allowed it to continue its constant growth,
in excess of five percent every year, for the last ten years, despite the global recession.
Still, the total African GDP represents less than three percent of the World economy – so there is a
long way to go, this is only the beginning of a much longer catch up phase. This century will see
Africa grow faster than any other region in the World – half of the World’s population growth in the
next forty years. The total African population could quadruple by 2100, at four billions. Nigeria will
be the fastest growing country in the World, nearing alone a billion people by the turn of the
century. These are staggering numbers, Africa shouldn’t be neglected any longer, and is coming
mainstream for real.
The strategic role and importance of Africa is clearly shifting. While the post-colonizers become
less capable of supplying aid; new, motivated partners emerge, such as China and Brazil. The
European big brother is losing its influence, at the very time when its legacy could have been its best
leverage. Fifty years after the wave of African independences, the true awakening is underway, and
reaches its first genuine turning point. Poverty remains widespread – two out of three Africans
survive on only two dollars a day – but Africans trend toward potentially becoming the number one
worldwide market by the end of this century, with their expected billion plus population, and the reinvigorated external interest of the rest of the “global” World investing there after all.
Newfound pride in the success of post-Apartheid South Africa and the election of Obama make it
possible for the continent to believe in a destiny where it can finally hold its head up high. While the
economical upside is becoming a safe bet, it remains hard to predict how democratically - or not will the African regimes support this transition, as education progresses and an urbanized middle
class takes off. There are positive trade winds and examples to follow, in the North (Arab Spring)
and even more in the South (post Apartheid RSA). However, given the artificial borders left by the
post-colonization, the legacy of genocides and constant tribal tensions, the way towards regional
political stability – and eventually true Democracy - may take a little longer than the global
economic insertion of the region. At this juncture, the new South Africa fulfills the role of the first African state that counts in the
concert of nations, and hopefully precedes more to come, such as Nigeria. South-Africa has
developed a diversified economy, which goes well beyond the size of any other African
development. It is twice bigger than Nigeria or Egypt or Algeria – and represents alone over twenty
percent of the total African GDP. It is succeeding in a post-colonial multi-ethnic integration, intraAfrican but also European and Indian; and all of this is happening in the peaceful way sketched out
by the African Gandhi - Nelson Mandela – and with the crucial and pragmatic assistance, too often
forgotten by a short-cut of History, of the Man who passed the baton to him - Frederik de Klerk. In
spite of the internal ethnic tensions and unbearable insecurity, South Africa, above all, proves for
the first time on the African continent, that only a multi-ethnic Democracy can federate the
majorities and the minorities, which have undermined the political ground of the continent. As
reviewed earlier, its model represents a potential example to follow for Israel. Having visited this country many times over the years, I must acknowledge the maturity and
intelligence with which South-Africans and their leaders - Blacks and Whites - have managed this
transition, that most, including myself, would have judged improbable, if not unimaginable, twenty
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years ago. South-Africans not only became an example for Africa, but also another proof of the
multi-dimensional capacity of Democracy, to enable progress for Humanity. A ruling White
minority has finally understood with pragmatic realism, that the aspirations of the majority could not
be blocked any longer; but even more importantly, the Black majority has decided to adhere to a
rule of relative tolerance for their minorities, for the first time on the Continent. The decolonization
of South Africa, last one of all, profited from the painful lessons of the rest of Africa before. As a
result, it is becoming the nucleus of political and economic innovation in the re-development of subSaharan Africa, and the needed inspiration for the last insular continent. For the first time of their
post-colonial history, Black Africans have a tangible example to follow on their home turf, they can
visualize how to effectively transform themselves beyond their totalitarian governance, and win
respect and Freedom. South Africa – not without problems though – remains the political magnet
that Africa was missing to turn the page of its “Third-World” post-colonial legacy.
This concept of “Third-World”, emblematic of Africa – which has divided the World between the
aid-dependent poor and the others – is now vanishing, with the recognition of the poorest countries
to “emerge” now, as well. With Africa as the last frontier, the World of the poor will further
accelerate its metamorphosis during this century, with profound implications, and a more even
alignment of the World’s wealth dispersion. While the rich World struggles through a long and deep
recession - now five years long - the developing countries are becoming the clear engine of the
World economy, and their endorsement of the benefits of the global game has put their old masters
on defense mode.
Representing less than one third of the World’s GDP in the 80’s, the developing countries
(including the BRIC’s) are now nearing half of it, and they created almost all of the global growth
since 2008. Only in the poorer countries has the overall individual income largely grown since 2008,
while it plateaued at best in the richer economies. It is becoming more and more difficult to
differentiate First and Third World in economic terms, as the ‘First’ is crumbling under debts and
deficits - is Greece rich and China poor ? “Who needs who” has become unclear – in fact all that is
clear is that everyone needs everyone in such an unbridled Economy. Growth has moved South,
while debt has moved North. Public debt in the North has reached around one hundred percent of
GDP, more than twice that of the emerging South – an amazing reversal. There has never been a
better time for Africa to have hope, and to align its political archaism with the imminent promise of
its economic turnaround.
Iran – historic Persia - is neither Arab nor African nor Asian: it is the oldest state of the World,
nestled just between Africa and Asia, on the site of the first civilizations of Babylon and Assyria, the
fruit of a great and ancient culture. Iranians are highly educated, and are the direct heirs to the
oldest and most brilliant civilization of the World.
Why then have they allowed themselves to be locked-up through an economic embargo, how did
they become the pariah of the modern World - and why does everyone regard them with fear - as if
our greatest risk of planetary imbalance was at their fingertips with the acquisition of the atomic
bomb ? What have they done to be systematically blacklisted as a country, while the Iranian
emigrants attend the best schools and are most successful abroad ? It is kind of incidental that I hit this page on June 14, 2013, the day of the election of Hassan
Rouhani as new reformist President of Iran, after eight years of an ultra conservationist regime
which has misrepresented Iran and made the country isolated and poor due to the impact of
international sanctions. Reading and listening to all the press coverage of today, I am making my
mind that the following chapter should be re-written. It seems that Ayatollah Ali Khamenei – the
ultimate ruler of the country – has decided to unlock the country’s isolation, and give a sign of
moderation, both inside and outside – maybe … 92
The revolution of 1979 was the result of a popular movement that crowned Ayatollah Khomeini, not
the same person despite the similarity of the name and title. But its engine had been religiosity, not
as an end in itself, but as a form of resistance to a Shah and an elite that were overly Westernized in
a country in which common people were not yet prepared. Over time, the ex-watchdog of the West
in the Gulf tuned itself into the number one global enemy, the leader of the “Axis of the Evil” as
termed by American ultra-conservatives, in a U-turn in which logic or legitimacy is difficult to
understand. It felt as if the initial revolution, full of open-minded hope, was hijacked by a gang of
religious bigots. The Free World got confronted with a dreadful – still unresolved - decision, in light of the last
“atomic” developments in Iran, left with a choice between the acceptance of an Iranian nuclear
bomb, or the preventive bombardment of Iran. Israel, although willing, certainly could not initiate
the attack, because Iran would be forever crowned a martyr for Muslims, and the event perceived as
another insult by the Occident on Islam. Finally in the middle, laid the current choice, the
implementation of extreme economic sanctions supported by the UN. The negotiation having
exhausted its catalogue of options, and the risk of laissez-faire having convinced most nations of an
unacceptable risk, option of drastic sanctions avoiding the military option was selected, given the
catastrophic scenario of general regional conflagration generated by a frontal attack. This is not a
satisfactory solution, as Iran keeps polishing its nuclear arsenal, which will empower its “bluff” over
the whole region. But there is not much more that the fragmented nations can do against such a
regional power at this point, and the US after already two unsuccessful wars in the Middle East in
the last ten years. It is certainly premature, but I want to read the selection of Hassan Rouhani – who was the chief
negotiator of Teheran in the nuclear talks, always looking for a compromise to the point of being
accused of being a traitor by Mahmud Ahmadinejad when he accepted the temporary suspension of
uranium enrichment – as a response to the forceful sanctions of the rest of the World, which drove
the country into an awful crisis. “We must do everything we can to avoid being isolated” had said
Mr. Rouhani to justify his conciliatory stance. Now just being elected, he just gave his new message
to the West: “This victory is a victory for wisdom, moderation and maturity … over extremism” –
which is making the Americans brainstorm about this reopening of a dialogue, and maybe even of a
unlikely reconciliation with Iran. This is positive news indeed, as it diffuses the tension, and the time would be perfect for Iran to
recover its place as a stabilizing regional leader, respected in the concert of nations, given the mess
everywhere else in the region. Clearly, the whole region misses the stability of the Iranian anchor.
The conjunction of a multi-ethnic Palestine and of a democratic Iran, would not only enormously
stabilize the region as a whole, but also diffuse the risk of a global, belligerent rise of extremist
Islam. And, it would give Iraq a frame of reference in its own precarious search for Democracy.
The World waits with open arms for Iran to open up. This strategic but explosive region – and still
the center of the World’s fossil energy – would then be able to find a long-term balance between
Islamic traditions and the West, after such a long and tumultuous period. Still, there is no evidence
that this repositioning is in progress, the Hesbollah is still siding with El-Assad in Syria, and the
bomb in development.
Here ends our synopsis of the most important countries of the World at the beginning of the second
decade of the 21st. century AD ... Though much was a review of things we all already know, I
wanted to share a common language and my understanding of this complex and unstable landscape,
the evidence of this World in flux – with Democracies more unsettled recently despite the Arab
Spring - leading to the urgency of ... the establishment of a strong global governance.
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In simplifying it, we have visualized together the dynamics of the nations and areas where potential
shocks are most likely to happen, and why they create such uncertainty and tension in our World.
Also, my insistence to delineate Democracies and the others, is trying to paint the relative but
weakened strength of Democracies, as new totalitarian powers such as China take over from them,
as the new engines of global economic growth. There is a risk of greater disorder ahead of us. East and West serve as the confrontational tectonic
plates of our civilizations, and prevent a cohesive control over our impact on the environment. A
democratic alliance could act as a huge stabilizer, as the Occident is being shaken painfully, and is
losing its centuries-old dominance, due to the profound shock of its financial crisis, which is just a
small symptom of the rebalancing of wealth and power to the East, which is not anchored yet in
Democracy, and demonstrates an alternative path of success, symbolized by China. The new Democracies – with India and Brazil at the forefront – are recreating the democratic model
of Freedom and equality in a multicultural format. Totalitarian states are locked up in a religious or
nationalist spiral that only the people themselves can reverse – and a reversal has begun in the
Middle East. Africa is discreetly starting to raise its head under the guiding light of the new South
Africa, with a long way to go. The World’s balance is basically shifting on its axis from West to
East at such an accelerated pace, that it may provoke a financial and social - thus political earthquake.
The resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the duty of the West, for it is the single issue that
can create a sufficiently strong positive stimulus – if resolved - to arrest the global antagonism
unfolding between the West and Islam, initiating the move toward a sustained universal democratic
model, which over time can spread into China, Iran and others as well.
In spite of growing political risks, the homogenization of cultures is progressing across century old
borders, and a universal civilization is starting to surface while simultaneously superimposing and
mixing with the preceding traditional ones. The discovery of a global “citizenship” started with the
diplomatic, commercial, and communicating elites, then with the multitude of the employees of
multinational firms, and now continues to pervade new layers of the population, accelerating with
all the new tools of communication enabled by the Internet. Mankind, after thousands of generations
of parallel but separate evolution, is starting to re-discover the forgotten unity of its identity.
We are reaching an inflexion point. The impossible – a universal civilization with the implication of
its unified political governance - is becoming not only possible, but the logical and natural
implication to the completion of our successful conquest of our Planet. For most people though,
including those who haven’t accumulated hundreds of thousand of airline miles for decades, those
anchored in their fierce identity, this remains a complete utopia – which is what a hunter-gatherer
would have said of agriculture just before the Neolithic revolution. And even for world travelers, it is quite an intellectual challenge … A couple of years ago, I was on
a flight between Milan and Qatar, typing some ideas. A Swedish gentleman, sitting near me and
looking above my shoulders, interrupted my thoughts: “I see you are writing something about
climate change ?”. He looked serious and truly interested, and so I explained that this was not about
climate change, but the need for a system of global governance for the Planet, in order to avoid
uncontrollable climate change. A broad smile lightened up his friendly face: “Oh you must be a
professor of some kind, going to a conference ! This is utopia ! This would really be great, but it
won’t happen in the next 1,700 years ! Look, even us Europeans can’t get the EU sorted out !”.
I know, one country for all it is hard to imagine, because it disturbs so much of what we have
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always taken for granted. But the future is made of utopias becoming realities. Who envisaged the
fall of the Berlin Wall, even the morning of November 9, just before it collapsed ? Who forecasted
the global consequences and devastation of the financial crisis of September 2008 ? Who anticipated
that the liberal governments would have to spend five trillion taxpayer Dollars - raising a public
debt unequalled in History - to avoid the collapse of the worldwide economic system ? Who
expected that the assassination of Francis Ferdinand Von Hapsburg in Sarajevo in 1914 would
precipitate the First global War, in which twenty million men would perish ? Who dreamed that the
strongest Arab dictatorships would fall like dominos in less than a year following the suicide of a
desperate Tunisian ?
Universal governance is the most likely scenario over time, for anyone who trusts Man’s superior
intelligence and capability to rebound, as it is the only possibility to pass the great ecologic wall and
to stabilize our fast deteriorating environment. Lacking a regulating mechanism in our World makes
economic globalization an idol with feet of clay, completely lacking any form of concerted
planning. The pressure will only increase with the climatic change that is underway, which –
without global solution - will escalate tensions between regions and nations to a post-modern
paroxysm.
The question then becomes: how to get started ? Since every political formation in power today is
only a national construction – and therefore only has the power to fragment or divide the global
cause - how can a global political power ever emerge ?
Earth our Country.
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Why to insert a full chapter on religion, in a book that diagnoses the need for an elected global
governance ? Religions are a critical part of our traditional civilizations, they represent another layer
of borders – or of minority lines within multi-cultural countries. Therefore, we need to reflect on the
role that religions can play in the convergence of cultures. They can either be a vehicle of
globalization, as they embody the messianic message of the Universality of Man above any race,
color, or border. Inversely, they can be utilized as an obstacle to global identity, be used as a shield
against the emergence of a convergent and tolerant universal village, or be hijacked by extremists,
for the defense of the isolation of a specific culture, or protection of a fervent exclusive practice.
Religions can be a tool, or a weapon, for both sides of the universal happening. They can be a chain
of love between humans, or a stronghold of religiosity against non-believers and other religions.
How can we help religions to become a common unifying force as well, that helps and guides the
realization of the unity of Mankind ?
There should be zero tolerance for extremism. People who claim that they are the defenders of
religions, and use them as a tool to go to war, have to be openly rejected by the religions to which
they claim that they belong to. Yesterday, and today this has not and is been not the case. It makes it
hard to know if there are enemies inside, or if they are clearly outside. The rogue warriors can be
seen as the good dedicated and courageous guys, who fight for the extreme of the holy cause. As a
result, the unpoliced utilization of religions can be dangerous to Mankind, because their grey
behavior – tolerance of their extremes - can reinforce irrational and anachronistic tribal beliefs or
attitudes, xenophobic or identity based.
Is there a risk, with the religious belief, to make us blind to our obvious Universality, by continuing
to pontificate the divides between otherwise equal Homo Sapiens ? Why are apparently
irreconcilable beliefs used by ultra-religious groups, to continuously participate in sterile fratricidal
fights ? Why are religious themes used as war flags, supposedly pulling devoted armies behind
them ? Why have these religious arguments been going on for so long, endlessly, as an easy fence
between otherwise normally compatible people ?
The evolution of human cultures is closely related to belief. With the development of his
intelligence and his capacity to accumulate and share knowledge and ideas, Man gradually became
aware of the fragility of his existence. Fear of the unknown and unexplainable – the immensity of
the Universe, birth and death, luck and destiny – is the foundation for the beliefs that Mankind
developed. These individual beliefs became tribal beliefs, transformed into specific religions, and
then gave birth to the core identity of individual cultures. One may learn and speak multiple
languages, but I know of no one practicing several religions. One may convert from one religion to
another, but that too is rare. Most humans are fundamentally attached to their religion for their
lifetime, as will be their children, and their children’s children. Just because they were born with it,
as a “soft” legacy, similar to race, color, customs.
Animals, even developed ones such as dogs or dolphins, will probably never wonder about the
mystery of the stars in the sky, the origins of Life, or of the Universe. They don’t need the answer,
because they cannot conceptualize the question. Animals don’t understand that their offspring are
born because they mated with their partner, but they are genetically programmed to know how to
nourish and protect that offspring, when it is still too weak to do so for itself. Animals live in the
moment, and react instinctively to hunger, fatigue, pain, and fear. The human being, on the other
hand, has passed an intellectual level that has elevated his thought to the comprehension of time, the
past and the future, and provided him with the capacity to ask complex questions, becoming more
curious than any animal before him. This is why I venerate curiosity. Only curiosity brings
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progress, looks ahead, while reliance on already established responses - genetic, forced, or taught maintains ignorance of the unknown. Being curious makes you learn. Being provided answers,
based on given traditions, quells curiosity and is dangerous, as it assumes that tradition can only be blindly - right. In facts, right or wrong does not matter, what the “ancients” did and believed matters
more than anything else. Traditions venerate the past. The future is scary, the past proves the truth –
because the wise ancestors did it this way, they must have known better.
For early Humans, the Mysteries of life prompted a need to find answers. Just as the stomach
generates a signal for hunger, the brain generates a hunger signal for explanations. “I don’t know” is
the human brain’s equivalent of “I am hungry.” The need for comprehension and reassurance, in
face of the infinite unknown, as well as the immense pleasure derived from discovery and learning,
is what separates Man from other animals. Man has invented a new realm, that goes beyond the
physical World. It is a spiritual one, one of the souls, which can co-exist only with human
existence. Man exists in his physical body, but even more so in a moral dimension. He is made of
flesh of course, like any other live being, but he also bears a spirit that thinks, questions, and reflects
- as a result of a super-flesh in his brain …
Obviously, as soon as Man understood that he was born only to die, he rose up to ask a fundamental,
terrible and unbearable, human-only question: w – h - y ??
Why do I have to die ? How can I to avoid it ? And after my body dies, what happens to my soul ?
Will there still be a life for my soul, after my body goes back to the soil ?
And after why, comes: h – o - w ??
How did we get here in the first place ? How was this all set up - did some power create all of this,
and where did that power come from in the first place ?
From the eve of Humanity, when pre-human herds became tribes of hominids, the need for answers
became imperative, and ignorance totally unbearable.
The Shaman, Wizard, or wisest and most intelligent member in the tribe or the clan, became the one
to whom the others would listen. He became the one who could provide fulfilling answers to these
frightening questions, and could manage the challenge of the Great Mysteries. He knew the answers.
The shaman learned to build and convey a model, in which he or she gathered the beliefs of the
tribe, and associated them with experiences and adventures, and inserted rites and practices into the
customary habits of the tribe. His knowledge and influence over the others aligned him with the
political model of the tribe, and ultimately to the governance of the clan. This superiority created a
partnership with the political chief, and allowed the religious leader to rally support for the political
leader, as well as develop his own great influence over the politics of the clan. His position as the
voice of the Mysteries - a visible relationship breaker to the unknown - gave him extraordinary
power over the group, and control of key social events such as births, deaths, sacrifices, migrations,
and wars. He helped refine the morals of the tribe – of good and bad – to make social life a
cohesive set of hopes and fears. He became the guide of almost everything: deciding what trail to
follow in order to find water, game, or shelter, choosing the location of camp, looking after the
injured, and treating the body and/or spirit that suffered from mysterious diseases.
Man has always had a need to understand that which he cannot, and thus, the Wizard became the
specialist of the unknown, and unified the tribe or clan, by explaining the unexplainable. A very
important job indeed …
The two dimensions - that of Mystery and imagination, vs. that of physical evidence and discovered
knowledge – have worked in conjunction, both intermingling and opposing each other since the eve
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of the hominid times, as the two components of our intelligence.
Due to agriculture and settlements, tribes aggregated and transformed themselves into civilizations,
and the original tribal set of beliefs evolved into complex and organized religions. This was further
reinforced with the invention of writing, which formalized the explanations and definitions of the
Mysteries and framed them into comprehensive systems, allowing for mass communication through
the Holy Scriptures. Shamans and Wizards became full-time priests, and set up organizations
incarnated by a sophisticated human temporal hierarchy. Religions were born.
With full-time specialists and dedicated buildings and infrastructures, the official and unique set of
answers needed by the political system could be proliferated as the “Faith” for all. Temples,
mosques, and churches became the centers of the new Cities. Managing “Faith” became the
primary means for power, and Faith became the reason for living.
Beliefs turned into holistic models for the unknown, with explanations that covered an increasingly
more complete view of the Universe, and gave official documented answers to the Mysteries, for
which Man could not yet find a visible answer. The secrets of Nature became official truth. While
becoming institutionalized, Faith became obligatory, and its rules of obedience became the rule of
the civilization, as a whole. It defined not only what and how to think, hope and fear, but also what
to eat, when to eat, how to dress, and how to marry; pretty much every facet of life was transformed
into a rule of obedience for the people to follow. Religious power became the ultimate temporal
power. Ignoring the official Faith of the ruling Religion became the ultimate crime.
The Faith of neighboring civilizations - states and countries in the making – represented the absolute
enemy: the heresy of the infidel. Men fought in endless wars, to impose or defend their Faith,
reinforcing their borders and differences. Cultures were molded and shaped around their founding
religion, which became the cement of their identity and of their rules. From childhood, religions
were learned and passed, from generation to generation, as the ultimate truth and the ultimate seal of
“belonging” to a cultural group. Obeying the laws and dogmas was compulsory.
Beyond obedience, the duty of the brave and faithful was not only to obey and transmit, but also to
convince – or impose the truth of their own religion and convert others: crusades, missions, holy
wars and conquests ... As a result, as people continued to migrate, invade, travel or just mix,
religions started to transcend their original geographic borders and consolidate into a smaller
number of highly powerful cross-border influences, leading to a globalization of several parallel
Faiths.
The dominant religions, as we know them today, were born and developed over millennia. But their
ancestors date back to well before the Homo Sapiens, as we see in hominid fossils that display
burial rituals. Religions have been essential to the intellectual progress of our species and to the
formation of our civilizations. Their heritage is at the heart of our History and of our traditional
values, although – conservative by definition - they developed more slowly than other parts of
society, and in no way mirror our recent and rapid advances in science and lifestyle. They are a little
bit like our spiritual DNA, which can only slowly cautiously react and adapt – as a Darwinian
evolutionary process - to cultural changes. To be fair to them, the pace of transformation of our
societies has so much accelerated, since the industrial revolution, that no religion has been really
able to keep pace with all the societal changes …
Despite their capability to cross borders and fight for global domination, no single religion has
managed to conquer all others. Religions have remained diverse and relatively plentiful, in spite of
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often violent eliminations, as a result of consolidating empires and civilizations. For humans to
evolve into the Homo Sapiens Universalis, religions have a role to play, they must acknowledge the
new modern finite Planet, and work on non-divisive relationships, based on mutual tolerance and
respect.
Let’s take a brief look at our current “State of the Religions”… We are divided into four main
religious families, that are associated with three major historic civilizations:
• The Judeo-Christian family represents a third of Humanity - in Europe, the Americas, and
Sub-Saharan Africa.
• Islam (also split in several groups) counts for a little over a fifth of humanity. It is found
around the Middle East, North Africa, and Central Asia, with Arabs making up only a
quarter of all Muslims. Its following keeps growing, still expansionist. According to Pew
Forum’s first global comprehensive study on Muslims, the Muslim population will climb
from 1.6 billion people in 2010 to 2.2 billion in 2030 – from 23.4% to 26.4% of the World –
but will still be concentrated in Muslim-majority countries. Though just about 3 % of
Muslims live in the World’s most developed regions today, the percentage of Muslims in
some European nations will soon exceed 10%, making them a major cultural pillar,
particularly in urban areas.
These first two families are monotheistic and very structured in term of apparatus. They have
always been enemies, since Islam reached the Mediterranean basin, as seen through the innumerable
conflicts from the time of the Crusades to the attacks of September 11th. , and the constantly
eruptive Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
• The third religious family, which includes Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism, Shintoism,
and Animism; is multi-theistic, and has historically been more open and less conquest-driven
than the two preceding groups. These religions seem to be more tolerant in their capacity to
co-exist with others. It is also possible that since they are less strictly structured in their
temporal organization, they are more flexible and ready to adapt, and can therefore be a part
of a pluri-religious environment.
• Lastly, while the vast majority of human beings declare themselves “religious” in some way,
there is a minority of people - approximately a sixth of the total global population – which
doesn’t belong to a religious group. They claim to be Atheists (completely denying the
existence of a God), or Agnostics (confessing their ignorance of the unknown and claiming
no religion in particular, but accepting the concept of some kind of God, universal Architect,
or higher power). Such “free spirits” are mostly found in the Occident.
Nevertheless, while five-sixths of humans are regarded as belonging to a religion, the intensity of
religious practice, and the influence of Faith on society in general, has undergone a major change, as
the pervasiveness of higher education and universalization of knowledge have accelerated.
On one hand, the intensity of the religious practice is waning in those parts of the World that have
seen an increase in university level education, economic development, and Democracy, whereas an
apparent religious fervor is being reinforced in totalitarian or mono-ethnic states such as Iran, the
Arab World in general, Israel, Russia, and some parts of the Americas including the USA’s “Bible
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Belt.” A first wave of tolerant secularization and a relative detachment from the once dominant
influence of religion over social governance has progressed in most economically advanced
environments. These are places where immigration has not yet crossed a threshold of intolerance,
and where a large portion of the middle class has been highly educated. They have moved toward a
higher standard of living in an open economic environment that is supported by a democratic
political system, and their government is secular - separate from the apparatus of Faith. Western
Europe was first to see this process unfold as the once omnipresent Catholic Church, in particular
transformed from a dominant political power (before the revolutions), into more of a vehicle of
tradition and of regional identity.
Indeed, the emergence of a modern middle class seems to go hand in hand with the advancement of
secularization and a tendency toward rational values, that are less fundamentally nationalistic and
more focused on basic concerns of identity. Yet, this still doesn’t seem to be the case in societies
dominated by Islam. It will be fascinating to see how the dust settles following the Arab Spring;
what will the social implications be, and what political systems will ultimately emerge there. A
reasonable scenario is that “Free(er) Islamic Democracies” will probably emerge as a new
phenomenon – adapted from the Turkish example - with a good probability for the Islamist
Brotherhood to be involved, after they emerge from the pain of their current learning phase, with a
softer touch than what dictators have shown so far. In such situations of “emerging Democracies”,
in deeply religious areas, religion might remain tightly tied to political power, at least for a while,
unlike their Western counterparts, where Democracy has emerged together with secularization.
Regardless, the Occident continues to become more secularized, with the exception of certain
Christian groups in America (North and South), and the trend is spreading around the Planet, across
Asia and Africa. Continuing on the current trend, we might imagine a World, a few decades from
now, in which religions have become purely spiritual and much more tolerant of each other, with no
hand any longer on political temporal power. Notwithstanding Islam, for which it is still hard to
imagine a short-term political disconnection in the extended Middle-East, religion could become
purely spiritual, in most of the World, soon with their practitioners all merging and blending in
multi-cultural societies. In other words, people would continue with their Faiths and traditions, but
the “intensity” of their practice would soften, becoming more compatible with the lifestyle of all,
and more inclusive of the complete multi-ethnic and multi-religions urbanized society they are
becoming part of.
There doesn’t seem to be a global general study on the “intensity” of religious practice and its
evolution. It would be very interesting to observe such a statistical trend, and compare geographic
patterns. I would love to see such a research, with five groups of stratified intensity:
• The religious fundamentalists (extremists), for whom members of other religions are still the
ultimate enemy;
• The religious bigots (missionaries), who believe so enthusiastically in their God and religion
that they devote their lives to a tightly controlled practice and try to convert their neighbors;
• The regularly practicing faithful (practitioners), who fairly strictly follow the practice of their
religious dogma;
• The non, or loosely practicing faithful (faithful), who are detached from the religious
apparatus;
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• And finally, the cultural sympathizers (sympathizers), who are faithful to social and family
traditions, as well as the cultural identity of the religion, but not to the dogmatic beliefs and
apparatus.
Such a quantified stratification in the intensity would help us understand how modern societies
evolve, as they relate to their religious inner core, especially in the more tolerant and modern
democratic societies. We could better understand the real cause of tensions between religious
communities. I would offer the hypothesis that this research would show a shift in intensity, from
the first to the latter category above – its quantification would show its extent, which I am really
missing. This would comfort the trend that we can observe in most of the World, where religions are
becoming more of an individual mindset and conscious choice for membership, providing guiding
principles for the way to live, rather than a forceful rule of law, that dictates every aspect of Life and
excludes those of a different Faith.
While most citizens in modern Democracies take a longer path to religion, because of the separation
between religion and state – Secularity serves as the essential catalyst of a tolerant society - their
intensity is transforming, and their direct insertion in public and private decisions becomes more of
a spiritual value system, than a system of laws that guide the temporal.
Islam and Judaism however, remain somewhat more radical in this context, when measured by the
policy of the states in which these religions are dominant and where they receive broad popular
support. However, if we look at these two religions in places where the standard of living and
education is high, and where they operate in a multi-religious and secular environment – like in
Europe or the US - then the results are much more balanced, and encouraging for the future
integration of these two “intense” religions as well.
Let’s take France as an example, which is the subject of post-colonial mass immigration from
Muslim countries, and where some data points exist. It is common knowledge that integration
recently in this country is proving difficult – as seen in the regularity of burning cars in the suburbs
(the “banlieues”) - but, is the core issue a religious conflict, or is it more about cultural differences
and economic challenges ?
A relatively recent study of Muslim religious intensity (2009 IFOP survey on the establishment of Islam in France),
which people could answer freely, showed a much lower attachment to the committed practice of
Islam, by French declared Muslims, than one might imagine. Only 33 percent of interviewed
“Muslims” responded as believing in and practicing the religion (with various degrees of intensity);
38 percent were believers but did not practice, and 28 percent referred to themselves as being of
“Muslim origin,” using it as a cultural membership, rather than a form of formal religious belief. So,
Islam in France is much less radical than we might think. If most Muslims in France – two thirds are non-practicing, religion shouldn’t be the barrier to integration, and challenges are then more
related to cultural and economic factors, such as unemployment. Nevertheless, the visibility of the
small minority of intense practitioners (praying in the streets, wearing the Hijab), is suficient to raise
tensions and fears, in the whole population.
When a majority of the population adheres to an open and purely spiritual religion that is tolerant of
others, as opposed to a rule of law for all, then the basic necessary conditions are met to create an
inclusive future for a given society. However, the tolerant majority must be politically active and not
let a bigoted minority take over the political scene. This is where Democracy enables political
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balance and can find political ways to mitigate the intransigence of a few minorities. The majority
must respectfully allow the presence of bigoted minorities, as long as they don’t attempt to threaten
the overall balance and tolerance of the multi-cultural society: bigoted minorities should only be
protected, if they accept the secular foundation of the society. Those who reject it become dangerous
extremists, which democracies must try to control or eradicate, as they threaten their tolerant
foundation.
Religious belief has to be completely separated from religious belief, as much as it can be, so that
tolerance can win over prejudices in opened societies. All extremisms are dangerous, and that’s
clear. But the difficulty for Democracies is to define the line between the acceptable and the
unacceptable behaviors – when does extremism starts, when does it become threatening ? It is often
quite a fine line to judge. Today, extremism is limited to extreme religious fundamentalists – so
evidently Al-Quaeda is the ennemy. However constantly in our History have we seen that
intolerance of religious radicalism – not extremist but led by the mainstream religious apparatus has caused or has been the pretext for a number of wars, massacres and persecutions of all kinds.
The utilization of religious beliefs by intolerant hands represents a continued risk to our common
future (as it has of our past), and will continue to be a source of infinite conflicts, manipulated by
governments in search of popular support. It is a very difficult issue to address – or not to … We
just need to acknowledge this risk openly, in the free societies – it should not be taboo. It is our
Trojan Horse, the enemy from within.
Religious people (and the organizations behind them) are the first ones to own the problem and its
solution, as they must police their ranks, and be able to separate themselves from and to reject the
extreme devotees in a way that protects themselves – and the whole society – from those who
misuse their spiritual banner, at ends that go beyond the right and legitimacy of their Faith.
True Democracies lead the way through their contagious secularism. But, they must remain actively
contagious – not fearful and passive – and ban extremism to emerge from within. Tolerance should
not be a weakness or blindness, to the risks and fragilities inherent to a multi-cultural society. In this
context, I have some understanding for democratic governments – like the US – when they spy
citizens with reasons not evident to most people. They are fighting against an invisible enemy, from
outside or from within, and use tools to make the enemy visible before it strikes. It is to me in the
logics of what a Democracy can do to defend itself – Democracy doesn't mean a soft belly, it has to
be resilient above all.
In totalitarian states, the situation can of course be different. There, the rule of law is the rule of the
ruler. Religious dogma can be turned into the rule of governance, especially Islamic dogma. It can
be utilized by the government itself as the tool of revolt against a new universal, lax and sinful
culture, which is trying to whipe out the ancestral foundations of traditional culture. Islam
incontestably remains the leading cultural and political engine of the Middle East, where it
continues to be associated with totalitarian Arab governments.
But a predominantly Muslim country doesn’t make a totalitarian state. Islam is also integrated into
more democratic environments lately since the Arabic Spring, and more solidly in Turkey,
Indonesia, India, and Senegal, without having a radicalist effect. The importance of stabilizing true
Democracies in the Middle-East and North-Africa is paramount, as it will remove the confusion for
the rest of the World between Islam and Freedom, rogue states and democratic compatibility. In
this context, the popular uprising in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Syria, Kuwait and others is fascinating.
Its effects, over time, have the potential to completely redefine the Universality of religions and of
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Democracy together, as the Middle-East was somewhat the core of the visible and generally
accepted incompatibility between the two forces.
Still, religious intensity - the two top tier’s in our “intensity” stratification earlier - in totalitarian
zones, remains especially dangerous because it permeates the minds of relatively uneducated
populations. Military regimes subject the population to permanent censorship and propaganda, and
use the “religion” as a justification to perpetuate the cycle. Proponents of religious fundamentalism
know how to fan the flames within these sensitized populations, and they use the religion to support
terrorism and as a refuge against the perceived injustice of universalization, whose benefits ignore
them. The risk for developing sustainable Democracies in the Middle-East and North-Africa, is that
a better-organized, hyperactive and radicalized minority may steal power from the more passive and
peaceful majority. Democracy, to exist and survive, must assume that a majority of its people is
made of active citizens, or it cannot be viable. Democracy is a constant battle in places where it
doesn’t have a strong historic legacy, and where radical religion does instead. I admire the combat
of the democratic pioneers in the places where they have to fight and cohabitate with religious
fanatics. It is the duty of mature Democracies to help them, as much as they can, while not giving
indirectly ammunitions to their enemies – who can turn any Western support as a proof of alien
manipulation.
The dissonance between societies that are economically and politically more evolved and those
where minority driven fundamentalism is still succeeding as the de-facto religion of the state,
creates zones of major geopolitical friction, and represents an ongoing danger to the equilibrium of
the World.
As we saw earlier, in most advanced economies, religion has taken a more secondary role limited to
a spiritual sense of identity. They have abandoned some of their old ancestral customs and replaced
them with new values such as human rights, environmentalism, sexual liberation, and gender
equality. The other societies, in reaction to this invasion, originally Western led, of “amoral”
behaviors, have reinforced themselves in a more rigorous, and growingly anachronistic, religiosity.
It has become difficult to differentiate between those reactions that try to defend identity against the
external aggression of liberalism and, on the contrary, the warring fundamentalist reactions that led
to the September 11th. attacks. The danger of having religious fervor at the helm of a country –
typically driven by a strongly willed minority - is that it makes tolerance almost impossible. The
ignorance and passivity of uneducated masses reinforces this risk, and create a wide avenue for
religious power. For a religious fanatic – individual or head of state, any alien belief is competition
and insult to his own Faith, and therefore represents the absolute enemy. Obviously, he includes in
this category the advancement of knowledge and discovery, because such evil inventions challenge
the credibility of the ancient religious answers, made obsolete by the evidence of the new findings
of the infidel.
On the ground of Faith, who is right, and who is wrong ? Can’t Men agree that they just don’t
know, don’t have all the answers, and just keep searching with a positive curiosity – or have chosen
to believe in a given religion - for the good of their soul, and in Peace with the beliefs of other
people ? Unshakeable beliefs don’t go well with tolerance. In fact, they are necessarily antinomic.
Tolerance is a very difficult, if not impossible challenge, for someone inhabited by the deepest
religiosity. A religious devotee is certainly capable of accepting another human being, even if he or
she carries a different point of view or belief. But, can he do that without considering that his own
Faith is the only true one, and that the Faith of the other is a false idea ? Does this make it a form of
“exclusive tolerance,” that accepts the difference - because you can’t convince everyone - but
denies the possibility that such a point of view may actually be correct ?
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No tangible, verifiable, or rational argument can ever be made between people of different Faiths
that would convince the other group that their belief was flawed from the outset; the question will
always be one of willingness to believe, not of what you can convincingly demonstrate.
When pushed to the extreme of bigotry, religious fervor definitely becomes a barrier to progress, as
it stops people from being inclusive, and instead makes them intrinsically exclusive. It denies an
open minded set, with common rules of mutual tolerance, cohabitation, discovery and diversity,
because it prevents reciprocal learning and curiosity that are stemmed by reason and logic.
However, the accelerated spread of communication, education, Democracy, and the true global
distribution of wealth, enables a constantly growing population to accept with tolerance the
universality of Mankind. We are all the same people, whatever language we speak, or religion we
believe in. This trend seems sometimes to be irreversible, and to take the World by storm, despite
the smartest local censorship. It should if sustained, in all logics, continue to reduce the need for
people to limit their beliefs to extreme bigotry, because they will be given the chance, instead, to
activate their curiosity and learning. There is already so much more knowledge and information
available to almost anyone anywhere, that it naturally stimulates the free will and the array of
intellectual choices. It limits more and more the case for a single obsessional doctrine. A more
diverse and deeper access to information is spreading so fast, that we don’t even see the scale of the
change in the making, for the mindset of billions of people. There is hope at the horizon.
On our historical and evolutionary scale, religions have been necessary for, and incremental in the
development of our civilizations. They have given humans the strength for their moral convictions
and conquering ways, and allowed early Man to overcome the anguishes he felt when facing the
great Mysteries. Religions were so important for humans, when the Planet was infinitely large and
there was room for each civilization to grow and develop within their own homogeneous geographic
and ethnic circle.
However, as populations have spread across the finite shared territory of our globe, they must adapt
to the new paradigm as well. All people with a Faith should think of their religion as opened to other
Faiths, and not support polarization with other groups. When a religion gets preached as a divider,
instead of a forum to bring all people together, it has lost its way to our new World, and it will lead
us all to the wrong direction. Frankly, if there was less energy being spent on cultivating
fervorously parallel but conflicting beliefs between Jews, Muslims, Christians, or any other group –
wouldn’t this make our World a better place ? Why do these differences between religions matter
so much after all, shouldn’t we all just strive for good and for all ? I am pretty sure that this is what
everyone individually is aiming for, so what is getting in the middle of this spiritual compatibility ?
How can we avoid that religiosity becomes the strongest resistance to our common destiny, now that
so many converging factors are unifying us, and populations finally truly discover each other after
millions of years of parallel or conflicted evolution ? In pursuit of a shared territory and within a
finite space that we must learn to protect, can we now join together as a global civilization tolerant
of a number of different religions and beliefs ? On a Planet that is saturated, with seven billion Men
and Women, do we need radicalism on ancestral beliefs that divide us, or do we want to put the
interests of the species and of the Planet at the forefront of our common future – and instead
concentrate on everything else that is unifying us, such as speaking more than one language,
comparing and learning from the beliefs of several religions ? Shouldn’t this Universalism be the
aim of all religions – to pursue our common survival and succeed at building a better World for all ?
Of course it should be, and all truly honest religious people would agree with this statement,
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individually as well – so what is really the bottom line of the problem ? Is it the inertia of traditions,
group blindness or psychosis, still so much ignorant, which creates fear of “the other” ?
We are reaching a turning point. We are invisibly uniting around the globe as the pre-generation of
Homo Sapiens Universalis. We are shifting from separate expansion, to shared convergence, from
relative isolation (within a fixed territory, with a single religion) to forced cohabitation (with
migrant, more minorities than majorities, and all religions practiced at the same place, including
people with no religion at all). The millennia old divergent energies of Mankind’s evolution must
adapt to inclusive forces of cohabitation. The strengths that made Man a successful conqueror and
ultimate predator, are now the barriers that prevent his metamorphosis, into the protector of our
great garden, the one that nourishes us all and supports the chain of Life.
Religions – please help to guide the people who fight others under your name ! While we must turn
the page on his conquering expansion, so too must religions. They must convert their value system
from a unique unshakeable Faith to one of more universal tolerance and common destiny for all from what divides to what allows all Faiths to converge, so that religion can remain the positive
force, that it has been for Mankind until that point. Such a rally does not imply the need for one
Faith for all – no “pensée unique” as in a Communist regime. But it means that those who have and
need Faith should practice with a sense of inclusiveness and openness, and that those who preach
the Faith, should become a bridge between communities – agents of unity, spending their energy to
get communities closer to each other.
We have heard marvelous stories of Prophets, Messiahs and Gods, and we shall respect them all –
even more the ones who channeled the traditions of our family over generations, and got us
baptized, married, and will probably take us to our grave one day. Unconsciously, they cement our
own traditions, and make us belong to a community with its strong roots and History. For most of
us, we were born with a religion because we were born somewhere in a family that belonged to it. It
was not our own making, it just happened to us, as everything else including language and DNA …
Why would we then kill for this belief, or try to impose it by force to anyone, or forever lock ourself
into such an absolute and unshakable inherited certainty ? Isn’t the difference between the animal
and human our ability to continue to learn and therefore, isn’t our Life supposed to be about
discovering and experimenting, instead of endlessly ruminating the same – acquired - ideas ?
We are part of the learning chain, generation after generation, and more and more of the unknown
will unfold over time, as we leverage our intelligence and curiosity. There is no need for us to kill
anyone over this, since none of us know the “Great Answers” anyway - and maybe (most probably)
never will, as we may not be “designed” to ever know, or the necessity of Death would become
unbearable ...
Does my incapacity to believe more profoundly make me blind, or unable to understand the
inclination of others, who maybe see what I can’t see myself ? It is entirely possible. If that is the
case though, whatever my belief (or lack of) is, I refuse to impose it to anyone else – at least with
the benefit of the doubt … My only intolerance is with intolerant people, those obsessive, fervent,
radical believers, who are clearly blind, if judged by their terrorist acts (physical or moral), or their
rigid apparatus invented to maintain the chain of command that extends over their Faith, economics,
politics, and social and military constructions.
In a democratic regime, everyone is entitled to know or to believe, to think or to judge. This does
not oblige anyone else to share the same ideas, but it does require respect of such beliefs, not for
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what they mean, but because they belong to the spirituality of another free human being, and thus
form part his respectable perimeter, defining his personal right to his own free will.
No religion should be used as a tool of resistance against the construction of an open, universal
society. If it does, its messengers become the enemies of Peace and of our universal progress.
People belonging to a religious order that disavows the plurality of the societies in which they live,
are condemnable by their own religion because they break the true values of their own God, of
whom we are all children.
Terrorism is not the fault of any God or of one of his religions, instead it is the fault of those who act
on his alleged behalf, and who have built a mystical rhetoric around a tortured Faith, that leads them
to kill the infidels in his name. When used as a fortress of identity – that I call the stronghold of
religiosity - religions can unintentionally become the foundation for terrorism.
Intolerant and reason-averse religiosity has frequently demonstrated its capacity to pull millions of
Men into combat, through collective fascination and in denial of a logical rationale justifying the
conflict. It has, and still does, inflame the centers of instability, as proven by our most recent
History, and it continues to cultivate a downward spiral of hatred and violence, into which even
Democracies can be pulled into.
Strongly financed, and using terrorism as its structured and systematic weapon - particularly under
the banner of Al-Qaeda - an acute problem of aggressive, organized, radicalized Islam has emerged
over the last decade. It represents the most challenging outcome of Islamic reactions to
universalization, and more directly to the liberal and economic cultural pervasion of the Occident in
the Middle East. Al-Qaeda and other parallel organizations - including local rogue states such as
Iran which keep leveraging the issue as a lever to their anti-Western nationalism - exist and obtain
popular support. Without popular support, terrorism would collapse, but they efficiently cultivate
the frustration and humiliation of the Muslim people, on two critical legacies: the current economic
and military dominance of the Occident, and the existence of Israel. They leverage the aversion of
Israel and the US as an easy amplifier for their own popularity.
Any international effort that aims at softening the psychosis around these two inner popular traumas
(the root causes), would succeed to positively weaken the foundation of terrorism and anti-Western
sentiment in the Middle-East (the symptoms). I know that it is easier said than done. On the other
hand, there is a profound opportunity here, a “low hanging fruit” which must represent an absolute
priority, as we move forward to help the cause of universal convergence.
•
First Middle Eastern psychosis - the current dominance of the Occident: As the only group to have resisted to the Northern expansion of Islam, the Judeo-Christian religion
is the original enemy of Islam, and the success of the Western civilization has also become a
growing source of humiliation to believers of the Islamic Faith, of which the once flamboyant
civilization has faded away. When it ruled most of the Mediterranean up to the East of Europe,
Islam had an unrivalled military power and was the most illuminated center of flourishing culture
and of relative tolerance for the times. But the societies that have stemmed from Islam have been
dramatically left behind, by the dominance of the Western Judeo-Christian civilization, which for
two centuries has been the driving engine of scientific progress and globalization.
The West invented the industrial revolution, massive colonization, and finally, with its liberal freetrade economy, scientific modernity in general. Moreover, its dominance on global communications
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(accelerated by the Internet) has become the role model for the rest of the World to follow, in a
frantic attempt to catch up.
Islamic societies on the other hand, owe their poorly shared prosperity only to the oil in their soil
(for those countries which have this luck) or, despite their brilliant History, are still struggling to
join the World’s mainstream development arena.
I would suggest a reflection around another “Marshall Plan” for the Middle East and North-Africa, a
very visible initiative leveraging both local money (from oil), and a complement of international aid,
targeted at the positive elevation of the Economies and education systems in the region.
• Second Middle-Eastern psychosis - Israel’s existence and success: Superimposed on this already difficult situation between two civilizations, was a unique decision
that initiated an uncontrolled succession of events: the creation of the State of Israel in 1948 by the
Western powers, sen as an artificial Western implant right in the middle of the Muslim turf, an
implant reborn two thousand years later – a de facto Jewish-only State.
The majority of Muslims, since then, have regularly refused to recognize or accept the Jewish State.
It was created with good intentions, shortly after the last World War, to give a homeland to the
Jews, after two thousand years of wandering and the unimaginable episode of the Shoah. But Arabs
see this as a Western creation – notwithstanding its impact on the Palestinians – and a poisonous
outgrowth in their center. It is the absolute insult that destroys any form of lasting Peace between
the Arab World and the Occident; it has driven the conflicts that we have seen unfold over the last
sixty years.
Beyond justification or compensation for the madness of the Shoah, Israel presents an
extraordinarily unique situation. While it is truly an exemplary Democracy for the Jews, it is a state
whose definition of Democracy only applies to Jews. Its reality is ethnically Jewish and religiously
Jewish. The vain search to create an Arab only state of Palestine - in contrast to the Jewish only
state of Israel – further demonstrates the exclusiveness in this ethnic perimeter.
This so far unsolvable problem breaks down the cohesiveness of the rest of the World, and therefore
its symbolic resolution has become the obsession of each American President in particular,
representing such a hole in their global leadership shield, culminating with the famous Sadat-Begin
encounter. Nonetheless, genuine, long-lasting progress toward Peace in the Middle-East, that will
support universal governance and be recognized by Muslims, can only emerge following a
resolution to this conflict. The existence of Israel and the non-existence of Palestine, is too painful a
case for the Arabs in general, as it represents proof of Western superiority and unfairness. The
counter argument – the Jewish side - is the anteriority of Jews on this land, two thousand years
earlier, and now even more the astonishing way in which they have transformed a remote piece of
desert into a very prosperous country, within only a few decades, through hard work and innovation.
Indeed, making the Zionist dream a reality has been a salutary exercise for the decimated and
distraught Jewish Diaspora.
One could ask what moral right did the West have to re-create this two thousand year historical flash
back, and what are the limits of such historical reinvention: could Christians re-conquer Byzantium,
resettle the Greeks on the Turkish coast, give back America to Native Amerindians, Australia to the
aboriginals, lost Polish and Czech territories to Germany, and so on. Really, when you look at it, the
reason why this one made more sense and realism than the others, was the huge morale effect of the
Shoah, and morally I must say, it was a great thing to do.
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It is now done, Israel is in existence and doing well (miraculously well as a besieged fortress), the
Israelis won’t go anywhere else for sure, as it is now firmly and legitimately their land.
However, the question in my view becomes - solely - about the legitimacy of Israel as a purely
ethnic Jewish State. I commented earlier that the days of purely ethnic states (totalitarian or
democratic) are gone, and this is really the issue here: why can’t Jews and Arabs live on the same
soil peacefully in Israel and together ? Why is it taken as a fait accompli that never Jews and Arabs
will settle in Palestine ? This problem requires an exemplary solution, as unique as the situation that
created it. I do not see how the attempts to create two separate ethnic states, hating each other and
waiting for the first opportunity to fight again, moves the needle in a safer direction. It would repeat
the same mistake, which led to the creation of Israel in the first place: another ethnic state must be
created to justify the existence of the first one.
On the contrary, I would suggest that the only possible way forward, is for the international
“authorities” (which do not exist today as a unified body yet) to create a forum for a South-Africanlike situation, with a peaceful transition, one country/territory made up of Israel and Palestine as one
single, secular, multiethnic and democratic State, forcefully guaranteed by the international
authority (which again is here missing in duty).
This tiny piece of land – recognized by all - would then become the symbol of Wisdom for all, the
model of a place where Jews, Arabs, Muslims, Christians, agnostic, or any other group can live and
be a free citizen. Jerusalem – the city behind the unsolvable equation - could be promoted to the
status of an international City-State, a World Heritage City that would eventually become – in
memoriam - the World Capital City of all international authorities in the making. It would be where
the World would converge, after having been the place that divided us all.
In the awakening of the new planetary dimension for Humanity, the East-West dialogue would find
itself completely transformed as a result. Though it would not be beneficial for the Arab leaders who
use the conflict to support their nationalistic propaganda, the affected populations would, for the
first time, be inclined to believe that there is an international law and justice - even for Arabs – and
that globalization wants them in, not out.
Such a solution can only be imposed through the transformation of the World’s governance. Only a
credible international power could establish a credible sustainable guarantee for the Israelis.
Clearly, I do not see this settlement realistic with the current international institutions. It should
instead be a priority for a global project of governance which we will try to envision later on. But I
wanted already to propose, as we review the challenge of religiosity, and the divide between the
Muslim and Judeo-Christian Worlds. These are the two root causes to be addressed and resolved,
which once unlocked, can enable the insertion of this unstable region into the universal opportunity,
as it eliminates the core case for fear, anger and terrorism.
In the meantime, the Middle East continues to be a time bomb ticking, taking the rest of the World’s
stability as hostage, with Iranian rulers left to prepare their atomic bomb, and Syria still playing with
its chemical weapons, both fueled by Russia and all ready one day to be directed against Israel,
which is waiting for this as well, fully loaded itself with the strongest arsenal and directly protected
by the US. The “Perfect Storm” is still in the making. Doing nothing is more than enough to cause a
catastrophic event in the Middle East sooner or later, and the later it comes, the more able China
and Russia will be to steer the region toward their own logic. After the fiasco in Iraq and
Afghanistan, it doesn’t appear that the USA alone – inhibited by its own Jewish lobby – can get it
done. They need the boost of an empowered international alliance, and I hope that this can happen
before Iran acquires the capability to hit Israel with a nuclear missile.
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Future global Peace relies upon the resolution of this mega-spaghetti-conflict. Though it is regional
in appearance, in reality it is one of global influence, and it sustains itself with a renewed
enthusiasm of religiosity. Can the rift between Islam and the West be mended ? Can the increased
religiosity observed both in the East and West – to a degree even in America – be contained ? We
must push for a complete paradigm change, and show an active and coordinated international will to
eliminate the causes of conflict between civilizations – such as the situation in Palestine or the
underdevelopment of the oil-free Arab States - instead of only fighting their effects, such as the
endless “War” against terrorism.
It is not Islam, Catholicism, or Buddhism that are the enemy, it is their radicalization – used as a
stimulus for terrorism and gregarious popular enthusiasm. The line between open and tolerant
obedience and exclusive religious bigotry should be watched carefully, at least by Democracies.
When active bigotry develops on democratic turf, governments should not passively ignore it. When
bigotry is integral to the political power in a given totalitarian state, the government should be
treated with distance and suspicion – even if it is rich in resources - since its ultimate political
designs can only go against the stability and interests of others, sooner or later.
Oh well, these religiously justified conflicts (“in the name of my God”) have been going on for so
long, really. I would like to offer that the time may have finally come to fraternize our ancestral
religions, bringing together their unifying lessons and putting into context their symbolic systems
that have separated them until now. There is so much in common between all of them – the essence
of God, as the Architect of everything we see, and the need to give a good contribution to our
passage in life – and relatively so little that differentiates them. If diverse human beliefs could be
assembled into a more homogeneous and cohesive menu – with different flavors but the recognition
of a common divine cook, toward a more universal and unified spirituality, then they could be used
as a new point around which to rally everyone, instead of being systematically used as a delineation
for division.
A universalized Faith could be an agent to initiate a vision for a convergent future, a “Religion 2.0”
that could become the spiritual force of the Homo Sapiens Universalis, turning the page on the old
divisions. It would stop us from immortalizing our supposedly irreconcilable identities, that are
based on old books, written millennia ago, in a World so vastly different than the one that awaits our
children.
It would be so amazingly great if religious leaders, from all horizons, could agree to step up and
embrace the responsibility of - together - becoming the engine of a global fraternity – “God 2.0” instead of the anchors of a divisive historic diversity ? They could think about what materially
divides the Faiths, and talk about it together. They could try to rally the souls of their disciples
around a more compatible set of beliefs for all the Men of the Earth . Are they willing to invent
spiritual bridges that will finally make a diverse yet integrated spirituality possible, in which
everyone can chose to learn from Buddha, Mohamed or Jesus – all prophets of the same God ?
They could ask themselves the fundamental question: what is the essential substance that divides
religions in their original message, if any ? Or, are they all different reflections of the same human
message, the one coming loud and clear from our most intimate common origin ? If the latter is
true, then religious forms – i.e. the various translations of the original beliefs developed by our
ancestors to solve the fundamental Mysteries – have the potential to re-assemble themselves around
their original spiritual foundation. They have moved to opposing poles that magnify their
differences, instead of allowing their believers to see their homogeneous inner core. They are the
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countries of our spirituality - what does it take to unify them under a federation of the Faiths ?
This is an easy fix, at least conceptually, if an extremely difficult one, politically. It just is another
angle of the mirror of the artificial fragmentation of the Planet: there is no real reason, but this is
how it has always been, because nobody is still here to remember that at the very beginning, it was
all basically the same for the same tiny group of hominids who started the long journey. It must be
possible to find bridges to better align religions around a shared pool of common humanistic
themes, provided there is a desire to do so by their leaders – would they loose their hook on their
believers in doing so, or win their admiration ? If all the complexities and glamour wrapped around
their essence is put aside, then the essence of Faith is consistent for those who need and want to
share a great common belief.
There is no reason that I can see, that would prevent Faith from being more inclusive of all its facets
and therefore universal, leading to a shared fraternity for all, if its human contributors accept a
simplification of its message and promote tolerance and inclusion. Religions should not ask their
followers to live with their eyes closed, to avoid seeing our new modern reality. They should not
lead their followers to believe in, and exclusively obey, to the detailed transcripts of an ancient and
frozen inspiration, that was constructed thousands of years before, and was based on the knowledge,
customs, and social structures of that time, therefore, rejecting evidence of modernization and the
implications of constant invention and an immense evolution of knowledge.
Religions – embodied by their leaders in communion with their practitioners - should not accept
being held hostage by extremists who kill in their name, and they should react against totalitarian
governments, who build their propaganda around them. Their leaders – the Pope, Imams, or Rabbis
– have the opportunity not only to open up to this new World, but to actively lead us towards it.
They have a great role to play and can help make our Planet a better place, if they help cement our
common spirituality. They can lead us toward a convergent Faith, and prepare the Homo Sapiens
Universalis for his new beginning: the promising future of a religiously inclusive universal
fraternity.
Together we can win against intolerance, radicalism, fanaticism, and extremism. It all starts with
us, individually and collectively. If we can agree to dissociate the tangible from intangible belief,
while also protecting Freedom of belief, then we take the first necessary step toward the
compatibility of diverse religions in a global civilization. In order to prepare for more universal
values, beyond those of our own ethnic and cultural identities, we must nurture our curiosity for one
another; including one another’s Faith.
By deciding to open up our curiosity to the “sacred” domain of our inner beliefs, we make our own
beliefs more open, tolerant, and fulfilling. If we transform our Faith from an acquired one – almost
always given at birth – into a dynamic and open process that is constantly searching for a better
understanding of the unknown, then it will become an exciting quest that seeks to discover how
others have translated the Mysteries, accepts the common characteristic of all religions, and learns
from their differences - exorcizing them, rather than sanctifying them as the evidence of our
incompatibility.
Let’s never judge the other’s Faith. What one believes, or not, does not matter, provided we all
believe in one’s right to belief, and that we all share in the belief that we are part of the chain, that
carries the future of Mankind.
If an increasing number of people associate their religion to their traditions and identities, rather
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than to a duty of unequivocal Faith and blind obedience, then we will approach a more compatible
universal set of beliefs for Man and his Universe, fraternal for all, rather than distinctive. By
severing the control of ancestral beliefs, and opening himself to a new inclusive construct of
spirituality, Man is now able to reach a new stage in his evolution. He is ready to get a step closer to
his sense of the divine, that he carries as the most evolved translation of Life on Earth, and maybe in
the whole Universe.
After having been so successful as the dominant species, yet ignorant of the limits of his Planet,
Man can now learn to be the Architect of a harmonious relationship between his species and the
other living forms cradled by Mother Earth, all under the benevolent eye of the “great universal
creator”, whoever that is.
The Homo Sapiens Universalis is now prepared to believe in the capacity of Mankind to co-exist in
a constructive and tolerant way, as a prerequisite to the continuity of the species, and to the
protection of the complex chain of his environment. Through increasingly compatible international
education, the progresses of immediate global communications, international travel, and the
development of composite multi-ethnic societies, we are giving birth to a set of universal values and
beliefs which will have the potential to harmoniously integrate traditional identities, by reducing
fundamentalism and competition between Faiths.
The successful communion between people all over the globe will allow a grand universal design to
emerge, one that will enable us to cherish and protect the Earth, transforming it in harmony with the
needs of Mankind. It will create respect for the chain of Life and eventually help us remake the
great original paradise.
As we move towards this grand unifying project, we very much become akin to our Planet’s mortal
divinities. We will win the strength to survive our own expansion, benefiting our descendants, but
also ensuring the sustainability of our environment so that our human adventure can continue on its
extraordinary odyssey of evolution. Man can dream of quasi-eternity of his species if, having
managed his governance and behavior in order to stabilize his ecosystem, he later succeeds in
conquering outer space, eventually managing to recreate (give birth to) Life elsewhere.
As Stephen Hawking said, “If Man is to ultimately survive, it will be due to the colonization of
space - at which point the sky literally becomes his only limit”.
Can we even envision a religious dispute between a Jew and a Muslim several million kilometers
away from Earth ?
Oh please - no … Earth our Country !
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Can we imagine Humanity just beginning, with a male and female human-like couple - the first
hominids - a few million years ago ? In reality it was a very slow evolution that led to us, but, there
must have been some sort of first defining moment when the species became more Man-like than
animal-like. Was this first couple black, brown, white, or yellow ? Does anyone really know ?
To my knowledge, we have never been able to find a definite scientific answer – though most
assume that our first ancestors were dark skinned, in order to protect against the burning African
sun. We know exactly how these first skeletons looked, since we have found their fossilized
remains, but we can only guess their outer appearance. Maybe they were so pre-human and monkeylike, that they were hairy to the point that the color of their skin was not even visible, like a monkey
today.
The first hominids generated many descendants who, over hundreds of millennia of nomadic travel,
spread over most of the Planet. Groups finally stabilized in selected spots, on vast promised-land,
and fights between clans for available food and temperate climates helped adjust population levels
to what the local ecosystem could support. Through climate adaptation and consanguineous
concentration of their genetic profiles, within isolated small clans, the human race turned into what
it is today, a great mosaic of people. It took a very long time though. At the time of the colonization
of America, the Native Americans, that had come through the Bering straight from Siberia by the
latest eleven thousand years ago, still retained many identical physical characteristics to those of
their Asian ancestors, this despite a very different climate in South America.
Over millions of years, these groups of Hominids were insulated from each other, by the dangers
and space separating them. Migration of a complete clan, with its newborns and old people, could
hardly exceed five to ten miles a day. So, slowly but surely, their genetic heritage became more
concentrated, as they could only mate with members of the same or neighboring clan, probably
without even the understanding that coupling had resulted in the creation of a child.
In addition to their brains and bodies adapting to the climate, geography, vegetation, and available
game; clans and groups of clans began to develop specific and diverse ethnic groups, as a result of
millions of years of slow adaptation to their environment, that impacted the food they ate, the
clothes they wore, and the tools they used. As they became more physically differentiated, adopting
behaviors more specific to their group, they further isolated themselves from each other, like
predators who mark their territory. Were meetings between clans peaceful or, on the contrary, were
they an occasion for a small battle ? Through fear and/or need, human groups gradually
differentiated from each other, and moved farther away from the common similarities that they once
shared back in Africa.
Certainly, there have been constant migration flows due to changes in climate, hunting and fishing
techniques, animals migrations that had to be followed, breeding and agriculture (the search for a
better soil), extinction of over-hunted species, wars with winners moving in and losers having to
leave, and the desire to find richer environments when populations increased. But, until History
began, these migrations were relatively minor in scale. Migrating groups probably consisted of
hundreds at most when Mankind was only counted in the thousands.
It was just over six thousand years ago – such a short time in the grand scheme of physical evolution
- when our first civilizations emerged, and our species had already reached the ethnic diversity that
we know today. But groupings were still in line with geographical dispersion linked to their
respective evolution: Blacks in sub-Saharan Africa, Whites from the Caucasus to Europe, the
Semites and Arabs in the Middle East, and the Mongoloid in Asia then reaching America. At the
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eve of civilization, the Planet was inhabited by human groups that were physically differentiated;
their physical size, skin color, body features, and cultures had developed in relative insulation from
one another. These groups not only differentiated physically, but also in their behaviors and
spirituality; a unique cultural framework was defined in the closed circle of its own space civilizations in the making. Groups had evolved to adapt to the wilderness and survive best, in order
to optimize optimal integration with their environments, and in doing so set up the foundations of
identity and genetic uniqueness that would later enable many groups to turn into a “Country” once
settling in a new sedentary life.
Nobody knew then, that all the lands and seas formed just one very large round ball. Each religion
had its own explanation for the Mystery of what laid beyond the immediate horizon. Some even
ignored that there were other people elsewhere, thinking they were alone, a small group in a closed
forest or a closed island – just as we today live our lives, unaware of any other Life form in the
Universe. Europeans and “Indians” of America “discovered” each other in the 15th. century. Some
Africans saw their “first” white skin in the 19th. century. The Universe and the Galaxy are now our
“next frontier of the unknown,” whereas our ancestors, a few millennia ago, did not even have a
concept of Earth, let alone a word for it, and still, they were exactly the same people as we are.
With the emergence of civilizations and the need to settle down in order to cultivate the soil, the
idea of property and wealth was suddenly born. The accumulation of goods in a given place attached
a human being to “owning” something, and drove a need to protect those belongings, or to steal
them. This had enormous implications for humans, because possession of land and wealth brought
forth a completely new set of behaviors, and a much stronger case for conflict. Suddenly, finding
resources would not be a random process facilitated by the Shaman’s great visions. Now, they were
available “on demand” in a given place, for whoever had the power to take them.
People could regroup in large numbers and manage to defend themselves and their properties.
Armies started to make sense, with professional soldiers defending the wealth of those who
possessed the resources. “Countries” started to conquer each other, bringing prisoners home as
slaves, to help create even more resources, or making them vassals within their enlarged empire.
These ethnic groups started to gradually be integrated into the larger “national” one. Multiethnic
empires, in which people were slowly melting into more homogeneous groups, emerged. Ethnical
purity was beginning to be challenged. Physical differences were starting to retreat, and wealth and
sedentary lifestyles created the opportunity to create or cross borders and to alter the isolation of the
past.
Only certain peripheral geographies that were protected from this large central circus of civilizations
and invasions remained ethnically “pure” – such as America, Australia, or sub-Saharan Africa.
Whereas those living inside, or near conquering empires, began to mix; Europe, Asia, the
Mediterranean, and the Middle East learned very early that their wealth attracted regular waves of
invasions, which led to physical and cultural interbreeding.
Thus began the massive mix that we know today, and now even further accelerates. The process of
Western colonization that began by the 16th. century, had almost immediate migratory effects that
were of unprecedented proportions. An unimaginable and unthinkable genocide devastated almost
all the populations of the Americas – thirty million people when Columbus arrived – and was
followed by the voluntary and involuntary invasion of the continent by tens of millions of migrants
from all over the World. First from Europe, with new settlers, then from Africa with the slave trade
forcing millions of Blacks out of Africa and onto American plantations, and later, Asians coming for
the gold rush or to build the railways. This was followed by the conquest of Australia, the division
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of Africa between the European states, and finally the post-colonization that we are experiencing
today, in which people are migrating to and from every region, in hopes of a better life somewhere
else.
In less than just three centuries (twelve generations or so), the slow evolution of the races - the
consequence of millennia of adaptation to geographic settings – has faced its biggest upheaval. The
wave of the modern multiethnic societies started under the colonial model. European colonial
communities were first carefully segregated and built on a master-slave relationship. But over time,
they evolved into multiracial societies, though the Europeans remained in the dominant position,
imposing their culture and having forcefully taken the lands and resources of this “New World”.
Several types of multiracial societies then emerged in the “New World”, depending on the
colonizer’s style and the density and resistance of the indigenous population:
•
The Holocaust-based society: In this scenario, the natives were systematically eliminated because they were rebellious
and/or inept for the labor of slavery, and/or did not survive to the diseases imported by the
new settlers. This was the case in North America, where it was “necessary” to import
millions of Blacks because American natives fought back, refusing forced labor, and/or fell
ill; or, in Australia where the aboriginal population was of insufficient number to develop
this new land possession to the level that the English desired.
When these colonies succeeded in winning their independence from the original European
conqueror, they had such a dominant White population (as a result of the elimination of the
Natives) that they could successfully install sustainable new societies around a modernized
European model, that is English dominated but also has a multiethnic logic (not really from
the cohabitation with the Natives, but because of massive international immigration that still
continues).
They have become places like the USA, Canada, Australia, or the New Zealand that we
know today. They are states that have learned to flourish on their multiethnic foundation,
still strongly controlled by a majority of European descent, with the additional influence of
continuous immigration spurred by their economic success.
The USA is the perfect example, since almost all Americans are the descendants of people
who migrated in the last three centuries from all corners of the Earth. Regardless of their
ethnic origin, American immigrants will find a small island of their own ethnic group
somewhere in the country. This level of global diversity has no other equivalent in the
World. One of the greatest strengths of the USA is that people still want to go there to live
and take part in the “American Dream” – not only the poorest, but also – at least as much the most highly educated people on the Planet (including top students, scientists and
entrepreneurs).
The United States acts like a magnet for talented people from all over, and proves that
immigration counts as an essential and positive economic factor: the most productive people
are the most mobile, and migrants want to succeed, thus contributing to the increase in
productivity of the receiving country. Nearly a quarter of the US technology startup
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founders, as well as patent depositors, are immigrants, illustrating that the economic outlook
for a developed country, now depends largely on its ability to attract qualified immigrants.
•
The Mix-based society: In this second scenario, the Natives have survived in large numbers, but have had tough
times to find a place for themselves, in a mixed and multiracial society in which they moved
from initial owner of the land to a second class inhabitant, due to the arrival of a large
contingent of immigrant colonizers, as was the case in Latin America and South Africa.
South Africa is an exception because it has a large indigenous and immigrant population,
which have cohabitated on the same soil, under White domination, but with very limited
mixing yet. This came from the longest lasting policy of separate ethnic development - the
Apartheid. The post-Apartheid era, over the last twenty years, has generated a delicate but
positive experiment of “reversed” Democracy, in which the dominant Whites have passed
their democratic baton to the Blacks, willingly making themselves a minority, together with
the large Indian community, while remaining in the country where they have lived for
several centuries. The dynamics resulting from this democratic rebound, is serving as a
motivating force for Africa as a whole.
The case of Latin America - Brazil in particular - is very promising. Like in South Africa, a
strong European population was established, but the descendants are of a lineage mixed
between the Natives, African slaves, and willing immigrants of the World who came later.
Citizens of European descent still continue to dominate economically - at a lesser and lesser
degree. But each ethnic group exists in a society that is truly of mixed race, progressing in
its integration despite important economical disparities, and this mixed core represents the
true force of the future.
•
The Native-based society:
In the third scenario, the Natives have not only survived but have always remained the very
large majority, as is the case in Africa or India for example.
Because they outnumbered their relatively merciful invaders, these natives, over time,
succeeded in sending their colonizers back home. Afterward, they implemented their own
societies, as a blend of their pre-colonial ethnic heritage, and the cultural and political
influence of their former masters. The Indian democracy represents probably the best
example of this “best of both Worlds” post-colonial integration.
What happened to the colonizers when they returned to their country of origin, which for
most of them was really a foreign land ? What memories did they keep from these painful
and often bloody departures ? The cord never completely broke. Africa and India, and
reciprocally England and France, remain culturally pretty close to their former colonial
mainland, and continue to blend through post-colonial immigration.
In all cases, the ex-colonist-colonized remained culturally and economically linked to his ex-colonymainland, with his/her former neighbor becoming an enemy or a partner. This long co-existence
created bonds and zones of linguistic and cultural community, as well as economic alliances such as
the Commonwealth, Spanish America, or the Francophonie.
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Through reciprocal transmission of language and culture, flows of students, trade, and religion (as
colonization was missionary); real emotional and cultural affinities were shaped during the years of
co-habitation in the colonies, not to say that strong economical ties were built too. Also, colonized
people often idealized the motherland of their colonists as a paradise, and even though they were
suffering from its domination, they imagined that the source of strength of the “superiority” of their
colonizers rested in these mystical metropolis: London, Madrid, and Paris symbolized the mystical
heart of global empires.
After the second World War, when the colonies won their political independence, their people were
confronted with the misery of a destabilized Economy – a “Third World” – in the post-colonial era.
European nations, on the other hand, took off in the long and glorious post-war economic boom that
was sponsored by the Marshall Plan, and were in search of an abundant labor force for their reconstruction, and to feed their new factories. Therefore, it naturally became the dream of young excolonized people (typically uneducated and starving at home) to take a chance for a better life by
coming to the ex-motherland, this rich but unknown country where they knew the language and the
culture, and where a real job was awaiting them.
In their first wave, ex-colonized migrant workers were only looking for temporary expatriation.
Their objective was to leave the misery of their homeland and gain sufficient money overseas in
order to support the family they left behind. They anticipated returning home one day to rest and
retire, once the financial mission was accomplished. But many enjoyed the European social welfare
system and the work, and started preferring to have their families join them instead of being alone;
they settled indefinitely. A first generation was born in the new country, and their hearts were stuck
between their parents’ homeland and their own country of birth. A new process of unthinkable
proportions and consequences was underway: the permanent but peaceful reversed colonization of
the former colonizer.
For fifty years now, a post-colonial flow of South to North mass migration – involving tens of
millions of people - has replaced the North to South migration from colonial times. When modern
Democracies - islands of wealth in a Third World ocean - opened their borders to welcome cheap
unqualified labor, no one envisaged that the post-colonial migration would reach this scale and
durability. Despite the economic slow down which led to the chronic European unemployment of
the late seventies, this migratory tide has continued to grow over the last decades – especially since
no regulation was put in place in anticipation.
Western countries - the USA and Canada for centuries, and then Western Europe for just fifty years
- have acted as an enormous magnet for the rest of Humanity. The number of hopeful immigrants
has continued to increase among young people. They hope to find work, money, and welfare, and
the chance to take part in the “American Dream” or benefit from European social protection. The
dream is becoming much harder to fulfill, however, as an economic crisis of historic proportions
spreads across the West. The higher the number of new immigrants, the more they find their target
space already occupied by the preceding waves of people just like them. It is easy to become
disenchanted upon arrival, if the initial welcome has been replaced by rejection in societies that are
already saturated with unqualified newcomers. They are surprised by the misery of the struggling
immigrants that they join in the West, and it is a landing made harder by the difficulty of becoming
accustomed to a colder climate. The reality hardly approaches the dream seen back home on a
television screen, nor does it match the tale of the ex-immigrant who returned home so wealthy that
he built the biggest house in the village.
So some of the most educated are starting to come back to their original country now “emerged”
(China or India), but this remains anecdotal. The mass of the uneducated still do not have a choice.
They flee a misery that systematically condemns them at home, and the money they send back still
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represents the primary source of income for their families, and even the principal resource – billions
of dollars annually - for some of the poorest emigrating countries. And the phenomenal is
irreversible, there is no way back, most migrants are calling their new land home, take anchor, and
integration does its work, slowly but profoundly the landscape is the formerly mono-ethnic Europe
has turned multi-ethnic as well.
Already, new categories of migrants from the middle-class, that are much more cultivated and
“useful” for the receiving country, are starting to superimpose themselves. The engineers, doctors,
and businessmen of tomorrow will increasingly be the graduates of a virtual global university,
whose curriculum will constantly become more selective and international. Looking at the ethnic
origins of the students of the best universities in the World shows how quickly this process is
developing. Both in the US and Europe for instance, Asians are already occupying the front row of
the classroom.
The result of this new economic mass migration is astonishing and its effects still impossible to fully
measure. It acts as such an enormous force for change, that historically its impact is comparable
only with that of the beginning of the sedentary lifestyle in the Neolithic era. Suddenly the Western
World has turned truly multi-ethnic. Adding these regions to the countries that are already a
mosaic, the majority of the World is now a kaleidoscope of races, ethnic groups, and cultures, that
go beyond the immemorial religious and civilization borders.
Even the old European nations, foundations of the Christian culture, are losing themselves in infinite
debates over the wearing of chador, the building of new mosques, and the darkness of the skin of
their national soccer team. This shock is multi-dimensional, because it affects all aspects of the
social structure. At the core of the debate is the question of national identity. Whether hidden or
visible, it has become the core topic that dominates modern politics, as marvelously illustrated by
the election of the first mixed-race President of the United States of America.
This grand and peaceful migration has become so gigantic, and obviously uncontrolled, that it takes
all politicians by surprise, even the most open, non-biased democrats wonder about the evolution of
the identity of their country. Practically overnight - in ten or twenty years - the color of the crowd
has materially changed in London, Paris, and Berlin. Los Angeles has a Latino majority, San
Francisco an Asian one. Food habits and restaurants, musical styles, school environments, sports
competitors, and of course, religious practices, are going through a uniquely dramatic
metamorphosis.
Who knows any longer on which new ground to re-stabilize national or regional identities, as they
differ now so much from what they were, just a generation ago ? Should the borders be closed, or
should host countries try to focus on integrating, if not the new, at least the second generation of
immigrants ? Do we need ghettos or openly mixed cities ? Should immigrants be forced to learn the
dominant local language, or should we instead tolerate theirs and learn it ourselves, as Americans
now try to do with Spanish ?
The Chinese Diaspora counts more than fifty million beings. There are more Jews in the United
States than in Israel. The North of Paris has become more African than Gallic. The majority of
Brazilians are of mixed race. A third of Londoners were born abroad. And Caucasians will become
a minority in the United States before 2050, already in many parts of the country.
We are facing a new diversity never seen before, which impacts us at different levels: cultural
mixing first, and then ethnic interbreeding.
Brazil is well ahead on the ethnic interbreeding front, with centuries of varied mixed racial ancestry,
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the predominant part of its population with some degree of mixed-race ancestry, and 43 percent of
its population in 2006 called “Pardos” (the brown ones). The Pardos have given birth to a unique
cultural integration, one in which we are mirroring the image of Brazil, after centuries of interethnic mixing, opening the way to the mainstream reality of cultural and ethnic interbreeding.
America, soon Europe and the mosaic of minorities in India are examples of the second level. They
are primarily at the stage of the cultural interbreeding, and will move toward an ethnic
interbreeding like Brazil in the long run.
For these countries that are the melting pots of immigration, the debate can be summarized with one
simple question: are they moving toward a fused, universalist mixture on their own soil, or are they
instead headed for civil wars in Europe, rejecting the “over-flow” of immigrants, with incalculable
planetary consequences ?
One thing appears certain; these population flows have become unavoidable in the global village.
We live in a World where a plane can circle the Earth in a matter of hours, where we can see each
other live on Skype, or exchange emails and SMS’s instantly on our mobile phones. We have gone
from the cave men whose travel was limited to just a few miles on their bare feet, to an environment
in which we can move with basically no constraints, and information at light speed. A businessman
can fly ten thousand miles back and forth for a meeting, and a family can simply jump across a
border for a short holiday under the sun.
I do not see how the clock could be turned back really, how the Great Mix could be stopped at this
point – Earth has become too small and Men too many for ethnic insulation to continue, except in a
few radicalized regions, in which ethnic purity remains the political objective. The alternative – a
return to a protectionism of migrations - would create a wave of unrest, since it would have
immediate neo-xenophobic implications: the global house of cards would collapse, borders would
close, and rockets that were collecting dust would leave their secrets shelters.
We should think about how we will manage this Great Mix, at an appropriate planetary dimension.
Given the consistent support, by an almost infinite pool of wishful migrants from Asia and Africa,
this gigantic interbreeding of ethnic groups from all over the Planet will only become more
pronounced as we go along. It is a question of how long it will take, not of what will ultimately
unfold. It may take a thousand years, or more, or less, but over time, the Great Mix will give rise to
a World majority of mixed-race Men and Women, like in Brazil. At the time when Gay-marriage is
starting to be legalized, remaining a “pure breed” will become the exception, or at least cannot
remain the dominant rule for much longer.
As shocking as it may sound for most, there is no doubt that this is the long-term scenario, as
humans share and move all over the same Planet several times in their lifetime, and most societies
are turning multi-ethnic: it will happen. Through interbreeding, Man will generically become darker,
back to his original homogeneity - “Pardos” we will become.
The factors of our physical evolution, that led to the divergence of races, have vanished forever.
The construction of separate races belong to the past. Everything now instead is converging, and
leads to interbreeding. It is not a point of view, but an absolute truth and evidence. We already
share everything, everywhere, and evolution and/or marriages will continue to make us more and
more the same.
Put several paints in one single pot and keep mixing the paint. What happens ? Slowly the color
becomes homogeneous, a mix of all the pure colors that were in the pot before you mixed it. Earth is
our pot, the colors our races. What if you stop mixing the paint ? You do not get the original colors
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back, it is already too late, then are all free in the same pot … Eventually you can keep the pot
totally still, and try to prevent the colors to move and mix, if your paint is thick enough. This means
no more travel and a forbidden interbreeding, it would be a kind of new Apartheid, at a grand scale
– how would it be tolerable and enforceable ? Really, the only variable in this discussion is: how
quickly will the pot get steered, knowing that in the 20th. century, it has been at light speed already,
and this was only the beginning …
While our increased multi-culturalism is erasing prejudices slowly but surely (in most places while
some rugged spots remain), we are moving closer to one another as a result. But the true physical
mix between ethnic groups – our children mating with each other, across the ethnic lines, will be the
inexorable process for reunifying Mankind. In another millennia or two, many of us (probably
most) will be coffee-colored, as if on the beach of Copacabana. The mental barriers against interethnic mating will continue to erode, as we are living, studying, and working along side one another.
There will be islands of self-insulation and various speeds of pervasion in different places, but there
is no way back. The tide of ethnic particularity, that happened during geographic isolation, is
forever gone, as we have become the children of a finite environment – our small pot of paint.
The ethnic mix of humans in the World is also accelerated by the unrestrained development of
urbanization on all the continents. Half of the World’s population lives in a city, compared to only
a third just half a century ago, and it is anticipated that two thirds will be in cities by the middle of
this century. Urban growth is occurring three to four times faster in emergent countries, which
quickly make up for their “handicap,” compared to developed countries. Though all continents are
on the urban rise, Asia and Africa in particular, are moving at light speed.
Throughout History, urbanization has been an indicator of advanced development and prosperity of
a civilization. As progress in agriculture freed up some of the workforce, more workers became
available for specialized roles, which were not physically attached to the land. Such roles could be
more efficiently centralized in a city, which acted as a hub for the surrounding agricultural areas, the
“market”, where all products of the land could be sold and transformed. In its recent explosion of
growth in the developing World though, urbanization instead seems to be the direct result of
demographic expansion, which the countryside can no longer absorb. Cities are no longer the
virtuous result of prosperous agriculture, instead they are the result, in many cases, of agriculture’s
failure to feed and employ so many mouths and arms, forcing workers into the city, where they hope
to find a better outcome.
Developing cities act as an obvious magnet for such desperate crowds. The countryside forces a
young population into immense developing cities, where they are often reduced to extreme poverty.
Such fragile people are wide open to change and to new cultures, as they are forced into an
overwhelmingly disorganized environment that is unknown, precarious, and heavily unstructured.
The megalopolis then propels the majority of these young peasants into a migratory mode within
their country and into an environment that immediately moves them away from the roots of their
original identity and inner safety zone. They are confronted with new cultures and lifestyles and are
plunged into a diverse multi-ethnic and multi-cultural melting pot.
In Europe and in the United States, the urbanization process has brought together different regional,
national, and ethnic groups, and is now reaching a level of stabilization. And interestingly, the trend
towards urbanization in those countries is retreating somewhat, as people rediscover healthy country
living, facilitated by an Internet-enabled “working from home” lifestyle.
In most of the World, however, the process continues at a most rapid pace, and as it does, the blend
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of local identities also speeds up. In large cities, all groups are neighbors or colleagues, and they
access the same cultural richness and exponential diversity, with every newcomer adding an
additional layer of variety.
All in all, the great mix is happening. We are all mixing into a more universal civilization, spirit
and blood. Although developing exponentially, it remains a long multi layered-journey, with
profound impact on our future society, and its polical construction.
I see four principal levels in this evolution. The first three run in parallel, whereas the fourth is
dependent upon the proliferation of the first three:
1. The acceleration of the cultural mix:
Beyond our “archaic” borders, we are increasingly receiving the same international information,
thanks to the press and television, and more recently due to the Internet, which not only delivers
information, but more importantly, allows active individual engagement, owing to its search
engines, social networks, and unmatched interactivity. This “many to many” communication
enables a truly global community, as seen in the power unveiled during the Arab Spring.
Almost everywhere in the World, over half of the TV series and movies are American, and surfing
through the numerous channels available, we are likely to see often the same content and same core
of international news. Beyond local topics, general subjects largely follow global themes, starting
with a shared bank of images and often coming with a similar script.
Of course, censorship remains in force in non-democratic countries, and everyone filters - one way
or another - a given event through his own perspective, culture, or locally held dominant public
opinion. China has mastered a process to take control of the Internet within its borders. It is
becoming evident however, that we have become the consumers of a central, globalized, cultural
core, even though most of what we digest is done so through a local, national, or regional filter. Our
new culture crystallizes itself around the universalization of the subjects that impregnate us. We
become more and more citizens of the World just by reading our newspaper, and even more so
when surfing on the Internet. Reciprocally, while people typically would only care for what
happened next door, there is more and more interest for international issues, as if the realization of
the need to understand the higher level picture – in their truly complete context - would matter more
than before.
Alas, access to universal information is still very uneven. There is one World in which all is
accessible and information abounds to a point that some can’t cope with the overflow. There is
another World, however, where information is still poorly accessible, either due to a lack of
resources and capabilities – such as the absence of communication infrastructures - or due to
varying degrees of censorship, imposed by totalitarian states that block information in order to
secure control of the people. Access to universal information is still much too imperfect. But it is
now progressing faster than ever before, with the widespread explosion of communications, of
which the Internet – even heavily censored in some places - has become the unstoppable keystone,
the only outside contact for many.
International education, once rare and elitist, is now expanding exponentially. I can vividly
remember how exceptional it was just thirty years ago to study overseas. Nowadays, it has become
the normal course of action for millions of talented Europeans, Asians, and Africans, who obtain a
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top diploma at home and then complete their curriculum elsewhere. This stamp of an international
culture – usually Anglo-Saxon - will make a crucial difference in their professional futures. The last
significant barrier to studying abroad remains the higher cost. However, the price tag is balanced by
the uniquely different flavor of the content, and even more by the diversity found among the
participants, which is one of the principal attractions for the candidates of such a voyage.
As a growing number of students demand international education, the “global” campus is
developing fast: from less than 2 million people studying outside of their home country in 2000,
according to OECD, to over 3.3 million in 2008. The prime destinations are English-speaking, with
America alone hosting almost 20% of the World’s global students, as well as hosting two-thirds of
postgraduates studying abroad. These students have an open vision of the World because they can
see its consistency and homogeneity.
2. The acceleration of the linguistic mix:
The explosion of English as a second language is proving to be an indispensable tool in global
communications. English has become the most learned language in the World - thus the primary
second language. While it is still not the most widespread first language, being much less prevalent
than Mandarin or Hindi, it has developed as the vehicle of cosmopolitan communication everywhere
on the Planet, following the pervasive rhythm of universalization. Multinational firms, whatever the
language of their country of origin, do not have any other choice but to use English as their internal
channel of communication.
English is the official or administrative language for two billion people in 75 countries, and more
importantly, it is the number one foreign language taught everywhere, and is omnipresent on the
Internet. English has become the unique vehicle of communication between nations, within
international organizations, and is the undisputed language of “business.” English is thus succeeding
in becoming the long missing tool for diffusion of our universal cultural capital.
This is not a small thing. For the first time since our species dispersed itself across the Earth, we
have a universal language in the making. English is now the international bonding language, the
missing link between all cultures and civilizations, and the opportunity for almost everyone to
communicate again, as one human group.
The universal learning of the English language must be a priority, for the years and centuries to
come. Not because it is English. It just happened historically, and could be any other language. But
because it has reached such an unmatched critical mass, that it won’t be challenged by another
language any longer. Therefore, English should be further be endorsed throughout the World, so that
more people can communicate together, and should not be stymied by those systems that wish to
shield their local, cultural, and educational heritage. Defending the local language and preventing
access to quality teaching of English, is just another form of resistance and reaction to the
emergence of a global community, but also places a heavy handicap on those children who are not
allowed to become fluent in the global language.
Universal English opens up unlimited opportunities. Communicating in the same language opens up
a path never possible before in human History: the universality of the culture for all, through
unlimited access to its diversity.
3. The acceleration of the geographical mix:
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We travel more than ever before, for work, holidays, or in search of a better destiny. Tourism has
turned into a major industry, and is now the principal resource for many developing countries. Our
opportunity to encounter different cultures is incomparably higher than ever before. When I was a
child, I remember meeting a wonderful old shepherdess in the Southern Alps, who had never left her
native remote village. She could see the sea from the top of her mountain while keeping her sheep,
but she never went close to it, never touched it. The Mediterranean was less than twenty miles away,
but she said she had never been able to leave her sheep alone, long enough to walk there. Maybe she
was just not interested and could not afford the wasted couple of days away from work. I rather
think that all that mattered in her Life was just there, in her tiny village. Her village was her
complete Universe. What was happening down in Nice was not only completely alien to her, it was
also completely irrelevant. The geographical limits of an average human being, not too long ago, were only tens of miles wide
around his or her birth place. For most of us today, at various degrees, in a World where millions of
passengers are in the air at any point in time, it has become unthinkable to spend a lifetime in only
one place, within a few miles radius. We really are living in a new World, where the Planet has
turned into the finite space of our Life, the one we want to discover as much as we can. One wants
at least once to have visited the USA or China, or gone on Safari in Africa. And beyond simple
commuting, for those who dare for a better or different life, emigration is the solution chosen by
millions of us adventurers like myself.
Borders still exist, as vivid evidence of our past and our temporal political powers. But already, we
dare to imagine our futures beyond their contours, by expanding our living space. Each region of
the World has created its supranational space, some “fools” are even trying to share an international
currency ! It is a new beginning. Yet, these are great test balloons: while the countries still totally
govern and control, those among us who are already embracing the vague identity of citizenship to
our seamless Planet, are starting to envision a country that matches the size of our planetary living
space.
4.
The acceleration of the multi-ethnic mix - or interbreeding:
Last but not all least, inter-ethnic dating is becoming normal. This is just about love and/or sex,
leading to procreation among people of different races, giving birth to the “Pardos”, the infants of
tolerance, free-thinking and universality.
It is the ultimate intra-community matching and dating between men and women of diverse origins,
uniting to form mixed couples who give birth to children of mixed origin, and generate diverse
families. At the time of so many expatriations, studies abroad, and global mass tourism, together
with the opening of minds and anonymity of the urban environment, the great racial mix is
progressing slowly but surely. Our megalopolis are all gigantic melting pots where mixed couples
are not the norm yet, but have become at least “normal”. In places such as Latin America, they have
been the norm for a long time, and now reaching out to the US and Europe as well.
Still, on the time scale of Mankind, the process has not yet reached the stage of being a global mass
phenomenon. It is still a geographically specific development, directly resulting from colonization
(as in Latin America) or immigration (as in cosmopolitan world-cities). But, it is still a mostly
marginal process in most traditional and ethnically pure places, where it is not yet tolerated by the
local cultures or society. It will take some time to match the extreme reach of the South American
or South East Asian racial mix, but riding on the wave of globalization, this mixing is clearly the
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path Mankind will take – it is here to stay, is growing, and is clearly unstoppable.
Our children will mix, as will generations after them. Our geographically separated evolution was
the sole reason we became several distinct so-called races or ethnic groups. That factor has now
disappeared forever. If our species is smart enough to survive long enough, it is just a question of
time, until the human race blends itself again, as one mixed ethnical type: the Homo Sapiens
Universalis. Not only will we make love across nationalities, religions and races, but our bodies will
also all adapt and evolve to the same planetary environment.
We all cover our body, wear a shirt and a pair of shoes, which equalize our contact with the
environment, and make it the same. We almost all eat more than we should, we have air
conditioning when it is hot, and heating when it is cold. We will all adapt to the same lifestyle, and
all converge according to the same evolutionary process - for instance we are all getting taller and
fatter (at the rate of a inch every twenty years in Europe).
With no more reason to continue its divergence into more and more differentiated human types, the
human species has, on the contrary, started to homogenize during the last five centuries, following
colonization - with a strong recent acceleration due to the four preceding mixing factors.
The “Great Mix” is underway, but due to its surprising acceleration these last decades, it is
involuntarily reinforcing the resistance of identitarianism, by generating surprise and fear in those
who, instead of seeing the big picture, see only the color of the crowd around them changing. This
rejection is understandable, because it is a reaction to an accelerated pace of change. The receiving
populations don’t have enough time to adapt and integrate, nor to be accustomed to such a drastic
demographic change in their surroundings.
Even the USA, which is still a relatively new country, founded entirely on immigration, is starting to
feel the limits of its own tolerance as it develops a stronger than ever fear of alien inflow from the
South. As the number of non-Caucasians begins to exceed that of the descendants of the European
colonizers, many Americans no longer believe that immigration strengthens the country. They see
the continuation of mass immigration as a poison to the country they have built, and feel besieged
by the peaceful invasion of the ex-“Third World”, which precipitates the decline of their beloved
WASP (White-Anglo-Saxon Protestant) America. Passions are stronger than ever, in the debate
over the division of the country between the two dominant cultural and linguistic ethnic groups: the
Latinos and the Anglos. While the Anglos are confsued with their imminent and inevitable minority
status, the Latinos are beginning to acknowledge, with growing confidence, that time will work to
their advantage. Already, they and the Blacks have elected Obama.
In Europe, the principal cause of rejection goes beyond just the fear of losing the “eternal” identity
of one’s own land. It also comes from the material incapacity and lack of end-to-end preparation
within the receiving countries, to endure such a brutal surge in alien population, not to mention the
economic gap to be closed and the additional differences in culture, education, religion, and
language.
Indeed, when immigration reaches too rapid a pace, assimilation fails. The immigrant groups instead of being slowly but surely integrated into the central “citizen foundry” of the country as
before - now have a sufficiently critical mass as a stand-alone ethnic group to avoid integration, and
on the contrary, can remain isolated as a distinct and homogeneous nucleus. New immigrants then
stick to the older non-integrated ones, creating a resilient parallel society, culturally and affectively
more anchored in the country of origin than in the country of destination.
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This new and resilient non-integrated masses of people pose an enormous challenge to the
educational system, where public schools struggle to cope with two populations in the same
classroom. Schools are encumbered by the need to educate newcomers, that are culturally insulated,
and to the detriment of their schoolmates – including willing immigrants. Many only go to school
as long as they are legally forced to, with no motivation to learn and integrate. As a result, many
students, native and immigrant alike, are shifting to private schools whenever possible, shaking up
the traditional public foundation of a once egalitarian democratic education: the two groups are not
blending in the same public schools system any longer, and the nation looses its unifying
mechanism.
Hospitals too are flooded with newcomers, who discover and exploit welfare state benefits, which
are incomparable with those of their country of origin. The more generous the social program of the
receiving country, the more destabilizing mass immigration becomes, since it amplifies the cost of
its social model and challenges its very economic survival.
Finally, the influx of a fresh, often desperate labor force, creates a risk of bottoming out wages for
the most unqualified workers. This new work force runs contrary to the social negotiations that are
the foundation of the Western European social democratic model.
Something has to give. The current uncontrolled migratory flows are not sustainable in most of
their destinations. Governments do not have the necessary resources, and societies, though helped
by an improving cultural openness and acceptance of diversity, are struggling with the speed at
which their traditional environments are being submerged.
In spite of these heavy tensions and fears, there are positive signs. The USA, India, and Brazil
continue to demonstrate that, fundamentally, diversity through a model of multi-ethnic integration
represents the only path toward a universally shared positive future. In Europe, on the other hand,
some form of digestion or stabilization must first happen, but the situation may get worse before it
can improve.
Again, these are tough issues, creating profound cracks in old and stable societies. It’s all about
change, and the Great Mix is the agent of the universal change. Returning to a “purer” demographic
past would only irremediably accelerate the demographic and economic decline of richer countries.
They have had the benefit of attracting immigrants, who boost their economies, demography, and
cultural diversity. It is the developed countries with the least immigration that are the most impacted
by demographic decline and growing national senility: populations in Japan and Russia for instance,
are shrinking and aging fast.
On one hand, political xenophobia could come back in a few places under extreme pressure, and
close borders to immigrants. But also, following the weight of mass immigration on local systems as
described above, the receiving countries could mechanically loose their appeal, and start to be
perceived as too hostile to immigrants. The pendulum could shift further, with the country of origin
becoming comparatively more attractive as it emerges economically and presents more work
opportunities for their foreign-grown/educated diaspora. People, as a result, would decide not to
leave, or even the dispora could start to return home in mass. We already see this scenario beginning
to unfold in India and China where former immigrants, or the second generation, are starting to
return home because the comparative opportunities are suitably enticing, and environments more
friendly to them.
Receiving countries must clarify their immigration policies, and not just throw opeedn the doors of
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their rich local social benefits, without any transition. In order to make immigration sustainable,
they need a process that “welcomes” and prepares for the integration ahead, while also controlling
the willingness and progress of the immigrant in his/her social integration duty. This approach
requires a policy of positive discrimination – in schools and employment - but also negative
discrimination is required when the country cannot manage the immediate economic and social
impact - medical, or domestic security – due to devious behavior on the migrant’s part.
The receiving countries have an absolutely key role to play. Their tolerance, respect, and
economical preparation are tantamount, but they are not the only ones to be blamed in case of a
failure to integrate the mass of newcomers.
It is essential that migrant populations help themselves too, by being willing to integrate into their
society of destination. They have made for the most part the conscious decision to move to this new
place and to insert themselves among these new people. It is their duty to maximize their chances of
making this work, to their own benefit. Getting over their early days of frustration, and trying to
become closer to the locals is certainly not an easy task, by any means – but it is a rewarding one.
Immigrants should resist the temptation to adopt behaviors – conscious or not - that stimulate a
negative reaction.
Too often, migrants want to vividly express their identities and differences, for instance with
religious garb that may be perceived as alien, or even assimilated by stressed populations to a
“terrorist” symbol, therefore generating fear and acting as a barrier to integration.
How can you approach, with a welcoming smile, someone who totally hides her face from you ? A
hand of Fatima, a cross, a star of David, or a Buddha, are discrete signs which serve as a testimonial
of belonging, as opposed to a perceived aggression that endangers intrapersonal communication.
Women covered in black, from head to toe, do not facilitate their integration in a Western country
that have the golden rule of equality between men and women. Do they really want to become part
of the local society at all, or instead are they signaling that they don’t want to ?
Reciprocally, how shocking is a young couple fondling each other in skimpy bathing suits, on a
public beach, in a country in which the traditional culture sees pre-marital sexual contact as an
absolute crime – punishable by death under Islamic law ? Are they just looking for trouble - or, are
they trying to insult the local culture, for a perceived lack of modernity – in which case, what are
they even doing there ?
Mutual openness, respect, and tolerance, are attitudes and values that will enable continued
migrations to give birth to diverse but also integrative societies, and prevent the formation of the
ghettos of the Apartheid. The responsibility absolutely resides on both sides. When someone has
decided - by his own free will - to immigrate to a specific host country, and that country has
accepted him – whatever his/her passport, skin color or religion - as a new lawful resident with the
support of its laws, traditions and infrastructure; there should be mutual support, tolerance, respect
and gratitude. If a country claims, loud and clear, its secularity as a core social and political value,
and endeavors to treat all its citizens and residents with the same rules of equality and fraternity,
then what purpose is served when an immigrant tries to impose and cultivate a completely opposing
logic, taken from a country he/she has decided to leave behind ?
As we reviewed in the last chapter, in the context of migrations which will continue to amplify, we
must absolutely learn how to best balance and manage the risks that come with strongly religious
minorities who want to immigrate, because the potential for religious bigotry is a danger to their
integration and the stability of the entire society. It only takes a few activist “Islamists” in a
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community to frighten the local majority against all other Arabs, even if the Arab community in
general is open and respectful of the local norms. The extremists who deny the new society which
has accepted them are irresponsible, as they generate a counter-reaction that hurts the overall
process of integration of their peers, which is already fragile due to the size and pace of the
immigration wave.
The rights of immigrants are to be respected, and they should have equitable access to the receiving
community and to its services. In exchange, the immigrants must be actively engaged in adapting
and becoming integrated into the alien society that welcomes them, and they must help police the
extremists who hide in their ranks, siding with the authorities of their host country and not
protecting passively the bad behavior of their excited siblings.
The duties of the immigrant include the assimilation of the language, laws, customs, and habits of
his new home. Immigration is not a “right” for the candidate in his grand departure, it is mostly a
choice and decision by the receiving country to eventually accommodate him and support his
request to come in and join the group. In other words, it is a mutual pact, which comes with
reciprocal duties.
Having personally emigrated a number of times, I can attest to the experience and must convey a
deep respect and gratitude to the countries that have welcomed my family and me. Being an
emigrant who has a sense of humility and curiosity for the new country, is an enthusiastic
experiment, and I hope that it has been an interesting exchange as well, for our welcoming friends
and colleagues, who have done much better than just tolerating us.
For the first time in History - since nomadic humans first settled as a sedentary population and then
started creating borders for themselves - being a foreigner (or resident alien) has become a “normal”
situation in the many of the countries of the World. Gradually, the status of being part of a
minority becomes the norm, and the grip of the majorities is learning to be truly inclusive. Soon, the
majority of the people will be a minority where they live. If we were all behaving as a minority
anywhere we live, making ourselves curious and tolerable to the other, the multi-ethnic societies in
the making would make a quantum leap. Already, to be Chinese in Paris, Indian in Dubai, or Haitian
in New York, no longer turns any heads. An enormous amount of change has been digested in a
short period of time, and the exceptional has become routine. Our unconscious judgment has already
moved such a long way towards tolerance and acceptance.
The desire to discover different identities, geographies, and economic and political environments, is
already shared by hundreds of millions of men and women everywhere. The “alien,” the “other,”
the “different face,” the “one with the odd accent”, the “colored one,” who in the past came from
another village, now come from another country or continent. And despite their amplified
differences (the further away they comes from, the deeper the discovery and potential divide), they
have become normal – part of the landscape - rather than the exception they used to be a while
back. They are now entitled to feel at home, almost anywhere on Earth.
Already, a tenth of the population of rich countries was born elsewhere, and the growth of this ratio
is exponential. There are millions of voices who can say: “I am a foreigner, but I reside here, and I
love it here. I belong to a minority. I am a citizen of a new universal civilization in the making.”
The intellectual enrichment that comes from knowing other distant people and places enables us to
erase differences, and to integrate our inclusive values. The unknown is frightening, but discovering
our differences actually brings us to the same conclusion over time: ultimately, we are basically the
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same people, only divided by our educations, customs, and beliefs. We are just fruits of different
living environments. There is no material line, beyond invisible political frontiers, that makes “us
and them” fundamentally incompatible. We are becoming one big tribe again, a few million years
later, and the more we discover “others,” the more we are confronted with the evidence of the
homogeneity of Mankind – and of our belonging to a new universal civilization.
The Great Mix – the interbreeding of Humanity, makes our World more universal and pluralist.
Short of a system of global governance however, or of any well enough organized positive logic or
structure, mass migrations risk encountering some reinforced local stop signs. Protectionism is a
natural defense mechanism against fear. But, it would inflict an incalculable impact on our
globalized reality, in which so much of our stability already relies on the free-exchange of
everything between everyone. We lack a strong enough global governance to prevent the South
from asphyxiating the North, the North from pushing back on the South, the countryside from
becoming deserted, and megalopolises from becoming monstrosities of pollution and inhumane
survival for the most.
There is, today, only one logic for these mass migrations: an unending wave of people, hoping for
the richness and opportunity of a better life abroad, migrating at the expense of an unbalanced
mitigation of the Planet’s resources, resulting in unsustainable development for all populations.
There is no higher level thinking, not to say regulation, behind these massive inflows of people.
There is no legitimate international organization in place to manage these cross-border flows at the
supra-national level, which, if there were, could actually encourage populations to be channeled
toward destinations that would provide better opportunities in the context of the receiving country’s
economic and social capability and preparedness, as well as environmental sustainability. On such
a scale, anarchical migrations – often from the perspective of the receiving country – can only
generate an equally uncontrolled reaction.
In any case, whatever way we look at it, the Great Mix is on its way, and with an amplitude never
seen before. The day will come when love between Men and Women of all origins, made free by a
universal and tolerant culture, will be able to celebrate their union across ethnic groups, in full
normalcy. The color of their children’s skin will blend like a mosaic of chocolates on the beaches of
Copacabana …
Let’s prepare for the Great Samba !
Earth our Country.
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The long distance trade and commerce for rare products has existed since the beginning of time.
The trade routes for silk, amber, spices and precious metals are now well known. But the
precariousness and slowness of this transportation, made this sort of commerce dangerous, and of
necessity, quite limited in volume.
The Roman Empire invented a new dimension for its inter-province exchanges - using a mass
commerce system. It employed its colonies like specialized production units, for the entire empire’s
consumption. This production was primarily agricultural, but also used raw materials including
metal and fabric. These raw materials could then be sold and traded for products from the
peninsula, as demonstrated by the many wine and oil filled amphoras found at the bottom of the
Mediterranean.
After the 16th. century, the ability of boats to navigate the open ocean prompted a time of great
discovery. And much of the motivation for these discoveries was driven by commercial interest
and was principally financed by groups of merchants. The discoverer was, first and foremost, and
entrepreneur.
The need to amplify the trade between Europe and Asia was hindered by the long routes and the
dangers that were experienced during the months long journey through Asia, or the thousands of
miles sailing around Africa. These difficulties gave birth to increased interest and business in
search of what would become the Americas.
The discovery of this new continent did not resolve the enigma of a magical route for trade. For
that, one would have to wait for the opening of the Suez or Panama Canal. However, there was an
immediate profit for many. The Spanish were made rich, pillaging Central America. Meanwhile,
the English found a smaller profit in their fur treaties in the North - though the French fared more
poorly in the same endeavor.
After the initial harvest of disposable wealth from the locals or Nature, taken without any
investment, came the second phase of conquering: the systematic colonial exploitation. The value of
land and natural resources was evaluated together with the ability of the new colony to easily
cultivate and export those materials and goods, be it cotton, coffee or sugar cane, back to the
homeland.
The labor force was a key ingredient in the value added model, with locals or
enslavement costing little.
The colonization model reached a large scale in Africa and Asia, even though the civilizations were
more strongly established, especially in Asia. Competition grew between European nations for
whom colonization became the primary determiner for commercial power.
Economic globalization was born, but was based on a one sided trade, as opposed to a fair exchange
between nations. The colonizers became rich, using the colonized land and people like tools for
their benefit, while covering the enterprise with the moral undertaking of converting, educating or
even civilizing the “savages” - evidently an inferior race.
After a couple of centuries, the reaction to this heavy handed occupation was decolonization,
stimulated by central governments’ incomprehension of the need to emancipate their colonies. The
USA went first, against the autocratic London power style - and the colonized refused to remain the
economic tool of the Londonian master (taxes), and fought for Freedom, to manage by and for
themselves their own resources and local destinies.
However, although succeeding to obtain Freedom, decolonization did not leave the former colonies
with the capabilities to produce locally, they still had to take their products to developed places for
mass-production. In order to access global markets and to transform their resources into finished,
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consumer products, they remained largely dependent upon their former masters.
The industrial revolution that followed - in which rich nations, loosing their former colonies, found
a way to continue to control the system, in transforming the raw materials of their former colonies
into finished goods.
This revolution saw both the triumph of the World Capitalist model, as well as the birth of
Communism which represented the other face of industrialization, one that opposed to an elite class
exploiting the laboring masses. This bi-polar World developed into two parallel and competing axis
until 1990, when Capitalism ultimately triumphed.
The imbalance of the World market was established, between the rich West and North and the
resources providers in the South and the East. It has continued to develop since its colonial and
agricultural roots, followed by the post-colonial and industrial phase.
And, after Yalta, an
additional political dimension was added to this imbalance, bifurcating the market into a bipolar
model: the Capitalist World and the Communist World.
The colonizer used the work and resources of the colonized, who once liberated, became the
supplier of primary goods. The capitalist ex-colonizers continued to import these raw materials,
their numerous and poor workers manufactured them into finished goods, and then they were re-sold
internationally at a much greater value, for the growingly successful owners of capital.
The “class system” was born, in a Marxist sense. The new “working class”, in the post agricultural
era, developed through industrialisation. This class dreamed of sharing more of the wealth, and
tempted by the equality of the classes, touted by Communism, Socialism was born. The result of
this bipolarization was, at its base, a 20th. century that has been profoundly unstable and unequal.
At the center of the model was a minority of developed, rich Western countries, with the rest of the
World (the “Third World”) supplying all of their raw materials in hopes of having some purchasing
power. And, in the rich countries, where an elite class controlled the capital and prospered, the
majority struggled to try to achieve and imitate that very class.
Meanwhile, running parallel, the Communist World born in 1917 quickly lost its way, in its failed
Militarism and Totalitarianism, with the total derailment of the Socialist dream, under Stalin and
beyond.
The inequality in the sharing of wealth was in the very essence of the post-colonial legacy, both
between countries and among social classes within the rich countries. These imbalances, inherited
from decolonization, have continued until today.
But thirty years ago, after the fall of the Berlin Wall, they reached a new scale, as they benefited
from the opening of the almost complete World market, and not only the Capitalist side. The end of
the political/economic bipolarization, with the fall of Communism, of which the chief evangelist
was the USSR, made the former Communist camp jump into the liberal economy as well. The
USSR and its COMECON economic empire collapsed, together with its separated and stand-alone
internal business network, which had operated in centrally planned autarchy, behind an international
“Iron Curtain”, fenced from Capitalism. The single Party which was trying to control everything as
tightly as it run a police, intelligence and military led society, had been unsuccessful in also trying to
rule the Economy through a central bureaucratic plan, without the recognition of private property or
individual initiative and reward.
The end of Communism demonstrated to all the superiority of the liberal Capitalist model,
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regardless of its inherent inequalities, with the immense advantage of its capacity to create wealth,
for the Capitalists, but also for a growing Middle Class, the one that carries the democratic model
forward.
Capitalism motivates individuals to create and prosper in their work, while Communism, having
taken away the desire for individual gain proportional to the effort, diverts desire and spirit to the
lowest level - or to the military and totalitarian machine.
Although distribution of wealth is unequal in the liberal democratic model, it promotes prosperity
for most people, since it motivates the majority to enrich themselves, just do well working hard, or
even climb toward the top.
Despite its downside, factually, liberal capitalism, applied at World’s scale over the last thirty years,
has taken a billion people out of extreme poverty, which is by all measures amazingly impressive.
China alone represents three-quarters of the jump. But still, there are over one more billion people
starving, largely in Africa – earning below $1.25 a day – and they represent our challenge for the
next thirty years. Hopefully global liberalism can continue to deliver such a next wave of progress,
not blowing up even more our ecosystem ...
European societies, having sided with the liberal USA, were still being pulled in many directions
between communism, socialism and liberalism, and have developed themselves a model of “social
liberalism”. Through taxation, this system allows for a smoothing out of wealth inequality by way
of social benefits. Though this “social” system is expensive, it has achieved a greater redistribution
and facilitated a certain civil Peace in a democratic system. The rich are a little less rich - or they
emigrate to a more liberal society, and the less wealthy (the large middle class) benefit from the
social services, that allow this majority class to participate in a system where they can have a level
of living that is satisfactory and protected (until the current economic crisis which challenges its
foundation). Europeans, at the peak of this social liberal Democracy, may have reached for their
citizens the Nirvana of what a society can ever do for them with a “providence state” (free
education, full free medical care, maximum of forty weekly hours of work or less, several years of
unemployment protection, full pension at sixty), and the generation of my parents, which benefited
from this extreme wealth-sharing and solidarity, certainly took it for granted, and many still do
today.
However, in the context of global competition, this model is now short lived, and cannot be afforded
any longer. Therefore, the turnmoil in Europe – which is the re-adjustment of the European
socialistic model to a more competitive one – is attacking deep roots, and will create political
uncertainties as resistance will be profound – in particular in Southern Europe, since Germany has
already turned the corner, and the UK of Margaret Thatcher avoided the popular comfort of this
model.
While Europe was already liberal (through more “socially”) together with Japan, the big “click” for
the rest of the World was the fall of the USSR. With that fall came the end of a bi-polar political
and economic World, and the victory of the liberal capitalist model, as personified by the USA.
Although the USSR previously gave the “non-aligned” World hope that an alternative to the liberal
model could work, its failure demonstrated that progress for all would be instead achieved through
the enforcement - more or less regulated and controlled - of liberal capitalism. For those hesitant
countries like China, India, Brazil and at this point Russia as well, the route to follow became clear.
Their options became limited, and they all embarked into the big liberal global market. The World
completely opened up into an immense free-market, and the United States became the clear
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economic guide for all others to follow. 1990 was a milestone, a magic moment in History when
alsmot all national agendas aligned to the US direction, and economic globalization took off, at an
amazing pace ....
The message was loud and clear for all during the Reagan years that followed: “Get rid of
protectionism, open your national borders, put your companies out to compete in the open market,
manufacture where the best price is available in a World that is henceforth politically and
economically open. Let’s all sell and compete everywhere and we will all become richer together”.
It was perfectly received - almost everywhere. In thirty years, the students have caught up or even
surpassed the goals of their guide.
We have seen the enormous success of China, but also that of India, Brazil, Asia and of South East
Asia. The impact on the development of “most of” the World defies imagination, and has been the
spectacular and great beginning of the economic explosion of emerging countries, still uninterrupted
- slowing down, but still positive. The majority of the World has finally joined, to truly share in a
suddenly globalized World profit.
The bi-polarity of the World has shifted, from the rich and the poor, to the emerging countries and
the “old rich”. The “old rich” (US, EU, Japan) go further into debt in order to finance their current
standard of living, and consume products made offshore, in the emerging countries. The “old poor”
emerge more and more, turning into “new rich”, while they get money for all that the West
consumes, and the West becomes their indebted creditor. Both shared the same short-term – but
opposite - benefit … Until 2008, when the music stopped, and the dance as well.
Several billion people - the majority of our species - have recently seen their standard of living
improve. The word “emerging” has almost replaced “Third World” due to the mind-blowing speed
of redistribution of technological and economical development. Soon Africa will pass the bar as
well, and at this point, notwithstanding the peculiarity of the Middle-East, there will be the Old and
the New – and that’s about it really. An all new landscape in the making, and an immense redistribution of wealth.
Contrary to all expectations, and for the first time since the beginning of colonization, a geographic
redistribution and expansion of global wealth is clearly underway. Producer countries known for
inexpensive labor are now capturing a large portion of the added-value of the globalized World
Economy, and maintain double digit growth. The “old” wealthy countries - their clients - barely
maintain zero growth, and continually try to manufacture at lower cost offshore, therefore
redistributing wealth to those who manufacture what the rich want to consume. In transferring
wealth and technology to the emergent countries, the West makes its superiority null and void, as it
originally assumed that the emergent countries would always remain blue collar labor. When the
“old” blue-collar become the “new” brains (white collars), then the economic leadership hand has
really turned around in full circle, in less than half a century … Wow !
This new global liberal model, that took a toll with the crisis of 2008, after almost thirty years of
unbridled intensity, has allowed a half of Humanity to climb into and participate in the World
Economy, instead of being a spectator. In the space of thirty years, the economic playing cards were
redistributed, changing the outcome for the centuries ahead of us. 2010 - 2008 to 2012 - may well
be the inflection point in economic History, with Europe asking China to finance the stabilization
plan of the Euro – givuing us the preview of a reversal of dominance. Somebody will write in a
History book in a few centuries: “At the turn of the 21st. century, the East took over from the West”.
The United States, was the great facilitator, and/or the (un)conscious organizer. It either played out
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of character, while basking in the all-out victory of 1989-1990, or was a graceful visionary for
obeying the universal law of its constitution, by sharing the wealth with the multitudes, and I must
confess that the first hypothesis seems more probable to me. All of the West, following closely in
the footsteps of the United States, lacked a true strategy as well, with Europe glued in its internal
(des)integration debates, and Japan plugged with its inner malfunctions. In their euphoria, after
having saved Europe, and enabled the demise of the USSR - which had terrified them up to that
point – the Americans gave to Asia the keys to its rebirth, and of their own demise.
All in all, this was greatness, and while we are still suffering from the aftershocks of the economic
quake that has since then unfolded, long-term we will see a truly balanced World, if Democracy
ultimately wins this much enlarged crowd as well. The improved standard of living and the opening
of a global culture for billions of people was more rapid than ever before in Humanity’s History. By
placing everyone in the same liberal economic game, more was achieved than it ever had been
through wars or threats. It all happened as if, by getting the whole World for the first time to play
with the same liberal rules, Humanity as a whole could speed up its capacity for evolution and
progress. Breaking the local protectionist brakes for the Economy has allowed a jump in global
prosperity, demonstrating the benefit of global unification.
Independantly though, the lack of economic governance has put pretty much everything else in nearchaos at the same time, increasing currency and financial products speculation, public debt, and
making the World largest banks default. This has to be fixed. Thirty years after the fall of the Berlin
Wall, this successful and stimulating accelerated race for global consumption, has constructed,
beyond financial unstability, another bigger wall: the explosion of natural resource utilization.
The sudden rise of the former “Third World” countries, that this economic re-adjustment has
enabled, has greatly increased the consumption of an array of products, by the very people whose
living standards have been rapidly improved. The emerging countries need resources to develop,
and the new wall is that of a great disequilibrium between their ability to further develop and enrich
themselves to the level of the West and the capacity of our Planet to provide the necessary resources
to achieve those goals. In face of this challenge, the conquest of the markets, from this point
forward, will be determined by resources availability: oil, water, food and beyond. We will need to
quickly discover and strategically work with those badly controlled, yet still available resources.
The US and Canada have just discovered immense reserves of shale oil deposits (maybe the largest
amount of new discoveries in the History of the oil business), China instead is showing strategic
interest for Africa, of which it already controls 20% of the economy.
The profits and the imbalance of the globalized economy are at a crossroads. Should frantic growth
for most of the World continue to be a “good thing” when it will surely bring environmental
destruction ? Or, should we reinvent a model of development that has less impact on the
environment - one that will be slower and more costly to emerging countries, and will appear as an
additional handicap to the developed nations, who are already struggling in a stagnant economy ?
Let’s dissect what I summarize as the four dominant features of our Modern World economic
foundation, to better understand the benefits, but also the imbalances that exist, so that we can
envision some re-balanced scenarios in future solutions.
1. (Peaceful) economic conquest has replaced (violent) military war - and it is so much better:
Behind Peace, war is always hidden; and the Economy has become the true motor of the World,
with competition replacing battles. At least for now, the power of a country is no longer measured
by its military power - number of soldiers or weaponry - but instead by the size and growth of its
GDP and the success of its enterprises. To govern a country is to manage its economic health, from
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which prosperity and the well being of its inhabitants rests.
The stakes of the Economy are those of the country as a whole: the revenue of the households,
employment and unemployment, the budget of the state and financing of its infrastructures, the
ability to invest in health and education and to finance the retirement of citizens.
Immediate competition has shifted to the economic domain instead of military, but the objectives
remain the same - to win, or at least to avoid losing. It has become the rule of the game for the
countries who chose the liberal market economy, and has replaced military war as the mechanism of
redistribution of wealth for the open countries of the Planet. “Work hard and make money” instead
of “make war and kill many” is the modus operandi of the Pax Americana (or Western globalization
model), though the more military years of President Bush somewhat sullied this message - just a
little, but enough to seriously raise eyebrows around the World).
Consequently, one can suppose that all the forces of a country, starting with the government, will
pull toward economic nationalism instead of military nationalism; the success of the national
economy translating into the success of the country as a whole. In times of war, as demonstrated
throughout Mankind’s History, all resources should be put toward the cause, so why act differently
in a “peaceful war” ?
Well, because here comes a subtle particularity of the game of economic globalization … Economic
nationalism - or Protectionism - is officially prohibited. One country cannot involve itself into
another country’s Economy – only secretly, as officially only the “free market” rules. One country
can only support its national players, secretly or indirectly, as officially they are on their own. Even
more: one country has to let the troops of the “enemy” settle right here at home, as the local troops
of the foreign multinational firms are their own citizens as well. If not, it would be the end of the
model, one player would be enough to sabotage the free exchange for all others … One country,
officially and brutally protectionist, would be the game killer for all the other “free” players – as
they would all need to retaliate.
Protectionism would be to declare: “I won’t let it go, I will favor (protect) my own national
companies against the others”. This would be as serious as failing to follow the rules of Geneva in a
war situation. Officially rejected by all, this practice is also to a degree used by all, in secret and
through indirect means (same as Geneva’s convention in case of a war), to help each country’s own
economic actors. How can free-trade be (unofficially) by-passed ? Governments can show favor for
their own enterprises by opening captive or preferential markets, giving subsidies, facilitating
acquisitions that consolidate large segments of their national industry, create specific consumer
regulations that favor domestic products and through tax exemption, and so on. There are so many
indirect ways.
Still, the pure rule of free-exchange, even if regularly broken by the methods mentioned above, has
had extraordinary positive effects. It opened borders to products and services and allowed
international exchange of funds and people. Free-exchange has allowed the opening of the World,
thanks to connections in all forms, involving commerce, knowledge, information and shared added
value.
Instead of battling on the military front lines in blood and tears, people, in order to compete, work
together regardless of national borders, to sell and manufacture (or provide service) where there is
demand for goods (or services) or production capacity. To better sell, they must understand the
needs of their foreign clients and be able to easily communicate with them. Between countries and
companies, they are competitors today, and partners or colleagues tomorrow. The business World
has become completely interlaced and intertwined with interests that both compete but rely upon
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each other. And the objective of profit is now the unifying factor, for almost all cultures. As
imperfect and vaguely morale as it may sound, there has be no better way in History to get people
from everywhere together with a common mission.
The capability to compete economically has replaced the historic wars, and has engendered a new
pacific reality for the participants in the World of free-markets. The citizens of the World do
business with other citizens of the World, and taken in by their work, they eventually forget their
business country of origin. Anyone working for a multinational company will understand what I am
saying here, and anyone else will wonder how this can be. But it is a fact, that I have observed in
may different circumstances in thirty years of international business: a point comes when people no
longer work for their country, but for a global enterprise that, although it was born in a specific
country, has developed beyond its borders, and mutated into a universal entity. And to be fair,
American firms have been best-in-class to inject this “global company citizenship” to their
employees (IBM, HP, Apple, Intel, TI, ...).
Then in 2008 came a surprising wake-up call. The bail-out of failed banks, by their national
governments of origin, reminded everyone - even the financial actors themselves - that countries and
their multi-national companies do still share such an intimate link. Only the taxes of the citizens
from their single country of origin served to re-float the multinational companies on the edge of
bankruptcy – suddenly the global Swiss banks were … Swiss again ! But not only the banks, see the
whole automotive sector in the US saved by the local tax payer money, what an amazing move.
But despite this reminder, this global country-free teamwork remains, in most multinationals.
American multinational corporations have been the first to exist as truly integrative for all their
employees-citizens involved, beyond the post-colonial club model, in which the masters were only
from the country of origin. They allowed non-Americans to climb the ladder, up to the top. They
became a model of a modern Babel tower (all in English though). Then, they got copied quite
successfully by the European and Japanese firms, and truly helped create a Universalist World,
before its time.
The importance of these multinational “beach-heads” for the globalization of civilization, goes
above and beyond just economic influence. Multinational companies are a critical stepping stone
for the globalization of our civilization, beyond what they actually do as a business, as they foster
the integration of teamwork across boundaries, and hook their employees, families, and friends.
They are a formidable melting pot of a New World in the making. At the same time though, they
remain somewhat part of their national apparatus, but more or less distantly controlled, as they can
play with the location of their HQ, where they pay taxes or not, and with the nationalities of their
leaders and of their markets. Truly, they are a mutant, a hybrid between a tool for national economic
warfare – and an enabler of global economic free leverage.
In this complex context, each country government has to find a way to, at the same time, help their
national businesses to succeed and export, but also endeavor to attract foreign companies to invest
locally, even at the cost of helping them to compete with their domestic companies, on their own
soil, sometimes financing directly the cost of their local industrial investment.
This system has functioned wonderfully so far, though we are still waiting to see some of the
profound effects still to come from the 2008 crisis. The free-market model was established on the
idea that an infinite number of small ‘natural’ imbalances - all the businesses succeed or fail while
competing as a perfect orchestration of the “law” of the market – end up generating an infinite
commercial stimulus, which brings the multitudes to a greater prosperity and economic progress.
It also assumes – almost as a “given” - that each country will remain open to the reciprocal flow of
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goods and services (its balance of trade) and therefore no country is truly defeated in the economic
“war” as everyone buys from everybody else. The real loser would be the one that is first tempted to
stop participating and close its borders (the protectionist state – level 1); or even through
desperation, to use military to push for its rights against a rival who enriched itself too much and is
blamed for ruining its local economy (the terrorist state – level 2).
Until recently, the “laws” of the market have allowed for every country that chose to participate forced or by conviction - to find their relative equilibrium. But, the crisis of 2008 has challenged
this evidence. To avoid defeat (level 1 above), the losers have had to raise debt, even above one
hundred percent of their GDP – an insane amount. Temporarily, the defeat has been delayed, but
the loser having a trade deficit with the winners, he has contracted his debt from them - buying from
them more from than he could sell them. To finance his purchases to the winners, he had to borrow
(often from the winner itself, directly or not). As a result, the winner continues to grow (and to
become cash rich) while the loser continues to artificially consume (and contract more and more
debt). Everyone is momentarily satisfied by this profound imbalance, that has the appearance of
everyday normalcy, facilitates the continuation of the business, and allows to postpone the political
acknowledgement that economic competitiveness is weakening between the winners and losers.
This is how the newly bi-polarized World, between developed countries and emergent economies,
has advanced over the last few years. Its strategic imbalance has been seen as the temporary lesser
evil, because it silently benefited all, and delayed the wake up call of the losers … Until 2008, when
the music abruptly stopped, surfacing some immediate losers (Greece, Ireland, …) which got
immediately rescued by their stronger siblings, in order to avoid to let them fall into the protectionist
camp, and initiate a domino effect.
This temporarily convergent interest, among all players – winners and losers in the making -, has
allowed a sense of false balance during thirty years, despite the build-up of the imbalance, that
immediately started at the beginning of the game, between the future winners (first called
“emergent” and now new rich) and the future losers.
Globalization has been great, but not for what it was meant to be by the West, which had established
it on a short-sighted strategy, which was to get everyone to work to manufacture cheaper (for the
West), and later on, as they get our money, get them to buy from us (the West), which will enlarge
our global market. The rich countries - winners of the past, with the US at the head of the pack thought that they would enlarge their market making the poor countries richer, and enlarge the size
of their own pie. They anticipated that they could create a relay of growth for the World market,
with the economic development of the World economy’s missing piece – the Third World and exCommunist one. Still, they remained pretty much sure that their superior education (and millennia
old cultural superiority) would protect them from full competition of the “emerging” countries for a
very long time. We know what happened thirty years later … The students have done great, well
above the expectations of their teachers.
So first the rich proposed to the poor countries (the losers of colonialism and post-colonialism) to
open their border, so they could construct factories, manufacturing centers or call centers where
products could be produced, developed, or a service could be rendered for less money than in the
rich country. In so doing, everyone would gain wealth and the poor could become bigger
consumers, therefore making the piece of the global pie even bigger for the dominant rich.
This has worked beautifully. In this model of spectacularly accelerated global economic outcome,
the rich continued to prosper moderately - but while accruing a growing trade deficit. The
developing countries on the other hand have benefited from exponential economic growth, from the
indirect gain of technology and also from the monetary payment for their exports, which financed
the growth of their internal demand. Initially minuscule, their internal demand has expanded
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quickly, with the raising income of their embryonic middle-class, essentially provided by the fruit
of the goods or services that they produced for the multi-national companies, which resold them in
the West. Gradually, this demand became more sizeable and diversified, included infrastructure
spending and a real estate boom, and now has become the alternative engine – the relay of growth for the emerging countries, in the virtuous circle of their national development.
Is this to say that in this system, the rich countries have been living on credit and beyond their
means, with a false improvement of their standard of living, until the crisis hit in 2008 ? Did they
believe they were living better, because on a smaller budget, they were buying more products for
less money, because they were made in a country with lower labor costs and were made even
cheaper due to lower (or artificially low) rates of exchange ? Did this difference in price result in a
perceived buying power, so great that it allowed people in the West to invest in new sophisticated
financial products or in real estate - opening the risks of overheating financial sectors and real estate
which we have just seen occur at such an enormous scale ?
With hindsight on the crisis of 2008, the answer is positive, and this is essentially what has
happened. This analysis clearly proves the initial misunderstanding the West had embarked itself
into, which ended up providing a terrific boost to the poorer players invited in the game.
Logic would have it that in ten or twenty years, the imbalance will catch up to the false sense of
balance resulting in a new, true balance that sooner or later will find its natural force of gravity. The
emergents would become the emerged emergents - the great dominators of this new equilibrium.
The rich of today will therefore be impoverished, in the face of their struggle to repay their debts to
the emergent, who won’t want to support them any longer.
The old rich, choked by their debts and unable to get further credit, will have to face up to major
political readjustments that will impact their social equilibrium such as unemployment, reduction of
social benefits, austerity measures, an exploding deficit due to interest on loans and social unrest on
the horizon. This is purely the situation of Europe today.
In face of these political troubles, and without doubt in anticipation of them, certain countries could
choose protectionism (eventually Nationalism) and even refuse to repay their debts - as Iceland or
Greece. This has not happened yet, or probably will not, as their big brothers cover for them, as
much as tolerable for both. If they were officially left to default, they would become pariahs in the
game of free exchange, calling into question their participation in the globalization and putting
themselves at an even greater disadvantage. Western neo-protectionism would be born, as the
defense of the weakest.
At this point in time the model, that was based in the shared interests of the old rich and the future
rich, will suddenly be called into question, with the old rich tightening the belt and therefore
slowing down the growth of the new rich. The new rich will then only count on their own domestic
consumption, or on their exchanges with other newly enriched countries (their peers), as well as
emergent poor countries (their future peers – Africa for instance) to sustain their continued growth.
Moreover, since the result of this second phase will be the impoverishment of the old rich, and the
increased wealth of the new rich, the cost of labor in formerly poor countries will increase and
become less attractive. Another reason for the temptation toward protectionism for the old rich, it
becomes more attractive to re-localize manufacturing at home, when the cost differential
diminishes.
The final outcome of this process - the re-distribution of wealth between the (old) rich, new rich and
also the enrichment of the remaining Third-World as well (all turning as rich as the West in theory
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over time) – makes a long term economic race that should constitute the third phase of economic
globalization and theoretically could last well into the future (it appears to accelerate when
watching the speed of the dismay of Europe). This last phase of long term sustained growth for
“most of the World”, also assumes that the Earth’s natural resources can support a prolonged and
frenzied emergence of the emergents and of the Third World, which as voiced earlier is in my view
unmanageable, at least with the current way to use (to “waste”) our resources.
Therefore, at least for my own wisdom, the capacity and limitations of the environment to tolerate
the emergents’ complete cycle of growth, will eventually prevent a major increase in consumption,
and will prevent the whole World from reaching – all together - the same level of material
consumption that the US currently enjoys.
Between now and then, something has to give, as the anticipated desire of permanent economic
growth for everyone just cannot keep going the way it is right now indefinitely, under the same
fossil and consumerist foundation:
•
If it is the emergence of the new rich that gets challenged, then it will happen through the
protectionism of the old rich – at the risk of a renewed military tension, since it will
challenge the others.
•
If it is the fossil and/or consumerist industrial model that gets replaced (or rebalanced) by a
Zero Carbon policy, then everyone has to change (or rebalance) its current consumerist
behavior, since the ones making an effort cannot let the others wash out its benefits in an
environment shared by all.
•
If instead nothing gives, then nothing changes – we continue as of now – and here comes the
chock: we hit the great ecologic wall, which can turn into global warfare – eventually a
Third World War to fight for unsufficient natural resources.
A system of global governance – helping to manage/optimize resources at a global scale - can put
the cap on the global over-consumption of resources, effectively precede the logical limit of the
economic model we have just anticipated, and diffuse a crisis already in the making.
2. The actors of the Economy are global (and lead) while political actors are national (and
defend):
The global free market model has generated an accession toward prosperity for over half of the
World that has never been witnessed before.
This model has a principal imperfection, however, in that it is multinational in the effect of its
actions, but is governed solely nationally.
National governments are not tailored for the challenge of the global dimension of commerce and
multinational firms. Governments are not prepared to manage the evolution of the model of free
exchange, as emergents drain the wealth from the old rich; nor are they ready to manage the lack of
natural resources, that will occur if the emergents expect the equivalent resource share that the old
rich currently enjoy. All they can do is to stimulate their enterprises to pull more of their production
back at home (employment), or to make sure that these enterprises pay their worldwide taxes at
home (and less elsewhere), which is a form of semi-protectionism, as it harms the other countries,
and engenders a chain effect of reaction, and endangers of the full free-trade.
The intimate interdependence that has been created between the emergents and their very
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economically advanced clients is poorly understood, and therefore pernicious. Let’s take, for an
extreme example, the economic and political relationship between the US and China.
As soon as the totalitarian, post-communist China decided to open it borders – largely after 1989 –
American multi-nationals flocked to the area in order to profit from the unbeatably cheap labor
force, with a currency that was uncomparable, since China was insulated from any comparative
measurement. The success has been so great that after twenty years it is now a challenge to find a
single product in the US (aside from the very protected automobile industry) that has a “Made in the
USA” label. In walking through any store in the US, one will find that more than two thirds of all
the products (besides food which doesn’t export well yet) are “Made in China”.
The result of this development is triple:
•
From the industrial point of view, China has become the factory of the World, and caused a
desertification of the American industry, implying a higher systemic unemployment level in
the US, now stabilized around 7 to 8 percent of the workforce (probably much more as a
category of people stop looking for a job). It has also created a massive technology transfer
that is still difficult to measure, but will be instrumental in the Chinese dominance that is still
to come.
•
From the economic point of view, Americans have enjoyed an artificially low cost of living
as a result of sub-contracting their labor to the Chinese. Until 2008, they have seen an
artificial increase in their purchasing power and have been able to consume more on the
same budget. Prices on durable goods didn’t go up and American consumers have been,
therefore, able to spend on more and more exotic financial products or real estate (creating
the bubble that we have seen explode since then), and giving the fake impression of a
successful economy.
•
From the monetary point of view, American expenditures have resulted in more and more
imported products and the trade deficit has inflated itself toward a greater and greater debt
level. China has been able to stuff its coffers with Dollars as the fruits of their trade, and in
so doing, have become the primary holder of American debt. They maintained the value of
the Yuan at an artificially low level in comparison to the Dollar as well as other currencies.
China, as a totalitarian state, fixes its exchange regulations to follow the needed strategy.
The United State’s dependence on China now makes it extremely difficult to unlock the
mice trap that it has created for itself, as a result of its short-term greed. Bringing industrial
production back to the US – while slowly in progress – can only go that far, as it would now
endanger the profitability of an industrial company, because of the cost differential with
China (or cheaper places in Asia, which are now the new price frontier), further amplified by
the policy of the Yuan. The artificial difference in cost due to China’s artificial rate of
exchange was estimated to be about 20% at the beginning of 2010. For the first time ever,
China has announced in September 2013 its intention to authorize the free floating
conversion of the Yuan, in a free zone that it plans to create soon in Shanghai, as an
experiment toward a broader convertibility in the future.
This extraordinary interdependence between the two largest Economies, has led the global economic
happening of the last decades, with the US leading the West and China the largest in the East and
emerging power. By being a totalitarian state, China has been able to amazingly well control and
navigate its economic miracle. The US government on the other hand, has given political green
light (once the military risk had vanished at least temporarily post 1990) and in large measure let the
multi-nationals lead the offshoring process, without boundaries or national strategy, because the
country was enjoying the short-term benefits of growth and improved standard of living, that came
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from the relationship with China. The US could never seriously put into place truly reciprocal
regulations of trade with its “partner” China.
It should be highlighted that this economic couple, henceforth now inseparable, is built up between
a wide opened liberal Democracy (even if it is choked by its own domestic bi-partisanship) and a
still dictatorial China. I would offer that the Americans failed in their initial analysis of China, and
grossly underestimated the startegically managed shift of the Communist Party. Politically, the US
had favored the economic emergence of China, anticipating that it would definitely lead to political
Freedom. Instead, while China has become the leading exporter of the World and the second most
powerful economy (soon first), with 2 trillion Dollars in monetary reserves (more than anyone else
on the Planet), that have been accumulated over only a couple of decades, it remains solidly
controlled by a Leninist Party, that not only manipulates the rate of exchange of its currency, but
also maintains a radical censorship (including the Internet) and forcefully prevents its people to
establish a free regime.
Is it now too late for the Americans, to implement a strategic readjustment and decide to adopt a
more balanced attitude vis-à-vis China, with a degree of protectionism, or of redirection of trade,
towards a club of more democratic countries ? Certainly a complete change from the US is now
unthinkable, as it could create a widespread economic recession (China has become the engine of
World growth) and a large political conflict between the two nations would not serve anyone. The
two powers are therefore at this point an odd inseparable couple economically, and time plays the
hand of China. All the US can do is a slow re-industrialization of the country, to at least recover full
employment. Most of the solutions remain in the hands of the Chinese people themselves –
Tiananmen failed, but overtime Freedom could win, in particular if Democracies start to organize
themselves as a more unified club of Freedom, and set up some rules of business priority within free
countries.
It seems that at the occasion of the 2008 crisis, Western politicians have started to measure how
explosive the new global geopolitical cocktail could be. The nerve center of the World has shifted
from military issues to become completely economic-driven, letting Freedom in the back-seat, with
powerful global enterprises but no great goal for the design of an overarching policy, that looks at
major economic and resources balancing, and at least at a reciprocity of free-trade mechanisms
between countries. Fragmented national political damage-control seems to be the only tool of
economic global governance, rather constantly reactive with latency, and therefore of little effect on
the events which unfold, outside of anyone master control. Many joint, tactical reactions, many
great intentions, some virtuous individual initiatives, though with no consistent global strategy,
describe the current economic navigation, which governs the accelerated yoyo effect of the global
stock markets, commodities, and currencies.
Economic actors do not have borders, in accordance with the logic of free-market exchange. They
are free like the businesses they operate. They can employ who they wish, where they want and
build a factory where they decide. They can sell where they find demand, create wealth where they
can pay the lowest taxes. And, they can close a site and layoff its employees in order to find more
cost effective alternatives elsewhere.
They operate in a free World economy that is, however, fragmented by a multitude of national
borders and national political systems. What is abnormal is not the universal freedom of multinationals nor the local and national political structures, but the juxtaposition of these two models.
That international economic actors can operate in a World controlled solely by national political
regulations and structures is a real stretch of the imagination. It is our daily reality though.
Taxes are local or national and generate the revenue of governments. They redistribute these taxes
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in infrastructure, health, education, safety, retirement plans, military and local benefits. However,
there is no global taxation, taxes are only local or national, or in the Case of the European Union,
marginally regional. Nevertheless, taxes are the only tool at the state's disposal to finance and
develop its country: the collection of money from everyone, allows for all the initiatives that make a
human society function. No tax, no budget. No budget, no government. No government, no
country. Tax evasion, country destabilization.
The architecture of human society is entirely managed by local and national governments. The
votes and thus the Democracy, are nothing but local. To my knowledge, no politician was ever
elected by a popular vote that came from outside the borders of a single country.
But the economy is not just local any longer, not at all. It was, but no longer is. It has become
global. Its principal actors have gone and worked beyond their original borders, and have learnt to
leverage an enhanced profitable game, recognized every quarter by the value of their shares,
whatever the impact of their actions on the GDP of a given country might be.
There is no global currency, no global interest rate, and the World Bank is an organization that
redistributes money to support countries in bankruptcy (which have become more numerous);
however, under no circumstances, does it have the capacity to be the regulator of international
credit.
This misalignment of “dimensions” between national politics and global Economies does not put
into question the model of the open World market. Quite to the contrary, it necessitates an
environment of governance, to accompany it and to make it enduring, in its global dimension. It
requires a governance that can enable the global free-market to resist, for example, to the risk of a
redefinition of the balance of the US-China relationship, and can resist an imminent move toward
new-protectionism.
The risk for the liberal free-market is not to be submitted to some form of global governance, it is to
continue without any, as it is right now, and as a result, to reinforce the national cases for
Protectionism, as the indebted West struggles to rebound from the current crisis, and unemployment
puts pressure on the political agendas.
3. Multinational firms are the principal actor of globalization, not politicians:
Having operated over the past thirty years in various sized multi-national firms, I have formed
strong personal opinions: multi-national firms, especially American, are a demonstration that the
World can be unified and that the human species can work together as a global team.
The multi-cultural human experience that is shared by the employees of a multinational firm, cuts
out borders and cultures, and is totally incomparable to the daily national experience. It is the proof
that people, if they want, can accomplish together much more than when separated by their historic
borders. The feeling of belonging to a firm often reaches beyond that of one’s nationality, and many
recognize their firm as their homeland to which they are loyal. This feeling increases even more
after having traveled and relocated internationally for a firm. It is especially thrilling to be able to
work and socialize with colleagues all over the World, to weave new friendships, evoke personal or
political subjects with candor and curiosity, as citizens of the same World.
Once one has experienced this sort of Tower of Babel, it is very difficult to return to an environment
that has a singular national identity – one feels suffocated and suffers under the weight of
monoculture and of traditions.
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That said, I think that if multi-national firms are without doubt the best means for visualizing the
success of globalization, they also reflect its inconsistencies, as they are not governed and regulated
by a political power that can operate at their same international scale.
Two effects of these inconsistencies will hopefully get re-balanced over time to ensure an enduring
progress:
•
Multi-nationals are still too much the fruit of large rich countries:
Until just recently, there were very few non-Western multi-nationals, but one only need look
at the evolution of the Fortune 1000 list to see the rise of emerging countries: Brazil, Russia,
India, China (BRIC). This is one of the best proof points of the readjustment underway. The
only firms missing from this group now are those coming from countries that still reject
globalization (Iran, North Korea) or those who due to size, under-development or political
risk (satellite countries of the former USSR, Africa outside South-Africa) are – still condemned to remain at the periphery of the model.
•
Multi-nationals, free from any international governance (only submitted to the global
accumulation of local regulations), maximize their interests in a sometimes wild (although
totally legal) manner and can neglect the general interest of the populations where they
operate, with impacts in particular on employment and tax avoidance..
International companies should, of course, optimize profits with the short-term pressure
dictated by the pressure of the quarterly results that drive the financial markets. Logically,
they will always find the shortest path to take and not the path that “irrigates” the whole
society around them – this is not what they are measured on.
How can we manage to foster their Freedom to create, innovate and prosper, while stimulating them
to also irrigate? The capacity for adaptability of firms is infinite, but they will only respect those
obligations that are demanded of them. They know how to adapt to regulations that are clear and
equal for everyone. Without rules to the World game, they play with no reserves in a game that can
be wild or ethically revolting. However, their internal rules can have a beneficial or even civilizing
effect on geographies where the state of “global” law is missing.
Their only limit is their own internal ethic and their own company culture. A number of firms,
some in which I have had a personal experience, evoke affection and admiration and are a lesson for
the countries in which they operate. They generate a signal of modernity and Humanism in
countries that sometimes have regulations that are less evolved. Reciprocally, other companies can
have rogue and totally opportunistic behaviors. Total Freedom doesn’t always result in the best, and
company cultures alone cannot be a robust enough substitute for the missing rules of our global
civilization.
However, companies can also take more holistic perspectives when they end up serving their
interests. For instance, on the subject of offshoring that we addressed a little earlier, they are
individually starting to relook at their strategies (Apple announced that the Mac’s will be made in
the US again), as automation continues to progress, and wages in China and India are now growing
up to levels that make the logistics challenge less attractive than before, with a double digit annual
labor cost increase. Smaller emerging countries still offer a major cost advantage, but without
comparable benefits of scale and efficiencies. Western firms (Americans first as they went the extra
mile compared with others) realize that “reshoring” is a fair balancing act in order to manufacture
closer to their markets, protect their IP better (intellectual property), and win more flexibility.
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Consumers also should contribute to influence the business, and provide an orientation to the
markets. It is us who decide our needs and what we want to buy. We are free to buy what we like.
As such, we can steer product development and services that are more adapted to overcoming the
great environmental barrier that we see ahead of us. There will always be a company to create a
product that will satisfy a demand, and therefore a sustainable economy will take off if we want it,
us the consumers, when we will chose to buy accordingly. The providers will follow or better,
anticipate our aspirations. But we – the consumers - are key contributors to the shift, as long as we
get affordable pricing, in comparison with the fossil offering.
Governments should unify their rules – not to stifle, but to help irrigate. If the regulations are
simple, well understood and apply equally to all everywhere, they do no handicap anyone nor do
they damage competition. For example, if it is illegal everywhere to employ children, it will not
affect negatively the state of law, because all will have to obey. If the social rules and taxations on
profits become harmonized, it will avoid the game of the erratic business relocations across borders
to leverage tax heavens, or kill the incentive for the countries which are free of social obligations to
their people (and company taxes).
World governance should help firms to become enduringly responsible. I do not think that they
would oppose to such a global harmonization, since it would help them to run a business with even
rules wherever they operate, while right now, they suffer under the inconsistent national regulations,
to which they try to adapt as much as they can, or have to.
4. The liberal model is a viable foundation for the Worldwide Economy - for today and for
tomorrow :
Universalism and Capitalism do not have to be opposed, instead I am advocating for an universal
model based on Capitalism, but supported by an adapted political system. The global liberal model
has demonstrated over the last decades that it can be the source of universal progress. If it is not
completely ideal, it does allow the World to progress in its convergence, even if primarily in a buysell relationship. It has allowed to replace wars with the exchange and equalization of wealth,
therefore breaking down economic borders.
It works as a catalyst for Mankind’s energies, fueling their desire for gain, stimulating the modern
knights that are now international businessmen. Communism has demonstrated its failure – it was
the genuine Utopia … The Freedom to create a business and succeed to the level of one’s ambition
and work ethic, permits a form of equality of chances.
The European social-democratic model has demonstrated (until recently when it faced huge
headwinds) that the redistribution and supplemental regulation that it requires can be justified by an
enhanced social resiliency to big economic shocks. However it will be now more difficult to defend
it, in isolation of the rest of the World, given the competition with unprotected labor markets. I still
think that over time, after the transition and the shift of regional wealth currently taking place, the
social-democratic model is the most civilized way to go, for everyone. As Europeans see their
model temporarily challenged, the USA are moving closer to it, with more protection for the
weakest (Medicare reform, tax load rebalancing). So we can see that there is a need and logics for a
form of “Fair Capitalism” to develop internationally, more progressive in a societal sense, which
softens the edges of what can be an otherwise a brutal modus operandi.
With absolutely no overarching – and homogeneous - governance, the global power of multinationals, combined with the fragmented and inconsistent geographical power of states, becomes a
dangerous and anachronistic illogicality. Particularly at the dawn of the shortage of resources, that
will put the fragile balance of economic markets into question. This illogicality does not allow
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emerging economies to rise, without irreversibly damaging the Planet - the model has to change.
The success of the World economy, henceforth, depends on the establishment of a stronger
universal governance, that can guide and regulate the development of enterprises or countries,
towards an enduring holistic model, which protects and cultivates the survival and enrichment of
our environment.
The lack of political coordination and economic regulation between countries is as dangerous as
economic Protectionism, and could become the next barrier since the development of one nation
affects the development of another, in our unique and closed planetarian environment.
Global economic Freedom, in its greatness, can also turn counter productive, when associated with
the political fragmentation of the World and its lack of regulation. The case can be made that it has
contributed to generate the depression of 2008, in which the global Economy continues to suffer its
greatest wound since the Second World War, and such a hard road to recovery.
Despite all of this, as I write these lines, it seems that the collapse of the system was avoided so far,
despite a few chaotic years. It is difficult to predict 2014 and beyond, nonetheless, I’ll risk a
prognosis: I think we are facing a long secular crisis consisting of three stages.
•
Stage one: September 2008 to 2009 saw the first historic explosion, which started in the US
with the collapse of Lehman Brothers, the burst of the financial services and real estate
markets bubble.
•
Stage two: 2010-2012 moved the storm to Europe, destabilizing the Euro and even
challenging the far from completed political construction of Europe, while the US began to
stabilize, and the emerging markets remained surprisingly strong, leveraging their domestic
markets as much as possible.
•
Stage three: 2013 – 2015 finally show that the US begins to take off again (essentially owing
to the monetary easing policy), while the emerging markets finally take a limited toll, with
their growth coming down to mid or low single digits, and new markets – such as Africa –
join to complement their global contribution. Interest rates start to grow little by little again,
the global wheel starts to turn again more seamlessly, with the true concern completely
shifting toward Europe. For Europe, the equation to be resolved is the one of lack of political
leadership in a lose-lose political situation.
•
Once Europe finds its way forward, there will probably be a nice run of stabilization that will
follow for all. Here currently lays the most intriguing question mark, as Europe is going
through a perfect storm.
Interestingly, Europe has most to lose in the third phase, and is at the crossroads of long-term
recovery (if the austerity advocated by Germany is accepted as a long lasting medicine, and even
better - works - although the Americans and now Japanese did the exact contrary, with relative
success). To become competitive with a unified (strong) currency, Europe has to challenge the
acquired social benefits of the social-democratic model, which generates very unstable political
scenes for the most uncompetitive nations (Spain, Italy, Portugal, Greece, and potentially France),
high unemployment, and a risk there that new governments would challenge the EU status quo, and
take their own path of local currency devaluation. The more Germany drives austerity as the core
European agenda, the more Europe becomes unpopular for Europeans, eventually opening up the
risk for nationalist governments to be elected. The current negative momentum creates genuine
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political risks that the Euro, and United Europe, would not survive.
There is only one solution for Europe in the current context. Germany – the only credible leader
right now – has to alter its agenda, and side with Southern Europeans to do what Obama and Abesan
have done quite successfully: print money. They must get their currency down (remember the Euro
initially came out at eighty cents to the Dollar – this is where it belongs), to temporary manage the
competitive front as they seriously deal with the internal transition of the social-democratic model to
a less protective one, equalized with other major Western economies such as the US, UK or Japan.
It can be done, it takes some supra-national leadership and vision that I am afraid is critically
missing these days, risking to blow-up sixty years of such a patient construction.
Nevertheless, the overall impact for the West, of these 2008-2015 years (I am curious to learn how
History will call them) will remain in force, as a fiberglasting event, and will have been the
inflection point for the emerging countries to take the relay of the West. In facts, it is not a crisis any
longer, but an inflection from/to two different Worlds. But the model will survive – the World will
probably continue as a free-liberal Economy, it is “just” that the model plays the role of a grand
equalizer, with phases of acceleration or stabilization in the equalization process. This is why long
term the free-liberal model is such a virtuous process, it drives us toward a more distributed wealth
for all, if – and only if - I am repeating myself … we can manage the great ecologic wall.
So, Plan A is: the West will continue for a long time to endure a permanent aftermath of
unemployment, on the edge of a double digit number, with a chronic debt that will force a
reinvention of the social models in Europe. US will kind of make it, owing to its newly found
energetic independence, business innovation and dynamism, and pragmatic monetary policy. The
relative weights of emerging economies will continue to grow in the long term, though more slowly.
The pessimistic scenario – Plan B – is less likely in my view. It would be that this third stage causes
such a major upheaval in Europe that it can no longer let the rest of the World economy back up,
due to its debt and the loss of its stabilizing influence – eventually in-fighting. At the same time, a
recession in China and Russia would also result short-term political destabilization.
There are two factors that could lead to a risk of recession for the emergent, with China at the head:
China has artificially protected itself since 2008 from the impact of the US and then European
impact. The internal infrastructure and housing investments, led by the Party, have created a
housing bubble, that would already have burst in a free economy. China just received a strong
warning signal from the IMF, worried that China’s stock of total social financing (measuring the
share of credit in the economy) has increased by over 60% since the beginning of 2000 (source: Financial
Times July 18 . 2013). Russia has so far maintained a relative stability, only due to inflated prices of raw
materials. th
The Western powers are going to be more likely to protect their jobs and re-conquer their industrial
wastelands. They will relook at the “Made right here at Home” label, as a response to the
difficulties of their growingly impoverished workforce, in doing so reducing the industrial load of
the emerging markets. Nothing is certain, however. The surprising speed of the “impoverishment” of the West, and in
parallel, the amazing pace of the rise of the others (still on uncertain foundations), open up to an
unknown economic horizon. The crisis of 1929 was “organic” (and thus self-repairing) and was not
the result of a quasi-immediate redistribution of wealth between regions, which is now actually
what’s happening, with quite a mysterious outcome.
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Despite all, we must recognize that so far, the semi-concerted actions of our governments – for the
first time in History – have allowed a mitigation of the World crisis, not to say they have achieved a
degree of limited control against a worse case scenario. We would be in a much greater disaster
than that of the 1930’s already, without this extraordinary reaction. Even though our banking
system exploded and our debts have surpassed imaginable levels, we are still operating with the
appearance of a seemingly “stable” Economy. The major governments have stepped in, to deal with
their corner of the issue (their banks, their multinationals, their small regional brothers): in this
sense, the “market” in its most capitalist meaning died in 2008, and we do not seem to acknowledge
it. Never before in History have nations reacted at such a level – trillions of dollars of public money
– to avoid the almost inevitable collapse of the system.
It proves the necessity for a strong governance and Worldwide regulation. All together, anything is
possible. Of course, the situation continues to be fragile and dangerous at the dawn of the third stage
of the crisis, but surreptitiously, the market has unconsciously learned to receive its confidence (or
lack of) through the political events. Private investors have learned lately to align their investments
patterns to the statements of politicians, which strangely show how much the political influence has
won on the markets lately. More than ever before, the markets - which lost their inner confidence on
their own mechanics since 2008 – tend to rely on the key political declarations, as impulses to their
ups and downs. They have been able to read in this embryo of global governance, that in tough
times, politicians have the hand on the markets. So these signals are better be consistent.
The longer-term strength of stabilization, and later of the recovery of the global economy, will
now, more than ever before, depend on the continuing alignment of national agendas that were, up
to this point, dissonant.
The difficulty to definitely come out of this most profound World economic crisis (or inflexion),
proves that the World needs to construct a new global liberal economic model, that is sturdier and
more fair. It takes a force – call it active and coordinated cooperation - of an even higher grade of
regulation, one that watches and helps rebalancing the most fundamental imbalances.
At least for now, this “active global cooperation” must address two priorities:
•
The insanity of the debt burden for half of the World economies, which, if not managed
globally, could pull everyone in a never-ending spiral. There must be a way to re-ignite the
most indebted economies, for which a plunge in extreme austerity will only end up to make
it worse. We only need to look at Greece to see what I mean here.
•
The organization of the World’s resources utilization. But reaching a global consensus
around the rationing of resources, is impossible in our actual model, as illustrated by
Copenhagen or Durban conventions. The extremely uneven dispersion of natural resources
between the countries on the Planet, the imbalance between the size of populations, of the
local economies, and of the locally available resources, are a recipe for infinite
disagreements, if there is no cohesive leadership for a central decision-making.
The challenge will be to cut through the particular and immediate interests of a few, and raise to the
interest of all, from the perspective of the long-lasting development of the human inheritance, and
enable a sustainable prosperity for the greatest number. We need a global Solomon !
The Economy has conquered the most central space in the modern globalized society. It is
governing us all. The priests and the generals are no longer the ones who control and steer the
World (except in the rogue states), but the leaders of multi-national banks or businesses and their
universalist troops. They have become the non-military armies of the World, whose mercenaries are
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the enlightened, in an imperfect and dangerous globalized World, because nothing and no one yet
coordinates this supranational level.
With a new form of economic governance, which also acknowledges the logical use of resources,
Man can invent a tolerable balance between the desire to continuously increase its living standard,
in our modern civilization, and reach over time an equalization of wealth around the World –
altogether with the protection of the environment so that it may regenerate itself, and sustain the
continuity of our civilization.
Even though the success of most economic actors right now is to produce more, we must learn to
instead have them produce better, for there must be an end to the Great Waste.
•
First we, the consumers, must acknowledge our accountability to direct them, in choosing a
lifestyle which transforms our way to consume, that the products and services providers will
endeavor to satisfy, with their infinite creativity and adaptability.
•
Second, there must be some kind of overarching regulation that steers the economic efforts
in a direction of sustainability for the whole society.
•
Finally, while we take for granted the enormous progress that the global free-liberal
economy has delivered over the last twenty years, we forget that eventually, “Globalism can
go backward” and “The golden age of globalization can come to a halt”. That is what Beijing
officials are starting to compute, in their future strategic models (Fortune Magazine, December 3, 2012).
It is hard to believe that globalization could back pedal, since all recent historic data show that
despite our huge global financial meltdown, hyperglobalization has not only survived, but continued
to gain steam. Foreign direct investments (FDI) jumped from 9% of the World’s output in 1990 to
33% in 2012, and exports from 20% to 31%. Even more amazing, more and more countries are
benefiting from the economic convergence: only 30% of the emerging World was catching up with
the US in 1900 (21 of 72 countries), and now since the late 90’s, three quarters of the developing
World (75 of 103 countries), start to catch up at an accelerated pace (3.3% vs. 1.5% per head) (source:
Financial Times July 17 . 2013 – quoting “The Hyperglobalization of trade and its future” from Arvind Subramaniam and Martin Kessler).
th
But economic globalization is threatened by its imbalances – artificial exchange rates, environment
impact, lack of global policy making. There is no global monetary regime. There is no global
environmental protection regime. There is no global macroeconomic policy and rebalancing
management, between winners and losers, and balancing of inequalities through redistribution.
Global anarchy prevails.
Yes, I believe that economic globalization is at the risk of running backwards, if it does not get
inserted into a virtuous global mechanism, which also contributes to the holistic sustainability of the
society. For a simplistic reason: because people under threat, have to find a way to protect
themselves, and its economic form is called Protectionism. Right now, the “losers”, the old rich, are
under threat, from a machine that they have themselves created.
Global trade is successful for now, but this success is much more insecure than it has been for
several decades, as long as liberal trade is a global island, isolated from the mainstream society’s
policy making – which has remained totally local.
What can prevent this potential rebellion is total globalization. Not only the globalization of the
economy, or the lure of our interconnected society and of our embryo of international cooperation,
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which can disappear again in a deep shift towards the “inside” – if the “outside” does not organize
itself to continue to deliver progress -, but the integration of the global free-market Economy into a
virtuous direction for the society, decided by the citizens, and implemented by their global political
arm, which we are missing. So that the the pace of losing and winning gets a little more balanced, in
a perspective of global sustainability, which will ensure the protection of global liberalism against
potential identitarian reactionary forces.
“When goods don’t cross borders, armies will”(18
December 3, 2012).
th.
century economist Frédéric Bastiat, quoted by Fortune Magazine,
Earth our Country.
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A new global survey from the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) for the decade 20012010 just came out by mid 2013 (BBC News, July 3 2013), showing that “94% of reporting countries had
their warmest decade in 2001-2010, and no country reported a nationwide average decadal
temperature cooler than the long term average”. The Secretary-General Michel Jarraud declared:
“On a long-term basis, the underlying trend is clearly in an upward direction, more so in recent
times”.
A debate between scientific experts on the extent of global warming continues though, and feeds the
political machine responsible for devising adoptable solutions to limit the effects of our pollution, in
particular with CO2. While most experts now agree that greenhouse gases are exponentially
increasing global warming, the question of its rate of acceleration and ultimate outcome remains
enormously controversial and is the source of contention between different, almost religious,
interest groups.
Doubters argue that temperatures did not go up faster in the last decade (although they have been
consistently at least as high as ever before), while warming advocates demonstrate that for longer
periods (twenty years and above), the trend is unarguably accelerating.
In fact, it appears that we seem to be quite unaware of how our Planet’s complex system will react
to the damage it has so quickly endured lately, since the majority of currently observed effects lack
long-term historical data (direct scientific measurements of the Earth’s temperature span less than
two centuries) and indirect analyses continue to be controversial, lacking a level of detail in the
predictions. To be simplistically clear: such a fast climate change has never happened before, and
when slower natural ones happened, we were not here to measure them. So, we work on predictions
based on complex models; else than that, we can only prove retroactively with what we see, which
is quite a lot, such as the melting ice, much increased hurricanes, and the average temperatures, but
the complexity of the Earth is such, that we do not have a perfect holistic of the situation.
Unquestionably, trends are converging with alarming signals, though following the failure in
Copenhagen and Durban, the “deniers” continue to take to heart, and to the media, and still succeed
in temporarily burying the need for the urgency of massive actions.
Like a pragmatic observer, we can measure by ourselves the effects that our industrial civilization
has had on the fragile edifice of our surroundings, our overconsumption of energy and our
discarding of every sort of product; one needs only open their eyes and look around.
The melting of glaciers is an invaluable indicator because it is visible, precise, simple, irrefutable,
and digital: liquid state or solid state, water or ice, it is strictly a function of temperature, within a
degree.
We can read edifying reports everyday. Here is one, short extract from an analysis put out in 2009 –
five years ago already - on the impact of warming in the Arctic, which I found short and clear
enough at the time. It highlighted the indisputable evidence already, and recognizing scientists’
debates on the evolution of the warming crisis (The Intelligent Life, December 2009): “Since 1979 – in thirty
years time – almost 40% of the summer ice of the Arctic has melted into the oceans, and the rate is
accelerating. One day – some scientists predict in 2015, others in 2030, and a small minority hope
for 2070 – there will no longer be anything in the summer except for an expanse of silent water at
the summit of the World. The North Pole will be a point in the open ocean, accessible by boat …
The Arctic, as it has existed for all of human History, will be no more”.
Same for the implied raise of the sea level, here are some of the latest I could collect by mid 2013.
The Intergovernemental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) estimates that sea levels could rise by 23
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inches by 2100. Different source, the panel of EU funded experts (named “Ice2sea”) sees a mid
range warming scenario at 3.5 degree C increase by the end of the century, with sea level by up to
15 inches, with one a twenty chance that it would go above 33 inches.
Now the most important one, since it is the root cause of the others: carbon-dioxyde concentration,
which as we know is the key actor of global warming. On May 4 2013 the barrier of 400 parts per
million was passed (US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Mauna Loa Observatory, Hawaii), a level which
matches the one of the Pliocene era four million years ago, when Northern Siberia and Canada were
jungles. The first number measured was 315 ppm in 1958, so it went up by a quarter in only fifty
years, with a rate of increase of 2.1 ppm (0.5 percent) per year. At current rates, the concentration
will exceed 450 by 2037, and will clearly take us on a warming trend of more than 2 degrees C currently 3 to 5 degrees are becoming the average target.
There is a huge amount of materials available, of which 99.99 percent are headed – with various
amplitudes – to the same destination. But frankly, who needs controversial research details any
longer ? The destruction of the natural state of our ecosystem and of the resources that it has always
offered us is clear to the naked eye, without much scientific aid: increase in temperatures, massive
melting of glaciers, rising sea levels, increased frequency and strength of storms, deforestation,
decreased air quality and permanent smog over metropolitan areas, water quality in rivers and
oceans, reduction of animal species, increasing scarcity of fish, expansion of cities and human
infrastructure and the consequent shrinking of natural space, proliferation of cars and their
emissions, increase in non-degradable waste, rise in pollution related to food production, littering of
old or unusable objects from plastic bags to metal carcasses, and the decrease in accessible fossil
fuels and minerals, just to name a few. What else do we need to pay the most serious attention at all
decisive levels ?
We miss a cataclysm. We have become so accustomed to the constant degradation of our
surroundings and left with so few natural landmarks in our urban areas that we exist in a state of
collective anesthesia, in which the abnormal has become normal.
What would astound a Paleolithic Man from over 12,000 years ago, if plopped down in our new
World ? It would be the transformation of “his” natural environment, in many places he would feel
like in a totally alien setting, both for the sight, the noise, and the smell. The environment into which
we now live looks normal to us because we are used to it, and we can only compare it with what we
have seen during our lifetime, since we grew up as a kid, a few decades ago. Our eyes cannot
compare with the totally different time scale that it took our Planet to build it, or even what it was a
couple of centuries ago before the industrial revolution, not to say 12,000 before we started
deforestation, to make space for crops. And so we ask scientists, through multiple debates, what
their view is of the future, as if History isn’t enough to indicate the wall we are building for
ourselves ? It is even acceptable for the majority of us to believe, in good faith, that since the Planet
has tolerated the growth of Humankind up until today, it will adapt indefinitely. Our Life is so short
and we adapt so quickly, that none among us can grasp and directly contemplate the change that
preceded us, other than through books or abstract scientific reflection, if we really want to pay
attention.
Since the beginning of their epic tale, Men have polluted. They have cut down forests to construct
their dwellings and for heat, they have killed off species by over-hunting, they have dirtied rivers
with their tanneries and other activities. Even this has been enough to cause self-destruction when
scaled down to the size of an island like Easter Island. But the volume was innocuous at the
planetary level, when done bit by bit and relative to their small numbers and manual methods, as
their processes only developed little by little, aligned on the pace of a relatively slow technological
progress.
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Suddenly, the industrial revolution replaced this more “natural” (closer to nature) way of living,
with the systematic production of immensely larger and larger volumes. The manual human
“machine” was irremediably accelerated, multiplying its capacity for disturbance. The curve of
Man’s pollution, stagnating at zero until the Neolithic revolution, then ramping up slowly mostly
with the deforestation and up until this point linear, catapulted itself to exponential growth since the
19th. century, endlessly accelerating since then.
The quantity of everything that was produced exploded, thanks to the overwhelming use of fossil
fuels – coal, and then petroleum – greatly surpassing the physical production capacity of Man, even
with the help of his domesticated animals. This trigger in the industrial revolution took us from a
basic manual way of production (self-limiting) to industrial scale (resource-limited), much like
domestication of fossil fuels took us from physical human and animal power to the use of a motor.
Ever since this day, coal, then oil, and then gasoline and electricity replaced arms, horses, and wood:
the industrial revolution changed the Life of Man and indirectly revolutionized – unfortunately and
involuntarily in an unpredictable way – the impact on its surroundings.
Man’s energy consumption exploded, and his potential to destroy his natural environment for
production needs increased one hundred fold. The countryside emptied out, its inhabitants leaving
for the bigger and – maybe - better life offered by cities. The human population grew, benefiting
from this new technological and scientific progress: a longer life expectancy, reduced infant
mortality rates due to improvements in nutrition, medicine, and material comfort.
The ease of extracting and using fossil fuel energy, that continues to this day, is primarily what has
allowed for the economic explosion of the last century. The cost of this energy is remarkably lower
than any other discovery to date, its transport to final destination is equally easy – tanker or pipeline
– and its storage is simplest of all, all it needs is a tank. Maybe one day, the name “industrial
revolution” will be replaced by “Fossil revolution”, if not with “the Easy revolution”.
In less than two centuries, Man has constructed the entire structure of his industrial society on the
first plentiful availability of accessible fossil fuels, which took millions years to develop since the
emergence of Life on our Planet, all while mass producing and funneling smoke and pollutants into
our fragile atmosphere.
The Fossil revolution engendered trains, cars, planes, plastics, electricity, heating, air conditioning,
steel and metal production; the foundation of the modern civilization that we know today, and that
make our daily normality.
Nothing to this day has yet been invented that is more efficient than fuel, including our clean
energies as they stand today. Fossil fuel has been, and remains, the indisputable and most
economical way to produce and consume, until such time that a superior force (to pure short-term
economics) can re-direct Humanity’s engine, and at least even out the total cost of fossil fuel with
the one of alternative energies.
Nuclear energy, a viable alternative to thermal (fossil) reactors, causes fear due to situations like
Chernobyl and Fukushima, and clean energies, in general, are still trying to get a solid footing, and
remain more expensive than traditional energy.
Unfortunately, fossil fuel energy pollutes. Its combustion emits carbon-dioxide, which we have
discharged into the atmosphere by the billions of tons since we started using it. Since the industrial
revolution, it represents about half of the polluting gases responsible for the greenhouse effect. The
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other half comes from a variety of sources: methane is generated in mass through the raising of
livestock and intensive agriculture; black carbon comes from poorly combusted fossil fuels, of
nitrogen and ozone.
The magazine Science classifies the greatest causes of global warming in the following order: the
top two – clearly in the lead – are road transportation (CO2) and livestock production (methane);
following is gas production, rice agriculture, coal production, domestic and commercial fossil fuel
use, and polluted water run-off.
The effects felt up to today are just the tip of the iceberg, of what is to come in the general
disturbance of our ecosystem:
•
Climate change, as reflected by warming, has been around one degree Celcius since the
start of the industrial revolution just until today. Its speed has now accelerated to a rise in
temperature of 0.2-0.3 degree per decade. Emitted gasses have created a thin layer in the
atmosphere that holds in the heat created by the rays of the sun, similar to a greenhouse.
While an infinite number of experts disagree on the speed of change to come and how to
read the data collected, the average of estimates is around 3 degree by 2100 according to the
International Energy Agency (IEA). There is a fifty percent likelihood that this number
could be increased to five degrees. To put these numbers into a more understandable context
as they could appear mimimal in the first place, the current actual temperature is only five
degrees greater now than it was during the last ice age. This is the scale of what we are
talking about …
A more than five degree difference, which is likely for the next century and distantly
possible for this one, would have effects that are impossible to anticipate: never during the
previous tens of millions of years, since the existence of Man and close predecessors, has
Earth been as warm as it is now. No one can really know the effects of this warming.
Certain experts think that the Planet has already entered into an irreversible cycle that will
take us to an irremediable and dangerous level. Other specific effects are still unforeseeable,
for example, if enormous quantities of methane that are enclosed in ice and polar permafrost
are freed, it could cause a brutal, even greater warming.
•
Sea levels are rising as the polar ice caps and ice floats melt from above, due to the
greenhouse effect, and below due to a greater volume of warmer water. For the last two
thousand years, the sea level has been static. Then, since the end of the 19th. century it started
to raise by 1.8 millimeters (0.07 inches) a year, and for the last twenty years by around 3
millimeters (0.12 inches) a year. This current rise in the water level (twelve inches a century)
is also accelerating, so clearly twenty-three inches are at sight for 2100.
A rise in sea level of one meter (fourty inches) – which is currently the higher of predictions
– could displace in theory approximately a billion people, and would see the disappearance
of parts of countries or entire countries like Florida and Bangladesh, as well a many
metropolitan areas that are located on the water. The UN estimates that climate change
could create 200 million refugees by 2050, more than the total number of worldwide
migrants today (this number is obviously controversial). In any case, the recent floods in
Bangkok, and the shrinkage of islands-states already demonstrate the effects of rising water
levels.
•
Deforestation, which started thousands of years ago with agriculture and settlements,
continues today, as cultures and towns nibble away at territory and land. There remains one155
third of the Earth’s non-liquid surface that is still covered in forest, managing to absorb
twelve percent of human emissions. The massive deforestation that is underway in South
America and Africa – the last two largest sanctuaries – continues to reduce the abilities of
this indispensable lung. Submarine forests – in the Oceans - are also essential to our
ecosystem because they have already prevented a catastrophe already, through CO2
absorption by aquatic plant life.
•
The disappearance of species, their displacement – caused by Man – and the reduced
number of animals living in the wild continue, especially in the Oceans, though there aren’t
many non-domesticated animals left on land outside of the insect World. Industrial fishing –
a sort of massive harvesting – has emptied the Ocean, without renewing the populations
through domestication, as we have done on land.
•
Pollution in general, both visible and invisible, will continue to affect us every day. Since
the beginning of the industrial era, we have continued to discharge more and more
pollutants, into the ground, the ocean, and the atmosphere. Not only gas, but all sorts of
liquids and dust. The result is visible in the atmosphere in the form of fine particles that
make up clouds of brown dust, covering towns and, sometimes, entire countries. The
volume of pollution is so vast, that it filters the light, so that the quantity of sunlight reaching
the Earth is ten percent less in some areas. In some megalopolis that I have visited lately,
the effect is already quite stunning (I am really amazed with the degree of people’s passive
tolerance in Beijing for instance, some days it is hard not to cough when walking in the
street).
This is for today. But this holistic picture, already quite dark, becomes much more worrisome when
we project twenty or forty years into the future, and worse a century from now, where a “double
whammy” will create an insurmountable wall: population will increase, and individual consumption
per inhabitant as well.
•
An increase to nine and a half billion inhabitants in 2050 – a third more than today, and
three times more than in 1950 – who will at least need to be fed, and who will mostly be
found in geographical areas that are the most at risk to climate changes. This will result
in massive relocations, with the potential for creating a chain reaction of conflicts over
livable space and resources.
•
As already reviewed earlier, the economic emergence of developing nations – “most of
the World” - who, coming from far below, will move toward a level of carbon footprint
nearing that of the USA, and that could multiply the carbon footprint of our species by a
double digits figure. I still think that this consumerist wealth equalization is impossible
to reach: as we have seen, overcoming this wealth difference will generate a major
conflict for the appropriation of resources and cause a climatic cataclysm. However, this
is what everyone is running for right now, so we have to acknowledge that it is on the
current agenda of the nations.
But, the Great Waste cannot just be the privilege of the rich (including China who has accepted to
become the factory of the West, and therefore an unique magnet for pollution). Everyone wants
access to these benefits that come with a better quality of life and material progress. The big
questions is: how do we make this relative standard of living equalization objective, across all
populations of the Planet, sustainable for our environment ? What do we need to reinvent in the
great World economic competitive race, where every country and economic actor is positioning
itself in a way to maximize production and consumption, which are the measures of individual
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economic success ?
One thing is certain; never before has such a transformation taken place, nor has the environment
ever reacted so rapidly to an organic, terrestrial phenomenon. There have been giant meteorit
shocks every three million years or so – exterior events that have caused similar transformations on
our Planet – but nothing of this sort has ever come from the Earth itself, induced by the Life that it
has created.
The debate of the day between those who recognize what is happening to the environment, and
those who don’t believe it is happening at all, is in the process of becoming defunct. It is
reminiscent of the religious debate that put evolution into question, though apparently, only the
future will irrefutably prove who was right. In addition to the facts that seem to largely demonstrate
what is clearly happening, the message to those who continue to ignore the situation is that they
have the choice between three interpretations of our situation, but only one responsible response.
•
The first interpretation – activist and proactive – is that which we have discussed
above, but to simplify: what is coming is going to be terrible if we don’t make a
complete about face quickly. This means that we must act in a dramatic manner, in
proportion to the risk, and steer Humanity toward a route of sustainable and enduring
development. To do this, we must resolve the political problem, for that it is
absolutely necessary to breed a cohesive economic solution, an new industrial and
consumerist beginning, one that can set off the new clean energy model.
•
The second interpretation – unsure and measured – is to wait, to be “sure” that we
completely understand what is coming at us: maybe it isn’t as terrible as all that, the
experts are still bickering over their predictions, we observe symptoms but don’t
understand their precise reasons - such as “this winter there was a lot of snow so how
can the climate be getting warmer ?”. With this approach, the implied path is to take
some time to better understand and then act, if and when, the necessary day comes.
In the meantime, let’s keep going overall, but be alert, look for new ways, be ready to
take bigger actions if/when evidence solidifies.
These two first interpretations are understandable, considering the different levels of alarm
presented by studies and the media, I can appreciate if not agree, as a realistic business person, that
there can be hesitations to force traumatic and consequential transformations, when innate personal
resistance to change is in question.
•
The third interpretation – negationist - which is, unfortunately, still widespread, is to
refuse to observe the facts, to shut out pragmatic open-mindedness; it is denial or at
worse revisionism of what even the eye can see: “I don’t believe it, therefore, it isn’t
true”. It is difficult at this point to respect this point of view because it is a refusal of
the factual reality in front of us. This level of denial tries to attach a dimension of
“belief,” either ignorantly, or by design, in saying that climate change is not real,
with an argument of this type: “the melting of glaciers has come and gone throughout
History and has not been proven to be the result of our Man-made pollution. The
climate has been a yo-yo since the beginning of times, and the causes are just in the
nature of the Earth, which we don’t understand enough to draw any conclusion. In
any case, the climate is not changing, it’s been the same for the last ten years.”
The response of this last group is, of course, to do nothing and to continue to charge ahead, only
worrying about the easiest lifestyle and the growth of business in the short term. One wonders what
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would need to happen to change their minds, if not a catastrophe at their own front door.
From the first two “reasonable” interpretations, between which one may oscillate, while listening to
the analyses and conclusions that are underway; there can in my view only be one responsible
response and strategy: the one of dealing with a major risk, of immediate action for the significant
mitigation of the greatest risk that has ever threatened us. It is about focusing on the risk if not on
the evidence.
If these two interpretations do not coincide in their degree of conviction after analyzing the actual
situation, they do at least agree on the elevated probability of a situation that could be potentially
dangerous – if not immediately, then in the very near future. Even the most skeptical people can
recognize, with simple common sense, that the pollution of our industrialized, over consuming
civilization is incomparably greater than that of past civilizations, and that if/when the rest of the
World catches up to the Western world in its carbon footprint and wastefulness, with a third more
people altogether, the impact will be immensely greater. Or put differently there is a great risk that
the impact will be much greater.
Consequently, these two interpretations can agree on the need for action, one with certainty of the
Wall, and the other through mitigation of the risk of the Wall that threatens Humanity.
It is like having the pragmatic intelligence of a father figure or a competent politician, who follows
the same logic that would drive a person to economize and save for their retirement, or invest in
health insurance: invest now to cover a major risk, or to keep it from ever happening. In this context
of agreement on the risk (at least), a consensus to allot a certain percentage of GDP to cover for it
should be taken for granted, but it hasn’t yet, because it is painful to address it. Al Gore calls it “An
inconvenient truth”, as it is not a positive event (or risk of) to deal with. Instead, it takes measures
that challenge positive economic developments. It becomes an “unpleasant” undertaking for any
politician: allocating funds, building new regulations, fighting against powerful lobbies. In
Democracies, it forces elected politicians to make voters unhappy in the short-term, in totalitarian
regimes it hurts the economy of regimes relying on economic growth to protect a delicate popular
tolerance.
Popular recognition of the issues and support for the solutions is therefore essential, so that officials
can finally dare to do what it takes to mitigate the risk – which is to allocate two to three percent of
the World GDP toward the fight against global warming, in order to prepare for the long-term
construction a sustainable society. This is an act of responsibility for every citizen, anywhere, now
and into the future. We must step up and stimulate our politicians to come with bold answers, as
“inconvenient” as they can be.
Remaining passive, or deciding to do nothing – the third interpretation – is becoming dangerous not
to say borderline irresponsible, when such a risk is so evidently material for our civilization in its
entirety. Even if there was a very slim chance that the global warming would suddenly stop, and
that the cause would be independent of human’s activity, why take the foolish risk of betting
Humanity for generations to come ?
Finally, over the past couple of years, the political scene has started to make a subtle change. From
generic denial outside of the EU, a somewhat unanimous consensus has formed lately among more
prudent and responsible leaders of the World, with the two heavy weight polluters joining the
climate change recognition. The EU was already there, but now also under public pressure China is
coming forward, and just as I write these lines President Obama is joining the crowd on June 25
2013, with his “co-ordinated assault on a changing climate”, just after his immigration reform got
settled. He won’t be able to do anything that requires approval from Congress, but at least he is
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finally planting his stick in the ground, following his promise in 2009 when was first elected, with
the clear priority of reducing by forty percent the greenhouse gases from the coal sector (US power
plants).
It now shifts the discussion on purely economic ground: how seriously to invest into remedies, how
much to allocate toward this fight, what are the priority actions and, of course, who is going to pay
for them, and how to coordinate a genuine effort across boundaries ?
I think that it is fair to say that identifying the cost and financing of climate change has probably
recently moved away from the nowhere zone, and made it to the second priority in the agenda of the
top nations. It unfortunately remains a very distant second to the Economy, but as we think
positively in a long-term perspective, this is relative progress, although frustratingly slow. It remains
a David against Goliath competition, against the number one economic agenda item, and the priority
to escape the recession - which has required the use of the very public funds that are lacking in the
environmental struggle.
Climate change considerations start to make the agenda in most places that matter most (awaiting
for Canada and Australia), and limiting greenhouse gases to below 500 ppm of CO2 globally has
emerged as the not-so-aggressive consensual line of sight. The fundamental agreement on the
necessity of placing the environment “near” the top of the World political agenda has been reached,
leaving the nations with the need to come up with a truly effective plan, a seemingly utopian vision
given the forces present. The good news is that the reality of global warming has truly taken hold in
our collective consciousness and is starting to get the attention it should, thanks to the credibility
and work done by the United Nations (getting everyone together) and Al Gore (messaging the issue
in a comprehensible manner) – regardless of the violent criticisms of their adversaries.
The UN is facilitating regular international gathering summits on climate change, which are the only
place really where the subject can be addressed globally. Historically, the Kyoto agreement was the
first official global signal for climate change recognition, hammered by Europe in 1997. Only 38
industrialized countries – without the USA, Australia, or the emerging countries - validated the
Kyoto agreements. It called for a 5.2% reduction of greenhouse gases by 2012.
The Copenhagen conference, organized by the UN in 2009 in the heart of the economic melt down,
continued the limited momentum and defined itself as a potential success with the increased
participation of those who count. Unfortunately, the date, set well in advance, could not have been
worse: countries were more in debt than ever before following the economic recession and the
historic bailout of their financial institutions. Also, in the US, Obama was in a deadlock with
Congress following his medical healthcare reform act and the bank bailout, which effectively made
environmental priorities impossible. Public coffers, already empty almost everywhere, were used
for short-term economic stimulus to help fragile Western economies, that were already suffering
from record unemployment. The summit rallied a record participation though, showing the growing
interest, with almost 200 countries represented.
Durban, just two years later, and in an economic context that was as bad as Copenhagen - worse for
Europe the biggest sponsor - allowed for some symbolic progress. An agreement in principle,
though rather uncertain, was reached at the conclusion of a two week marathon. It put in place a
provisional pact, that would make rich and poor countries alike limit their emissions, assuming it
would eventually become a formal agreement in 2015 and take effect in 2020 - not much immediate
commitment … Obtaining the developing nations’ participation was essential though, as they
already represent 58% of total emissions. Equally, a still vaguely defined Green Climate Fund,
representing a funding of $100 billion dollars per year from wealthy nations for poor nations, was
scheduled to start in 2020 as well. One can at least proclaim that, for the first time, the principal
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emitters of greenhouse gases came together, under one legitimate roof, with the common objective
of putting forth an agreement and a course of actions. Though it was more political than
operational, the agreement demonstrated unanimous recognition of the problem, if not also its scope
– even if the subsequent withdrawal of Canada from the Kyoto treaty had the effect of a cold
shower.
Not much happened in Rio in 2012, and now all hopes are moving toward the next summit,
scheduled in Paris for 2015. And the music goes on, as time goes by …
We are still barely scratching the surface of the problem, and a true and meaningful consensus that
will promote a real solution is not on the horizon. This political UN buzz, while commendable, has
put forth almost nothing substantial so far. After sixteen years of frantic UN efforts to strike a
binding agreement between the nations to limit climate change to bearable levels, “nothing” is the
simplest word, to qualifiy honestly the level of practical achievement.
Experts judge that the level of real investment required is in the order of one trillion of dollars per
year while the transition is being executed, or about two percent of the World’s GDP, and ten times
the amount envisioned at Durban. An investment of one percent is the least possible amount that
the experts think could have a real effect, but it supposes use that it is so efficient that is improbable
and, therefore, truly represents the lowest possible limit. An investment of two percent of the
World’s GDP is, on one hand, enormous, since we are still in the middle of a bear market, but it is
also a “manageable” number to shoot for, if we want to definitely attack the risk of a derailement of
the climate, given the extreme stakes for all.
Let’s visualize what two percent of the World’s GDP – the needed rescue package – would
represent:
•
It is the equivalent of less than two-thirds of the annual World military expenditures
– estimated to be 1.5 trillion Dollars, out of a World’s total GDP of more than fifty
trillion Dollars.
So Peace – no military budgets - would more than pay for Humanity’s sustainability.
•
It is less than the 2009 banks bail out. But the banks melt down was an immediate
catastrophe, with chain bancruptcies, millions of jobs eliminated, countries at risk of
defaulting - while the climate change goes slowly in comparison, it is like an
invisible enemy, which so far has been politically so easy to marginalize.
So a stabilized economic model – no rescue packages to buffer the up and down
cycles - would more than pay for Humanity’s sustainability as well.
So if there was a genuine political will, it could be done, isn’t it ? If we were in a total crisis mode,
the World wealth would fix it in a heartbeat, as our leaders did to avoid us to dive in a 1929-like
economic recession in 2009. It is just that the momentum is still far from being strong enough.
Let’s assume that miraculously it would be done, that the Paris summit in 2015 for instance, would
validate such a package (it could only happen if in the meantinme there was some tremendous
climatic crisis and/or recognition). Would it be final victory then ? We would still need to agree on
who pays what – and paying it-, to whom, and how to channel the funds efficiently across borders.
Successfully establishing an agreement on such an investment is necessary, but alone, with a bycountry governance, it would probably not be enough, given the difficulty in obtaining funds and
efficiently dispensing them to two hundred nations who have not only different but competing
agendas.
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I am convinced that we are, from this point forward, confronted with a problem of a political
dimension. Without doubt it is the most difficult problem that politicians have ever had to resolve:
hundreds of governments share together a common situation (all on the same Earth), they must
agree on its analysis, and find a financial and societal solution – trending toward a zero carbon
emission universal society - before the risk of the arrival of a catastrophe that would impact
everyone could materialize. In the meantime, the vise continues to close.
We must address the root cause, not its effects. We have tried to address the effects since Kyoto,
with no results, and I am afraid none at sight either. The root cause is the competitive nature of our
political system, built by the Homo Sapiens Sapiens, which led to the current domination, but
sustainability impasse. The effects are the ecologic crisis. I do not see how we can resolve the
ecologic crisis (the effect) if we do not re-invent our political system (the root cause), make it
universal, and turn the page toward the Homo Sapiens Universalis – a shared peaceful society for
everyone on Earth.
Until at least a core of the most important nations shake hand and take responsibility, we will not
stop endangering the future generations of all the nations. It is hard to see how, after already so
many symbolic trials, such an anarchic decision-making body, made of hundreds of independent
nation-states, can ever respond to the challenge.
Here are the four key challenges to be addressed, that will remain unlikely to be resolved, as long as
political fragmentation leaves Mankind with no consistent response:
•
The first challenge is to form an agreement for financing the mass replacement of
fossil fuel energy, even though it will remain the most efficient and economical
means for many decades to come, until such a time that its scarcity will cause an
explosion in cost – which is probably still a few decades or even a century away after
the latest discover of new shale gas reserves.
To be immediate, this transformation should occur through the creation of a new economic
regulation that can only be interventionist, and therefore unpopular. Its mechanisms could impact
supply, or demand, or both. Limiting supply would mean implementing quotas. It would basically
limit the volumes of fossil fuels allowed to be extracted. Limiting demand appears to be an easier
path, it would take the form of a taxation of fossil fuels that would even out its consumer pricing
with the one of cleaner energies, still more expensive to create. The objective in both cases would be
to stimulate the use of alternative sources of energy. Taxation, on the demand side, makes more
sense to me, as it would put the businesses and their clients in the position of compensating for the
cost of the pollution they cause, and for making new sustainable forms of energy competitive, when
considering their overall cost. Placing quotas on fossil fuel energy seems to me less satisfactory,
because it would be harder to enforce, in a politically fragmented World where producer countries
do not want to deprive themselves of their principal revenue. These are the options. Either way, only
a public global stimulus can bring about this economic change. If only one country implements a
green taxation, it will become uncompetitive in isolation, so at least the larger countries if not all
must implement in unison.
If serious about the challenge, every government should become both a taxer of pollution, and a
stimulator of massive investments in new energy sources, with the goal of creating a long-term
economic flood, that is attractive enough to bring the private sector in as well. The action of
governments should be clear and sustained in duration, so that private investments can rely on stable
regulations, in order to have time to make profit regardless of a long or difficult economic cycle.
The cycle of the energy Economy is, in effect, intensive in capital from the very beginning;
investment in research, then development, then the establishment of the industrial complex, then
marketing to the new users, and thus – many years later – comes the return on the massive
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investment. Only governments can ignite this sort of change because most consumers, though
informed, are not inclined to pay a higher premium for a greener product, in particular during a
recession.
Thanks to renewable resources - that have already made possible high speed trains, electric vehicles,
self-sufficient “eco” houses, wind farms and solar power - the paths of investment are clearly
established and only await this large stimulus to fully change the reality of our means of
transportation and lifestyle.
Every challenge creates its own opportunity, and in this case, it is to replace the motor of our
industrial civilization. The creation of a new green economy – through the replacement of fossil
fuels – can be the motor of our future economy. It is the “clean energy growth story” that every
investor has been waiting to jump on. Even if governments play their role and commit to the trillion
Dollars per year – it will not cancel the need for the private investments and projects, that are sure to
follow. Nor will it totally encompass the necessary technologies, or develop the economic model of
positive return. If the public sector starts the engine, the private sector will take it over – if, and
only if, the laws are clear and support a solid long-term model, and especially if there is no risk of
political back pedaling, which has burnt quite a few lately.
The virtuous cycle must start from the US and China – which together represent forty percent of
total CO2 emissions. Together with the EU, they become the majority. The US-China political
partnership on this topics is the go-no-go starting point, that will unfold the castle of cards. It will be
very interesting to see how China now reacts to the latest Obama agenda.
To help politicians to take bolder steps, so much depends on us, the voters and consumers in
Democracies, and on public pressure in China, so that political leaders feel empowered to move
forward, beyond their official postures. Most important is the public opinion of Americans – as I
feel that European and now Chinese are already won to the cause. It is not clear how much support
Obama will receive on his new climate initiative, as a recent poll shows that over fifty percent of
Republicans would be in denial of climate change altogether.
•
The second challenge is to prepare to feed a World that is still growing in
population and GDP, and is pulled by the emerging countries that legitimately
refuse to stagnate, in an environment of diminishing resources, and a climate that will
make agriculture more difficult due to bad weather, reducing arable land, and whose
climbing temperatures will traumatize the historical agricultural systems therefore
challenging production yields.
Between today and 2050, the thirty percent increase in population plus the increase in the standard
of living of a great number of developing nations is anticipated to create a seventy percent increase
in demand for agricultural products. The demand for meat alone will double, driven only by the
poorer countries, as it is proven that with an increase in standard of living, the demand per
individual for meat grows strongly.
This is good news for the consumers of poor nations on the path of development, as they are the
beneficiaries of this accelerated consumption. So hunger and poverty will continue to go down.
But this enormous growth in demand anticipates that local agricultural systems will be able to
follow and satisfy the demand. To do this, farmers will need to clear a much larger surfaces for
cultivation, find additional water for irrigation, all while adapting to changes in the climate, that will
affect their methods and products, as their lands react to the new climatic constraints that are likely
to be more harmful than good in agricultural production. How can they succeed ?
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The scarcity of water, food, and available arable land is going to become a true speed bump to
development, while demand will not cease to grow. A large increase in food prices appears to be
the first inevitable effect to come. It is here that governments should again take the lead in
anticipating and stimulating, with an ambitious agricultural policy for the future, framed in a new
definition of tolerance for environmental pollution.
For decades, investment in agriculture has kept dropping and been ignored, so that today it
represents only five percent of public expenditures. Consequently, the efficiency of agricultural
methods has not progressed much since the major improvements in output that were achieved up
until the 1960’s. From a three to four percent increase in production per year during the mid 20th.
century agricultural revolution, the rates have stabilized to one to two percent, which is half of what
was possible when there were dynamic policies.
Nonetheless, agriculture is far and away the number one activity of the poor countries, with three
quarters of the poorest people living in rural areas, where too often they do not have access to a
central market (national, regional or even less global) for their products. Investments should not
only focus on agricultural techniques and irrigation infrastructures, but also on the logistics of
communication and transportation that are needed to quickly move fresh products, and motivate
local private investors who have traditionally ignored this sector. The ability of Africa for example,
to raise above subsistence agriculture and to start to export food crops, would be increased ten-fold
by logistical and communication infrastructures, that would be comparable to the rest of the World:
this sort of investment has not yet been seen.
The key to the agricultural challenge will be to greatly boost production, without increasing the
future use of water and land. The easiest solution is through an efficient global re-deployment,
using the newly wet and freed up land in the North and South, that are coming at the cost of dried
up, desert lands in the tropics. The needed new agricultural revolution should ride on innovation,
using new technologies in drip irrigation, better use of fertilizers, widespread use of seed that
requires less water, and launching techniques that will re-accelerate production yields.
However, it appears improbable that a poor country can individually resolve this problem without
having an even greater impact on its environment. Nor is it desired: why make a country devastate
its soil and ecosystem so that it can be agriculturally self-sufficient, when no country is selfsufficient in anything any longer (economic globalization), especially since soil quality and weather
– as well as population density - are unjustly distributed by geography and climate ?
The business of agriculture should learn to detach itself from the localization of its consumption, by
globalizing the less perishable products. Even the perishable products can be treated to make them
more transportable. This model implies also a more holistic approach. Only appropriate anticipation
and international capacity planning for the growth in global demand, would permit us to best feed
the greatest number of people with the lesser harm on the ecosystem. It would require to map
geographically the potentials of the soils, match them with the optimal crops, and maximize outputs
while minimizing stress on the land and its ecosystem (such as available fresh water and distances to
key markets); all while climate change will redraw the available, productive, arable lands.
Clearly, we must anticipate that the growth in demand will be the greatest, in places where local
ability is the most fragile. The developing countries are grouped between the two tropic lines and
cannot reach a level of self-sufficiency without causing an ecologic disaster – like massive
deforestation. Globalized agriculture is the only viable direction for the future.
This challenge represents an opportunity for agriculture, in that it can become a truly strategic
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industry, green and efficient, strong and attractive to investments and technologies, and strategic for
governments and the World as a whole. Today, nations are making their plans for energy security –
soon if not already, they should add plans for their alimentary security (such as the Emirates buying
fertile land in Australia).
Modernization of agricultural distribution should, equally, be a part of the food supply equation.
Access to consumer markets and the quality of trade, lack the efficiency required to transfer
increasingly scarce and more expensive products to the greatest number of people, who are in
diverse locations and who have the greatest final rate of consumption. As food becomes more
precious, the entire chain, from producer to consumer, should be fine-tuned to minimize waste, and
to transform this market into one that is truly modern and efficient.
The level of waste, from production to final consumption – those items that are useless and cannot
be consumed because they have spoiled or been damaged in their harvesting, transport or
distribution – has become unacceptable these days. The numbers just published by the UN stretch
the wildest imagination: over 1.3 billions of tons of food are spoilt every year, representing a global
loss of 750 billion Dollars, according to the FAO’s president (UN’s Food and Agriculture
Organization), Jose Graziano da Silva, who just declared: “Each year, the food produced and not
consumed is equivalent to the volume of water of the Volga river, and is responsible for the reject in
the atmosphere of 3.3 gigatons of gaz with greenhouse effect”. This pure waste corresponds to an
incredible thirty percent of the total cultivated land in the World !
The number of well-fed people that can be tolerated for the long-term by our Planet will only be
understood after the food chain will be made as efficient, as other strategic businesses. As prices
will increase under the pressure of stronger demand, a new agricultural revolution seems imminent,
including food chain globalization, a systematic implementation of new production technologies,
and finally, an optimal mapping of crops and geographies, as we discover the impact of climate
warming on historic agricultural yields.
•
The third challenge – more for the second half of the century - will become how we
prepare to welcome climate refugees, a potential challenge with many fascinating
repercussions because it is completely new to modern Man.
If the warming of the climate continues, our landmasses will be redrawn with a new sea level, as
they did at the end of the last ice age, until they stabilized to the historic levels that the civilized
Man has known. Seas will also warm up, making storms and hurricanes more and more aggressive.
Ten thousand years ago, when waters rose, there were no formal borders and Man was still nomadic.
It must have been tough enough for our ancestors, to move to another place, discover new higher
lands and adapt their lifestyles to their new surroundings, eventually pushing some weaker clans
further inland, or merging with them. Their challenge was quite different from what ours potentially
will be, for two reasons. First, their space was unlimited, in a border-free landmass. Second, their
population was comparatively minuscule.
In the end, this change in habitat appears to have had a positive impact, since this is just when
Humanity benefited, in accelerating its domination and inventing agriculture. From all this stress
came a unique reinvention of their lifestyle, and the same could eventually happen to us if we play
our cards as well as they did, although in different curcumstances.
Climate changes are nothing new over the long life of our Planet. Well before Man, the South Pole
and Greenland were areas rich in vegetation and fauna – another petroleum and raw materials
manna to come – before they were covered up in ice, and Sahara was then a lively savannah.
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But, the warming of the Planet that we are currently experiencing doesn’t appear to have the same
promising outcome for Humanity as the one that occurred at the end of the last ice age. Its
acceleration will plunge billions - not thousands of people - into instability and an unknown that
they have, themselves, involuntarily created. And now we have passports, countries and national
borders. They will this time block or filter the natural migrations of refugees, as well as the
tolerance for demographic readjustment.
While our ancestors experienced what appeared to be a natural, cyclical phenomenon, we are acting
in reaction to our natural setting, one filled with CO2 gas clouds and other methane gas that was
produced by our own consumption. Since this change is Man-made, the result of the industrial
revolution, it only represents an explosion of a few milliseconds when viewed on scale with the
Planet’s lifetime, making the predictions of the ecosystem’s reaction much more difficult.
We seem to have initiated a phenomenon of such speed and scope that one doesn’t really know if
the process that has begun will stabilize to a certain level of warming – three, four, six degrees, or
more. Or, to the contrary, if we have let loose a spiral of poorly understood and previously never
observed chain reactions, that could be infernal for humans.
The positive side of this transformation is that it may soon be possible for us to colonize large areas
of Northern Canada, Alaska, Northern Siberia, Labrador, Greenland, and maybe even parts of
Antarctica, benefiting from their lands and their underground richness. Already, the maritime route
of the Great North has opened up with free moving water over the past few years; the first time in
the memory of Man. The old dream of the great explorers of the Renaissance, for a direct route
from the West to the East has suddenly materialized.
The negative side, at the high end of the scenario, is that the rising levels of water, together with the
drying out and desertification of about half of the inhabited landmasses of the World, will render
them unsuitable for human life.
Numerous experts estimate – but this is not a consensus - that there could be 250 million displaced
climate refugees by 2050 – which is tomorrow. If 2050 will give us 50 times the volume of the
Palestinian problem, what will 2100, or later, bring ? What nationality and law will manage families
coming from countries that are disappearing under water or marshes, much like what is already
happening in the Maldives ?
Only a truly globalized governing body could manage and regulate moves of such a disruptive
amplitude with an orderly logic, and optimize the sustainable development of the newly warmed
lands while the ocean (or desert) retakes the lowest lying (or driest) areas. Climate change will have
implications on the World’s populations that will transcend borders. The new World order, that
must be constructed to prepare for this coming event, must call for efficient and legitimate solutions,
that will never be peacefully adopted under our current historic nation-state model, built on
thousands of years of a static environment – with stable temperatures and sea level.
•
The fourth challenge is to find a fair, decisive and durable political system to
reconcile the interests and means of our many diverse countries, which conflicting
interests will otherwise poison the common well of our shared Planet.
Summits like Copenhagen and Durban tried to get everyone around the same table and agree on a
minimal program that all would support. Following Copenhagen many reflected on its non-success,
since there was no “deal”. So there was a deal in Durban, but probably not a really meaningful one.
Following Durban, many wondered if a bad agreement was better than no agreement at all, so that
pressure would remain on the governments. It remains unclear how true action will take place, with
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the Tower of Babel of the UN unfortunately fostering an environment of inaction. In a Worldwide
chess game, everyone is afraid to lose; the poor to the rich and the rich to the poor, the Americans to
the Chinese and the Chinese to the Americans.
Positively, now that the current administration in America and China are willing to put more weight
in the game, there will definitely be some progress. Also the UN, since Durban, have put in place an
approach that will over time trend toward predictable emissions levels, will measure the
performance of each country with regards to the defined objectives, and will finally initiate a flow of
resources toward poor countries that are the most vulnerable, allowing them to cope with the
coming changes, limit their deforestation, and start to adopt clean energy practices. How much is
enough though, when the problem is never defined as “what is the right thing to do ?”, but rather
“how much can be accepted by all governments together ?”.
The problem is not technological: together we have the tools necessary to stabilize our emissions to
a level that would protect our existence, as we know it, and would not cause a further increase in
actual emissions. Economically, the problem is equally solvable, according to economists, by
growing green industry that can take the place of fossil fuel energies.
The true big and only problem is political. Fragmentation of our political model is becoming the
roadblock of Mankind’s progress.
In the politically fragmented World where we live, in which no country feels safe consigning its
destiny to another, the challenge is to allocate for the cost of necessary collective action and
constrict one’s own growth, while placing confidence in others that they too will fulfill their part of
the contract and fully participate through their contributions and difficult choices.
At the local and national level, centuries of policy making have taught us how to manage subjects of
the city-state but never prepared us for the management of a problem shared by all, friends and
enemies. This first truly global problem is just a few years old in its widespread recognition, and
our institutions are not yet arranged in a way that makes them able to address such challenges
efficiently.
Thanks to the United Nations, there was at least a negotiating table for everyone in Copenhagen, if
no decision, there was at least a solid discussion and confrontation. But beyond sitting down at a
common table, the different and cumulative desires of each individual country make the progress
painfully slow – too slow – until a cataclysm would eventually get immediate but then reactive
attention. Such summits are almost an excuse, they lead to believe that there is a World order, when
there is none. They hide the problem – which is the one of our global leadership vacuum.
The political game that we need to overcome, in the context of a sustainable society, is complex.
The rich nations (the old ones) get most of the burden, since they took the ecologic flag, in the first
place, to build the current agenda (Europe did). While freezing or reducing their own emissions – at
their own cost – they must also finance the efforts of poorer countries to reduce their own emissions
faster than they would unaided, while continuing to be allowed to grow and consume more. The
logic is that the rich countries should, regardless of the objectives of reduced global pollution, allow
for poor countries to gain wealth and growth. Wealthy nations are morally obligated to let the
emerging nations have their turn, since the wealthy already had their chance, all while polluting the
Planet.
The wealthy are morally bound to give tens or hundreds of billions of dollars to the poor countries
to help them finance and slow down the growth of their toxic emissions – and not reduce them,
since this would make impossible their continued emergence.
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The recognition by the “old rich” of their moral duty, to allow poorer countries to grow and develop,
in consideration of their own past growth, will merit a nod toward the History of democratic leaders
– if it is finally put in to play.
There have been two camps until now in these never ending negotiations: the “old rich”, who
consume and pollute (now in debt and recession), and the less rich who produce for the rich (and
now even more for themselves), and who pollute even more, since they have internalized much of
the polluting production of the rich - like steel, cement, cars, refrigerators, and computers. By being
the World’s factory, China has become the number one polluter of the World and is, therefore,
successfully placed in the group of nations who will receive financial assistance to clean up – as if
they were still poor and in need for financial help from the “rich”. This duality of payers and payees
is becoming quickly an anachronism, but is still the dominant and accepted political rhetoric.
One of the key goals of Copenhagen was that the regulators were to establish a system for “carbon
pricing” – a starting point for economic measures linked to the amount of pollution emitted by each
country. The solution was not reached, and still remains for debate, but the subject is critical, and
should stay at the core of future discussions, as one hopes that a long-lasting agreement will be
reached, not only for public entities, but especially private businesses, which will then be enabled to
profitably invest in innovative solutions for the reduction of carbon – the replacement of oil and gas.
Europe has been the motor of the World in the domain of pioneering a green society. It had a huge
lead, having long cultivated a strong green-mindedness, particularly in Scandinavia and Central
Europe. This is one of the rare subjects where Europe could speak with one voice, and its
leadership has been essential in keeping the topics prioritized on the UN agenda. Norway and
Sweden have already put a carbon price in place, and the European Commission was working on a
European “price”, until it got spushed by some burning economic priorities lately … If Europe can
figure out how to get beyond the implementation of a myriad of new anti-carbon laws, and
especially if it can stimulate green industry worthy of positive public opinion, it will have the
opportunity to be a “showcase” for the World, in developing and deploying products and processes
that produce little carbon. Enthusiasm in Europe’s private sector does not often have the same high
level of omnipresence as its public sector, and so the game remains open.
The USA was the number one polluter in the World and is still second to Australia in terms of
pollution per inhabitant. This unimpressive leadership role was recently assumed by China much
due to the US exporting the majority of their polluting industries. The US is surely traumatized by
the prospect of eventually abandoning its ultra consumerist and ultra wasting lifestyle. They are the
inventors of the car society, of an air-conditioned Life, and of a thousand electric appliances for
simplifying Life. More than anywhere else, the choice for a “green” society in the US seems out of
place – even painful – and for many it is an unacceptable attack on the “American Way of Life.”
Public opinion, in fact, is split between the deniers who don’t want to believe in global warming and
the “eco-friendly” who are among the most forward thinking in the World, and drive hybrid cars ...
The deniers were in power for eight long years under President George W. Bush and put forth every
possible blockade to green initiatives. They are concentrated throughout the interior of the US, the
temple of a lifestyle where resources seem infinite and environmental risks are far away, and drive
GM Suburban …
The “eco-friendly” are concentrated on the two coasts with the Californian bastion on the West and
the urban intellectual of New York and New England in the East. Politically they are mostly
Democrats in the vein of Al Gore, but not solely. Its is really a societal debate, that crosses
partylines.
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Politically, Americans don’t do well with their green legislation and are still very far from moving
toward consensus, as Europe has. Obama, who knows he doesn’t have the backing of Congress for
a green “bail-out,” cannot surpass, or even come close to, the leadership role that Europe has
established. Lately though, as we saw earlier, Obama has turned and “endorse climate change”.
With Europe already sold, it opens a first global window with a now willing China too.
China, now in the unenviable role of lead emitter of carbon, recently turned its environmental policy
upside down. China is fully measuring the dangers of climate change, and the opportunities to be
found, in an active policy of lower carbon emissions, that can bring about a new long-term strategy.
The visible pollution there is actually much higher than in most places, has passed scientifically
acceptable measures, and this is an area where public pressure on the government is the strongest,
and legitimately tolerated.
The green agenda also plays on China’s Inc. strength, its advantages in a new green economy are its
capacity to construct a strategy of dominance (the US are there weak due to there lack of public
stimulus). They have started with solar panels, and grabbed a quick leadership. China sees a role to
take; there is not yet a leader in green technologies, even with the advances made in Europe, and to
become – somewhere – a leader of positive change for Humanity benefits China’s new official goal
of a great, leading peaceful power. There are at least three other reasons for this complete reversal of
the Chinese policy:
•
First, China is particularly vulnerable to the effects of waste: pollution has become a
glaring problem for Chinese society with poor air and water quality killing citizens
by the thousands; but also, climate change has brought monsoons closer to the coasts
where humidity has increased, while inland areas are experiencing droughts and the
drying up of rivers, putting the agricultural centers in peril.
•
Also, China needs to strengthen its own energy security. Outside of coal, China
imports all of its fossil fuels, and due to the scope of its needs, this is a security and
economic risk, made much worse now than the US has decided to exploit its shale
oil. Green energy is a perfect alternative, if can help make it more competitive.
•
Finally, China is still a part of the clan of “poor countries” in the ongoing climate
negotiations and is, therefore, expected to benefit from the massive aid coming from
the rich countries, helping it accomplish its green metamorphosis. This legacy
position will not last very long though, and seems to me quite unreal.
The preparation for a Green Economy has started. Europe is still at the head, certainly politically,
but China is constructing a long-term leadership strategy, followed by Brazil who is also already
very committed. Meanwhile, the US, Canada, and Australia, prisoners of their polluting lifestyles,
are having trouble jumping on board and risk missing not only their opportunity, but also hampering
the progress of the rest of the World.
Only a system of global governance will be able to resolve the greatest challenge ever faced by
Humanity. At issue is the need to immediately stop wasting the natural resources of our Planet and
emitting their combusted gases into our atmosphere.
It requires a change in society and lifestyle, the creation of a new economic and industrial engine,
and the globalization of agriculture. In its essence, however, the transformation will come about
painfully for some, and long anticipated for others, and further accelerate the transfer of wealth from
the still rich to the new ones.
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Despite the commendable efforts of the majority of governments in place, the solution clearly
transcends the borders of our nations and regions. None of our governments have been deemed
legitimately universal, each one pre-occupied with the immediate interests of it own citizens, with
the evident risk of damaging the rest of Humanity.
Stopping the Great Waste is in the interest of everyone, and it is justifiable that humans should
establish a system of governance that can meet these great demands. The problem will not
disappear following an agreement for a UN framework, if it is only a symbolic first step toward an
uncertain global policy that nobody seriously intends to implement.
The Club of Rome – a highly recognized think tank - has run a study about the future of our Planet
called “Limits to Growth”, with a computing model doing simulations for alternative models of
growth, linking various constraints and opportunities. They ask themselves: “Is the Planet full ?”
Their conclusion is that only drastic measures for environmental protection would have any effect
on the situation at hand, and allow population to continue to grow with at least a constant wealth
level. However, the barrier that they identified in order to enable this positive scenario of continuity,
was the lack of political measures – reaching the same conclusion indeed: the problem is political.
The World has become our city and the problems to solve by our politicians are quickly going from
a national level to a level for the whole Planet. The survival of the species is in play.
It therefore falls to the consumers and electors of the World – ourselves - to start to make noise, and
launch a great crusade for the new logic of a global governance. If public opinion embraces it,
elected officials will follow, and a virtuous dynamic will be put in place.
Each Man is responsible for Humanity, and reciprocally. Millions of years of human evolution and
thousands of generations have brought us to this point. We find ourselves incidentally chosen,
being “at the wrong place at the wrong time” - or the opposite depending on our heroic appetite, we
have the chance to be strategic change agents: now, we know what the risks are. We are the ones
who can, who must re-set the direction of our civilization toward a new, clean, and global society, as
thanks to our ancestors who allowed to get where we are today, and even more for the sake of our
descendants, who will inherit the fruits of our reaction.
The future is now, we are the first generation that receives the demonstration that the Great Waste is
in march, we now are aware of the impact of what we have done, and the risk if we keep going and
ignore the Great Wall ahead of us.
“Errare humanum est, perseverare diabolicum” (“the error is human, but to persist in error is diabolical” - attributed to Seneca
the younger, Roman Stoic philosopher, 4 BC – AD 65).
Earth our Country.
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Man has demonstrated his resistance to such vicissitude, has survived so many cataclysms, and with
unequaled success, he has reached the status of master of his World. Ice Age, predators, incessant
wars, epidemics of past and present such as AIDS; these things have done nothing but excite his
capacity to rebound again and again. Why should he now, suddenly, find himself in danger, at the
dawn of his species’ multi-millionth birthday, and in his six thousandth year of civilization ?
What is extraordinary about our current situation is that we have accumulated, in a small amount of
time, a number of challenges until now never experienced, that are of a planetary, as opposed to
traditionally local, scope. No single country has the means to resolve the equation it faces on its
own. To the contrary, the problem facing each country cannot be solved unless faced, in
conjunction, with all countries. The political solution cannot be an individual one, one country
cannot succeed alone any longer.
The systemic challenge in front of us requires a true reinvention of our historically local political
approach such that it can result in a positive revolution that is as civilizing as the one we saw 12,000
years ago, when Man went from hunting game to raising livestock, from gathering to farming, and
from nomadic life to settling.
If Humanity unites and uses its intelligence – the strength that differentiates Man from all the rest –
to federate an organization and create an engine for a new civilization, rather than entrenching itself
in fear and age-old identities and beliefs, it will have the recipe in place for a rebound into the
future. At this crossroads, Humanity can position itself for a renewal, the beginning of a new page
in its long evolution: the post-fossil chapter. Instead of a frontal impact with the environmental
“wall”, Humanity can learn to overcome the sound wall, and jump into a new phase of civilization.
Man, individually or as a cohesive group, can get past almost anything when in a situation of grave
danger - through the cycle of curiosity, discovery, imagination and comprehension, allowing him to
analyze and finally evaluate solutions, then implement and resolve. Also, he has the technical,
financial and intellectual capacity – already today - to deal with the Great Wall. This is not the issue.
If it was just a local war, we would win it. The path of extreme resistance, the true extraordinary
challenge, resides in our capacity to react together at the planetary level, unifying our forces in a
coordinated and timely fashion; which means practically to allow for the system of governance that
will be necessary for the situation we face.
I have no doubt either that a unified body, empowered to resolve our issue, will find ways to fix it,
absolutely none. But we can all doubt and question our collective intelligence, and capacity to make
this political shift. In order words, Man is capable to win and sustain himself, but Mankind is not
wise enough – because Mankind is divided into nations that blur the evidence of the solutions that
an individual Man could fix, if he was empowered to act on behalf of all, with all resources
converging to facilitate the realization of a single design.
As we have reviewed over the last chapters, we have made our Planet a kind of condominium, of
which each country is an apartment, and we just discovered big widening cracks in the foundation of
the building. All we can do is to act together, as for the first time in History, the solution to our
problem is of a planetary dimension.
With the third millennium, we are turning a page of our History, we have entered the global era. It
will be positive, with continued progress, if we unify to live with the reality of our future. Or it will
go backwards if reactionary resistance wins, and we will all regret the past, struggling to replicate
the beauty of our island kingdoms in a raising ocean …
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Only a political system that allows us to put forth global solutions, can help us continue to survive
and succeed, perhaps even achieve a quasi-eternity for our species, as one day we can conquer the
outer space too, and not limit our destiny to the one of Earth. We must learn how to reposition our
historic group identities mentality, based on nations, religions, languages, colors; so that we can
strengthen ourselves, since we will be stronger united than divided. It is about reinventing ourselves,
together, in our shared planetarian destiny, executing the fifty-year old vision of Martin Luther
King. When he saw that Earth was becoming a neighborhood, he challenged us all to stand up for
the next step: “ we must make our neighborhood a brotherhood”.
So far, we all live on one Earth, split into many countries, with all the power shared among their
individual rulers. Can the current political establishment, fragmented between countries, respond to
this challenge ? What is a country, what purpose does it serve, and what purpose will it serve
tomorrow, in the global era ?
The question is simple, but brutal, because we are so accustomed to being citizens of the country
where we were born, living with our flag tattooed on our forehead, singing our national anthem with
a pride that gives us goose bumps, feeling like strangers when we cross a border and hand our
passports to the customs agent who gives us a circumspect gaze. This border is invisible in reality –
a line that doesn’t exist on the ground (although there have been walls and iron curtains built in the
past to visualize them) – but materializes as something so solid and so important on a map and in
human organization, that it has become a concrete geographical element and is real in each national
psyche. It is enough to simply step across a border, to find oneself “elsewhere”, in another place so
different while so similar, that is culturally, politically, linguistically, and religiously alien. Another
place, that is foreign, as it belongs to another country.
A quick look in a dictionary will tell us that a country is, “the land occupied by a nation,” and that a
nation is “a group of people living in a particular country, forming a specific political and economic
unit.” I will admit that my definitions are limited to the dictionary in my cell phone – I haven’t gone
much further in my research, as we all understand the word “Country”, since we are babies. Haven’t
we always been taught that our country is our home, our place, our protective shelf, our second
mother and family, and that outside of it, live some other kind of people – the aliens ? In all cultures,
this is a given element, an obvious fact, an elementary building block that, since childhood, has
constructed our understanding and interpretation of the World. The country is the foundation of the
organization of Men. We all have a Mother, a Father, and a country, except marginalized refugees,
nomads like Gypsies, or the few Paleolithic tribes still in existence, left-alone in the jungle.
Since we all evidently know what a country is, I will write the following lines to the intention of my
readers coming from another Planet – as they may not have countries - so that they understand what
it is and how we got to where we are on Earth.
Over the course of our 10,000 years of History, following the birth of the first sedentary societies
(before that time there was no precise concept of a permanent border with all of us nomads
constantly on the move), the land has been divided, little by little, by sedentary Men, into hundreds
of countries, or nations depending on the definition you choose. In 2010, there were eighty-nine socalled democratic states, the remaining – over a hundred - assembling a variety of principalities,
kingdoms, dictatorships, and religious or popular republics.
The human diaspora unfolded over the course of time, with a large range of groups living in their
well-defined territories, and who have developed, over time, a language, culture, identity and
religion – sometimes many. The most resilient tribes, under the wisest leaders, survived unforeseen
events in History, and maintaining their independence, they have become the countries of today.
These are the winners of wars, shocks, and revolutions of the past; those who, today, have the right
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of their identity, their flag, their anthem, and their sovereignty. Some tribes have been more lucky
than others – they have ended up being the winners of the country game, the majority in their
country – while others are a minority, sometimes spit across several countries, like the Kurds.
Each country is reputed to be independent and sovereign, with its own government – elected or not,
legitimate or not – and is imparted with the authority and power of governance over its “citizens”,
and over all necessary action concerning every square inch of territory within its borders. Typically
each country has its own army, police force, laws and regulations, and unless exceptionally rich (oil,
casinos), is financing its government, public servants and infrastructures by the taxes paid by its
citizens (individuals and corporations). The system was defined 6,000 years ago, very quickly, and
hasn’t much changed, because it works so well at the local level. Latest studies show that it only
took six hundred years between the very beginnings of agriculture, when Men just came out of
nomadism, and the establishment of the first country-empire, in Mesopotamia.
The size and relative influence of each nation varies infinitely, and with extreme diversity between
the largest and smallest. Canada and Russia cover almost entire continents, while some cover less
than a single square mile, such as Vatican City (0.2 square miles) or Monaco (0.7 square miles).
Two countries – China and India - host over a billion people; while three less than a thousand
(Vatican, Coco Islands and Pitcairn Islands). If we divide the number of humans by the number of
countries, we obtain the average of about thirty million people per country, which has no practical
sense, else than illustrating a typical country as a large assemblage of people, so numerous – in
general in the millions – that the individuality of a single person is largely dominated by its
government, which puts order into this multitude, and has melted over the centuries into the historic
and ethnic characteristics that are associated with national references.
Individuals are externally assimilated to the membership of their respective national group, which
simultaneously differentiates them and identifies them, and from which their qualifying
characteristics have become vehicles for their international identities: Russians like vodka, Italians
are creative artists, Americans are big children, Swiss are timely, Koreans are hard workers,
Brazilians are soccer players, English have great humor, Japanese are meticulous, French are wine
experts (and sex-addicts), Chinese are submissive, and Germans are very serious.
Most “continent countries” have such a dominant power in the concert of nations, that smaller ones
often try to help themselves by allying with groups that are more or less homogenous – like Europe,
ASEAN, or the Arab League – so that their combined voice has a value that can weigh in with the
larger ones. Certain countries have weight and influence that largely transcends their borders - like
the United States - because of their economic or military power, while on the other extreme some
are ignored and just tolerated by the others.
Each country tries to best develop its own agenda when dealing with the challenges of the World.
Governments are organized by type of public activity – health, education, justice, and defense for
example. Only one government entity deals with the external World, the department or ministry of
foreign affairs, whereas all the others govern primarily the “inner World” that exists within their
borders, with public activities supposed to be fundamentally national, and the great majority of state
work being dedicated to govern interior issues, over which the national authority works
marvelously.
“Outside of the countries themselves, who is responsible for all that happens beyond each country’s
geographical authority” asks my reader from Planet X-2674 ? “Who has the responsibility in Earthlevel politics” ? Well, there are a number of non-elected organizations, but no one with an
empowerment to decide and act globally on pretty much anything. We, of course, have respectable
international organizations, admirable in their selflessness and the quality of their members that
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have been named by their nations, but they lack true and legitimate international power. They try to
bring countries together to negotiate inter-national solutions. It so hard and unfair to say, for all the
work and superb intents of the people involved, but in reality they essentially justify the global
governance vacuum by their presence. Their power is in assembling and counseling, or transmitting,
or stamping, nothing more. The fundamental powers are – all - national, the politics are – all national, the laws are – all – national. We live in a World of nations: called nation-states in the
original European concept.
If we think about it this simply, it is quite amazing that we do not have a system of responsible
governance, once an issue surpasses the geographic limits of an individual country. This is simply
shocking to the reader from Planet X-2674, but what is even more astounding is that we have
become so accustomed to this situation, that we consider it “normal”, and the alternative – a
federation of all the countries of the Planet under The United Democratic States of Earth - to be
utopian, a wishful thinking, or at best a distant childish dream. The importance of Men’s borders
has become occult, goes beyond the physical geography of the Planet, and beyond the reality of the
subjects to be addressed in the third millennium. Borders are not obsolete as a way to federate
identities, and to deal with specific local problems. They are obsolete as a way to deal with anything
above that, which has a global dimension. And because countries do not confess their incompetence,
instead keep protecting their tur”sovereign” turf, they are an even bigger problem. They block a next
generation of governance to emerge, because they hide the need for it to their citizens, and keep
running in a closed loop, which keeps fueling itself.
The country-based model is a completely self-perpetuating system, as there is no alternative source
for any political authority to come from (everyone almost belongs to a country), so it keeps
recycling itself, endlessly, having alienated potential curiosity or discovery of an alternative
construction so far, until the day we will hit a big crisis, which I call the Great Wall, as a symbolic
image, so that we all raise our eyes above it to think higher, bigger.
The reason why we kep running with this loop is not that it works better – we have not compared it
with anything else – it is historical. The principal international subjects were of a national decisionmaking nature until recently, and were essentially centered on the management of war and Peace.
Diplomacy was involved with defining new borders, putting treaties in place after a war that
dictated the gains of winners and the losses of losers, and negotiating alliances and pacts. In small
measure, some limited international regulation appeared following the crisis of 1929. However, it
didn’t go very far, because the golden rule, throughout History, for a country, remains religious
sovereignty.
In this sense, nothing has really changed politically during the last 12,000 years, since
sedentarisation: Man belongs to his territory, which has become his country. A recognized or
stronger leader, or executive arm, makes the decisions for those who live within that area – in
absolute independence and sovereignty.
The Planet of Men is really ruled as an anarchic collection of countries – a system of self-managing
nations – in which each country is independent, despite the impacts its policies may have on
neighboring nations, and on the holistic ecosystem. A country is entitled to establish its own laws,
build an army, rule over good and bad, imprison or kill, manage its environment and resources, or
opt for a religious or secular society.
Governments are applied to all sorts of juridictions: countries, states, regions, cities, … The need for
governance is well understood for all these sub-divisions, but surprisingly, not for the whole thing,
which needs it more that any other of its sub-divisions: Earth. Isn’t it weird after all ? Everyone
would immediately complain and try to build a form of local power if it was missing in any point of
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the Planet. But when it addresses the whole set – Earth – the power vacuum is seen as normal.
Because until now, Earth has not yet operated as a finite set for one single human ecosystem, given
that the globalization of the Planet is so new.
Times are changing fast, but it is only the beginning. Earth is becoming a large village, inhabited by
billions of people, separated into a couple hundred sovereign territories, however now connected by
easy international channels, in every domain. The current political model is invisibly turning into an
anachronism, a reflection of the evolution of our ancestral clans and tribes. Nothing has really
changed in the immutable renewal of human History: it repeats itself in the country-based game of
the strongest, weakest and most clever. Boundaries come and go over time, and the majority of
people remain cloistered behind them, safely entrenched in their identities, beliefs, and borders.
Airplanes and the Internet have not eliminated passports – yet.
Countries are the elementary building block of Humanity’s construction – much like firms are to the
Economy – and the logic of each country continues to be to govern itself independently, as a finite
assemblage, to have a more promising outcome than that of its neighbors.
If our extra-terrestrial reader from Planet X-2674 was to land on Earth, would he see us all as
humans, or would he need a great deal of time to understand the subtleties of the borders that
separate us ? Maybe he would ask the first person he meets with – peacefully and well intentioned
as a curious and respectful explorer – “Can I speak with the leader of the humans, I have a message
for you the rulers of Earth”? He would then discover a situation similar to that of the English
explorers when they first set foot in North-America: no Great Sachem for all the “Indians,” but an
infinite number of tribes, with their own chiefs and laws, much like the groups we have now
covering the entire Planet.
If the outer spce alien landed in the US, he would be taken to the Great Sachem Obama, as if he
were the leader of the World. He would meet with Putin in Russia. In Europe, he would scratch his
head since it would be difficult to decide between the leader of a country, or the European
Commission, or the European Council, but the EU would bring together some commission or group
to engage in a discussion.
Seriously, we know that an extra-terrestrial explorer would not find the leader of the humans,
because one doesn’t exist. Of course, this analogy makes us smile because this explorer’s question
has never been posed and may never be; so, it isn’t such a big deal if he misses his chance to find an
interlocutor.
However, to manage, from this point forward and with responsibility, the real and serious challenges
that we have already discussed – from global warming to migrations, or the Economy to food
shortages; problems that represent truly global issues, and cannot be dealt with by individual
entities, that are defined by arbitrary lines on a map: who is there ? Who is the Great Sachem of
Men, who are his or her ministers ? What is the sovereign apparatus that he or she has the use of, for
planning and resolving situations that are as complex as the one we must now undo ? What
legitimacy will this leader have for taking actions that, in the short-term, will seem to penalize one
country and favor another ?
Earth is a “closed” space, with Man as the dominant species, distinct from all the others, but nothing
and no one can govern us with supra-national empowerment. Clearly, it has just been some decades
since we went from the era of nations, to the era of the Planet. While eighty percent of the problems
to be resolved were national until very recently, eighty percent have now become global issues,
unresolvable locally. The common dimension is becoming “Glocal” (global-local) and there is no
positive turning back.
Even though this seems unrealistic and immensely utopian, let’s make ourselves seriously consider
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this question: if Earth was a single, large, free and democratic “country” (or federation of current
countries), with an elected President (like a large USA with many more states), but replacing the A
for America with an E for Earth, like The “United States of the Earth” – or to make sure it sounds a
bit different, The United Democratic States, just to visualize the implications - would Earth
ultimately be our country above the nation to which we currently “belong” ?
Can we imagine each country becoming a state, inside of a globalized federal union, joining
together all the states of the World ?
I very well can. The President of all of Humanity would be elected by every Man and Woman in the
World, and would represent everyone, when making decisions that cut through the multitude of our
local interests, with a grand plan.
Is this a total absurdity ? And if it so, why is it so absurd ? Let’s play the devil’s advocate of the
United Democratic States. We all very know that it is absurd, and here is why:
•
It is absurd, because it is impossible, and it doesn’t make any sense, and will never get done
because Men are too different. Additionally, governments would never want it because it
would sabotage their own power.
•
It is absurd, because Earth would become an immense bureaucracy, in which each individual
citizen – one in a group of nine billion - would be drowned and lost, his identity flooded in a
universal ocean, and having no affinity with his fellow citizens.
•
It is absurd, because there are more poor people than rich and, therefore, if it is a global
Democracy, it would belong to the poor and ruin the rich, for interests are too divergent.
Eventually, there are so many Asians, they would govern everything, as they would have the
majority.
•
It is absurd, because certain countries would want it and others would not. We could never
get everyone to agree. So fragmented and undecisive we would remain anyway. Or war
would come out of it, so many people would want back to what they know and like – their
nation.
•
It is absurd, because modern Man is probably not wise enough anymore to rescue himself, as
all he has learned drives him to fight for himself and for his tribe, but not to care about the
bigger picture. His Life is so short, why to care at all about Mankind ?
•
It is absurd, because it could never be put in place, and no one would ever ask for, or
propose it, because there is just no point. Therefore, why even waste time proposing such a
scenario ?
This is all well understood, and the voice of Main Street’s reason. Now it is time, after the devil’s
advocacy, for an angel’s moment. Please allow me to own the (emotional) angel’s advocate
response:
“We are swimming in a true global political chaos, which is masked with an uncertain and hazy
local stability, punctuated by pseudo-religious terrorist attacks and cyclical economic crises, local
wars with uncertain global responses, latent conflicts between the tectonic plates of the rich, the new
rich and the rejected, those who have the bomb and those who want the bomb. All of this chaotic
minefield is managed by two hundred countries, who make decisions independently of one another
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(although they meet regularly with a big smile on the face), and continue to consume most of their
energy to grow and nurture their single tree in a big forest that has caught an epidemy. Our Earth is
heating up, between two and six degrees every hundred years, plus we will have two to three billion
more people in forty years, who will individually consume much more than today, and yet, it is
absurd to think that Earth could become our country – that we would unify our means and policies in order to organize this uncontrollable, chaotic, national(istic) delirium, that is catapulting us all straight into the Great Wall ?”
“What if the true illogicality was to believe blindly that the dotted lines found on a map are the
unshakeable creations of God or of Nature, and should govern everything that we do, until the end
of times ? “
“What if these arbitrary lines, which once gave us the strength to organize ourselves, to survive and
conquer, were now reaching the opposite effect ?”
“What if they were the collective lure, that makes us perpetuate our conquering spirit (now
translating into consumerism and economic power), making us all risk that we reach the end of
Humanity, these same lines that have caused the deaths of millions of soldiers and civilians in
History, for the sake of the greatness of our “homeland,” or “in the name of God,” or for the sake of
our King ?”
“What if the effects were making us blind of the root cause ? What if it was all so simple, interrelated, so evident that we can see it ?”
“When we view Earth from space, this superb blue image at which we have all marveled since the
advent of satellites, do we see these little border-lines that we hold so dear ? Or rather, do we see a
single blue sphere, the Blue Planet, glowing in the light of the Sun, with a surface covered with
oceans, landmasses, and mountains that go on without an end, like a continuous, homogenous tissue,
covered in white clouds that come and go, all while turning its surface from night to day and day to
night ?”
“That is Her, our Mother Earth. Yet we do not see that she is genuinely our home, our Country,
while everything else was invented by Man, as temporary subdivisions - necessary limits that he
needed to to build manageable stand-alone societies - because he didn’t have the reach yet to
address the scale of his Planet, conquer it and now finally, saturate it. We have now domesticated
Earth’ entire hospitable surface, and because of our influence and the damage of our developmental
impact, we now inevitably share, like fellow Countrymen and Women, our planetarian belonging
and destiny.”
“Fellow Countrymen we now all are. It is just that we do not feel like it yet, and miss authorities to
cope with our new boundaries. The frontier of our country is now so simply defined, the only one
built for us by Nature, for all living beings on Earth: it is the atmosphere. As we all unconsciously
recognized since the dawn of times – or we would not have gone that far in the evolution process only the sky is our limit ... Earth our Country.”
If most of us have started to intellectually and emotionally digest the statement – Earth is our true
Country – the question now becomes: how we do organize ourselves accordingly ?
Getting over two hundred sovereign countries to structure themselves under one roof, passing some
of their powers to an overarching federative level, evidently appears as such a daunting task, that it
is nobody’s serious political project – it feels like political suicide.
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If you are convinced as I am, or only intrigued with the idea that unifying under one elected
democratic roof would ultimately be the right direction, although it may take some time, and happen
with several steps; then it would make sense to look at steps that have already taken around the
World to scale up governance, above the fences of individual states, so that we get some sense of
what can be a path of least resistance to engage in the journey.
I see basically two possibilities:
•
One is to take the path of creating an all-new global political structure: we could attempt to
have a group of countries be willing to unify from scratch, and build together the terms of a
new grass-root constitution. Such a process would start from a nucleus of founding
members, with from the beginning the intent of letting everyone join in. The perfect example
here is the European regionalization, they built a union of fully independent nations, who
eventually will federate. So we will look at this scenario, and see if it appears to be a
credible path towards our desired construction.
•
The other one is to expand an existing political structure: we could look at the large
countries/federations as they already exist, and reflect on the potential for one to welcome
more willing member states, so that over time the Federation X – a solid “continent country”
already in existence - could become the foundation and magnet, for a global political
construction.
First, let’s look at the all-new global structure approach, with the examples of regional unification
attempts made so far.
It has been the pass, for some smaller countries, to try to unify within a regional hub, and get
stronger as a local team of countries, when considering the overwhelming influence of some
“continent countries”. It has also been an efficient prevention against “internal” (regional) conflicts.
Countries have decided to form a regional union or association of member states, based on their
geographic, cultural and economic commonalities.
It would be an option for the global model, to go through a first pass of regionalization, and then
have the regions to eventually unite as the United Democratic States. It would be a step by step
approach, logical if it seems too difficult to become one single, planetary country, that shares a
common destiny, upfront.
At face value, it would be easier, in light of our ethnic, cultural, religious, geographic, and economic
differences, to federate first the level of regions – like Europe – and then have a partnership between
the rigions. Our political scene could then become, over time: two hundred fifty states federated
under four or five regional unions: Asia, Americas (or the two Americas, North and South), Europe
and Africa.
In this framing, all sorts of variations are possible, by moving the lines on the map, to assemble
political hubs and geopolitical concepts, with various constructions. Lines can be shifted from East
to West or North to South according to the results one wishes to obtain or avoid.
If this regional construct was to prevail, would the resulting four or five large “regional federation of
countries” - United States of North-South America, United States of Europe, United States of
Africa, United States of Asia - make it easier to resolve our common problems, rather than two
hundred little ones ?
The response to this regionalized approach is probably in a shade of greys: from very positive – it
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reduces complexity and fragmentation from two hundred fifty to a handful – to rather negative - it
suddenly polarizes the World into equivalent powers, so we could be back to the Cold War, factor
four or five, and cumulate two tier’s of problems. We would have the difficulty to agree regionally
(see Europe today), and on top, the difficulty to agree between regions. It could lead to a complete
gridlock, an insurmountable impasse.
On the other hand the level of globalization required to meet our great challenges, calls for a
political construction that is less fragmented. Would a regionalized Planet, rather than a nationalized
one, allow us greater flexibility and greater equality and decisiveness in global negotiations, that
will be more and more part of the great political game ? Or would it freeze the game, as it did
between America and Russia at the time of the Cold War, when we had basically only two regions –
the “North/West-Capitalist” and the “South/East-Communist” ?
I have concerns with the regional approach, as it polarizes power and issues. While it moves us in
the right direction, it can also dilute the global effort and obsess everyone with artificial regional
issues, instead of positioning them in their necessary Universality. We only potentially reduce the
number of components, but we remain divided, with more powerful individual players. While it
helps simplifying communication between fewer players and diluting fragmented positions, it could
result in a few large and inflexible great fortresses, of similar size and strength, rebalancing and
equalizing forces at the regional level, which could amplify the risks of a conflicted situation, or of
additional complexities linked to regional protectionism. There could always be one region
blocking the World in reaching a global agreement.
Instead of an American gendarme, who tries with more and more difficulties to police the rest of the
World, we could find ourselves (Chinese ambition acknowledged) with a handful of extremely
competitive large powers. We would move into a multi-polar World, similar to the one seen during
the Cold War, but with more actors. As soon as multiple powers must compete for the same
resources, whether there are two hundred such powers or five, or two, the fundamental problem of a
lack of leadership will remain unchanged. Who governs, in a multi-polar World, the survival and
development of the species and takes care of issues at the level of the Planet ? Two or five are
enough to disagree, so we should pay attention to the evolution of regionalization – it is good, but
no panacea.
Regionalization should continue to develop, under the banner of strengthened though peaceful
regional communities, intending to simplify cross-border issue resolution rather than with a logic of
stronger military power, preparing ourselves to battle. The arrival of large regions of confluence
and influence is a new event and is profoundly positive, because it is based on the founding impulse
of independent countries to ally themselves, based on their own interests, toward a common destiny.
This is exemplified by the pacifist construction of The European Union, who, despite its rough
beginnings and the systemic crisis of the Euro, is still an inspiring and promising (though not
perfect) example for other regions to work toward, as it gave long-lasting Peace to region otherwise
chronically challenged with its aggressive nationalisms. To be clear, I always loved the European
Federative idea, and a saw it as the chance of my generation.
The idea of a voluntary union of nation-states is not isolated to the example of Western Europe, and
could be systemic in theory, as an intermediate path of trial, toward a simplified World alliance,
which could be the political consolidation of several regions. In other words, it would be a two layer
construction. The global federation would regroup five regions (or four or six), and each region
would regroup a few tens of member states.
I am struggling to see how this would happen in a lifetime. The unifying “miracle” that happened in
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Europe is not resolved after fifty years, and it is not clear that it can be duplicated around the rest of
the Planet. Europe is geographically concentrated and can be completely self-destructive, as its
recent History has demonstrated. It is the offspring of a common civilization and religion, that has
been slowly forged from Greece to Rome, from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance, from
absolutism to colonization, from the Enlightenment to revolution, from the industrial explosion to
the destruction caused by internal wars, and from the socially regulated economic boom that
followed war to our current state of globalization.
Much separates Europeans, particularly the linguistic Tower of Babel, but they hold three very
important common values, which take them beyond their obvious national differences and that
makes the European construction more robust than it even appears.
•
Pacifist value: Europeans have reached a level of civilization where war, regardless of the
reason or justification, has become morally loathsome, unlike the US for whom war remains
– in the general popular sentiment – a political act, that is normal and morally acceptable,
based on the situation to be resolved. Europe has, at this point, self-destructed over many
generations, to such a degree that now the founding core value of its union is Peace, at
almost any cost: Peace for Europe and Peace for all.
Since the post-war period and decolonization, Europeans only follow others into war if there
is a great pressure – usually moralistic - to do so. The last French war in Mali was to me a
surprising exception (maybe it was one person’s war). Additionally, their defense budget is
miniscule, and military action is entirely dependent on the USA, through the framing of
NATO. This state of affairs is not only due to political weakness, resulting from an inability
within the European construction, but is, as well, truly a societal choice. It is somewhat
naïve and unrealistic in the international arena, but it is intrinsically anchored in the Europe
of today. War is for others, no longer for Europeans – or so they think ...
•
Cultural value: politically and economically, continental Europeans are profoundly “SocialDemocrats” or “Christian-Democrats”. They add together an official religious heritage,
which is more traditional than a genuine obedience, to a welfare-for-all socialistic concern.
That is the unspoken reality behind the European construction – as seen in the EU’s hidden
and polite rejection of Muslim Turkey. The UK remains the notable exception to this rule in
the Union, and risks detaching itself at any moment depending on new governments (their
tradition doesn’t really fancy welfare for all, in this sense they are closer to right-wing
Americans).
Following social conflicts, of both the pre- and post-industrial revolution, Europeans have
developed a relationship of relative malaise with money. Money should be shared; misery is
not tolerable when juxtaposed with wealth. The “social” dimension is at the heart of the
society, and these states invest more in social welfare than anywhere else in the World,
playing the role of providential state, and harassing wealthy people with taxes. Depending on
the economic climate, this system is seen by many as one to be avoided - others see it as one
to emulate, but generally, it is viewed with a certain respect, a culture that shares in a more
egalitarian way that pure capitalism. This political, social coherence, anchored in the
improbable pairing of Berlin and Paris (much to the frustration of the English), has
facilitated economic agreements since the creation of the Euro, because protection of jobs
and social entitlements remains fundamental in the whole of European economic policy. As
we know know it, it has risks of melting away with the continued challenge of the Euro
construction. More simply – it is long lived in its current amplitude.
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•
Identity value: in losing their desire to go to battle, Europeans have also largely lost their
nationalism – but far from totally - even though it is the founding basis of their nationstates, and remains muted there. They have certainly maintained a form of identitarian
chauvinism, that is carried on by the national multitude, but they have let go of the pride that
came from belonging to an elected race, winning and bellicose, better endowed for the
future. They now understand that the light that shined on them in their past, does not light
their future. They have entered into a happy place of prevention rather than one of sacrifice
for the sake of winning, one of aggression and competition. The imperialist empires of the
19th. century have turned humble, more gentle, ultra-“civilized”.
Their national identity – and even more so their European identity – has become hazy, and
national holidays that celebrated victories of the past have become public holidays that
seldom remember to recognize the event that caused their creation. One could say that Old
Europe acts like a loser – a futile title, in the mind of an American neo-conservative. It is
over-simplified and a little nasty, but not completely false. “Old Europe”, after being so
dominant, was made to feel guilty for her past crimes, Germany in particular. And, after
suffering the consequences of its own obsession over identity distractions and religion,
Europe is slowly turning the page, from its historic mob-like instinct, which is still
represented by the gravestones of so many dead in European villages – and the unavoidable
“Monument to Death” on the main square of every village, that I haven’t seen in any other
place, warning everyone with: “war never again”.
Europe considers the preservation of these tenets as a way to ensure its own kindness in the future.
And, their example may some day be seen as the summit of a rich civilization : “Once upon a time,
there was the “The European Civilization”. After initiating globalization with colonialism, taking
war to infinity and beyond among themselves, Europeans became peaceful and egalitarian, caring
for everyone, as long as their wealth could afford it”.
The half-century that has passed, since the foundation of the first European association by the
founding fathers – the ECSC (European Coal and Steel Community) –, has made room for a bizarre
“political thing”, slowly but surely ripen around the hard shell of the founding countries. Then Old
Europe secured Eastern Europe as the end of the USSR obliged, all while giving birth to the Euro,
an immense gift of Germany as a thanks for allowing its reunification (explaining why and how the
Euro happened would take another worthwhile book). After a hard-fought journey, and during a
time of near-derailment due to the anti-European French vote in 2005, the Union agreed to the
Treaty of Lisbon, which equipped it with its first complete constitutional body (for which president
Giscard d’Estaing merits our warmest gratitude, and at least certainly mine). Still, this treaty sealed
tyet another absence of political will power, on the part of member states, to install a true regional
president, who could be viewed as having a voice in the World. Testament to this is the bizarre
nomination by national leaders of two unknowns, to the head of the European Council and of
Foreign Affairs. Actually, the development of Europe seems to be permanently marked by a
fundamental weakness coming from an internal clash of two visions:
•
The federal vision - promotes the integration of nations, into a new regional World power,
which is the position promoted by the heart of Europe’s History and founders.
•
The “business club” vision - sees the EU as a commercial association, that is open to
unanimous decisions, and serves to benefit all through a larger market, while preserving
absolute national sovereignty, which is the position defended by the UK and the new
entrants of the East.
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Being for myself part of the first “European Generation” (the generation before mine, having
survived the war, remains marked with nationalism), and having always nourished a profound
passion for the construction of Europe, I remain convinced that time and future crises can reinforce
the Union and move it toward a stronger integration, that will ultimately be federal. Europe, in its
economic decline, is potentially building an admirable societal greatness, and it is possible that the
current crisis will leave Europe more unified in its heart. However, I can also see Europe moving
backwards. A new trend of political globalization, as the one we are articulating here, could avoid
this dangerous political recession, and allow Europeans to see Europe as a getaway to a federated
United Earth.
What we are saying here is that Europe, buried into its own problems, cannot be the engine of
political globalization. If the EU was a done deal, it could become our global leader, and would be
the ideal vehicle, with its modern pacifism appealing to all. But now, given the poor example of its
own capacity to unravel the Euro crisis, the chairs have turned, and it is more the EU that needs the
positive energy of a United Earth momentum, than the other way around.
Humanity cannot wait for Europe any longer, to have a live example of a successful willing
federation of nation-states. It is too bad, shameful for a few European leaders - as it could be very
different today - but is just a fair judgement given where Europe is right now. With the importance
and scope of the global deadlines that Humanity must face, the time it would normally take to –
eventually - shape a profound, federal, European consensus (possibly another century) will be
incompatible with the urgency of decisions that could launch us over the universal sound wall.
Unifying Europe may take longer than unifying the World.
Europe has certainly, in my opinion, found the universal idea and reason for unification, but its lack
of current leadership, consensual style, political construction, and voluntary nature - without
visionary statesmen any longer - are too slow and fragile to convince herself first, and the World
later. Europe will continue on its path for political consensus, without leaving a mark deep enough
to unify Humanity; unless someone suddenly finds justification for an accelerated, strong, political
integration, that is geographically enlarged and more profound, and that will create a true, federal
decision making power. This positive outcome could be on the horizon with the current economic
chaos, and could be reinforced through the evolution of a much worse World crisis in which Europe
would re-learn how to defend itself economically, but also, possibly, militarily. Unfortunately, I am
not betting on the European federation for the near term. At least, I miss a true chief.
Other regions of the World don’t appear to have the momentum needed for potential unification,
with the exception of Latin America, who, if it weren’t for the artificial post-colonial borders that
chop it up, would be as uniform as the United States, and even more so than Europe, since the
continent is more linguistically unified and has experienced less fratricidal struggles.
Asia will have more difficulties to become a region, given the differences between the dominant
China and a pragmatic Japan, India, the ASEAN countries and Australia. Relationships appear to be
fundamentally based on economics, instead of politics in the region. China may end up being too
dominant – scary - to rally the others around itself.
Muslim countries could unify around Turkey, which is the only country that could federate. It may
happen. Since Turkey is pragmatically giving up - or is forced out of - its Occidental dream.
Alternatively, if Turkey was finally anchored to the West, Iran could find a regional leadership role,
enlightened with a regime change. I am betting on Turkey, to be more likely to reactivate a neoOttoman empire.
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Russia could fulfill its forgotten dream of re-forming its ex-USSR empire, but is too dominant to be
able to make it happen peacefully. We have to see what happens after Putin, and see if Russia turns
back to the modern global democratic camp, or continues to try to resuscitate from the ashes its
Soviet ear.
Clearly, besides Europe, no cross-country political construction can be a vehicle, or a live example,
of a regional integration. The whole World remains profoundly anchored into a country-based
model. It may also be that all have been watching Europe, with a thought of becoming a distant
follower, once the model would be validated, and the latest struggle of Europe is a kind of cold
shower, for the other political regional processes in the making, as a whole.
At this point, there is therefore no example that we can leverage or learn from, of an all-new
regional union of willing countries, with a greenfield construction such as Europe, that gives us
confidence, that within a few decades, a United Democratic States could surface out of it.
Problems faced by Europeans – still after half a century - would decuple at the global level. If it
hasn’t worked for Europe in fifty years, how long would it take with the same approach for the
Planet ? It might be centuries, or millenia. Or never. I do not think that we can afford to wait for so
long.
So we should look at the second approach. Is there an “already-made supra-national construction”
that could be the core of the global snowball that we want to build ? Is there a Federation or
Confederation which could provide the systemic foundation, providing us with the initial embryo
of leadershipthat is needed to give the initial spark to launch the United Democratic States project ?
There are quite a few “continent-countries”, representing an assemblage of states, which have
demonstrated the duality of a State level and Federal level, also called a “Federal State”, with a
central – federal – government which unites the self-governing component states. Their construction
opposes itself to unitary states, where powers are all centralized. In a federation, states have some
powers (education, police …) , and the federation has others (doing war, printing money …).
The oldest example of a democratic non-unitary statehood is probably Switzerland (which
specifically is a confederation – a very similar form of federation, in theory with a looser binding, in
which states are united through a treaty at first, and not necessarily through a common constitution).
Federations can be multi-ethnic such as India, or fully homogeneous such as Germany. We could
review India, Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, Russia, Canada, Australia as the largest federations, but
clearly there is only one that stands out by its scale, political stability and diversity assembled
altogether in one unit: the USA.
The United States, a “continent country,” is already geographically defined – sea to sea. Politically,
it is a federal presidential constitutional (truly democratic) republic, established over two centuries
ago. It has the oldest continuous Democracy of all “continent countries”, dating back to 1776
(Declaration of Independence) or 1787 (Constitution). Since then, every leader has been elected,
without the ruling of a military junta, a king or any form of dictatorship. It stands out, because it is
built on the diversity of its immigration. Its Federal constitution is the oldest in existence, and
therefore the most exemplary, at least in terms of stability and resilience. It has demonstrated its
democratic endurance over two centuries and 43 consecutive presidents, and constitutes a model of
solidity for the other 88 Democracies of the World.
The US model seems like the most robust true democratic and multi-ethnic example of a sovereign,
federal, inter-state system of governance; one that European construction is still forming, or other
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“continent countries” are also illustrating but with less stability, diversity and/or global influence.
Could we use it as a vehicle to federate more countries ? Could the American constitution become a
foundational tool for a more global consolidation – one with more than just the 50 states of the
Union ? And would this role of integrator be acceptable, when coming from a militant and
dominating power ? Could Obama, despite his new logic of cooperation, and avoidance of easy
wars, re-win the respect and love needed, to give enough credibility to an influential global
leadership ?
Let’s reflect on what we have just reviewed in this chapter, before we go much further in our
conclusions:
•
Firstly, we all agree that the European political integration has made miraculous progress
(given where Europe is coming from) and has gone further than any other region in trying to
build a willing unification. However, the process has also proven extremely difficult, as if
fails to agree on its only possible destination – a federal union. The process is kind of stuck
right now, and from this point, can move either way really – forward or not. There is no
other example in History at such a scale of a “willing” union of sovereign nations. So if this
is the only example we can learn from, it doesn’t give us confidence that a global political
union will emerge as a greenfield construction.
•
Secondly, why is Europe fundamentally struggling to integrate ? It lacks leadership, and
lacks clarity. The leadership vacuum, is amplified with the German legacy. Only Germany
would have the weight to lead, but the last wars are still so close, this leadership has
difficulties to win broad acceptance, and therefore does not even dare to try to exist. The
“clarity” gap, is a fundamental lack of clarity of what Europe actually means – who belongs
and who doesn’t, what are the boundaries, and what happens to the nations inside of it. As a
profoundly pro-European, I have to sadly wonder: maybe Europe cannot integrate because
Europe doesn’t exist as such, and never really has. It is more of an intellectual and cultural
concept. So it is hard for people to understand what they are trading for, when losing the
shell of their beloved nation. Europe has no definite border – is the UK into it, Turkey, or
Russia ? Is it only old secularized Christendom, and if it is, how to deal with the blurred
religious boundaries of an expanding Islam ?
If Europe is an unclear destination due to lack of leadership and clarity – and even worse for any
other region in the making by far - Earth has an easier case for political integration than its
individual regions, as counter intuitive as it may appear at first sight.
Let me explain. The two regional issues, clearly plagging Europe, are lack of leadership, and lack of
clarity – right ?
•
Earth lacks leadership too, but she has the American influence. America, as a potential
influencer of a global construction, would probably win more recognition for the World or at
least its Democracies – if it was willing to try with the right approach – than Germany does
in Europe.
•
Regarding clarity, Earth wins against Europe one hundred percent. Earth is a very clearly
defined and finite object. Europe is at best a cultural construction. The boundaries of Earth
are visible with the naked eye, by anyone from anywhere. It is a stand-alone set, so is
Mankind populating it. And the case for an United Earth is the one we have painted in the
former chapters: all the issues that need a global resolution can be best and only resolved at
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the Earth political level – crystal clear.
What I am saying is: today the nations rule, and it would be intuitively logical to think that we
should first build regions, then eventually a global political level unifying the regions. I came to the
conclusion that this is probably the wrong approach. Climbing from the nations to an Earth-level
governance is, surprisingly, a path of least resistance.
The intermediate layer of the regions creates an additional complexity, which proves so difficult to
build – without a clear case for it - and may end up, if finally successful, to create a very polarized
World anyway, between hyper-powerful regions. From the nations to Earth is the translation of the
“glocal” (global-local) duality. It simplifies everything. And, still for a while – as long as it lasts –
America, with an iconic “mixed” president, can play the glue …
It may surprisingly be easier to build an United Earth, than it has been to build an United Europe –
it can be much simpler because: evidently needed, and evidently clear in its perimeter and
objectives.
•
Finally, given the struggle with the green-field political constructions, it would be logical to
try to use an existing constitution - the solid embryo of a global federation in the making to which more countries could be bolt into.
The US stands out as the oldest, most robust and diverse federal Democracy in the World. It is also
the only country that continues to have a respected global influence. It is a weakened one, but still
unmatched by anyone just yet, and culturally extended with its unique “American dream”,
economically with its multinational firms, and militarily goes without question.
The US is the only political force which can initiate the snowball effect of the unification of the
nations, under its universal democratic banner, and the strength of its constitution. Its political form
is as close as it can be to a potentially universal political embryo.
Therefore, Ithink that I can now start to articulate the following conclusion, and proposal for a
solution:
The US seems to be the only foundation potentially available as than existing foundation for the
construction of a federation of the nations - US-America morphing into the US-Earth. The struggle
of the European Union is dangerous for all, as its collapse would have incalculable consequences.
The US can become the magnet for the inclusive “Democratic Club”, that we are missing as a first
step of unification, for the others to follow under popular pressure.
I had to pick one name for this club of the nations. I selected “The United Democratic States”
among others, as I needed an illustration, and felt that it has some clarity attached to it: all the
countries of the World are welcomed to join, as long as they are ruled by their people and not
despots. Also, it doesn’t sound like another “USA – USE” – it positions a different beast, with
Democracy at the forefront, which allows it to exist as a democratic club before it reaches the full
planetarian level.
The US – or an emanation of them such as for instance Barack Obama after the end of his second
term – could take the baton of inviting new countries to join the Union, and build a process to
construct a constitution that would scale up to the added dimension and complexity of the enlarged
global federation. Democratic countries should all be invited to join, with the UK, Germany,
Canada, Australia, New Zealand, France, India, Brazil, Mexico, Sweden, Spain, Italy, Indonesia,
Malaysia, Belgium … if they want to. They don’t have to. But they may end up having to, as the
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snowball keeps rolling.
What happens in such a democratic unification process to totalitarian states ? They are all
welcomed, as long as they transform into true democracies. They are not invited as long as they are
not. It is very simple and clear, there is no need for compromise.
We have to predict that the launch of such an initiative would generate a few reactions:
•
Huge debates in Democracies, centered around the sovereignty of the nation-state, the loss of
the cultural identity, the bureaucracy of a planetary government, the risk that the large global
populations (Anglo-saxons, Chinese, Indians, Arabs, …) will asphyxiate the minorities.
•
Huge governmental concern in totalitarian states, paralleled with a potential popular
uprising. Despotic rulers could try to create an alliance, in reaction to the federation of
Democracies. But it is hard to believe that their people would support such a move, as they
will understand that the time has come for the people to take over. It is also unlikely that the
rulers could reach agreement among themselves, since by definition they are in the business
of owning the power uniterally, making it hard to willingly pass it to another dictator than
themselves. For instance, I would think that such a process, over time, would give a superb
way out to the Chinese Communist Party, who could end its last dominance on a high note,
having made their nation the first Economy of the World in a short time, and now having a
stable structure to transition their legacy into. What a forum for the Russians, the Arabs, the
Iranians to win inner strength. In some places there could be a revolution of the people who
want to use this welcoming structure to break their chains. But I anticipate that the
resistance of the despots would be flooded, against such a global endeavor, and most would
call this the end, and find a way to step down with dignity - because the whole thing makes
so much sense.
For the people themselves to be the engine of change, everywhere, there will be clarity: this is not
for the rich, or for the Whites, or for the Christians, or anyone’s domination. This is not the new
colonization. This a new World, for everyone to join. This is the new place for the children of Earth,
the new home for the Homo Sapiens Universalis.
It is essential that such a transformation takes its roots from the people themselves, starting with a
huge buzz on the social networks, and formally a referendum in each of the candidates to become a
member state, responding to a single simplistic question:
… “Do you want (the UK) to join the United Democratic States ? Yes - No” …
President Obama, if he wants to endorse this mission, would be in my vied the most fantastic living
World missionary that we can think of. He would partner with his peers, knowing them all
intimately, with no personal agenda any longer in his country since he has already run his two terms,
having for sole objective to convince the other presidents or prime ministers to put their weight in
their national balance, to line up their country in the process, for a positive vote to their national
referendum.
They can already reflect together, behind closed doors, that nationally or regionally, the risk of the
Great Wall will not be avoided with the plural political construction of which they currently lead a
national fragment. Only a homogenous, global policy that is stable and strategic over the long term,
will allow them to takes us all and leap over the wall of sound, and stabilize our ongoing
development, enduringly and positively, toward a promising future.
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Compromises for every little local issue, in order to arrive at a decision between two hundred
nations, has become a complete waste of their precious time, and is an anachronism that is justified
only by the historic existence of countries and by the absence of an actual integrating political
vision, leadership, and of engine to get it executed.
Countries served our purposes when Men’s problems were in the scope of their immediate
surroundings, and while the rest of the World seemed infinite. However, for the future, countries
will become our handicap, and cannot bring forth a global solution since they are competitive and
territorial, and do not allow for a homogenous and universal solution to see the light of day.
Regulation of the species and of resources in our system of national governments seems impossible.
Electors must crusade for a model that transcends borders, separating out those issues that are
federal (global) and local (regional or national). The American constitution, transported to a global
level, could almost perfectly fulfill the mission.
Earth is becoming our Country, because more than one country for a single Earth will further
endanger it, and because we are becoming the same people in our smaller village. Countries do not
have a broad enough sense, individually, to resolve the sort of problems facing all of us. Earth, for
every Woman and Man, is the country that shelters the Nation of Humanity, who brings us together,
so that we may break out of the chains of our age-old identities, while still recognizing their
richness, their diversity, and often their Wisdom that has come from millennia of polishing.
Earth, our Great Village who we have all, to varying degrees, damaged, cannot put itself in order,
unless we put a global governance that will allow us to apply a universal and consistent solution.
Transitioning from where we are to where we should be is extremely difficult, and takes a few great
leaders – at least one – leading spiritually enlightened crowds around the World, under his respected
personal banner.
To get started, we must create and fuel a positive dynamic momentum, that will carry the idea
forward, and ultimately allow us to go from a World that is governed by a fragmented group of
countries, to a World that is a federation of countries, in which global causes will be managed by a
legitimate, federal power.
I am not too sure how to ignite such a universal spark, how to organize the inauguration ceremony. I
really don't know how many will read these lines and feel like: “Wow - I want to carry this message
and make it mine - this has to be our way forward …”
All I can do is – seed, and hope. You have to take the baton for yourself.
Sooner or later, the evidence for our unification will be unavoidable, or the species will have lost its
capacity to go on with intelligence, which is all it has really, to continue to lead the chain of Life on
Earth. Will it take centuries, at which point the irreversible consequences will already be in place
and Earth will be transformed to a point that she could not host billions of humans any longer ?
Or, is it possible for us, individually isolated citizens, to contribute and initiate a huge, proactive
reaction of public opinion – to act ? And stimulate a handful of our most visionary and courageous
leaders – with Obama that I see as their legitimate hero - to overcome the traditional national
divisions and act as if the Earth had become their great Country ?
We, together and individually, consumers, electors, business community members, are the
elementary atoms of the great magma of opinion and public influence. We can put forth the level of
pressure necessary on our politicians that will give them the right, the responsibility, and the
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empowerment to Think Big, in the name all of us, to view Earth as our Country, and all Women and
Men as our fellow citizens.
I keenly hope that reading this book will help us start to receive and understand the case, even if not
accepting it yet. Be it a first stone, to pave a long way ahead.
These first few chapters have tried to open up your curiosity to the “Why” - why do we need a
global governance, from many to one country. A case for change.
The rest of this book will endeavor to browse the “How” and the “What” – and fictionally the
“Who” and the “When”. From establishing a vision, to a plan, with a team to execute it.
Let’s start in trying to lay down the foundation for a simple and engaging vision. Everything starts
from a vision, we need one as a global team of human beings, above everything else – without it, we
are just a bunch of individual souls running with our bare instincts and ambitions – individually or
nationally.
Let’s try to paint a portrait of this new World, the great planetary country for all, in order to unleash
the evidence of its benefits, and to more precisely visualize how its construction justifies the efforts
of a transformation that is so radical, profound, urgent, and above all … exciting.
Earth our Country.
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The time has come to take our chance, full of reasonable hope for a positive future, to advance an
outlook for the entire species that transcends the wall that blocks us and turns it into a wall of sound,
where Humanity will instead accelerate its evolution, toward a new page in its level of development
and the adventures of its future.
It takes a vision. Every commercial, military, scientific, or non-profit enterprise possesses a vision
for its future, a strategy to move toward that future, and a plan of execution. Firms are constantly
re-working their vision and plans as a function of unforeseen events in the market and competition:
liberal capitalism doesn’t mean random performance, but instead organizing for maximum
performance. The vision comes on top, then is articulated around a strategy and sub-strategies,
turned into an execution plan, of which results are measured through the achievement of objectives.
Execution plans or programs detail and analyze the actions needed, try to anticipate issues, and most
importantly assign ownership, accountability and due date for each key duty. Such a classic
operational plan is typically called a “W3” (What – Who – When).
The human enterprise, extraordinarily, has absolutely none of that. No apparent vision, no strategy,
no plan, no W3: nothing. And as we know, no leadership team to pull it off either – which is why.
Of course, countries individually have their own political program; one can’t win an election
without a program, whether it is later put into practice or not. In dictatorships, the vision may just be
to stay in power as long as possible. But all the People together, as a virtual Team on Earth, we do
not have anything like this. There is no long-term vision of what we want to become, and how. We
carry on with the anarchy of our great village, each generation passing the baton to the next in each
nation, but without passing on an overall goal. We have no way to measure our accomplished
progress or drawbacks, nor a channel for taking concerted corrective action. We can’t tell our
children that in a hundred years the World should look like this, and this is how they could best
contribute to making it happen, with the time and energy of their Life.
Without a vision, strategy and plan, or even some agreed generic scenarios of cohesive
development, it is truly difficult - unless one is extremely lucky - to succeed in reaching an
objective, especially since there isn’t one beyond survival, which really is a given. As a result,
because the human species lacks any form of vision with formalized objectives – despite its highest
intelligence and dominance of the animal kingdom - we revert by default to our one instinctual
“preset” objective, which is shared by the rest of the living beings: survive.
Live as long as we can. That’s what it is, and all it is. That’s all that guides us as a group – still an
instinctual animalistic objective, because we haven’t created a more human – intellectual and
unifying - goal above us. Survival for oneself, or eventually for one’s herd, one’s country, is by
default of a more sophisticated intention, all that we truly care about. Evolution has brought forth
adaptation in every species so that it may better survive in its surroundings, and humans do not
differ from this simplistic path. So, let us suppose that our minimal objective is survival.
It is an objective though, not a vision. Without a defined vision, our collective objective of survival
– while both unique and simplistic - is, for at least the second time at risk – the first time was before
the Neolithic jump, and the reason was starvation. This time the reason is: the ecologic wall,
challenging the stability of our ecosystem and the limit in our accessible resources.
Consequently, the objective of survival is not good enough, if not articulated around a holistic
planetarian vision, strategy, and plan to survive in the billions, for the long-term, so that the chances
for success of the species are maximized, back on a path of development that is in harmony with the
balance of our Planet, and makes us survive for many more generations.
We need a vision that acknowledges to convergence of our village, the globalization of our
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Economy, and also tackes with our growing imbalances, ecologic and political risks, so that we have
a unified direction, which includes where we want to go, how we can jump above this wall, and
reach a new equilibrium in a new phase of our evolution. Put simply, we need a vision for a better
future, one that stimulates us to push the accelerator, not the break, and to prevent the reverse gear.
We must push hard on this pedal to pass the wall, as we can see the factors of destabilization of our
fragile equilibrium like never before accumulating around us: a weakened and indebted US after
two failed crusades in the Middle-East, an European integration in limbos with its social-democratic
inheritance economically unsustainable, a jumpy nationalistic China which could leverage lose
canons such as President Putin or Iran while it conquers Africa, and could become the equivalent of
Prussia at the turn of the twentieth century …
But our past and present political systems are, in essence, unintentionally incapable to cope with
their new and more complex - since collective - responsibility, and as such are not adapted to
continue to meet the immutable and simplistic “survival” objective of our species.
Here is why:
•
First off, Democracies are governed by leaders that are elected on a local (national) level and
who cannot make decisions that are deemed locally unpopular in the short-term – even if
viewed as necessary for the long-term. The job of politicians is to be popular. With the rare
exception of a few visionaries who risk personal unpopularity for bold choices, politicians
generally push for visible benefits within their state during a limited time period (a decade if
they are courageous) while their elected terms are more often around four or five years -“I’ll
be gone, you’ll be gone” (IBGYBG). This sentiment too strongly influences difficult
choices and makes the politician more likely to take the easy way out.
•
Secondly, though totalitarian states clearly have the opportunity to roll out a long-term
agenda, as superbly demonstrated by the Chinese government, they must also constantly
manage the perversity of being under suspicion for their lack of legitimate power.
Consequently, they are in essence paranoid, and have to politically protect themselves from
their own citizens, who ultimately aspire to more Liberty. Despite the fact that they are not
paralyzed like Democracies by term limits, they are often obsessed by the need to perpetuate
and defend their own political models and the power they have stolen from the people. This
puts their internal government in a defensive mode rather than one of global, universal
responsibility, as seen in the expansionism that became unrealistic in Russia, the
isolationism of North Korea, or the obsession for an atomic bomb in Iran.
If our fundamental objective is the survival of our species, our vision should be such that it will
permit our objective to be realized. Shall we make an attempt at this vision so that we can visualize
the process that derives from it ? This is a choice, of course there can be many other derivatives:
“We the people of the World, at the dawn of the third millennium, want to unify into one country as
a brotherhood, to take responsibility for the sustainability of our species on Planet Earth. We
recognize our common destiny, and want to assemble all our efforts and resources, in a free
universal society, to prioritize the long-term betterment of Life for all.”
In order to translate this vision into strategies, we should acknowledge its two essential axes.
First, the overarching objective is the “sustainability of our species … to prioritize the long-term
betterment of Life for all” – which really means the capability for our species to survive and flourish
for the very long-term.
Second, the tool to achieve this objective is to “unify into one country”, so that we can take
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collective responsibility and pool resources efficiently.
Consequently, we can derive the two essential strategies that unfold from the vision:
1) A strategy of combat against global warming, leveraging our universal resources.
2) A strategy of political unification, in a free universal society.
These strategies are both independent and intertwined, as one justifies the other, and enables the
resolution of the first one. The first strategy is clearly limited by the need to execute the second one.
Let’s therefore zoom into the second strategy – the political unification, given that the
metamorphosis of our political model, the indispensible hub for putting the means in place and
stressing the necessary urgency, is extremely pressing.
The model of our universal future – the seed from which we can construct a World Federation –
should have the social-democrat and peaceful values of Europe, the enthusiasm and Freedom of the
US, the diversity of Brazil and India, the culture and intelligence of China, and the reliability of the
American constitution.
How do we get started ? How can this movement be initiated, when there is absolutely no global
popular offensive in this direction at the time I am writing these lines – notwithstanding the Arab
Spring, which is the regional emergence of a popular uprising for Freedom and Democracy ?
As we started to elaborate during the last chapter, there are two possible approaches for creating a
system of World governance:
•
Greenfield, through the creation of a new federation from scratch, a type of “super-UN”,
whose role would go from a negotiating table (essentially the role of the UN today) to
an operational World government (The United Democratic States), under which the
current countries would become federated states, and for which the president would be
elected directly by a popular vote. This is what Europe has been trying to do for fifty
years, step by step – but at the risk of missing the destination point forever, since each
step has to be negotiated with everyone to agree, which proves to be wishful thinking.
•
Leveraging an existing political vehicle, through an ad hoc political alliance of founding
countries, that unite around a larger one, which plays the stable magnet – such as the
USA. This allows to be effective in the transition: new members immediately become
part of a single binding federation or “country”, following an individual referendum.
This provides the clarity, simplicity speed, and central leadership which has lacked in
the European construction. A set of individual sovereign powers transfer to the preexisting federation, as citizens of all “states” win the same rights and obtain the same
citizenship. The constitution of the existing magnet federation (American) would have
to be slightly altered to integrate the newcomers, electing a common president – not
excluding any former president of any of the founding states. The stated objective would
be to welcome all countries of the World to join sooner or later, after they elect to run a
proper referendum, sealed by a positive vote. Therefore, from the first nucleus of
founding Democracies, most likely the rest of the World would want to follow suit over
time, under popular pressure. The initial group could be composed of the democratic
members of the G20 and the smaller historic Democracies, or of any cohesive
democratic sub-set that is determined in the global goal.
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I am giving more creadibility and feasibility to the second approach – leveraging an existing
political vehicle. It appears more counter intuitive at a first glance, since it would be more logical to
just reinforce the UN, step by step, to eventually make it a true governance engine. However, I
ended up to believing that against all odds, it would end up being more practical to go the other way
around, and just bolt more countries into the strongest existing one. At least there is a decision made
country by country to join and lose sovereignty, joining the nucleus, it is a one-off defining event.
The alternative, is to avoid the big jump, and instead move gradually, step by step, which ends up
getting diffused over time with condusing agendas, as the ultimate power stays in the country and
ends up never shifting to the federation. The difficulty of the European situation, which illustrates
this path, is what makes me point to this unnatural direction instead. The Union started with the
European Coal and Steel Community in 1951, and then went through the ups and downs the pain of
trying to deepen it and expand it, with the difficulties that we know sixty two years later.
Such a greenfield alternative would have to deal with an endless transition, and a constant mode of
multi-faceted negotiations, with extreme diffusion of power and influence, which would over time
risk to lose the strength of the initial momentum, as the key political players change, or worse – as
over time the cause would lose its advocates out of frustration, in front of an insurmountable
consensus building - which is what is right now happening with the “European Federation”.
The option of leveraging an existing country and constitution is clear and decisive. It implies a
definitive move for a country to join in – evidently a huge step. Such a “go no-go” decision would
engage the leaders in person, to put their weight into the referendum - win or lose – and the whole
country providing with an unequivocal and democratic response. The “host” country would have to
go first, after having ensured the directional support of a first wave of followers, then more and
more others.
Building out of an existing core, welcoming transparently whoever wants to democratically join an
already strong, resilient and stable edifice, is so much more straightforward. One that would use a
federalist political model already in existence, one that could be re-baptized and used in order to
bring in a greater number of countries beyond the geographical limits of the original federation.
A number of variations of geographic perimeters could be evidently managed for each wave, and
the sequence is unpredictable. But there would be a great influencer at the center – which can only
be America - providing leadership, managing the process, helping align the various agendas,
negociating slight constitutional adjustments for the ones to join in. There would be a pilot in the
federal plane from day one, a fully operational constitution, a federation “opened for business”,
providing a reassuring image of strength and stability, to the populations being asked if they want to
join it.
It is not a perfect solution, and the recent discovery of the NSA spying over the Internet and its
allies, makes Obama’s natural legitimacy as the future “Global President” a little harder to endorse
in the future.
But pragmatically, if there is a chance for a conclusive path to build The United Democratic States,
he is the best hope ahead. Barack Obama, at the end of his second Presidential term, can prepare his
third term as the champion of an alliance of the democratic nations in the making, and inject this
supra-national momentum with the backup of Hillary Clinton - his potential successor to his current
role – and the infrastructure of the US apparatus and constitution to support the project.
It is a huge bet. It would have to rely on the vision and forceful pull of an historic group of luminary
US and international leaders rallying around Barack Obama - the Clinton’s, Cameron, Merkel,
Harper, Abe – and leverage the influence of the USA as the architecture of the new global
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construction.
Could the USA be the willing core magnet that we need, and make its metamorphosis as well, from
a proud - sometimes nationalistic and belligerent - nation into the World’s moral role model and
unification enabler ?
The USA are the oldest and most resilient federal constitutional Democracy in the World, proven by
two centuries of existence. The dream of the founding fathers is totally compatible with the
universal creation that we are painting here, as it was not meant to be exclusive to specific states,
but a dynamic process involving more states to join in the future than the thirteen initial members.
The original Union was created with a handful first wave of “colonies”, with the objective that
others would join in later, now reaching fifty. Could it bring in another couple of hundred states
with distinct languages and cultures ?
I am certainly no constitutional expert, but I do not see why not. There may be the need to use some
clusters, to ensure that the number of states is more manageable and there size re-balanced, to
enhance the manageability of the enlarged Union through an intermediate layer, grouping some
homogeneous groups of smaller countries by regions or sub-regional affinities ? This flexibility can
be managed, and it appears that in terms of political construction, the US governance system offers
a great opportunity for global consolidation, and constitutes the best apparatus at our disposal.
“We the people”: the Framers of the Constitution guaranteed a true Democracy with a balance of
power between Congress, the executive, the legislature, and then the autonomy of the states: these
“checks and balances” have made the model so resilient. Still, they empowered an elected President,
with full popular legitimacy and substantial executive empowerment. They also warranted a free
market economy, necessary to continue momentum of the economic globalization.
The concern is more over the USA’s willingness to integrate other geographical areas into its own
system, or other countries to accept the US in this role.
There must be a way to engage the majority of Americans into the pride of leading the unification of
Mankind, of effectively acting as the node point of the “universal country”. The concept represents
more of a cultural continuum for an emigration-based country, which still sees itself – although less
than before - as the center of the Universe, and a mission to pace the rest of the World around its
universal values.
More difficult is the popular acceptance by the other countries, to recognize the US as the facilitator
of the construction of their new homeland. This challenge must be recognized and anticipated, and
consequently the communication effort and political leadership in messaging the project would be
paramount. The intent is absolutely not for the World to become American, but for America to
provide its constitution and intitial political apparatus, to enable Democracies of the World to
become member states of a same broader global democratic federation.
As I try to encircle the Utopia, I do understand that the concept I am developing here can be seen as
a stretch of the imagination, and it is from where we are - until we start to move our mindset into
such a direction. It is a paradigm change and an exciting one, for everyone.
It could be done. The Obama-led US-centered solution is truly a conceivable possibility. What a
superbly emblematic first President of the World we would have in Barack Hussein Obama, with his
mixed white and black roots, American and African, his early years spent in Asia, direct heir of the
extremes of the Planet that converge in a Man who was elected president of the leading Democracy
of the World. He would be an almost Messianic messenger, whom hundreds of generations ahead
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of us could remember and recognize as the founding catalyst of our post-national History, and the
architect of our vision for a sustainable Mankind. It really feels to me like Barack Obama is the right
Man, at the right time, to spark the movement, and get the ball of political universalism to start
rolling.
Let’s assume that Obama takes this baton. It remains a challenging and complex endeavor to say the
least. An excellent constitution and central geopolitical position make the US ideal for playing the
role of the political unifier, but widely held popular American positions such as nationalism,
militarism, ultra-liberalism, ultra-consumerism, and a superiority complex could harm their potential
role of universal aggregator.
Nonetheless, if Obama survives what may be a difficult beginning – with the help of a messianic
program that is in line with the historic emergence that he personifies, he could regain the popular
support needed to smooth out some of these contrary tendencies. As I am writing these lines I do
not know how Syria will unfold, but he seems to playing this extremely difficult situation, which
against his will is defining his second term, with the appropriate care and consensus building, both
internally and externally. If he and Hillary can, despite the bi-partisan gridlock, win the US popular
opinion on this grand initiative, if they can unlock the sensitive battle of the extension of the
“sacred” American federal constitution to other democracies, and make it the embryonic facilitator
for the political consolidation of the United Democratic States, then, I believe that the whole project
can definitely turn into a reality. It only takes a first wave of countries to be willing to join, and then
the snow ball will roll.
This scenario we just painted sets the stage, provides visibility of how it could all get started, and
shows that it can be done. Of course, it can generate reactions in both ways – support or mockery. If
Earth was made of crystal, she would be the ball that would allow us to see our future destiny, but
alas, we can only reflect, ponder, and put forth visions and scenarios.
To simplify, the creation of a global movement cannot come about in the short-term except through
an Obama-America core support. America can re-invent its universalist vision, stand strong and
confident again, as a plural and enthusiastic America, non nationalist, where the greatest dreams can
take form, peaceful and completely open for the rest of the World, and without an instinct to
dominate.
I am thinking about an America in which the president, who doesn’t angle for a third term, can
rather personify a role model for a future first term of global governance, and start to fly above the
day-to-day national battles, to re-elevate himself at the level of the dream that got him elected in the
first place.
I am thinking about an US led initiative that leapfrogs the bottleneck in the EU construction, and
welcomes European nations, who have become again uncertain of their common future, into The
United Democratic States – solidified by the old US protective wing (a re-invented “political”
Marshall plan).
I am thinking that despite – or owing to – the Great Wall, we may have a massive opportunity if we
think really big. Indeed, the time may be right to start our universal movement, right now. A
convergence of otherwise relatively independent events may provide us with a magic moment to
initiate this movement:
•
The extreme economic globalization raises the risk of a potential backward reaction.
Factories are starting to come back home.
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•
The growing evidence of the ecologic challenge and of its imminent implications raises more
endorsement, lately with China and Obama.
•
The convergence of the societal model in the major Democracies, which makes them more
compatible than before. US is turning more social, probably anchored with the Democrats
due to the ongoing wave of Latino immigration. Europe is learning diversity with its massimmigration, and given the competition of the emergents, has to revisit the economical
weight of its now unaffordable full social welfare model. Japan is starting some radical
reforms, Brazil is under popular pressure for more protection of the poor, and India’s latest
economic results challenge its political sclerosis.
•
There is a realization that the most powerful totalitarian rulers may turn dangerous again – a
new cold war – while Democracies are losing faith in America’s long-term interest and
capability to protect them. Japan and South Korea are getting scared of the raise of a
potentially aggressive China.
•
The situation in the Middle-East is a genuine mess, out of anyone’s control.
•
Grassroots popular movements around the World are openly challenging the totalitarian
status-quo with the help of the Internet – loudly in the Arab World, but also tensions in
Russia, and the highly educated and now wealthy Chinese middle class awaking to its future
non-material aspirations.
•
And incidentally, we have the first genetically diverse US President, crowned Nobel Peace
Prize already, completing his last term, who has the potential of being disruptively inclusive
of global affairs, would he chose to.
The solution to the political transformation that we so urgently need, is a democratic World
Federation. Through this federation we can pull together all the methods at our disposal to stop the
clock on climate change, and organize Mankind’s sustainable Freedom, as we organize any free
country today. The first challenge is to get started, to create this first triggering event, that make
people think that the time has come to re-invent the way we have been governing ourselves since the
eve of civilizations.
I came to the conclusion that somebody very visible and credible has got to launch and personify
such an initiative, create awareness, stimulate a reaction, and a healthy international debate, which
would eventually give birth to the United Democratic States, possibly within the next few years.
This is why I see that the stature and the timing for Barack Obama could be just right for the cause,
if he wanted to. Also, I think that it would be right for him personally to endorse such a cause,
because he genuinely is the right person to carry this forward, and this is the right time both for the
cause and for himself.
I do not know if he would, because I have not had the chance to discuss it with him, so this
triggering event is really my own imagination. But I want to offer a tangible way of how the
universal buzz could get started, so that we all visualize that a grand beginning is at our fingertips.
This scenario – Obama led - would be such a flamboyant one.
If not Obama though, another leader may raise the flag soon, and ultimately somebody will surface
in the future, and be the one. Because the time will come – I hope not too late - when Mankind will
finally get it, and reach its universal revelation.
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Obama, noone can do this alone. Whoever takes this mission needs to engage intimately with a
small and solid nucleus of democratic World leaders, who decide to unite and to prepare together a
federative solution, to deal with a crisis that is without precedent. Obama is the one who can initiate
the formation of this first core team, a handful club of presidents and prime ministers. The founding
fathers could include the Clinton’s for the US, Angela Merkel, David Cameron, Francois Hollande
or Nicolas Sarkozy (if re-elected) for Europe, Stephen Harper for Canada, Tony Abbott for
Australia, Enrique Nieto for Mexico, Dilma Rousseff for Brazil, Shinzo Abe for Japan, Pranab
Mukherjee for India, … or most likely a subset of such a “dream team”.
Obama is has entered into the long-awaited process of acquiring a real global dimension, passed the
relative disappointments of his first term, now nearing the middle of his second term, unless
unforeseen event ahead. He survived the hell of extreme bi-partisan politics, and also has been
consistent with his preference for influence and consensus over dominance - a breakthrough with his
predecessor, which many have translated into weakness. The figure of Obama for History has not
taken form yet, and is still waiting for a grand exit.
The toughness of his first years in office have made him mature, while he was probably quite
unprepared when he took over at the very beginning, for the insane agenda in front of him, in such a
perfect storm. His first failures and his suffering are his best preparation for an even more promising
future, as he now starts to have quite a few victories under his belt: the Medicare reform , avoiding
an all-out economic cataclysm, saving the banks and the automotive industry, re-launching slowly
the economy in particular the real-estate and stock markets, improving on the unemployment front,
prepring for a new immigration model, avoiding any new war with US boots on foreign soil, pulling
troops away from the mess in Iraq and Afghanistan, reducing quite dramatically the budget deficit,
and now announcing that he is going to address climate change.
But the fruit has not yet ripened, I see more potential ahead for the Man – as there was also for Bill
Clinton when he left, also so young, but there is not much to do for an US president after the two
terms have passed. President Obama, soon with white hair, has the attributes – and the opportunity
as I affirm in this book – for a worthy and defining mission after 2016, which could eventually turn
into another electoral mandate. He doesn’t need to worry about an electoral stress any time soon
though, since it will take a lot of international lobbying and institutional preparation before any
global election can take place.
There can be such an interesting construction, for whoever wants to see it. President Obama can
position his post-presidential future initiative around the theme of a new World order, while at the
same time sponsoring Hillary Clinton for his succession as US president. They have learned how to
work together effectively, and complement each other. Together, they could establish a duo, with
Hillary concentrating on the US affairs while Barack, detached from his US role and possibly
helped by Bill, would focus on the formation of a union of democratic leaders, and tour the World
endlessly, as the living icon and advocate of the initiative.
Following this first phase of education and facilitation, a democratic emanation of the G20 – a group
of leaders that is both democratically elected, courageous, and visionary – can put an accelerated
process on track, as a team, and position the United Democratic States project for prime time. This
team knows deep down and through their personal responsibility toward their people and History,
that the battle against the wall cannot be won individually. If they face their responsibility with
enough courage, they must conclude that the solution to the crisis that faces Humanity goes through
a new World order, which will diffuse their nation-state. The consequence for them, individually, is
to take the national leadership for the cause. They will feel lonely at the beginning, eventually be
seen as traitors to the country by some. They will be threatened by their own establishment. They
will have to take a personal political risk, engage their name and credibility in a fight against the
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identitarian resistance, they will have to turn themselves even more than before into educators,
communicators, evangelists, with all their charisma, and take a huge leap of Faith in the future.
They will have to be persuaded by their intimate conviction, and accept to capture the opportunity,
to create the bridge into the paradigm change, for their people, and for the others as well.
This is not a mission for the fainted hearth, or for the empty suit. This is for the people who accept
to take a break in the rush of their successful Life, and elevate themselves to the true height of the
role for which they have been elected, by the multitude. They are willing to risk everything that they
have built and won so far. Because they know. It’s the right thing to do, it all makes sense, this is
what it was meant to be, after all. You don’t get to such a position if you are an idiot, or a coward.
You can’t fake it and get that high. But still, it’s been a lifetime battle to get to the top of the hill,
you don’t want to blow it up for a fantasy. You have to know deep inside, that it is worth it. These
are the leaders that Obama will need around him. And I could name a few, among the names we
listed here above, who deserve it, or others.
In five years, Obama has avoided any big disaster. It is an achievement given the situation he started
with. But he has not justified yet his Nobel Peace Prize. The time has come for him as well to take a
broader view, on what an inspired leader can do, the most powerful Man in the World, when he
stands at the right time, in front of a compelling mission. It is really not about another fight in
Washington, or another dance with Putin. It’s about a vision for us – for all of us – for our
brotherhood. His leadership is essential.
As a veteran CEO myself, I do not see that such a paradigm shift can happen without - exceptional
leadership. I have looked at this Man, a few feet away from him, at a fund raising. I have watched
him with my inner sensors, hearth and brain, as deep as I could.
And I felt that – yes, he can. He is the Man that we should elect, as the first president of the United
Democratic States of the World. If he wants it, and I really don't know about that, what he wants to
do after the electrochock of the big US presidential burden.
Beyond the essential and defining leadership, success will not come without an immense support by
the international public opinion, the Internet and the media. I am not sure who is the egg or the
chicken here, how the buzz will first get started, probably through both ends together. People must
stand up who, together, share a profound understanding for the new global revolution, and its risks
of going backward, and who can see the opportunity of opening such a compelling chapter in our
evolution.
Time is of the essence. It’s all about timing. Time is the most insane and divine dimension, in
everything we do, know and live. One of the Great Mysteries …
Time is also, naturally, making intra-personal cooperation a little easier, because never before did
our leaders work – had to work - so intimately together. Not long ago, they used to meet once in a
while, during an official ceremonial foreign visit. This leadership group instead, has learned how to
work together much more intimately, in trying to stop the economic crisis that has threatened us
since 2008. They had to because the Word burnt as a global thing, which they personified … They
saw each other and spoke to one another almost weekly. They like or hate each other, but they do
business together, or against each other, permanently, as if they worked in the same multinational
company (with no CEO though) … They understand that political isolation doesn't bring serious
solutions any longer. They present themselves as the architects of everything, but they instead
negotiate more and more with each other, whatever the official statements are. Look at the odd
Putin-Obama couple on Syria – hey ? It is so funny in a way, that such another odd couple would
even have to dela with each other. But they can't escape it – it a One World unavoidable thing !
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Some relationships however, even at this level, get very tight emotionally, almost fusional - like
partners in the same game. Look at Bush Jr. and Tony Blair, or Merkel and Sarkozy. I am pretty
sure that they all share the frustration over their individual weakness. But they all get the golden
treat every day, and it compensates for the frustration – unless Barack comes with the ultimate
wake-up call.
If Obama takes their hand, eyes in the eyes, will they resist his vision and the momentum he will try
to build ? Will the egos clash too badly, that such an amazing alliance will remain an unreal
(utopian) thought ?
Maybe. But agai,n never before has a group of democratic World leaders been so close, all officers
on the same ship – without a true Captain. They have developed common opinions on large actions
taken, but are still blocked by the very system that put them in place. They cannot escape the
shackles that bind them. They are indeed presidents of great national powers, but their ambitions,
for solving the greatest of problems, are still too much illusory.
If Obama, first among them, breaks the taboo, admits his own weakness in the face of the Great
Wall, if they all dare to admit their weaknesses as well, then, all is possible to them.
Together they have an alternative opportunity, for the millennia to come, to call themselves the
founding fathers of the United Democratic States of the World, those by whom the catastrophe of
the Big Crunch was avoided, and who gave birth to the new universal page of the (post-)History of
Man. Like Moses, they can bring us all, to the Promised , multi-ethnic Land.
Also, these leaders can greatly benefit individually from their visionary union, accessorily managing
an important individual role in the structure to come, by continuing to direct their respective
countries - re-branded as “States” - to shoulder the responsibility for the transition, toward a model
shared between the national territory and that of the global democratic Federation.
Why am I always coming back, as if it was obsessional, to this “democratic” dimension ? Wouldn’t
it be just easier to clear-up the political scene, make it the simple mirror of the already free
economical one, and see who wins ? Be it Democracy, or autocratic regimes, free market, free
politics, free everything – who cares ?
This is a tough one. I have to disagree on the Freedom of being another Sadam, or Kadafi or Assad
here.
I love China and Russia, and each time I go there, it is a treat to my curiosity and soul. Really
amazing places, and evidently people as well. So I deeply regret to be constantly upsetting my
Chinese or Russian friends, picking on with their autocratic governance, and I certainly do not have
anything against any citizen there – rather the opposite, I sympathize with the burden they have to
deal with. It is only and solely about their rulers. Why do I care so much after all, about true
Democracy and keep raising an issue with Totalitarianism ?
I hear everyday that Democracy is a Western invention, not good for everyone, which Americans
and Europeans keep trying to impose, to cultures which have no sympathy or interest for it in the
first place. I agree. The appetite for Democracy is higher with the people who have experienced it,
and lower with the people who never have. But once people have tried it, felt the Freedom, then they
will never adapt again to the rule of a dictator. It is like saying: dogs that are used to dry food don’t
care about fresh food. It is true. But those of you who have dogs will appreciate that you do not need
to impose fresh food on dogs. They immediately fancy it, and it is hard to get them back to the dry
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stuff, unless they starve and have no choice again. I think that dry food is to dogs what dictatorship
is to humans – except that dry food has been designed to be healthy.
The economical tolerance of the last thirty years, made independently of human rights and of the
democratic nature of the participating regimes, has been an immense misjudgement, with longlasting consequences. Democracies have been plainly greedy and tactical. They have accepted to
mix “political Economy” (Economy managed by totalitarian regimes) with true liberal Economy,
within the same open game. Competing with each other, they have enabled, protected or reinforced
regimes which otherwise would not have survived the post USSR era. Unintentionally and
unconsciously, they have lost sight of their own fragility. The true globalization of the World –
which will include the political dimension in its global equation, cannot replicate this weakness. If
united, the World has to be lead by and for the people, at zero risk of turning into a despotic empire.
I am absolutely convinced that there can be no compromise on the nature of universal governance.
It can only be a democratic system – people must rule. We must elect our president. Otherwise, full
globalization would risk turning into a bureaucratic and maybe autocratic or militaristic nightmare.
Out of two evils, we are probably better blowing up our Planet with the current country-based chaos
– and keep going the way we are, instead of risking a global evil empire. At least some of us will
remain free as long as possible. I prefer to take the risk of the Big Crunch to the one of the chains.
But this is my choice. And fundamentally, this is why I am concerned with the tolerance of
Democracies for their competing alien regimes. I am not so confident any more about their longterm strength, when I see what the Chinese Party has achieved. The scary thought is that China Inc.
could be enabled by the democratic consumerist-capitalist greed to become the dominant global
power winner, and eventually pull it off as the global rule maker, with the help of Russia and the
despotic gang. It seems unrealistic in 2013, but it really could happen if the west keeps weakening
and the new emergent Democracies do not compensate its weakeing. We only need to look at how
quickly a part of Europe slid into Nazism eighty years ago, and how many followers they got. They
lost the war - what if they had won it – if America had not finally reluctantly stepped into WW2 ?
That is my “religious” moment, my belief – and my tiny slice of intolerance I must confess – I do
not see that we can continue to take the risk of a totalitarian World dictatorship, ever. Let us
remember the inhumane downward spirals anticipated by George Orwell – this political fiction is
now hitting us in real Life, as the Wall comes closer, so we are better stand firm behind the
fundamental values that we want as a species – from where the need for our vision, and unification
around a democratic club.
All countries and people should be welcomed to join the United Democratic States, with one
exception. They should first, in their respective countries, tackle the same goals, toward a true and
rapid democratization, and stand up to turn their leaders into the new De Klerk or Gorbachev. Not
only will it be a necessary step, when Democracies will unite, to be able to join them. But I also
believe that the union will facilitate, more than ever, the transition towards Democracy, everywhere.
The union will give everyone the moral support they need, to break their chains, if the chains don’t
vanish as a result of such an international popular momentum – with the despots wisely passing the
baton.
After the Arab World, already the pressure is mounting in Russia, after the last contested elections.
In the afterglow of the emergence of a global democratic governance, Russians, Chinese, Iranians
would not dare to put more pressure on their system. They would have to open it up, because its
anachronistic existence would become that much more obvious. It may just give these rulers an
elegant way out. An open China and Russia would be welcomed with open arms to the table of the
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founding fathers, since they would bring the system full circle, with almost everyone into the
planetary union. Only at this point, could the military effort be totally dropped.
With the first democratic nucleus having launched the movement, honorable and elegant entry doors
should be offered to totalitarian states, that decide to emancipate themselves from their dictatorial
carcasses. What we need first of all is the first wave. After this first, vibrant step toward the
unification of Humanity, with a vision carried by a group of credible, elected, and respected leaders,
the light of evidence and legitimacy will carry it on by itself, everywhere.
For example, the Chinese Communist Party – which I see as smart and visionary in the context of its
despotism – may be counting its days already and just try to delay the inevitable. They could accept
to pass the baton peacefully to the federation, and use the new exterior unification momentum to
transform the country into a new democratic Chinese state as well – a mutation that is already
accomplished in part for the Economy and soon on an ecological front. The previous grandiose
political logic could be erased with Wisdom, once the extraordinary work of economic emergence is
accomplished, as a logical and strategic next step.
Putin certainly see the pressure mounting around him – this is why he is getting tougher. He is street
smart, but less strategic than his Chinese counterparts. Maybe because he is more of a Czar (lone
wolf) than a Party (team). He could finally, also choose a true system of global co-development for
his immense state, full of infinite potential. If not, the struggle against corruption and the reality of
the structural and industrial under-development of his country will catch up with him, despite his
still relative popularity.
Finally, in the ultimate step of global integration, the rogue states and terrorist groups would end up
being internationally isolated, with the vast majority of the World integrating into a sacred union.
They would have to face up to the pressures of public opinion, and the federation might end up
helping the people struggling behind these last iron curtains to win their Freedom. Then, the Planet
and all her people would be free, and ready for a new beginning alltogether.
If Barack Obama was to shoulder such a project, he could foster and ride an immense wave of
international popular support. Viral support on the Internet for the “Earth Our Country” movement
should be the foundation of his thought process – this is where he could find his inspiration and
inner belief that the people will step up and follow him. It has to be a worldwide vibration, so that
political leaders hear it, everywhere. Barack Obama should hear it – or who knows maybe another
top leader - to endorse this exceptional initiative. Hillary Clinton is critically needed too. With her
strong chance of being elected as the next US President, she would be a critical advocate, her
support paramount, in order to help adjusting and adapt the US constitution to an enlarged
membership. After her last few years of traveling the World, I suspect that her understanding of the
Great Wall may be among the highest among US politicians.
As we defined it earlier, our vision – Earth our Country – will enable the Homo Sapiens
Universalis, or reciprocally – they are the chicken and its egg together … In order to prepare for our
vision and strategies to become a reality to execute, we need to define the core values of the union,
and grave our moral tablet as we enter this new universal era.
•
Universal Peace should become the rule when we establish a country for all, and tolerance will
be the absolute necessity in face of differences in ethnicity, identity, and religion. The
pacification in the East-West and Judo-Christian-Muslim relationships should also be at the
heart of the union and would come about with a resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,
which has become the crux of the ongoing East-West conflict. Jerusalem could be proposed as
the new emblematic capital of the federation – an international city that is free, a symbol of the
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new World eace – and Israel as a democratic, secular, multi-ethnic state where Jews, Arabs and
all other ethnicities and religions can live together, with respect of the law and rights for all.
•
Liberty and equality for all Men and Women, regardless of backgrounds or origins, should be
the footing for the bedrock of the collective conscience; minorities should be respected, with
necessary, positive distinction.
•
The development of states, regions, and civilizations should be approached with respect for
identities, local constraints and cultures; avoid the upheaval created by global decisions that
would favor or penalize one group over another. We should ensure that the majority never
crushes the minorities; the global decisions should be built around consensus but decisiveness,
and aligned strategically as part of a grand plan, for our long-term transition to sustainability.
•
The right to universal and transparent education, communication, and information should
be recognized as essential and inalienable; they should contribute to the common discovery and
elevation of knowledge for the masses, moving all toward the capacity to be informed and
enlightened electors.
•
Military competition and vulture capitalism should be replaced by a progressive liberal
economic competition that revolves around the central strategy of a sustainable society focused
on zero carbon emissions, placing value on the most underprivileged groups in the World,
anticipating the impact of global warming; all while favoring investments in green technologies,
in order to accelerate the transition to the Green Economy.
•
Proactive protection of the environment and the re-balancing between Man’s development
and his Mother Earth should be sealed in one of the very first articles of the federal constitution.
•
Balance, wisdom and democratic good sense should guide the analysis of every global issue.
That which can be better managed at a nation-state level would continue to be dealt with
locally, local laws of a similar nature should be preserved, as long as they would not oppose to
the essential universal values indispensable to the cohesion of existing civilization. However, a
series of laws and federal political directives should be developed to permit the articulation of
the great vision for Humanity. Mirroring the American model, the responsibilities under federal
jurisdiction and those of the states should be clearly delineated, and the balance of powers
should guarantee for the sustained democratic nature of the regime.
Now remains the choice for an international language … What will or should be the language of the
new federation ? To me, the response is simple, and any debate around it old news.
English should be the World’s unifying language.
English is already the second most used language of the World. Each country should preserve its
primary language – or languages as the case may be – but English should become the second
language for everyone, studied by all the children of the World, with the obligation to obtain at least
a minimum level before finishing school. All languages would be protected though and continue
their customary and official use, with the right to remain the vibrant sanctuary of our profound
identities. However, it is imperative for the construction of a government as complex as this one, to
be able to depend upon a direct communication with its citizens, without the necessity of a constant
translation. Europe is currently experiencing the difficulty of a multi-lingual system, because no
one understands all of them. It is already unmanageable with twenty-eight EU members – we should
not even think about positioning global multi-linguism as an option. Each state should be fully
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empowered to decide which are its official languages, as long as English is at least one of them.
Globally though, all official activities should be shifted to English, which should become the official
language of the federation, ultimately spoken by everyone, as a second language.
This vision, strategies and values are only a first attempt, a “learning aid”, to help our visualization
and reflection, of what our new World could be. We can do so much better, I am sure. Such a
project should be reviewed, dissected, challenged, and polished by a brillant international team,
whom Barack Obama would possibly want to assemble.
At this stage, we are simply trying to share the necessity of this World governance, and to start to
paint a loose picture of its possible beginning, implications and breakthroughs. There are many
other possible, and probable, scenarios for our political future. Confrontations between powers
focused on controlling the necessary resources for their own benefits could amplify, the relationship
between the East and the West could further degrade, the Economy in Asia could fall apart as well
as in Africa, or a generalized conflict in the Middle-East could take place following an American
intervention in Syria. New threats will emerge over the coming decades, like desertification,
malaria, AIDS and other rapidly evolving viruses, Western debt, pressure from unemployment, the
aging of Western countries, the explosion of immigration, the increasing scarcity of water and food,
the millions of climate refugees, and atomic weapons in too many hands.
But our vision – positive and ultimately so simple that it benefits everyone – is the missing key to
the problem that hits our generation, for the first time ever. It is possible to construct a society that
enables shared progress, that gives the masses a positive belief, attainable and not imaginary –
against the current flow of pessimistic fears, uncertainties and doubts. Humanity can continue to
evolve, toward a better life experience, and we can evolve with this hope, despite the errors of the
present and past generations.
It’s all about change. The climate changes ? Let’s acknowledge it without undue emotions. We
didn’t know, now we know, let’s understand why, and then adapt accordingly to fix it or to
accommodate our society with our new setting. We have to build a vision, strategies and a plan to
execute the response to the lessons of the event – with no taboo. This is all it is.
Nothing condemns us to continue to barricade ourselves behind the bars of our borders. In the time
of the Internet, the bars can fall, if we know how to instill the message, in those who hold the keys
and have the power to act.
This is a proposal for a change in society, in all societies. The formation of a federation to save us
all is necessary, but it is not sufficient. We must also make compromises and sacrifices. The gas
pumps will not freely flow, fresh water will become more expensive, food production will adapt to
its tolerable climate, the social advantages of rich countries will quickly become unsustainable to
their Economy, ethnic purity will become wishful thinking, and migrants will be constrained to
move to places where they can be accommodated.
GDP growth will not gauge well being, and wealth will not be directly proportional to happiness.
Wealth has exploded during the last half century, but no one can prove that we are happier than our
grand parents were, and frankly, are we ? What we know is that more people can eat, and this is
great. We also know that we live much older - I incidentally found a few days ago an antique book,
which quoted that the average Life expectancy in the Alpes-Maritimes (a district in the South of
France) was twenty nine years and seven months, in 1882 (V.A. Malte-Brun, Les Alpes-Maritimes, 1889), while it
is now almost three times longer, only 131 years later.
If not being hungry or sick or living longer can directly correlate with well-being – though aging
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through artificial survival and intense medical intervention poses a profound question as well – how
has having three cars, a Mc.Mansion in the suburbs, a couple of second homes, and eventually a
boat, become the necessary elements for a happiness attached to visible social ascension ?
I must confess that I ended up “winning” such trophies for myself as well - whatever satisfaction I
ended up with at the end. I fought and worked hard to get there, until I would own them, as if was a
necessary proof point of some kind of success. It is certainly fine for many people to get there as
well, and way beyond. But should most of Mankind aim at winning these too – as the ultimate seal
of a good Life ? Or is it just a dangerous mirage, like a lamp on which insects come and hit
themselves at night ?
Every measure of satiety of consumption depends on one’s neighbor, that the Anglos call “peer
pressure.” The sense of achievement of having the nicest bow, the most attractive companion, the
nicest house, the fastest horse, or the most expensive car, do not matter except in relationship to our
social setting. If my neighbor has a horse, should I have two ? If he has an appartment in the
mountains, should I have a chalet ? If he has a cell phone, then should I have one for every member
of my family ? If we all consume - and thus enormously waste - the social pressure manipulates the
masses to always want more, with no other real objective than to resemble, appear and exist like the
image that drove them to possess in the first place. The Society of over-consumption and
accumulation, which has destroyed the stability of our environment, has simply learned to use and
push people to their limits of dissatisfaction as they quest to imitate or surpass their neighbor.
The majority of today’s “indispensable” products didn’t exist even fifty years ago, and many have
been created in just the last ten years.
To us, the consumers of developed countries, it is not so difficult to start the journey, to add our
stone to the implementation of our vision. Once eliminated from our budgets the reasonable cost for
primary lodging and basic food, let’s then figure out what represents the rest of our spending – all
the products and services that were invented or made possible by our consumerist society. Don’t
those expenditures, for many of us in the Western middle class, represent the majority of our
expenses ? And are we not all looking for ways to acquire even more of these luxuries – things we
want, but aren’t necessary at all, and of which we already have plenty ? Why has the superfluous
become so indispensable to our apparent and perceived quality of Life ?
If the accepted mode was one of a more ascetic life, maybe – surely - the rest of the World would
aspire to that too. If the stars of Hollywood lived in cabins in the prairies of Colorado, we would all
dream of cabins. The perceived need for most of what we consume is nothing more than a social
phenomenon of the civilization, and one on which we each need to individually reflect, because the
result of this consumerism represents the ultimate waste. We, the rich countries, are the stars, that
emerging countries wish to imitate. Are we offering them a sensible model, especially if all intend
to follow that model as well, universally – and we can’t sustain it altogether ? We, “old rich”
countries first, need to set the example for a sustainable society that creates a quality of lifestyle that
leaves a reasonable carbon footprint, so that emerging countries will naturally move in that
direction. The first nucleus of nations which will join the United Democratic States should show the
more sustainable and exemplary path forward, as they will still play role of the iconic ice breaker for
all to follow, for quite a while anyway.
Wealth is relative, and consumption, which materializes and follows from wealth, serves as a tool
for our social calibration. One can hope that a repositioning of the quantity consumed – less and
better - in light of the economizing of resources to come, will not create social trauma at all, since it
will be shared by our Society as a whole and in a proactive, voluntary phenomenon. To the
contrary, one can thing that a profound transformation of our habits of consumption will be received
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as a positive phenomenon of Society, a genuine fashionable movement, as we start to see with the
people buying an hybrid or electric car – rooted from the people themselves – and associated with
the responsibility of performing the extra mile of one’s “civil duties.”
To help in this movement, innovation and technology will rapidly create substitutes for their old
inventions of the industrial revolution, which have become wasteful dinosaurs – combustion engines
and other coal power stations.
The morale of our vision is that the material and energy waste, put in place by the first revolution of
science and the fossil fuel industry, has become immoral.
We know that from this point forward, it will destroy the viability of Earth for our near descendants,
and that we must put a stop to the damage that we continue, now in full consciousness, to cause.
The time has come to prepare for our second industrial revolution: the clean, post-fossil revolution.
It goes together with our universal political empowerment, because that is the only way to shift the
economic model.
Although our ancestors were unaware of their impact on the environment, we are the generation that
discovers the universal crime we commit – we are like the smokers who continue to smoke, even
though they know it is killing them. We are doing the same to our children by throwing them into
an ever-warming climate. The involuntary crime has become voluntary; it is becoming the genocide
of future generations. Nothing can justify the continued destruction of the Planet, nor inaction in
finding the necessary political means for a solution.
This consciousness of the issue justifies to me the ridicule of trying to unleash the realism of what
has be so far a Utopia. We must dare, it is up to us, first in long lineage. The dignity and honor of
our generation will be to construct our new vision for the species, with a change so radical that it
demands our unification, in order to succeed, and deserve our lineage, and make our children proud.
Think back to our smoker analogy. While one was ignoring the effects of tobacco, smoking was
cool and the silver screen was inundated with playboys and starlets who smoked. Smoking was
cool. Today, smoking has become tacky, and while millions of people still smoke, they are nothing
more than the tail end of the phenomenon, dragged along by the inertia of the drug and the “peer
pressure” of their social microcosm. Is a former smoker less happy after quitting than a smoker?
Not at all, and I am proof. From this point forward, very few people will smoke, tobacco will be
prohibited everywhere soon and even the makers of cigarettes will lose interest. The great problem
of damage from cigarettes will be a distant memory in our past: will that some day be the same
situation with fossil fuel combustion ?
Our problem is time: tobacco finally reached this full reversal after millions and millions of death,
decades of debates and counter-lobbying before taking over in the general collective conscience.
The harmfulness of smoking was denied for such a long time but finally laws have been put in place
to gradually constrain the use of tobacco by the states. It didn’t impact anything else than the people
who died though – the Planet didn’t feel it.
But, in the case of Global Warming, the Planet is already giving us all the signs to warn us that her
patience is running thin and that the damage may be irremediable. We are in a race against time,
every Man and Woman of morality should make their voice heard, and act at their own level to
minimize their carbon footprint. Our survival, and the moral progress of the cause put forth, is not
utopian, nor is it a guaranteed success: we are the only actors in this drama – we can build a saving
vision and we can execute that vision by giving ourselves the economic and political means
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necessary. Maybe we can even motivate a unique Man to take this torch and give an immediate
direction to this virtual path.
Barack – will you hear us ?
Earth our Country.
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As we we are slowly getting closer in our understanding of the need for universal governance, we
have started to unify around a first draft of our vision and strategy, and we can imagine a scenario
for its initiation. Now can continue to the final step of our “mystical journey” and open up to a first
scenario of an execution plan, so that we conceptually unleash the full power of global governance,
as we browse what should the first program of government for the first elected leadership team of
the United Democratic States.
Let us imagine the extraordinary possibilities that will immediately open up to Humanity with the
acquisition of such a unified system of governance. The plan of action presented in the following
chapters will be painted as a political fiction, as if this we were already entering the Year Zero of the
new regime. Truly, the intent is to demonstrate the “magic wand” effect of a unified decision
making, in resolving the list of problems confronting our currently fragmented Humanity.
But how can such a plan come to fruition? How did we end up to finally crack the code, and initiate
the new Year Zero ?
Let’s try a few pages of political fiction.
It is the end of 2013. Barack Obama is in a pretty good mood this morning as he gets some free time
reading his favorite papers, his first coffee of the day smelling deliciously good, on his perfectly
clear desk of the Oval Office. He has a few precious minutes of freedom, before his first meeting
with John Kerry, who wants to brief him as he is just returning from Jerusalem, dealing with another
round of Peace talks preparation. This daily moment of calm is Barack’s luxury, he enjoys to start
the day with a short blank in his calendar, just to get his neurons activated with some altitude
thinking, and not be forced to jump immediately out of bed into a demanding task.
He knows that his approval is fragile, and clearly getting anything done with Congress has proven to
be a nightmare – he ended up polarizing the Republicans much more than he would have liked
lately, it’s been a long time that US politics have not been as much paralyzed and hammered with
bi-partisanship. His good mood this morning comes from a relative relief though. In five years, he
enjoys to have avoided any big disaster, and to be fair he worked hard at it, he’s been a very careful
player – sometimes taxed of being hesitant and not a fast enough decider.
Of course, it could have been better – but also much worse had he taken more risks – in particular
internationally (China, Iran, Libya, Syria, or tried to force some Euro-deal). He knows that he has
often disappointed his allies who wanted to see him as a more proactive “fixer” of such a broken
World, as the US used to be. But after the Bush years, he wanted to trade very lightly, and avoid any
American soldier’s boot on a new soil. Also, given such an abysmal economical agenda at home, he
had been really scared that the World could jump into a huge depression, and the situation totally
blow up during his tenure. It could have ben much worse indeed.
His peers sometimes make bad jokes about him, argue that he doesn’t deserve his Nobel Peace
Prize, knowing that he never asked for it in the first place. Still, I agrees that they have a point: he
recognizes in private that he has made zero achievement with the Middle-East, locked with an
impossible situation there – quite a perfect mess. The imminent bomb in Iran that he cannot stop, the
Israel-Palestinian saga (unless John comes with some real good new news) with a rather obsessional
Netanyahu, an Arab Spring which remains impossible to control as he’s seen lately with Egypt, and
Putin in the background manipulating so that his old rogue friends of the Soviet era survive. This is
always his most frustrating international topics as he knows the hopes that he rose with his Cairo
speech – he should have traded even more lightly then ...
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What’s in the news for China this morning ? The economy continues to slow down, and such a soft
landing is quite an ideal scenario. Still, he needs to be measured on messaging the repatriation of
factories on the US soil, the last thing that he wants is China’s economy to collapse now, that the US
are themselves painfully escaping from recession.
Putin continues to arrest his opponents, with more pressure ahead as he visibly loses his grip, and
popular support. His is still bitter about Vladimir, who in his view was really nasty with his handling
of the Snowden affair, how he succeeded earlier this year to manipulate and perpetuate the noise in
Europe around the NSA spying leak. This was a really unfortunate issue, that left Barack very upset.
He knows that he took a big hit with his global popularity. He defends himself arguing that all he
did was to let it continue “as usual”, as it had always been, with almost everyone knowing. But the
public didn’t know, naturally, and this is a really bad press for him.
NSA noise aside, they still can’t decide what to do in Europe ? Lady Merkel is strong enough to
lock the scene with her austerity, but not enough to pull the solution, which is getting really
worrisome now after five years. She is stuck given the unfortunate German historic legacy
(Europeans see Nazis each time Germany tries to lead), but also with a lack of European vision, and
certainly with no serious partner to deal with. With Cameron wanting to use the meltdown of the
Eurozone to take his distances, and Hollande isolating himself in an anachronistic bubble, there is a
tough situation there, really.
He is not too unhappy though with the turn of events domestically. It could have been worse. He’s
got somewhere with Medicare, a foot in the door with the illegal immigrants, saved the automobile
industry, and through quantitative easing prevented a complete financial disaster. Real estate is
back, the stock market strong, and unemployment – the biggest problem for the short term – timidly
improving. In facts, the US are doing relatively better now than any other major Western country,
and the control of the deficit (the US plague) achieved a surprisingly solid recovery lately – at least,
that’s the good thing with the gridlock in Washington …
Finally, the Republicans will have a tough time winning the next elections, as the radicalism of the
Tea Party blocks consensual candidates, and the constant increase of the weight of the Latino vote
pulls the country to the left. The Democrats appear to be here to stay, and it is for them to lose the
next election. It should be a pretty good run for Hillary if she feels fit enough for it, which makes
Barack’s agenda for the next three years very interesting strategically: unless there is a major issue
surfacing somewhere in the World in the meantime, he now has a real window – between now and
2016 - for planning to print his long-lasting mark on History. Also, as Hillary has been loyal to him,
he will be loyal to her and help her. So together they can partner on this strategic chapter still to be
written.
They can make this a magic moment if they think about what is really to be done. They both agree
that this page should be global, as Hillary spent so much time abroad as Secretary of State to sense
the need for a paradigm change. She keeps telling him that they need to spend a day offsite the two
of them with a team of experts to look at geopolitical future scenarios, he has not taken the time yet,
but he is maturing to the idea that his next chapter – personally – will have to be more international.
He saw during his last trip to Africa how iconic he has become there, it is an opportunity clearly,
both for the country and for himself.
Al Gore has pushed so aggressively on him for five years to ink a meaningful agenda on Climate
Change, he has finally announced that he’ll move on that front, although he knows that it won’t be
enough by a long shot. But what else can he do as the US competes in the World, China is the
biggest polluter already, and he needs to plan for energy independence – his true weapon against
China long term ?
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Just finishing his coffee and John’s arrival being imminent, he surfs briefly aside of the mainstream
political issues - that he typically favors – and searches for any relevant more relaxing topics which
could conclude his break on a pleasant lateral thought.
He is intrigued with an article on a new “Earth Our Country movement”. Out of nowhere, an
international grass-roots buzz is starting to take form on the Internet and in the media, thanks to a
myriad of blogs that are commenting on a funny Utopia about the need for universal governance. It
says that they are proposing that he - Obama – would become a leader on a global level. They
implore him to take the torch for an extra-national cause – a cause for all – to be the elected of the
World and not just that of the USA, as a third term mission.
After an initial dismissive smile, if not cynical, he starts to give the idea a little attention; he tries to
decrypt the message. John is now knocking on the door. He makes a note to have one of his trusted
advisers to look at this.
After an all-intelligence review, the adviser comes back in confidence, and recommends that he
ignore the whole thing. Barack would risk being pegged as too internationally minded in the midst
of a domestic battle against unemployment – the nation enemy. However, there is no consensus, a
young economist – new in the team – insists to be allowed to follow up personally and think about
it. She advocates that she sees an opportunity there, to rebuild a bridge between Obama and his
original promise abroad – she says people long term will remember this “failed” Nobel reward - and
she can anticipate some form of modernism, an enlightened solution and a fabulous opportunity to
position the level of debate of Hillary’s following campaign, as well as Obama’s permanent mark
with History.
He assesses her with attention, as he did not notice her before, as she had remained in the shadow so
far, and never spoke up. On one hand he feels annoyed by her immature insistence. Barack likes
consensus and she should know better, they all know how to voice their views more carefully. On
the other hand, he is happy that she stood up, as he instinctively sees something there as well, and
fears that his tenure has turned too “dry”. The popular dream, which first got him elected, has
evaporated too far behind for his taste, in front of the day-to-day realities. He often gets frustrated
about the constraints that he has felt like handcuffs. He fears that he appears too narrow and limited
in his ambitions. He doesn’t have to be so much careful any longer as there will be no election
ahead for him ever. He has three years, will soon be a lime duck, and then he will vanish in the
golden darkness, forever.
Where is the downturn for him to take over an idealistic flag at this point ? It could be only
greatness really, as he still feels so young, his daughters are still babies, and he has learned
tremendously in this job, with still so much that he could achieve – more than when he started, so
much unprepared to the task. If there is a way to keep going with a new exciting chapter, he at least
wants to do justice to the case. After all, if he has more ammunition to make a brilliant exit out of
his strenuous tenure and win the battle of the minds internationally, he wants to know about it. He
recognizes that he is still playing defense nationally in the bi-partisan battle, and any chance to be
on the attack on a surprising new ground – make his enemies defend against a global dream plan let them position themselves as anachronistic nationalists - would be appealing. His key strength in
his second term is the weakness of his opposition, and that is not enough. He would love to win a
more flamboyant exit, on a grand idea.
After pondering for a few minutes, he finally agrees to meet with the young lady a week later, after
she collects some Intelligence support, to identify who is behind this, which role they would like
him to play, and how she would recommend that he follows up – also to evaluate if he should
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discuss with Hillary upfront and not waste any cycle if she is not willing to support.
When comes the day of their next meeting, Obama sees a two hour block on his calendar with a title
that makes him smile, but also leaves him a little concerned: << Earth Our Country - Hillary will
join by conference call >>. “She (Hillary) must be onto something already,” he thinks – “true she
doesn’t have much to do at the moment, she must have looked at this with Bill and Al inside out
already”. He has learned to – carefully - trust her despite Bill, who always tried to play big Daddy at
the beginning of his tenure, and his rather awkward competitive start with her. But now that the
seats are probably going to turn in her favor … It’s going to be interesting, to say the least –
certainly a little painful for him when/if she takes the presidential baton. “I have been the first Black
man, she will be the first woman” is his response when people wonder how he feels about this future
transition.
The young lady introduces the meeting, she had sent Barack and Hillary a crisp three pages
memorandum upfront, and she is surfing on the concept quickly to take the pulse of Barack and
Hillary’s reactions before going too far out. She is nervous, but remains superbly articulated. He
listens, and reflects – definitely an interesting presentation. Hillary remains silent. He translates for
himself: “She must be liking it – but she wants me to take a position first - or she would already be
arguing”. His superbly calm brain starts to analyze the project; he tries to understand its impact and
implications.
He doesn’t like the unpredictable, and this project could go in any direction really. Will his
electorate read this positively, or will they categorize him as a stranger again if he dons the
Universalist costume ? He already has trouble in the eyes of many of fitting the mold of the true
American. This has limited his abilities to take more international positions in the past. He has
waited for several years before going to Africa. Is this paranoia that he will be viewed as a traitor
because he is not a WASP ? He hesitates. But the judges will be all over the World, not only
Americans. What has been his challenge internally will become his strength internationally. Maybe
he is afraid of the unknown ?
Still, he starts to sees the evidence: this is the political solution to the small jolts, indicating a much
greater upheaval on the horizon. “Sooner or later, through Democracy or War, Mankind will have
to resolve the issue of a concerted planetary governance, or we will self-destruct.” Nonetheless, he
is having trouble with the solution: will men solve this problem themselves ? Is the collective folly
of local interest and emotional attachment to identity to forever dominate, leaving universal logic
condemned as too intellectual or elitist ? Does he risk losing all credibility in such a battle, where
nothing is tangible – not even his support ? “Who will side with me on this – Hillary, Bill and Al,
Joe, John, Angela, David, maybe Nicolas if he succeeds to come back ?”
Even Obama only has one life to leave his mark. He is, after all, just one little man in the immensity
of the Universe, just like the rest of us. He needs a light to advance, and the last few years of power
have left him quite satisfied, but slightly bitter. He sees the limits in his work. He is humbled by
this last great combat to come and by this agitated electoral ocean.
As often, he had confided with Michelle – his ultimate confident - before the meeting. “What do
you think Honey ? Is it possible or pure madness ?” - “Do you believe it is?” she responded. Barack
sighed, “I’m not sure. I know it is fundamentally right as an idea, but I don’t know if it is realistic
or feasible. And I don’t know that I could pull this off”. Michelle looked at him in the eye, “Why ?
If you are the messenger, you will make it a reality, you personify the project – and you will be
right, because this is right. It will happen during your lifetime, or much later. So you will have a
new job one day, or will be only an evangelist, who was too early for his times. In either case, it
cannot go wrong. It all depends on you – do you believe, do you want to carry this flag for the rest
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of your life ? Because there probably be no way back.”
He did not respond. He knew she was right, and all he wanted was her “down to earth”
reinforcement, which he had always loved in her. He alone can find the answer. Maybe this
message will offer him a ladder that he can use to climb above the domestic bi-polarization that has
strangled his whole tenure. Maybe the international infatuation will give him the momentum to
break apart partisan sclerosis and justify the initial dream that pushed him, positioning Obama III in
a transcendental context. Maybe this message will receive the endorsement of his peers, and
together they will decide to courageously admit their own weaknesses and their willingness to unite
so that they may dare bring forth a solution to this problem that is both integrated (global) and
integral (economic-political-social-ecological), and possibly military in the short term. It is a
problem that they cannot stop alone, it is a siphon that is pulling us all down. Maybe, in this just
cause, Obama will find the courage that has been missing and will help push the issue to the front of
his true great personal battle – racism. This cause is a much easier way to deal with it, as it becomes
a sub-set of a broader dimension. If losing for such a cause is grandiose and historic, all of his
struggles and hopes might be justified in the eyes of the men and women who put their Faith in him.
“Barack, have we lost you ?” asks Hillary. She knows how to get him back in a call when he goes
silent for too long – “He is hesitant again” she thinks … “He doesn’t make a decision right away,
but the idea is ripening in him, slowly but surely. Then it will stick.”
“Hillary, I think that this is fascinating. But when I try to position it in the context of what it actually
means, beyond just playing the Universalist Pope – which many will love and as many will hate – I
need to evaluate a little better how our key partners will react. With your broad international view
what’s your take ?”
“Barack, I have been thinking about it as well, and if I want to be the next President. And if I do
want to, for which cause. It is obvious that this crisis – not only the Economy but the result of the
emergence of the rest of the World, and the resources, and the climate - is going to become worse
before it - maybe - stabilizes.” She continues: “However, we can’t admit it in a national debate
where our role is to explain how we can resolve everything. I do not know either how this idea can
turn, and how much popular support it will raise. We should begin to discretely speak with leaders
of the few countries that we can “trust”. In particular in Europe, this could be a life jacket in the
middle of the mess they are dealing with right now. We take their pulse as they also hear what we
hear, and we then decide how we take this to the next level. Frankly, if I stand a chance to become
the next US President, I will be opened to partner with you on this. It is a great thing for the US, it
gives a project to both of us which makes sense, and it serves my intimate beliefs – after these years
around the World – that we cannot continue like this. It is going to blow up, sooner or later. I am
pretty sure that Bill and Al would be with me on this too, and John is so upset with the situation that
he is finding in the Middle-East, no question with him either. Actually, I could see that we could get
the Party behind us on this. Also, many of the Republicans will identify in this a just cause.”
She then responded more specifically to Barack’s question, painting her views of how each key
country/leader would react in the next few weeks and over time, if Obama was announcing that he
raises such a flag, with a broad support of the US Democrats.
She assessed that the most likely support to join the United Democratic States – “the low hanging
fruits” - would come from the USA (leveraging the argument that they would be the funding nation
federating all democracies), Australia (feeling isolated long term in Asia), Canada (proud of their
independence but likely to understand the case), the UK (they cannot stand Europe, and would
follow the US and their ex-Commonwealth friends), Germany (they are so much concerned with
their lack of self-defense against Russia and their impossibility to agree with France and the
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Southern Europeans on a common European project), South-Korea (they cannot make it alone and
are turning paranoid against China and the North), and Mexico (they would fancy reuniting the
Mexican family across borders, and offer a huge market). Such rallies would firmly anchor the first
wave already both in Europe, and put a first strategic foot in Asia and Latin America. Korea and
Mexico would be critical “wins”, in order to demonstrate that this is not just an Anglo-Saxon Union,
the ultimate alliance – and resistance - of the West.
Israel would also be willing to join, assuming a long list of commitments would be made as to the
confirmation of their Jewish state. As usual Netanyahu would try to make it look like he is all for it,
but then dance around it due to lack of confidence with his position of unalienable security. Hillary
would prefer to avoid such decisions upfront, as they would alienate the Arabs immediately – this
would be an irrecoverable mistake. So Israel would have to be dealt with separately, together with a
resolution of the Palestinian equation (a merger guaranteed by the Union would make sense). She
thinks that Shimon Perez – who can be trusted - would end up being the final deal maker, after he
would see the federation been solidified after the first wave, and the fate of his people therefore
guaranteed by an new World order. He would see the greatness in this for Israel.
A large second group – “the maybe” – would represent a hard individual conviction work for
Barack and the team. Each country would ask for some bilateral agreement, confirmation of the
protection of their local specifics for a generation at least:
Japan comes first, as an interesting case. Before the new Abe regime, she would have put Japan
together with Korea, in the first wave, siding with the US in fear of China. But now, with some
renewed confidence and a strong leader, it might get harder at least initially. At least, Abesan can be
dealt with as an effective champion, he has no fear of bold policies, and a more solid support base
than any Prime Minister since Koizumi. He is an important contingency, as probably re-elected
beyond 2016. Will he weight his nationalism against the bonus of anchoring Japan on the
democratic side ? “Maybe” or “a little later”. Ultimately though, Japan is in.
Brazil will join over time. Their popular turbulence in the short term may delay a frank democratic
decision, as people in the street lately appear to cloud any position from their political
establishment.
Poland, Italy, Spain, the Nordics, and the Benelux are potential immediate followers too, as they
stick to Democracy and should embrace the idea, if they feel that their identities will be protected.
The third group that Hillary calls – “a little later” – would take real tough arguments, as they would
appear to try to sabotage the Union in the first place, and first publicly announce that this is a bad
idea. Their fear that it would flood their own identity would blurry their judgment. There would be
huge internal divisions, and the referendums would foster “historic” and endless debates on the
meaning and future of their own national identity. Over time though, in the matter of a couple of
years, as the first two waves would happen and prove the process, they would sense isolation and
finally give up through some intensive moments of internal political drama. They would eventually
include the critical first wave of Muslim countries as well. India, Indonesia, France (it would take
Sarkozy to replace Hollande and eventually use this project as a core magnet for his re-election),
Argentina (an opportunity to escape from their momentary illusionist nationalism), Turkey (the
secular Ata Turk legacy would finally prevail), Switzerland, and some nations in the Middle-East
and Africa. South-Africa (need a post Mandela boost), the Emirates (this is good for business),
Saudi (better inside than outside), Egypt (let us find an anchor anywhere of we are in a terrible
mess), Northern Africa (serious about joining Democracy), Singapore (business first) and Malaysia
(in need to belong to mainstream).
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Finally there would be “the open resistance”, who would – of course - use all weapons to explode
the initiative: Russia, Iran, North-Korea and the tail of the rogue states. The question here would be
how the people would react, in front of this immense international popular wave. They might be big
surprises. This can be the missing opportunity for the Arab Spring to spread across Iran and Russia
if not North-Korea. People might pressure their leaders to follow, or instead their leaders might
succeed for a while, to raise their fear – religious or secular - that this is yet another new trick from
the West to threaten them. There is a genuine chance though to peacefully flip their castle of cards.
China is the trillion dollar question, as the outcome is absolutely uncertain. Most Chinese are highly
educated and will read positively through the process. Will the Communist Party take the chance of
such a grandiose exit, and use this process to pass the baton ? It could be a golden opportunity for
China to truly close the loop of the economic momentum that they have created, and join the
leadership of the Planet.
Hillary was clear and crisp. She pauses. Obama agrees with the analysis, as he also senses that
Hillary is clearly supportive. She could find there a nice new wave to ride as well. And together they
can most likely convince the Party, and at least get started. At this point, he dares to take a position.
He shares that he sees a brilliant opportunity for Hillary and himself. He is enthusiastic about the
messianic message, and surprisingly confesses that this is an altitude that he has been hoping to find
for his exit. This would make his post-presidential life a new beginning, which is even better.
He and Hillary decide as next steps to share calls to be made to friendly international leaders, and
test their appetite as well. The first responses are personally encouraging, but as expected politically
polite, prudent, but open. David Cameron wants to have a word with the Queen – so he buys
himself some time. To Barack’s surprise, one person of critical importance gives her immediate
support: Angela. She confesses that she has had many sleepless nights following nightmares of a
future cataclysm in Europe that she doesn’t know how to stop. She tells him of the unpredictable
whirlwind of her life going from Communism to a new Germany and her battle for Europe. She is
spent with frustration and yearning for a true union in Europe and with fear of the old Germany if
she fails. She wants to look strong, but instead she feels like she has no capability to resolve the
historic equation that she is facing – primarily because she is German. Her final feedback: she really
wonders if they should think of Europe joining as a regional and unified group, or if each nation
should decide individually.
Barack continues to ruminate. He is not an impulsive man. He continues to consult his peers and to
spend time every day with his young advisor who doesn’t let the idea go, while Hillary keeps him
posted on her discussions on a weekly basis as well, and has now involved John Kerry – who
supports too.
The idea has started to find its way to friends, and friends of friends, inside and outside the Party,
also in the business community, and across the international organizations. The wave has swelled
on the Internet where one reads that Obama may be considering to get involved at last, and prepares
an historic declaration on global governance.
It is time for Obama to decide how to prepare for his coming out. He finally seals his decision: he
and his camp have been scrambling long enough to try to recreate the energy and dream that carried
his first election. Even at the heart of his party many are now passive and disappointed. Though
she has never left his side, Hillary has started to distance herself, he needs her to tighten the ranks
with her credibility, and she seems to be very enthusiastic about the project. Her aura in the Party,
her international experience, and her ability to control and gauge the great visionaries of the party
would be hard to replace. Her connection to Bill and Al was also important, as they never were
fully behind Obama; they never rolled up their sleeves to get him elected and are doing even less for
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his popularity these days.
He was missing a grand vision that could revive everything. A vision that could fill him with the
fervor he sublimed seven years earlier. He needs a total energy for his last battle as US President, so
why not make it the greatest of all – and shift the front to the one of the Planet ? He sees that the
opposing party, up to now weakened by internal divisions around the Tea Party, is re-unifying for a
last offensive and get ready with plenty of time before the next election. This could be quite a
divisive debate among Republicans, with the modern side and Wall Street all for it, and the ultraconservatives viscerally opposed. They are preparing a devastating attack, confronting him on
unemployment, the economy, his anti-business style, his softness in Washington, his inability to
fulfill promises, and his lack of international leadership. This attack will do harm to anyone that
will stand supporting his legacy – most likely Hillary.
There is but one idea. There must be a transcendental program, in the likes of Roosevelt’s New
Deal, that will go beyond the tactical cleavages, and will surprise and call forth the multitudes. It
will be a new direction for the country and will be built beyond borders, to bring forth an integrated
solution to the greatest mess of all times. He must have a message that brings back the essence of
the American dream, but moves it to a global scale.
He decides to have Hillary lead a think tank for the next ninety days and review the potential
scenarios to move forward and catch the wave. The young lady who got him to pay attention to the
Earth Our Country movement earlier, has volunteered to be the team’s secretary – she is doing well
with Hillary, and he enjoys her direct style. She keeps cornering him each time he tries to delay or
think a little longer, which is fun - at least for such a lateral project, he is fine being pushed a little.
They will review the progress regularly, with the objective to have defined the top priorities for a
global government. These priorities would become be the foundation of his program as President
candidate for the future Federation. They will pull representatives of all their international peers
who have agreed to support the think tank – Hillary was pretty much spot on with her assessment of
who would be inclined to join the first wave of reflection.
In parallel, he starts to prepare with his communication team a symbolic discourse – henceforth
historic. He decides to catch the opportunity of his next trip to the Middle-East, and launch his
appeal from Jerusalem.
His speech begins like this:
“I want to make today an important declaration, which will surprise many of you. As I get closer to
the end of my tenure, I have been reflecting about what I want to do next, how I can continue to
serve a great cause and make a difference in the World in which we live.
I also have a Dream. A Dream for a Universal and Sustainable Peace. A Dream in which our Earth
becomes our Country.
On March 31st. 1968 in Washington DC, Martin Luther King, in his last visionary speech,
challenged us to make three revolutions. We should develop a World perspective. We should
eradicate the vestiges of Racism. We should get rid of poverty. He pledged that our World has
become a neighborhood, and that we should learn, altogether, how to make it a brotherhood.
We are now standing here, in Jerusalem, almost fifty years later. On all fronts we have made huge
progress around the World, and there is still a lot to be done, as it can be seen right here in this city
where the roads of three civilizations got intertwined. These three revolutions are not only
incomplete, they face the risk of a counter-revolution, a risk of moving backwards, as the
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universalization of Mankind stands in the middle of a bridge – and our countries are hesitant – do
we move forward, or back to the apparent safety zone.
But as importantly, since 1968, we have discovered a fourth revolution. Reverend King could not
have foreseen it yet, as its signs were not yet totally apparent. We are the first generation to
discover the impact of our dominance on Earth – global warming – and the great ecologic wall
ahead of all of us, as we continue to deal with our consumerist frenzy, as fully independent nations,
competing for resources.
I believe that the time has come to deal with these four revolutions at the same time, as they all
come cross each other. They emerge as the opportunities of our new global civilization, if we want it
to be sustainable for the generations ahead of us.
I believe that the time has come to build the union of all the nations, of all men and women on
Earth, and to federate them in the United Democratic States.
I won’t be President of the United States of America for much longer – and maybe this is a good
thing. I have given all my soul and energy to my country, which I love and cherish above everything
else. But as I tried to solve the critical issues of our time, leading the most powerful country in the
World, I have got to realize that there is a limit to what one single country can do, against these four
revolutions. Even more, because we have countries, these four revolutions cannot happen. We are
blocked in the middle of this bridge, and face the biggest challenge that any generation before us has
contemplated.
As much as I love my country, I love Earth to which it belongs. When I look at our challenges at the
level of our blue Planet, I can see solutions. The impossible becomes suddenly possible. All
together, we can do, what competing nations cannot. We can transform the wall in front of us into a
sound wall, and jump into a great future.
I am responding to an emerging popular movement, to many demands that I have received, which
we hear and feel in so many places, this immense desire for our global Brotherhood.
There is a need for someone to take this flag, and lead our fragmented community, at least a step
further in this direction. I am announcing today, that I have decided to dedicate the rest of my life to
help bridge the irreconcilables. Countries, and Earth. War and Peace. Rich and poor. Identities and
tolerance. Pure race and mix blood. Economic development and sustainable society. Local and
global. Opportunistic and strategic.
I did not forget that I was granted the Nobel Peace Prize five years ago. Frankly, all I have done so
far to deserve it, is not to start or join any new war. What I am offering you now, is much more
profound. It is a game change for all. It is about building a new World for our children. One of
sustainable Peace, and a sustainable society for a new page in History. I want to help us all invent a
new and better World, one in which we all share the power of global governance.”
He glorifies the message, creating an immense surprise, with a reverberation across the World. The
echo vibrates everywhere. Within minutes, what was an utopian idea has turned into the latest hot
item that all journalists and bloggers were commenting. The linkage with his Nobel Peace Prize is
unanimous – this is a new Obama, he suddenly starts to be compared with the Gandhi, Mandela, and
Martin Luther King at the same time. From the President of the World’s most powerful country, he
shift the way people look at him, now more as a living symbol, the hero of an inclusive message,
instead of the chief of a sometimes exclusive power. The media celebrate an historic moment, a
defining speech - “I also have a Dream - the Obama’s declaration from Jerusalem.”
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In the hours after his address, messages of Presidents or Prime Ministers support echo around the
World. They come with total alignment from Berlin, Ottawa, Canberra, Seoul, London, Mexico
City. A wave of more balanced support follows from many capitals. Moscow and Beijing distance
themselves, but they are clearly disquieted by the immediate echo of popular content in their own
countries. First silent, they then demonstrate in the following weeks the first overtures toward a
potential participation in a World government, by committing to solidify their own paths toward
Democracy. Reactions are hard to read in the Middle-East, polarized between the modern
secularists and the Muslim bigots.
The American political scene turns around, and repositions itself around a fundamental constructive
debate of a surprising high altitude. The Tea Party tries its hardest to vilify this new vision by
saying it is a threat to national independence. But, the Republican majority moves into a positive
debate because they are fervent supporters of economic globalization and view this project as a
chance to direct free exchange and stabilize the economy as well as perpetuate the leadership role of
America, and to defend he prevalence of Democracy.
Obama commits himself to continue to focus on running the US until the end of his mandate, as this
is what he was elected for. However, in parallel, he is beginning to plan for a process to transition
with the first wave of countries – including the US - which have declared that they intend to hold a
referendum. An optimistic yearning conquers World affairs; pressure on currencies and speculation
calms. The idea of a better future is becoming credible. The big subject in the media and the
Internet is the construction and make up of the new federalist dimension. Who will do what ? How
will the regions structure themselves, or not ? What will be the great political axis ?
A group of multi-national politicians is put in charge of adapting the American constitution for the
new Federation. Until the Federation is established, the so called “Founding Fathers” have agreed
that the UN will be empowered to facilitate the process. Ban Ki-moon has offered for the UN to
self-destruct at the time of the creation of the Federation, which will formally replace them. The
Founding Fathers are the leaders who have decided to have their country opt immediately for a
popular referendum, and have their people respond to the single question: “Do you want tour
country to join the United Democratic States ?”. From a first small nucleus, the strong momentum is
starting to blurry the lines of the first and second waves though. There are signs that they might end
up joining altogether, and there may even be some members of the third group, who are now back
pedaling trying to catch the universal wave as well.
Obama has announced that he will run for the election of the first President of the United
Democratic States. No one has yet decided to run against Obama, but many rumors are circulating.
He certainly appears to be the candidate to beat. Some claim that Inácio Lula, Bill Gates, Al Gore,
Gerhard Schroeder, Tony Blair, Ahmoud Abbas, and Nicolas Sarkozy are all thinking of their own
candidacy, but little is certain at this point.
While the constitution and the political transition path is being prepared by the multi-national group
under the Founding Fathers and the UN, Obama is touring the World to maximize visibility, meet
with his peers, and calibrate the messaging of his future campaign. He is energized by the feedback
that he is receiving, polls in major democracies show that he is on the upswing.
A global Democratic Party is being formed, and it is anticipated that there will be primaries, to
which Barack intends to participate. Other global parties are in the making, with a lot of talks taking
place between national parties who try to form international alliances.
The Obama’s Global Think Tank under Hillary is very active, assembling the big ideas of “The
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Solution” around a common program of eight future top priorities. They have gone through several
iterations already, including several working sessions with Obama himself providing feedback and
thoughts. The team is giving itself another six months to validate the main outline for a long-term
policy that will transcend parties and states, and that will be a sort of charter that Obama can use, as
a platform for his future election. Obama is making sure that progress is being shared with the
Founding Fathers, and also feeds everyone else to various degrees of detail, as it is clear that the
first program will need broad international support, and should be a platform which helps everyone
visualize where this is all going.
Even though this charter is still in its preliminary stages and strongly confidential at the middle of
2014, it is already formatted as a hundred pages summary after a few iterations, and provides a
pretty good view of how the final document might be laid out. It is composed of eight main axes,
which, at this point in its construction, are broken down into eight mini-chapters. At this stage it is
just an impressionist image of what might be, and a scenario that will help prepare the Great
Solution.
It provides a dramatic new look at the challenges we face, as it put into question old facts, and serve
to support the realization of the work to come. Still, the team recognizes that this multi-dimensional
scenario lacks the solidity and in-depth, specialized detail that will only be assembled and realized
by a larger group of full-time international, multi-disciplined experts. This is intentional, as Barack
and the Founding Fathers never wanted to delegate this project to “experts”. In fact, they decided to
themselves choose the foundation and the architecture of the common charter before entrusting it to
the “specialists” as a next level initiative. Barack and Hillary in particular are paranoid that they
should not lose their emerging legitimacy and importance in the great machine of centralized
bureaucracy, so experts and specialists are selectively used to drill down into specifics, not to
browse the big picture. This is especially true for the Europeans as well, who want to avoid
reproducing the wandering sometimes seen in Brussels. All agree to maintain a hand together in the
established direction, just until the future constitution puts a governing machine in place – under the
aegis of a universally elected and recognized President.
In due time all critiques and constructive propositions for improvement to the system will be
welcome. The subject is so vast that it will need millions of contributors, and it is planned to make
the Obama’s Think Tank document public on the Internet in order to stimulate interest in the
election to come. A worldwide geopolitical blog - open to all and as preparation for the United
Democratic States – is under construction, at www.earthourcountry.com.
We have being able to obtain the current draft of the program, and will share it with our readers in
the next chapters of this book. It is articulated in eight chapters, one for each of the priorities of our
first universal governance, as concocted by the Think Tank – by order of importance:
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“The
Power of
Global
Governance”
The first governance program for the United Democratic States
Prepared by the Barack Obama’s Global Think Tank – June 2014 - version 6.03
1. Universal Peace and Justice
2. Zero Carbon
3. Sustainable Development
4. Feed the Planet
5. Birth rate, Migrations and Identities
6. New Global Economy
7. Universal Education and Communication
8. Space Exploration and Colonization
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History of civilizations, until this day, has been one of nearly non-stop wars. Clearly, dark forces
have haunted the paths of power since the beginning of historic times – at least since the Neolithic
revolution, and the creation of territories that are associated with groups of settled peoples. These
forces have managed infinite times to move entire societies into violence, sometimes even with
suicidal implications. Countries, religions, and ethnicities that are not tied to a specific border area,
are as much of the reason that these instincts for ware are put in motion. We are therefore all led to
believe that War is part of Mankind, and there will always have to be wars.
This is probably untrue. Instead, there is no evidence at all that War has existed before the Neolithic
revolution. While at first sight History would demonstrate to us that violence between men has an
anthropological foundation, and that we have been designed to endlessly fight among each other,
prehistoric clues lead to the opposite conclusion. While it is difficult to know the degree of
aggression between prehistoric clans, scientists now believe that primitive societies were not driven
by war. It has been shown that there was conflict and it was violent, but it typically didn’t leave to
death, and bones show that injuries didn’t lead to death and healed after a while, which suggests that
intertribal war was specifically about justice, personal conflicts, and not large-scale battles leading
to systematic elimination with death sentence.
Recent scientific findings suggest that war is not an innate part of human nature, but rather the
acquired behavior of our post-Neolithic territory based civilizations. “This research questions the
idea that war was ever part of our ancestral past” (Patrick Soderberg, Abo Academy University, Finland, Published in the
journal Science, reported by BBC News, July 2013). The research was based on isolated tribes that were studied
when they still existed over the last century. These tribes lived like hunter-gatherers did 12,000
years ago. Out of 148 violent men-inflicted violent deaths documented, very few were caused by
War. Most were homicides led by personal motives and feuds, and 85 percent took place within the
same tribe.
The conclusion is that Men did not naturally evolve as warriors, until 12,000 years ago. But as the
hunter-gatherers transitioned to farming, groups became territorial with social structures isolated
from each other, which turned into countries, and war became dominant as we now know it, and
across History.
The first advantage of being one great, democratic, federal country will be to obtain Universal
Peace and to have the means to maintain that Peace. There will no longer be an organized enemy
with whom to fight. As country-based History disappears, so does War. Rather than massing arms
and preparing for War, states will instead articulate political programs, and make their stand through
a democratic process at the state or federal level.
War exists because countries compete with each other, thus oppose one another. If countries
become states of the same federal, democratic country, in which minorities are respected and
protected, War will become pointless. It will be pointless because there will be no case for wars any
longer as all people are part of the same Federation, and because the military issue against the
central government is lost in advance. Eliminating sovereign military countries and converting
them into states in a Federation of United Democratic States will kill military War, and we will be
back to individualistic issues resolution only – which Justice will deal with, instead of mass battles.
We will move back to our anthropological nature, like in Prehistoric times, before countries
invented mass-battles and wars as the tool to survive or expand. Civil War will remain theoretically
possible, but that supposes that Democracy wouldn’t be sufficient to prevent it – if we look at
democracies in History, civil wars are truly exceptional cases – while external wars are the rule.
The immense difference between a Planet governed by the United Democratic States and today, is
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that instead of countries being instruments of War, the democratic, global Federation will become
the instrument of Peace. Its role will be to regulate the local issues among people and places. It will
exist for the general interest of all men and women, and not to serve one single group – ethnic,
geographic or religious. It will be magnanimous. Its first priority will be to manage proactively the
seeds of tension among everyone, and organize legitimate and peaceful solutions. It will be
multiethnic, multi-religious, and multicultural. The Federation alone will have the institutional and
physical power to vanquish conflicts instead of stimulating or perpetrating any violence.
With one single country, there will no longer be a need for War, nor will there be a need for a
veritable army any longer. Progressively, the armies of the World will reappoint their personnel to
other positions of peaceful public service and, of course, to the internal security. In time, only a
light force for global intervention will remain, whose objective will be to fight against terrorist
groups, and to turn around any exceptional security problems that the federal government might
face.
We recommend five priorities for the future government to address, in order to build sustainable
Peace:
1) A durable resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict:
Right now, a few million people are hostages of a situation that beyond themselves, indefinitely
holds the Peace of billions. As proposed earlier, Jerusalem could be turned into a universal
protected sanctuary, an open and international capital city, that would be a mini state, similar to
Washington DC in the US. Recognition of Israel and Palestine together as a single, unified,
multiethnic, secular state, under the permanent guarantee of Peace from the Federation , would
finally bring a symbolic end to the incessant conflict that has been at the heart of the destruction of
the East – Western relationship for 60 years. The “Peace of the Wise” would not have a winner or a
loser but would guarantee Jews, Arabs, and all other ethnicities there, the right to live freely and in
Peace on the territory of grand-Israel. The federal force of global intervention will be affected to this
sensible demilitarized theater until there is a stabilization of emotions and a common distaste for
War. The Israeli-Palestinian state government will be constructed and comprised of both Arabs and
Jews based on a system of positive discrimination for filling key positions of the administration.
2) The eradication of Al-Qaeda and other terrorist movements:
Al-Qaeda is a global movement. Its main business is direct Jihad against the Great Satan of
America and indirectly against the Occident as a whole. Like all terrorist movements, it draws its
existence and heroism from popular recognition – legitimized or not – by radical Islamists, with the
help of private financing, and quite likely indirect public financing as well. Rather than going to
War with the region as a whole and demonizing all inhabitants of the area, we must reach out to the
militants of Al-Qaeda – and to those who feel compelled by religious Faith and conviction to
support it - by making them understand that Jihad is henceforth completely worthless with the
emergence of a World government in which Islam and all Arabs will be completely welcomed and
integrated.
In the meantime, al-Qaeda will continue to be battled without mercy by a federal intervention force
of the new government who will be able to intervene anywhere with total global support (popular
and official), and thus with much greater success. At the same time, a great effort will be made to
increase communication between Muslim leaders and the leaders of al-Qaeda, to convince and help
them dispose of their weapons and rejoin the mainstream – much like the IRA who eventually
participated in the emergence of a democratic process in Ireland.
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3) The progressive destabilization of “Rogue States” and their integration – voluntary or
not – into the Federation:
Following the same logic of communication and openness, totalitarian and despotic states will
continue to break down internally like dominoes falling as they are surrounded by the inevitable
advance of global Democracy. The call for change is already occurring as demonstrated in the Arab
Spring and the tensions in Russia. These internal tensions will accelerate with the creation of the
UDS but the Federation will also offer a gracious and historic way for these leaders to bow out: any
despot could say “I can now remove myself from this role because the World is becoming one
country, and my role will become unnecessary.” When they will willingly resign, the leaders will
not be pursued but their usurped wealth will be redistributed to the state or other legitimate owners.
The witch hunting will be avoided because the witches will have voluntarily retired; the priority will
be on the future and not on exorcising a painful past.
More than ten African despots are still enjoying the pleasure of eternal power. So does Assad (not
for long), Castro, Kim Jong Un, and others. The resurrection of Africa in particular is now occurring
through political cleansing, and the installation of transparent democratic regimes will be the
geopolitical groundwork for the new global government.
4) The destruction of the World’s military stockpiles:
All armies in the Federation will be unified under a central commandment. However progressively
as the issues above are being resolved, weaponry and armies will become essentially unnecessary,
as well as the all powerful arms industry, whose money will need to be reinvested in clean energies.
The nuclear arsenal carries a heavy burden: all nuclear warheads should be destroyed – first
centralized under the control of the federal global leader – and nuclear networks and procedures
should be redirected as much as possible to civil applications – eventually to facilitate the
proliferation of nuclear energy plants if technology fully guarantees their safety in the future.
A central and symbolic military nuclear force will be maintained in order to continue to control the
technology, but also to be used in case of a threat to Humanity such as the re-emergence of a rogue
state, an uncontrollable terrorist threat, the risk of a meteoric impact, or (who knows one day) an
aggressive external (to Earth). Since it is absolutely impossible to know whether a warhead might
be reinvented under the cover of a private terrorist, the central power cannot be completely devoid
of the technology and should maintain a minimum level to protect Humanity.
5) The creation of a lean international federal intervention force:
We recommend that a minuscule and rapid force of only a hundred thousand troops or so would be
maintained, for use in times of Peace for civil interventions like natural disasters, grand public
works projects and anti-terrorist procedures. This elite mini army will be both multi-ethnic and
multi-lingual and will be comprised of the top of the top military professionals from all over the
globe. It will report directly to the supreme commandment of the President, and will not be used
militarily except for highly strategic causes that concern the general interest of all.
At the same time, as armies get dismissed, former military personnel can gradually be reappointed
to public security positions with an objective of annually reducing their numbers until their level is
adjusted to the real needs of a civil and peaceful society.
Of course, the intent is not to disarm militaristic states to replace them with a global police state. So
the process of demilitarization should be democratically monitored and done in transparency. Public
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paranoia will be needed to continue to force counterbalances, and ensure that the Federation remains
in the hands of the people.
The annual cost of War is difficult to measure and extremely variable as a function of the nature of
conflicts. It is difficult to quantify the price of the dead, the ecological and material devastation and
eventual reconstruction, the paralysis of impacted economies, and the after effects, which can last
decades. However, the current cost of the actual weapons and military personnel around the World
(which is a fraction of the total cost of wars) is precisely calibrated and in 2009 represented a global
expenditure of around $1.5 trillion per year, or about three percent of the World GDP.
Extraordinarily, this amount corresponds exactly, in order of magnitude, to the realistic annual
investment that experts evaluate as necessary and possibly sufficient to halt climate warming on the
Planet.
Therefore, the plan of the government should be to transform almost the entire military budget of
each country into a global investment program, for the creation of a green economy, that will be
based on the promotion of clean energy. This program should aim at financing the accelerated
reduction of fossil fuel energies, which today represent more than eighty percent of our total energy
consumption.
Universal Peace will project Man onto a new page of his History, henceforth political instead of
military, and will offer us the economic capacity to finance our ecologic salvation. The new
universal civilization will establish itself on the fundamental values that the founding fathers of
Democracy held dear: liberty, equality, and justice for all.
The principle of Universal Justice for all will transcend local laws, in the framing of the federal
constitution. Each state can conserve its judicial framework, in order to guarantee its identities and
customs, as long as those local laws do not contradict the fundamental laws of the federal
constitution, which protects all citizens, and upon which citizens call when necessary.
The new constitution will structured around the modern elementary rights of the Homo Sapiens
Universalis:
•
The right to vote for all adult citizens over the age of 18, in the place they reside regardless
of gender or background, in a principle of absolute equality between all human beings.
•
Equal rights between men and women, regardless of local cultures, which have traditionally
favored men, and regardless of sexuality. Contraception will be recognized as a good thing,
in the framework of women’s rights and as an aid in limiting birth rates.
•
Equal rights between members of all ethnicities and minorities, with positive discrimination
where necessary, to ensure the equal education and work opportunities in a framework
inspired by the American example.
•
Inalienable right and duty of all children to go to school until at least the age of 16, and
banning of work before the same age of 16.
•
Right to minimum medical assistance for all, which will be supported by the development of
a basic and medical infrastructure in each geography, and for which the number one priority
will be the battle against tropical and endemic epidemics by massive vaccinations. It is
understood though that the basic minimum of care cannot be the same everywhere, for a
long time, given the scale of existing disparities – the policy will be one of long-term global
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convergence.
•
Right to be assumed innocent until proven guilty, as well as the right to appeal to the federal
justice system if it might contradict the ruling of the state where one resides.
•
Questions about the right to a decent global minimum income are incompatible with the
differences in level of living standard – with a variation between 1 and 100 between the
wealthiest and poorest states currently. This delicate subject will be approached in a logic of
convergence as well, over the very long term, an immediate equalization or even on the scale
of a single generation being economically inconceivable.
The subject of Human Rights is today be the object of constant arbitration in the relationships
between democracies and totalitarian states – even the more advanced ones like China – but
typically the economic priorities win .... This subject has become almost taboo within economic
trade partnerships and political relations, and one can easily see that this prudence and shameful
humanitarian compromises on the part of democracies who strive for economic partnerships, has not
served universal justice as a cause. In fact, universal justice regresses instead of progresses, in light
of this pragmatic and utilitarian tolerance.
This explains why the new federal government should decide clearly, without misunderstanding or
pernicious compromise for the future, and put a definite stick on the ground for Human Rights
“intolerance”.
It is also why we favor the scenario of an initial solid alliance of great democracies – not offering to
the non-democratic great powers to join until they have a political about face. Otherwise, we will
continue to swim in trouble waters like the current G20 has done, demonstrating the complications,
and basically rewarding unacceptable behaviors.
Today, the concert of nations is weakened by its compromise on Human Rights, because it
involuntarily re-enforces totalitarianism, allowing it to insert itself into the general political and
economical machine with zero handicap. It undermines its opposition by positioning power, in
place of international legitimacy. The new global federal government will place democratic and
federalist values at the absolute summit, without compromise for states, and even less compromise
for itself.
We recommend to inspire its universal pledge of allegiance, fraternal and secular, by that of the
USA before 1954:
“I pledge allegiance to my Planet and to the Republic for which it stands, one country, indivisible,
with Peace, Liberty, Equality, and Justice for all.”
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The World government will have, for the first time, all that the countries have been individually
missing. He will have at its disposition the political power and economic means available to undo
the human and planetary crisis that is – potentially - if we continue on our current path of fossil
based consumerist development, driving us toward a Great Wall.
Its priority will be to put Humanity on a new path, supporting itself for the very long-term, and
moving us toward a society that will emit carbon and other gases (methane being the next big risk)
at a low enough level that the Earth ecosystem can reabsorb them – the ecological level of
equilibrium that has been baptized, “Zero Carbon.”
The future government will endeavor to put a complete framework in place that will permit all
people to eat, to live at a comfortable temperature, to have electricity, to move about freely, to play,
to produce goods for consumption, and to dispose of its waste without further destabilizing or
altering the fragile balance of our natural environment.
With the political problem solved, the next decision to make is one of economics or financing:
where can the necessary funds be found – estimated to be a little less than 2% of world GDP each
year ? The choice that we recommend is to convert military budgets in order to immediately inject
at least 2% of the GDP toward this transformation - $1.5 trillion per year.
The transfer of the military budget to the Carbon Zero financing will – only - constitute the public
part of the total budget, it will act as the ignition system of the new model. Once the proof of public
commitment demonstrated, the addition of private investments will follow, with a snowball effect,
the two combining with the objective of having the private part reaching a point of relaying the
public ignition. We are not for constant injections of big government money – and support a free
liberal model - but believe that the government has the duty to drive societal changes if and only if
their transition goes again the natural economical flux, which is the case here.
The entire economy is awaiting a mutation, as we all hear and see the effects of global warming, but
do not see anything changing. It will occur when the federal government will engage itself for the
long-term, offering up the initial core investment. All investment funds of the World have tried, and
burnt their fingers starting too early. They know it is coming, but fear that the time is still wrong to
go big. They are the sitting at the gates, waiting for massively investing in the “green economy.” It
is just a question of the right timing. We are convinced that a strong signal by the new unified
government will trigger a tidal wave of investments, of the likes we have never seen since the
emergence of ICT (Information and Communication Technologies) in the eighties.
Unfortunately, moves like this have always suffered from the incessant stop and go policies of
national governments. This has stemmed from equivocal messages about the reality of climate
change (as seen in the previous American administration), or more recently with “scandals” of
scientists providing fake research reports (the University of East Anglia). It also must be recognized
that the half failures in Copenhagen and Durban have also given reason for financial risk taking
doubt.
The opportunity of this public commitment, is to create this new engine for the entire economy, the
motor for our future overall growth. Technology cycles start with a luminary phase, then go into
growth, then maturation, before they start plateauing and eventually winding down. We live in an
age that has barely seen the apparition of still very immature environmental technologies, at the
dawn of the clean industrial revolution. We are still in the “luminary” phase, with only a few percent
of users having shifted away from the mainstream fossil consumption.
Electric cars sell in
thousands, fossil cars in millions. To better visualize: it is as if we were at the end of the 18th century
for the textile technology; at the middle of the 19th century for the fossil fuel industrial revolution; at
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the very beginning of the 20th century for mass production; or as stated earlier - at the beginning of
the 1980’s for ICT.
Let’s think back to the beginning of the 80’s when the great names of today’s information industry
were just start-ups and we questioned the need for personal computers: who would really want to
use a computer in their home, and to do what ? Data processing was dominated by large centralized
systems that governed the World of calculations, like our centralized power plants control energy
creation today. The Internet was nothing more than a project for university professors, and the idea
that that personal computers (and now a handheld device) would become the network through which
all information – the “information highway” would pass, was nothing more than a utopian concept,
that made reasonable people’s eyes roll.
Gordon Moore launched his founding vision for the ICT industry, and pushed for a doubling in the
performance of these systems every two years by increasing the number and reducing the size of
transistors on a chip. This has been the law of computer technology ever since. Amazingly, it still
applies today.
While ICT, thirty years later, has finally started its phase of maturity (PC’s dying, the Cloud
rationalizing the exponential expense in the race for hardware); “green technology” has not even
entered its growth phase, which will last for at least the next thirty years to come, as well. We are
in the dawn of a Moore’s law for the environment protective techniques, not to be measured in the
number of transistors, but in the capacity to create clean energy more efficiently. We are at a fragile
turning point, where every little thing can either tip us toward a green industry explosion or the
failure of that industry.
Consequently, the World government should make a massive commitment to initiate this virtuous
spiral, and clear out the doubts, and risks of moving backwards. The mix of public and private funds
will allow for a repeat of the Moore’s law in a new industry, and anchor the green economy –
undisputedly - in the growth track.
We envision the attack against the sources of global warming as a priority, in the framework of a
global comprehensive program. One hammer cannot hit all the nails that impact this extremely
complex ecosystem. Though CO2 emission is far and away the principle cause of global warming
(so far), it is not the only cause. Methane in particular comes net (after the ices will have melt). But
also black carbon, halocarbons, carbon monoxide, volatile organic compounds, nitric oxide, and
massive deforestation, together create the necessity for a large front of actions, that will affect our
fossil fuel energy consumption, but also will our lifestyles and where we live, our birth rates and our
agricultural methods.
It is time to for our civilization to enter a new stage, one in which we measure our impact on the
environment and worth and cost of our lifestyles as opposed to only measuring the size of our GDP.
Our new government’s carbon plan should evaluate a holistic and foundational strategy, that
establishes our species’ ability to become not only sustainable and permanent, but also a positive
force for the future. We already have spelled out many of the principle elements of this strategy
through anticipation of their still experimental potential. However, we still lack a complete global
plan of sustainability, one that is quantified, articulated and financed. We are urging our first
common government to construct this plan, by bringing together the capacities and means of all the
hands and brains, from all the states. Definitely, we can turn the situation around, provided we
enable our government to dedicate a massive commitment to the challenge – even ahead of our
traditional economic dictatorship.
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Convinced advocates and experts are not missing. They are already here, convinced of the need,
ready to make recommendations and are pawing with impatience and lack of hope in face of the
reality of our current political dynamic. After great scientific consultation, Al Gore proposed a range
of exhaustive and convincing solutions available to us right now in Our Choice. But, only a great
political trigger, in the framework of a truly global plan, could put in place the financing and
prioritizing of these solutions.
At this point, we want to advise our first World government to look at putting in place the following
four major key priority initiatives. Their objective is to will “cool down the warming” by using
both mature – although controversial - technologies like nuclear, as well as future – although
unproven yet - technologies like carbon sequestration:
1) Move from fossil fuel energy to renewable energies:
Within the next two to three decades, we should rally all efforts, to move from an energetic
consumption based on eighty percent of fossil fuel today, toward eighty percent of clean renewable
energies before the middle of the century – and use fossil only when no practical alternatives exist.
Renewable energies are available at infinite levels, but the technologies that transform these
energies are not yet optimized, and economical compared with burning fossils. Their carbon
impact, or the emission of CO2 that comes from their transformation is absolutely marginal
compared to those of fossil fuel energies. The fundamental economic problem is that cost of fossil
fuels does not currently include their total cost to the society, including their resulting pollution.
Therefore clean energies lose, as their only compare with the direct cost of pure energy efficiency,
which is not yet equal.
We recommend that until renewable energies hit a sweet spot in usage (where user’s stickiness
compensates for the higher direct cost), clean energies should be supported and promoted by
establishing an full true price of energy, which would be supported by a tax on fossil fuels, or
through subsidies for renewable energies.
Today, with clean energies still in their luminary phase, the raw cost of fossil fuels – without
including its cost in pollution – remains the most competitive, followed by nuclear and then wind
power and solar at a distant third. Clean technologies still emerging and relatively immature - such
as solar, wind, geothermal, and bio-energy. Nuclear has just reached its phase of industrial
maturity. They still offer a lot of room for innovation, which mass adoption and public/private
investments will stimulate.
We are just at the eve of what they can do in the future, here is a quick overview of the potentialities
ahead of us:
•
Solar energy is infinitely available and has benefitted from massive technological advances
thanks to progress achieved in the photovoltaic panels. However, this technology also
demonstrates the constraints of an intermittent energy source, which is only available during
the day in good sun.
We are a few years from being able to produce solar energy that is competitive in cost with
fossil fuel energy – disregarding the cost of pollution. However, in some countries the
advances are rapid, benefitting from real national and political support where they are
financing a price level that justifies a great wave of investment. The countries the most
engaged are Germany, Spain, and China.
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With global warming underway, the current generation of products offer an appeal business
model: leveraging the deserts. The deserts of the World will grow in size and could become
the primary locations for solar farms, as they are otherwise useless. These farms could
stretch over hundreds of kilometers with distribution stations moving the energy toward the
zones of consumption.
Also at the next horizon, a second generation of solar energy, though far into the future and
not yet fully tested, could rely on placing solar panels in space on satellites where the sun
will be available 24 hours a day, and emit the energy via micro waves to Earth – eliminating
the problem of intermittence.
In the meantime, to move solar to the next level, the challenge is with intermittence and
storage. It creates a need for intelligent electric interconnected reserves (the grid), which
constantly move energy into storage before distribution.
•
Wind power also has enormous potential, and with a technology that is in constant progress,
it alone could provide all the energy we require. Today’s turbines have a technical capacity
eight times larger than they had in 1990, and generate seventeen times more power. Still,
because the business relies on subsidies which come on and off, there is a chronic
underinvestment in R&D, which slows down the potential fall in the wind energy price
curve. Nevertheless, wind power has managed to be the lowest cost energy source among all
renewable energies but also suffers, like solar, because if its intermittent availability. The
wind generally only blows about 2,000 hours per year in the very best of sites. It is of equal
importance, therefore, to integrate this energy into an intelligent reserve system to allow for
constant distribution. Also, with a growing number of turbines in enough places, the supply
evens out, as the wind is always blowing out somewhere.
The US is in the lead in wind power technology, followed by Germany, Spain, and India.
Already Denmark draws more than twenty percent of its electricity from wind, with the US
currently at 3.5 percent (The Department of Energy sees a potential of twenty percent in
2030).
The future of wind power is offshore: second generation farms will be located on the ocean
with stations anchored into the sea. This approach is particularly promising because it
avoids all impact on the environment – like noise – and benefits from the winds on the
ocean, which are much more reliable than those on land.
Solar and wind power, perfectly clean and risk free, share the constraint of intermittence, and
the need for storage. They necessitate that the electricity that they generate be connected to a
network (the grid) – a sort of Internet of energy – that can direct the power to the consumer
and also to temporary storage stocks, which could be represented by the sorts of batteries we
are seeing in electric vehicles already. There is a lot of potential for innovation on this front.
•
Geothermal power comes from the heat of Earth’s innards and is an energy that is still not
well understood. This source of power is potentially unlimited, which qualifies it to become
our principal source of energy for our future, as it could potentially cover thousand of times
our needs. Of course, there is already hot water directly accessible from the surface, but the
promising longer term future resides in the development of technologies that could harness
the heat that is stored up in an omnipresent manner below the Earth’s crust, all around the
globe and available at any time.
The theory is simple, but evidently implies heavy technology challenges: it takes to dig a
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few kilometers into the soil – crossing the crust – to reach infinitely available heat. One
could, therefore, access a clean energy source that has no CO2, is constant, and is available
everywhere – although at various depth levels since there are variations in the Earth’s crust
thickness, with the thinnest areas being around tectonic plate friction points.
•
Bio-energy is the conversion of biomass into energy, such as ethanol or biodiesel. Despite
the hold that this industry has taken in Brazil and other regions in the agricultural World,
there are still questions about its long-term viability.
When one analyzes the complete cycle of production and consumption of bio-energy, the
results are mixed, and its impact on the environment is not negligible. Production takes up
land and eliminates forests as space is needed for the crops, which are principally waste
products of wood, sorghum, corn, sugarcane, Miscanthus (a hybrid dedicated specifically to
energy), Switch Grass (the original Bison grass in the plains of the US Mid-West), soy,
peanuts, sunflower, and many more associated hybrids, under study in order to increase their
output.
Also, there is a great deal of competition between the food needs of people and animals and
a technology that seeks to more efficiently use non alimentary vegetation. Bio-energy uses a
great deal of fresh water and, like all modern intensive farming, it weakens and pollutes the
soil and generates massive quantities of methane. Bio-energy does not appear to be a
promising alternative, among the emerging energies, to fossil fuels.
Ethanol is already in full economic maturity with Brazil supplying fifty percent of its gas
needs through the cultivation of sugarcane. At the same time Europe, in particular the UK,
is concentrating on wood derivatives. The USA are fully involved with many segments of
the technology, but still remain quite hesitant on the total benefit of the full cycle, from
production to consumption.
•
Nuclear power represented the first real hope for cleaner electricity. It is infinitely available
and independent of fossil fuels and their CO2 pollution. However, this technology has had
to constantly cope with debates about its security, and its trajectory toward acceptability was
completely derailed with the 2011 Fukushima catastrophe, and made already reluctant
investors even more nervous about nuclear power.
Its production is in stagnation despite the relatively advanced maturity of the technology
and few new nuclear power stations have been created lately. Its future remains an enigma,
with many detractors continuing to weigh in against the advantages of nuclear power.
Nuclear power, in effect, has four principal handicaps:
i.
ii.
iii.
iv.
Public fear following accidents at Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, and Fukushima;
Uncertainty about stability and disposal of nuclear waste – even though there has
been great progress on this front;
The costs involved in developing new nuclear power plants – in the billions (fifteen
billion dollars for the pair of Vogtle reactors currently in construction in Georgia);
The risk of nuclear proliferation for military means. A country could construct
nuclear military channels under the guise of a civil program.
France bet on this technology and now receives three quarters of its electricity from nuclear.
It had the backing of an economic model that was strongly dominated by the state, and has
not seen any major incident to this day. The USA which has a quarter of the nuclear power
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plants of the World (and produces twenty percent of its electricity with nuclear), had
hibernated plans for new plants after 1979 (Three Mile Island) and, following a long
interruption, was just launching its first new power plant in thirty years (Vogtle), with
twenty new reactors applications made to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. However the
conjunction of the accident in Japan and the discovery of immense natural shale gas
resources in the US (at a cost of $0.04 per kilowatt hour vs. $0.10 for nuclear), are
hammering the effort to revive America’s nuclear industry. China has also announced in
2011 a freeze in its new reactors constructions, then resumed approvals in 2012, and seems
to be still targeting to produce six percent of its power in 2020 from nuclear (from one
percent today). The former Soviet Union, Japan, and South Korea are also largely involved
in nuclear power technology, whereas Germany just decreed the complete abandonment of
its program.
Technological advances have already strengthened the disposal of nuclear waste, and one
can even imagine that the Moon or outer space could become a secure site for waste disposal
in a few decades (see priority 8).
Nuclear power will remain a dilemma for the new global government, and we do not see a
case for a full nuclear renaissance. As we re-look globally at the energy strategy, nuclear will
certainly have a role to play. With global governance enforced, we will over time minimize
two of the four nuclear handicaps: the risk of proliferation for military means will disappear;
and the investment needed for new nuclear plants will benefit from the reallocation of
military budgets (including nuclear arms).
Since nuclear is right now the only economically proven clean energy, it pragmatically
remains our necessary evil. We suggest that development and investments continue
carefully, until the other renewable sources reviewed above – comparatively on fast tracks reach economic maturity; at which point the nuclear investments will eventually wind down
as other sources take over (unless new evident safety breakthrough is achieved).
2) Reverse the slippery slope of deforestation:
Deforestation represents the second most prevalent cause, after fossil fuels, of global warming,
emitting about a fifth of Man’s total CO2. Since the end of Man’s nomadic days, he has conquered
the Earth in order to cultivate and to construct his villages, towns. Taking over the forest as if it
was infinite – to get a safer open field, use or burn precious wood, and make room for its activities –
has been a major human activity across History. At this point, only a third of the Earth’s land is still
covered with forest – our natural air filter.
The remaining original forests of the World are found in Brazil, Indonesia, and Africa, and they are
constantly under aggressive siege by those who would like to clear them for agriculture, pasturing of
animals, or to sell timber. Almost half of the current deforestation in the World is taking place in
Brazil. In contrast, in industrialized countries where forests have become rare, campaigns to replant
are becoming the trend.
The new government should help the poorest of states stop deforestation, by transforming large
primitive forests into sanctuaries for the ecosystem (see priority 3) and by helping these states cope
with the cost it imposes on their economies (vs. selling timber, increasing land for agriculture or
bio-energy). Massive re-forestation is recommended, and will be encouraged through federal
financing. By maximizing the green space, the metropolitan areas could be tightened up – built
more vertically – thus enjoying better air and environmental quality and, as a result, a better quality
of life.
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3) Move agricultural techniques toward better preservation of the soil:
Mass-scale agriculture is not ecologically neutral. The soil is also composed of fossil elements. It
traps and holds a great deal of CO2 in its humus, but that CO2 and other gases escape into the
atmosphere following massive soil disturbance.
By weakening the soil and facilitating its erosion, herbicides and pesticides pollute the water table
and destroy fauna. Artificial fertilizers generate the emissions of a variety of gases. Finally, the
crops consume vast quantities of fresh water, which further contributes to its scarcity. The lack of
efficiency in the modern agricultural chain is a large source of pollution, and large generator of
CO2.
New agricultural techniques, that don’t include the devastation of topsoil and the repetitive oversowing of crops (no plowing, no direct plant seedlings), greatly eliminate these problems and are
being used more and more in agriculturally advanced regions like the US, Brazil, and Canada.
These techniques already represent a twentieth of cultivated surfaces in the World. We are
encouraging the pervasion of such techniques, and recommend that the implementation should be
directly sponsored by the federal agricultural plan, at least in the poorest countries (see priority 4),
where agriculture has accelerated erosion and desertification.
Additionally, it is estimated that the continuingly increasing temperatures will impact between
twenty to fifty percent of current agricultural outputs, while there will be an increased demand for
fresh water to compensate for the heat – making fresh water even more scarce.
A new agricultural revolution is necessary, and strategic – both for ecologic protection and to beef
up its capacity to feed the masses. We recommend that a major investment should be made in the
development and promotion of new agricultural technology. The priorities of this program should
be to minimize the impact of CO2, reduce the consumption of water for crops, adapt production to
climatic constraints, and to rebalance farming zones between the warming North and the heated
South.
4) Develop carbon sequestration:
Though still in an embryonic stage of development and lacking any large-scale tests, carbon
sequestration is, nonetheless, very promising. This technology aims to capture the widespread
carbon in the atmosphere and to store it within pockets, buried in the Earth’s crust, therefore
eliminating its environmentally destructive properties and greenhouse gas effect.
This approach would allow us, not only to reduce the impact of our future emissions (of which the
excess could be stored underground), but more importantly to return CO2 to levels not seen since
pre-industrial revolution days. If this dream would become reality, we could right the wrong that
has been committed by the last generations and pass on a revitalized Planet to our children – except
a few big bubbles lying underground.
Implementing at a global scale these four priorities that we recommend, leveraging the ex-military
financing, will get us closer to the goal of at least stabilizing if not reversing the unsettling climate
impact. Also, our quick review of future technologies, show us clearly that our future is definitely
predominantly electric. Massive production of clean energy through solar, wind, geothermal, and
nuclear energy, and from which availability will increase as we move toward a global large-scale
network system (the energy grid) heralds a long dominance to come and a pervasive availability for
the electricity fairy.
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This exponential electric production will support the growth of our ever-expanding information
society, which is a voracious consumer of energy. Already, professional computer farms (private
and public clouds) and portable terminals consume five percent of the total electric output; this does
not include TV screens or the other many electronic devices in existence (phones and tablets) and to
come (cars), which will propel our total consumption of electricity for electronic tools into the
double digits.
Our next horizon for the the clean energy revolution stands out in transportation methods as well,
with the increase in electric cars – first hybrids and then completely electric – which will reinforce
demand and drive further advances in battery storage (themselves part of the “grid”). Battery
technology will continue to improve in terms of capacity, weight, and cost, which will be essential
since these issues have long been a major burden to its wider spread use. Battery technology will
continue to accelerate the spread of electricity as the principal energy. Already lithium is promising
to be a foremost strategic material.
This is what technology makes possible, and the federal government should support this revolution.
The rest is up to the consumer – aided in the beginning by a mechanism for taxing fossil fuels – to
favor clean consumption and to view the total cost of clean energy, from production to consumption,
compared to that of fossil fuel energy. As stated earlier, we advise that the raw purchase price of
energy alone should stop being the measure the total cost of energy for the consumer though.
Consumption and its pollution cost together should become the new principal variable that will
guide purchasing choices.
In the ICT (information and communication technology) universe, which consumes now more
energy than air travel, there promises to be a flourishing future for “green IT” technologies such as
centralized cloud computing, virtualization of machines in data centers, and the replacement of PCs
by lighter individual devices that are much more frugal in their energy consumption, such as tablet
or PDA type computers. Even ocean transportation could, for example, probably refocus on wind
and solar panels – but not tomorrow.
Fossil fuel energy, despite everything, is not condemned to completely disappear, for its
replacement would be difficult in certain applications. The objective that we should assign to
ourselves, though somewhat arbitrary, is to move global consumption from eighty percent fossil fuel
to around twenty, since zero is not realistic. In fact, it appears that the use of fossil fuels will be
indispensable to certain technologies like plastics fabrication, air travel and certain heavy industry
applications, for a very long time to come.
The Zero Carbon Plan that we are proposing for the World government should promote a balance
between a reduced level of carbon emissions and our ability to sequester carbon under ground. It
should have a clear desire to regenerate our forests – especially around large urban centers – and
take steps to modernize agricultural techniques. An extraordinary combination of public and private
investments (public led), and political actions would allow us, in twenty to thirty years, to move
toward a second industrial revolution and a clean Zero Carbon civilization.
Only a global government will have the decisional, political, and economic power to put these
policies in place, everywhere. And, above all, only this government will have the impartiality to
execute a vision that puts Humanity in its entirety above local interests. This globalized vision
matters so much, given the fact that raw energy – nor its consumption - is shared fairly across the
geographies of the Planet.
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The priority number 2 that we just reviewed - “cooling the warming” toward Zero Carbon - is one of
crisis management. It has to yield immediate effects, and is disruptive in the short-term as it implies
a massive replacement of our civilization’s energy engine “on the fly”. However, once that priority
is being executed with success, we recommend that the government should devote itself to a longterm sustainability strategic plan. Beyond the immediate horizon of our energy crisis, the objective
is to enable the construction of a society that is both sustainable and better balanced, in the context
of Mankind and his more respectful relationship with the environment – so that both can last in a
compatible way.
This is a broad subject, and we will just at this stage scratch the surface of what we see as the three
main axes for this universal human society “2.0”, that will help ensure the survival of our species in
the context of a metamorphosis of our civilization, and will put us on track toward being a truly
permanent society.
1) Protection of still living species:
We propose to study a model that will allow the animal and vegetative fauna to cohabitate with our
own species, and survive our development while continuing to regenerate and evolve in parallel to
us. We should aim at an ecologic renaissance, with the creation of giant environmental protection
zones – planetary sanctuaries that would allow for the re-creation of a natural autonomous habitat
for all the still existent species, whether on the path to extinction or not. The government should
endeavor to define these “Universal Sanctuaries” (the planetary equivalent of our National Parks), in
accordance with the states and their populations, and then manage and protect them at the federal
level. These parks would be created to correspond to a representative panel of diverse ecosystems,
both on land and in the ocean. Ideally, many would be placed sufficiently close to zones of human
habitation, so that they can be easily accessed, allowing us to keep contact with this natural setting.
These great parks should also act as climate “lungs,” nesting immense forests, while they would be
zones of ecologic memory and regeneration for all living beings. Their touristic role will only be
accessory, and not meant to be recreational parks. Instead, these spaces would primarily be
developed as natural sanctuaries, for recreating a stand-alone biological equilibrium. They should
individually cover thousands of square kilometers, sufficiently vast that Nature can stabilize its ageold ecosystem, where Mankind can observe and learn about the chain of life in a pure form, without
the infringement of human hunt or agriculture.
On land, Man has finally become distanced from hunting, since there isn’t much “game” left in most
places. Almost everywhere animals in their natural setting have become endangered due to their
extermination, or the extinction of their natural habitat. So many species have already disappeared
under the pressure of the human predator, and it is too late to bring them back (unless their DNA
can allow their recreation in the future). But at least, these sanctuaries would bring an abrupt halt to
the continued disappearance of species. The erosion of the diversity of life would be stopped,
uncompromisingly.
Meanwhile, there is a need for a more radical rethinking about our relationship with the marine
ecosystem. The inexorable and accelerated destruction of the greatest universe of life on our Planet
continues at an alarming pace, as it is hard for the individual nations to police international waters.
Fish are still being harvested at a savage rate and cannot reconstitute their numbers sufficiently for
survival, as is demonstrated in the Tuna’s struggle for survival, which is fished at a rate of two to
three times its rate of reproduction.
Domestic fish farming is seeing rapid growth (World production is estimated at about 60 million
tons per year – almost half of our total consumption, with the number of compatible species growing
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but still mostly limited to salmon, shrimp, sea bream, and trout). However, not all fish adapt well
to domestication, and additionally fish farming is far from having a neutral impact on the
environment. As in the rearing of land animals, the output of the chain of production should be
optimized and the procedures revisited, in consideration of the impact on the full chain (it currently
takes 5 kilos of anchovies to feed one kilo of salmon, and if one were successful in domesticating
tuna, it would take 10 kilos of feed for one kilo of tuna).
Executing strategic limitations and regulations in the fishing industry is impossible to control and
enforce, when the countries themselves are involved in a game with questionable maritime borders
and diverging interests. The ocean doesn’t belong to anyone, is not managed by anyone, and
essentially remains a zone without statute, which cannot really be protected and/or developed.
Under the wing of a central government, unrestrained industrial fishing would be greatly
diminished, until a profound regeneration of species would allow for new quotas. The ‘industrial’
model of fishing is obsolete, based on the anachronism of mass hunting, which disappeared on land
long ago. The protection and cultivation of the sea is awaiting a re-invention, with on one hand the
creation of large sanctuaries where species get re-populated (and overall fishing quotas reduced),
while on the other hand innovation concentrates on styles of farming that are much more efficient
than today.
2) The management of rarefying fresh water:
We see that rarefaction of fresh water deserves a strategic focus for the federal government. Already
today, over a billion people do not have access to potable water. Global warming will accelerate the
evaporation of fresh water and increase desertification, while large fresh water reserves at the poles
will melt more quickly than ever before and their water will pour out into the oceans. The great
lakes will evaporate more quickly, and the average volume of streams and rivers will continue to
decrease, adding pressure to reservoirs and increased irrigation needs. Chemical agricultural
products are polluting underground water tables, and pure fresh water is becoming increasingly rare.
The struggle for water in a fragmented political system will sooner or later represent a risk of a
major military conflict, a delayed reaction bomb for the countries the most effected by warming and
desertification. This is where a global governance should make a difference: helping to increase the
amount of available fresh water, and in the meantime, improving its fair distribution.
Desalinization techniques of ocean water continue to progress for human consumption, but the costs
will continue to be considered exorbitant for agricultural irrigation. Israelis continue to fine-tune the
technology and already are producing 300 million cubic meters per year, which would be enough to
sustain the domestic consumption of about 2 million of their inhabitants. The process, however, is
no panacea, and leads to significant chemical pollution.
Water must be treated as a rare commodity, or more precisely, as one that continues to become more
rare, and even more strategic internationally. It must be protected by controlling waste and by
optimizing use in agricultural, industrial, and domestic consumption. For the countries downstream,
water traverses borders, but rivers can be emptied through the construction of reservoirs upstream –
leaving those zones to desertification.
A World policy on water is necessary. It should integrate a geographic equilibrium between
populations and available local aquifers. The presence of sufficient water will be an essential
criterion for the sustainable development of a community, or for its displacement if there is no
source of supply to sustain a population – definitely such issues must be handled at the highest
global level, as a local solution can only be partial and conflicted.
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3) The rebalancing of populations and infrastructures:
- First, at a regional level:
Already, Mankind has spread out inequitably on Earth with regards to its available resources. It
happened that way during historic times, and was acceptable until now, but lately with the
increasing quantity of people, and the ongoing transformation of our environment due to global
warming, the necessity to readjust zones of human development as a function of the capacity of the
immediate environment to welcome human civilization, will quickly become tantamount to our
success.
As already discussed, the number of climate refugees could quickly reach 250 million – and some
new research talks of the number reaching a billion by the end of the century. Control of birth rates
and management of migrations (see priority 5) as well as globalization of agricultural products (see
priority 4) will have to be the requisites of the government’s rebalancing policy.
A global policy for large scale infrastructure improvements will be equally necessary, not only to
open the access to progress for the poorest local populations, but also for the general good, by
enhancing the general development of the most destitute zones of the Planet, and extending the
reach of our global village. This investment will offer a short-term economic stimulus for the most
underprivileged zones – a sort of Marshall Plan for the poor – while also limiting future migrations
because improved local conditions will help create a long-term sustainable and competitive
economy in these places that people are now trying to escape from.
This rationalization of population plans and infrastructure would take place first in Africa – the
World’s priority - with an irrigation policy, drainage and canals, construction of dams, the initiation
of a currently inexistent road system, modernization and extension of the rail network,
modernization of airports, hospitals and schools.
The Northern zones would come next. They are currently melting out – Greenland, North Siberia,
the Great North of Canada, Alaska, and if we truly reach the level of a 4º C increase as anticipated
by New Scientist, even the Western area of Antarctica will become a candidate on the migration list
....
- Second, at the level of urban settings:
The accelerated and apparently irremediable urbanization of our society has now pervaded
everywhere, with alarming pollution levels, raising concerns about the ecologic and also just
practical viability of this continued concentration of millions – including tens of millions - of
people within a few square miles.
The prioritization of a plan of sustainability for megalopolises, where the majority of Humanity will
definitely want to live, is highly recommended. It should be detailed with the objective of making
these huge cities more livable and much more sustainable. Today, many inhabitants of large urban
areas are living in a nightmarish scenario – so is the ecosystem around them. The car is queen;
horizontal growth into suburbs or ghettos is infinite with shantytowns dotting ever-increasing
venues. This leads to Dantésque levels of road maintenance, millions of hours of traffic jams, and
leaves the air un-breathable, taking an immense toll on any natural resource hundreds of miles
around.
However, these gigantic cities have the potential – if they were well thought out – to become
ecologically balanced, and eventually – not to say surprisingly - the most efficient way to live in
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harmony with our natural setting. They could go from being an environmental monster to becoming
an interesting solution to global overpopulation.
Experts foresee that if these areas were re-worked with better concentration in their space – and
therefore grown vertically so that the constructions would be more efficient economically and in
energy use – this would permit (counter-intuitively) a considerable carbon foot print reduction per
inhabitant. This thesis demonstrates that in is in these second-generation modern megalopolises,
individual carbon footprints can be the lowest – because local human concentration can be a good
thing, when all utilities are specifically designed and optimized accordingly. Al Gore explains for
instance that even today, a New Yorker is three times less harmful to the environment than the
average American – of course, he/she is much more likely to take public transportation, share his
heating system, and so on.
The fossil energy cars are the asphyxiating queens of citie, and are the detriment to their future
conviviality. In order to make cities truly friendly and beneficial to their inhabitants, we must get
rid of these invaders of the human cocoon, and instead maximize comfortable public transportation,
while facilitating shared individual transportation for remote locations (great successful pilots are
already taking place in most Western cities).
Experts and architects are promoting vertical expansion, which they prefer to our infinite and
anarchic suburban spread. The target model is to shrink and concentrate the urban perimeter, all
surrounded by an enormous green space, filtering its air. Anarchic expansion should be reduced by a
proactive developmental policy, to be structured in terms of improvement and security of an
infrastructure that contributes to the quality of life.
Right or wrong, futurist specialists currently envision that lifestyles in megalopolises will
foreshadow those to come in future space colonies (see priority 8). They favor optimized interior
spaces for social life, looking like comfortable self-contained blocks for human life, evolving into a
level of autarky in terms of their relationship to their natural environment, like an enormous ocean
liner plopped down in the middle of the sea – instead of forcing Nature to deal with a multitude of
of small boats anchored anywhere, in any sensitive area, pumping and releasing their waters and
trash.
- Third, caring for a minority of rural or suburban settings:
While acknowledging that most experts see the majority of humans living in hundred-story ‘green’
towers, within highly populated megalopolises, and view this model as one that will allow the Earth
to welcome the greatest number of inhabitants with the least amount of damage - we will have
trouble convincing non-experts (many of us) that a rural or suburban lifestyle will become the
exception, because too costly in its environmental footprint.
We would like to encourage a think tank to find a sustainable alternative that will have little impact
on one’s surroundings for those who would like to escape the urban sprawl, and re-insert themselves
into a more private cocoon, in more direct contact with the natural habitat around them. We haven’t
yet spent cycles studying the best options for this rural “minority”, but we should attempt to
facilitate harmony between Humankind and the natural ecosystem so that they may enjoy the
rhythm of the seasons, the smell of rain, the sound of waves or cicadas, and physically re-acquaint
themselves with their surroundings. Wouldn’t it be nice if children continue to know that milk
comes from the udder of a cow and not a an automatic dispenser ? It is difficult to accept, despite
its logic, that the solution to global warming would be a World that is ninety nine percent urban –
but we want to disclose what we have learned from our current visionaries. Especially now that the
Internet allows us to work from home, to connect anytime and everywhere, it seems even more un239
necessary to congregate in metropolitan areas to earn a living. Still, it is fair to know that current
logics are driving us even more to this hyper-urban life, if we want to make sustainable room for the
billions who are joining us …
The argument for large cities is very factual though: the environmental footprint per inhabitant is
half or less than that of a person living in the suburbs or in the countryside, while allowing to
concentrate and focus on more efficient investments in infrastructure. We would like to suggest that
the solution could be to make future vertical megalopolises as ‘green’ as possible (through proper
planning of their expansion and infrastructure), but there must also be a parallel development path
for protecting rural habitat, that will also minimize carbon footprint - so that there is still a choice of
lifestyle and no urban dictatorship.
To achieve this duality, individual houses will need to be greatly improved from what they are
today. Their energy should be cleaner, integrated, and self-reliant with solar panel for example, and
incessant transportation toward urban centers must be minimized as these commutes have become
unrealistic due to their cost in time and energy. In this framework, the case for the redistribution of
people in nature remains happily open, and the countryside – for a minority - can maintain a
rationalized attraction.
Our view is that a sustainable society is not one that is solely a direct result of government planning,
or of pure free market economics. It is primarily one that people must want to sustain, because it
suits them while it suits their environment. It cannot be imposed for long if it is inhospitable or
unwelcoming – sooner or later there will be cracks in the system. It all starts and finishes with us,
people who are free to choose and influence our own destinies, and to influence the evolution of our
entire species.
So, beyond money, beyond science and technologies, and beyond the impetus of the federation, this
transformation will happen when we get ready for it. Each of us must decide to adopt a new
lifestyle, one that is in more in balance with our finite environment and with ourselves – what we
truly need vs. anything we could get. If we elect a government for a shift to sustainability, then it
will be necessary for each of us to promote and shoulder its initiatives through our conscious and
voluntary decision to move toward a new approach for energy and consumption. It cannot be about
super-taxes and super-cops and big brother planning for us to survive and flourish against our own
will – this has been tried before, and it was called Communism.
Let us start to be adult and mature with the implication of what we buy, burn, use and waste. It is
easy once we decide to pay attention. It is not a constraint when we are educated about it, and the
choice is ours. We can aspire to be as happy, or happier, with less material and natural resource
consumption. Living better with less. It absolutely can be done, and many of us have started the
journey already – once we got hit with the consciousness of it. It is a choice of mature citizenship.
The government can draw the lines and hope that they happen, but we are the dots. We want
sustainability, but we also want to continue with the luxury of the freedom of our lifestyle – for
those who can afford it today - so there is a fine balance between regulation and individual
initiative, enforcement and individual will, engagement and passivity. We recommend to our leaders
to respect freedom above all, although they know that they will have to lead for radical change if
they are to be successful. They role is to educate us – from school – so that we all know our
common challenge. They should help to stimulate virtuous trends and bring as many as possible to
the maturity phase which provide the economic rewards (fueling the start-up mode aside the private
sector), adapting to Democracy the strategic consistency and longevity to be learned from the
Chinese regime. We want our federal government to pool all of our global assets to leverage the
benefit of scale, in serving the common interest of Mankind. We want them to lead with a global
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vision for a new durable society, and stimulate us through this profound transition, toward becoming
ultimately responsible for our individual, as well as collective, carbon footprint – and beyond.
Sorry, this is supposed to be a program for our new government. But we want to come back to us,
the people – again and again – or this will all be useless. Our personal responsibility in driving
change will make public enforcement less necessary (ideally there should be none – but mass
governance is not so easy). As we all digest the information available around us, see the impact of
our existing model, start to appreciate the imminence of a great wall - we should not only sponsor
the emergence of the United Democratic States, but also try our personal best to understand the
impact of our own individual lives (and of those around us with family and friends and co-workers),
by thinking about:
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
What we eat - less red meat and less wild fish;
What we buy – less of everything, more clean, durable, quality products that won’t be
discarded unnecessarily;
The amount that we dispose of – how to reduce waste and move toward more biodegradable
products;
Our transportation ethics – favoring public transportation, buying or sharing low energy
vehicles;
Our housing ethics – apply wise moderation with our usage of air conditioning, heating,
electricity, water, and making our domestic energy use more efficient through better
insulation and self-sufficient energy production when applicable;
Our relationship with Nature – install an attitude of care and respect, remain curious about
the little living beings around us (even in cities), and try to maintain regular contact with
Nature as much as possible (get out of town to walk, discover, observe and hopefully love
being out there);
Our curiosity and ongoing education on the evolution of our Planet - cultivate our reflection
on events far and near and our willingness to recognize changes, because our greatest enemy
is negativity;
Our personal responsibility as a citizen of our neighborhood, town, state or country, World
and Planet.
Henceforth, we have taken over the destiny of our surrounding elements. The climate, animals and
vegetation are reacting and try to adapt to our human developments, and only we – the first
generation of our species to understand it - are endowed with the power to save and regenerate – or
not - that which we, and others like us, have damaged. There is so much that we can do individually,
and as a global team, engaging in this crusade by electing and supporting a government that will
offer us the necessary means, and will accompany us in the invention of a sustainable civilization;
one that can exist so much longer, if in harmony with its environment.
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Our foreseeable challenge is to feed nearly ten billion humans in 2050, of whom, the majority – the
economically emergent – will be benefitting from an increase in living standards and discovering
new alimentary desires and needs. Now let us add a less foreseeable challenge: the majority of
experts anticipate a global increase in temperature of one to two degrees for this period, with a
potential estimate of three to four degrees by 2100 if nothing major is accomplished (and an
unpredictable accelerator when a major amount of methane will be liberated by the melting ice).
They judge that this will negatively impact thirty to fifty percent of the net global agricultural
outputs.
Already, modern agriculture is the second principal source of pollution and green house gasses –
principally CO2 and methane. How can we avoid this escalation? The solution to this equation will
prove to be arduous, but also extremely critical for the entirety of Humanity, and we therefore
recommend that it should represent one of the very first priorities of the new government.
A reasonable scenario to consider is that in order to feed the increased population, and the capacity
of that population to consume more, thanks to their increased means, there will need to be a seventy
percent increase in agricultural products. Additionally, as tastes and habits become more
westernized, there will be a doubling in the demand for red meat in the World.
This is an anticipation of the global consolidation of needs for food, and evidently each geography
will develop large variations and stress on their supply chain (depending on their respective
population growth, GDP growth, local change in climate). Added to the global challenge, we
anticipate that local and regional difficulties will become more critical as tropical and sub-tropical
zones will be the first to face the impossibility of agricultural independence, provoking famines,
conflicts, and the sparking of climate migrations, which will have global reverberations.
The constraints that will weigh on the agricultural network – a network that has been in relative
stagnation since the modern agricultural revolution of 1850-1960 – will, consequently, provoke a
penury that will lead to short-term price explosions and a veritable strategic dilemma.
Should we try a laissez-faire approach, letting supply and demand work themselves out ? Or, rather,
should we take a strategic and direct approach that will attempt to adapt supply to environmental
limitations – potentially a moving target as the climate continue to evolve ?
If we do not quickly succeed to stop the ongoing warming cycle with “priority number one”, we
anticipate five key developing issues/constraints that will be at play, as additional complicating
factors to succeed into our effort to feed the Planet in a sustainable way:
•
It will not be possible to free up new land for farming since we have already established
that there must be a halt to deforestation as well as a need to begin re-forestation, in order to
jump start the redevelopment of our lung (first) and provide some sanctuaries for lost habitat
to other animals (second). Additionally, we will be faced with increasing desertification,
which will take over land more quickly than lands in the upper North or lower South will be
freed up for agriculture. The defrosting of regions will be very difficult to predict as it could
slow down or even be reversed depending on the success of the Zero Carbon program.
•
Soil quality will further degenerate under even more intensive agriculture. Soils have
been severely damaged over the last century of “modern” agriculture, with deep and
intensive mechanical plowing techniques, and the systematic addition of chemical fertilizers
and pesticides. It is estimated that in industrialized nations, there has been about a fifty
percent decline in the soil’s natural fertility already since the 1800’s, because of reduced
CO2 in the soil that has been released into the atmosphere.
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•
Fresh water will become even scarcer, as we saw earlier, due to the joint effects of
pollution and the higher average temperatures.
•
The increased heat will cause a proliferation of microbes and bacteria, and will augment
agricultural diseases that are transmitted by insects. In fact, insects are the organisms on the
Planet that will profit the most from climate warming.
•
Acidity in the oceans will further increase as they absorb more and more CO2, further
intensifying the pressure on marine animals that are already in danger from being overfished.
Ocean acidification is a major risk because it destabilizes the ocean food chain, by
weakening the formation of plankton and the shells of small mollusks that are at the base of
the chain.
We counsel the federal government, therefore, to prepare a new, radical global model for both on
land and on sea food production (meat industry and agriculture, fish industry and farming), without
thinking in terms of political borders, but by studying available resources and modes of distribution
on a global level.
We anticipate the need for a broad public investment program in new techniques of production and
distribution, aimed at fueling the private investments pump, to reshape the foundations of our
capacity for future production - despite greater quantitative needs, tougher climatic constraints, a
reduced surface of farming land, and a minimized toll on the wild marine life. The objective will be
to feed the human population while also managing the impact on pollution, climate, and the quality
of the soil. The approach should adopt a set of directives with virtuous long-term effects, rather
than short-term measures dictated by immediate pressures in alimentary trends or hunger (which
will happen otherwise, if a global proactive plan is not laid out well ahead, in anticipation and not as
a result of a food crisis).
Agriculture has to once again become strategic for the society. It can no longer continue to be the
laggard that delivers it products without investment or technological trajectory. Quite the contrary,
agriculture should re-establish its position in the heart of human development, as collecting food
from the soil or the sea represents our most direct exchange with Nature. Sustainable food supply
poses one of our greatest future risks; therefore, the federal program must resuscitate agricultural
innovation in order to achieve a second revolution.
The program’s framework should be capable of dealing with uncertainties, as it is difficult to know
how many people Earth can support and feed as it undergoes climate transformation: beyond the
shadow of a doubt, the fewer of us, the better. A population of five billion well-fed people would be
realistic in our current scenario, but to succeed in feeding more than nine billion while also trying to
reduce and reverse our agricultural CO2 and methane impact is our objective and our opportunity –
now we must just figure out how to do so.
The previous agricultural revolution that lasted up until the 1960’s saw an explosion in crop yields
followed by stabilization. There will likely need to be a period of transition for the following
actions to become fruitful, so it is urgent that this transformation be started as quickly as possible
and on a large scale.
Based on our research, here are the five principle directives around which we recommend that the
federal government and the states should articulate a breakthrough agricultural and alimentary
program for the following decades:
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1. Think of resources on a global scale:
The comprehensive plan should facilitate a global coordination of resources for agricultural
production, more independently of localized centers of consumption: production should take place
where it is most efficient to do so, not with a mindset of national food supply independence, but one
of global productivity and environmental protection.
If the prevalent model of national food production independence is continued, it is almost certain
that a half of the World will die of hunger – the poorest sub-tropical countries – especially
considering that the lack of fresh water will be felt more in these regions than anywhere else.
Therefore, agriculture must be converted to a global market allowing production where it is the most
efficient in terms of yield and the least damaging to the surrounding environment so that ultimately
a buffer can be created against potential climate migrations by disconnecting the cycle of hunger
from that of migration. Instead, if we want to continue with a logics of people living close to where
the essential of their food is being produced (within the same country), we should anticipate
amounts of migrations in the future that would create strong reactions, or millions of people dying
of hunger where they are forced to live.
This globalized approach would prevent, for example, a scenario in which one poor local harvest
due to widespread drought, forces millions of people to flee an area in search of food – or die. Also
disconnecting production from consumption would allow for the most efficient use of available
global resources at a time when climate and technological transformations are taking place.
This transformation should be applied to the entire agricultural chain of production/distribution:
•
From the first steps – planting to harvesting - in the most efficient manner, selecting soils
offering the best productivity, with crops adapted to their environment. We will see here
below how new techniques can make a difference.
•
By integrating the logistics of distribution to consumers – moving products fast at low cost investing in a sophisticated international infrastructure. Food availability everywhere at a
more evened cost (while standards of living are getting closer) should help the poor
countries which have typically the poorest yields to move away from products that have poor
yields, but still forces them to maintain an anachronistic agricultural system; instead they
could focus on the most successful products for their soil and climate, and export them
through a proper logistics chain. Reciprocally, great places for production may address such
a small local market that they are totally underutilized.
•
And finally, in the efficiency of operation and commercial practices of agricultural markets,
reducing the huge endemic waste in this sector (end-to-end food waste from production to
actual final consumption should be measured).
2. Invest in technologies that will transform the methods of production:
As we saw earlier, the challenge to the current agricultural chain of production/distribution will be
to respond to the potential demand by 2050 – realistic or not – of increasing production by seventy
percent overall to feed well – not in starvation mode – our future ten billion friends. Such a
productivity step has already been achieved before – even exceeded - during the first agricultural
revolution. This was the result of the extensive use of chemicals, large lost with automated or
mechanized irrigation, plowing, harvesting. During this period, we saw formidable improvements,
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with a doubling of the output over the course of twenty years, and three to five percent annual
increase in yields.
Therefore, from this angle, it seems quite possible – applying a kind of Moore’s law to agriculture
as well ... However, there is a big difference between the two sets of constraints these revolutions
had to deal with. While the first revolution totally ignored environmental constraints – with results
we have now inherited (building dams, moving rivers, polluting the soils and the atmosphere) – the
second, in contrast, will have to be achieved halving the impact per calorie produced. In other
words, the ecological impact will have to remain fixed despite the seventy percent increase in
production (or more precisely - consumption).
We assume that there is a significant opportunity to reduce waste throughout the whole chain –
maybe around twenty percent of everything produced does not end up into human mouths. It still
implies that we should goal production to a fifty percent overall increase, at a flat carbon footprint
level. The implications are, per calorie consumed: fifty percent less water consumption, cultivated
land, and green house gas emitted for each calorie that will reach the mouth of a consumer. This
fifty percent gain in productivity will this time have to be measured against a flat environmental
footprint – it will be a difficult challenge, and only new technologies will make it possible for us to
win.
We believe that with a global political plan, the objective can be reached. There are great
conceivable opportunities for reaching such a level of progress, and we suggest pursuing the
following axes, and more as innovation uncovers new grounds:
•
Stimulate the development and the choice of crops that use less water and have lighter
carbon footprints. For example, rice cultivation consumes an enormous amount of water
and should, therefore, be centralized in zones that are the wettest, and allowing for crops that
interfere less with their surroundings. Also, research funded or certified by the government
should give credence to genetically modified seeds, focusing on crops that are more frugal in
water consumption and carbon footprint, insisting on agricultural species better adapted to
arid climates. In order to limit popular fear, public research and/or control should be very
active, so that genetically modified crops receive broad testing and official validation before
mass utilization.
•
Launch a governmental incentive for a regenerative agriculture that protects and revitalizes
the soil over the long-term. There should be incentives for farmers to re-enforce cyclical
crops rotation, to allow the soils to regenerate themselves, rather than exhausting already
weakened soils, pumping them full of chemical fertilizers that could be replaced by proven
organic technologies like Biochar. In an approach similar to the one we have recommended
for fossil fuels, the full cost of agricultural products should be looked at – including their
ecological impact. The ones causing the greatest carbon/methane/water footprint could be
equalized through taxation in order to promote less damaging products on the environment.
•
Favor the deployment of new technologies of drip irrigation and plowing-free sowing. There
is a full array of new technologies emerging, some of which have already been proven
effective, but are not yet widely used outside of the Americas. They allow for great
economization of water used drop by drop, and they allow the soil to better conserve
moisture and the humus layer its carbon, since it is not being turned over by huge tractors
that are also consumers of fossil fuels.
3. Influence consumers to learn and enjoy more vegetarian food diets:
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The opportunity for all of us is to learn to eat better, essentially, to gradually become more
vegetarians. This will happen by spreading information and educating consumers about
environmental issues related to beef production, as well as carnivorous fish and the impact of
overfishing. In all likelihood, the demand for beef will double in the coming forty years due to
elevated standards of living and population growth, and we recommend that we try to find ways to
avoid that supply tries to meet such a growth in demand. To the contrary, we should become
accustomed to eating less meat, especially red meat – the one with by far the highest footprint.
The beef industry has a major impact on greenhouse gases and on fresh water consumption.
Industrial beef production has missed the boat in alimentary efficiency; poultry production has a
footprint that is much less negative. Al Gore explains that to produce one pound of red meat, one
needs, in addition to the diesel used at the farm, nearly 5,000 gallons of water and fifteen pounds of
vegetable protein. Another study asserts that this same pound of red meat produces the equivalent of
fifteen to thirty pounds of CO2 depending on its mode of cultivation. Industrial cattle production is,
therefore, already a huge ecological waste – we should be careful to let it grow even further.
According to the 2006 UN climate report, meat production is responsible for eighteen percent of
total greenhouse gases emissions (the majority from beef). Some in the meat industry are frightened
by such conclusions, and fear that beef production quotas could be implemented one day. So there
have been proposals for alternative ways to produce beef, in particular to return to more natural
pasturing systems, in with cattle is rotated around larger grassy fields, allowing for the soil to
regenerate and to upkeep larger grassy areas. Unfortunately for this alternative, if we have to trade
between grass and forest, it would be ecologically more advantageous to replant or keep existing
trees, than to open immense pastures.
Our entrenched beef culture, with the cow (unintentionally) providing several steaks a day to
billions of people (the acquired taste for these big fat juicy steaks or hamburgers) has to evolve, and
our cholesterol certainly won’t complain either. We should become more conscious of the impact
of red meat on our whole ecosystem (we do not believe that there has been any awareness effort
anywhere, as it touches a cultural taboo, and would be a very unpopular move). We suggest that the
government studies ways to educate and motivate Western consumers to move toward a less beef
centric culture (chicken and farmed fish), and over time a more vegetarian diet, for which Asians
have the lead with their delicious vegetarian cuisines. Here again, a visualization and equalization of
pricing based on the total cost of production including ecological footprint should be contemplated.
4. Prohibit Industrial Fishing:
Already overfished, the oceans must also deal with growing acidification that impacts plankton and
will therefore endanger the entire marine food chain. The World government will be, for the first
time in History, empowered to manage the free zone of the oceans. It can finally assure that fishing
quotas and limits are taken seriously, are respected, and even enforced. Industrial fishing will need
to be greatly reduced and transitioned to domesticated fish production. However, fish farming, as
seen as a part of a sustainable society, is not a panacea either for the environment. Far from being
truly “clean”, it leaves a heavy footprint on its surroundings. Also, the majority of fish species do
not fare well in the overcrowded lakes or cages required for production, and those that can survive
transmit diseases that must be treated with more and more chemicals or antibiotics. Since this
industry only took off about thirty years ago, fish farming techniques are still new and are not even
approaching the scale of our multi-millennia land animal farming systems – so we should give it
some more time to mature. The possibilities for optimization, and the new hybrid species to be
created, make this industry one of an open opportunity.
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We advise the government to launch a program of investment that will favor the amelioration of fish
farming techniques, accelerate the replacement of wild fish, and attempt to minimize rapidly wild
fish consumption, all while reducing our impact on marine fauna. The farming of algae is an
equally interesting angle to pursue.
5. Invest in – still futuristic - synthetic food technologies:
Although currently at a uniquely experimental phase, artificial meat (chemical imitation of ocean
and land animal muscle tissue) promises an efficient yield (capacity to feed divided by carbon
footprint) when compared with natural meat. It also presents the philosophical advantage of not
having killed one animal to nourish another.
The world’s first hamburger-like steak prototype, lab-grown from beef stem cells, was offered for
tasting to two food writers at a news conference in London in August 2013 with great hype, and
both said that it tasted pretty good. Although these technologies are far from representing and
economical solution before several decades (the steak presented in London cost 300,000$), and their
gustatory differences will take a long familiarization; their serious development offers a response to
scenarios of the changing climate and to the most pessimistic pressures on Humanity. Even if the
flavor is not perfectly there, our survival could some day depend on this form of nourishment –
temporarily or regionally (or in space) – therefore the research should be seriously taken into
account in our view.
The globalization of agricultural resources will be absolutely necessary as we face the climatic
transition of our ecosystem and have our species near 10 billion people in a few years. According to
the New Scientist, if we do not manage to stop global warming, we could be led to abandon
intensive agriculture on over half of the inhabited surface of the globe, which will gradually be
turning to desert, while the northern and southern extremes of the Earth will be undergoing a change
toward a wetter and more fertile climate.
Within the range of scenarios to come in the next century, there must be a direct and strategic global
approach. It will not always be popular as it will have to challenge some well entrenched culinary
taboos for some, but it will prepare to feed Humanity in a durable way. This approach will define
our ability to survive and rebound should an unfortunate environmental risk materialize.
The capacity of the agricultural chain to transform, in face of this challenge, will dictate the number
of people that the Earth can continue to support. If we are to survive as billions, even in the most
extreme scenarios (the actual survival of our species is definitely not in danger for the foreseeable
future – but it may be for much smaller number) the number of survivors will directly depend on the
speed with which we can adapt our agriculture.
The second globalized agricultural revolution should start tomorrow, for it will help us avoid the
risks of a coming genocide that would generate the great famine of the 21st or 22nd century.
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Birth rates, migrations, and identities will be the great moral and humanist subjects in the
construction of our future societal evolution. How many men and women can our Earth host and
support ? Will we be free in our new global nation to migrate, when and where we please - and how
will these movements be received ? What is the weight and limit of local identity in a society that is
mixing and becoming more homogenous and universal ? Can we reach a level of universality in
health services as well – so that all are equal in front of the right to live ?
We believe that these sensitive issues are not currently addressed in our fragmented World, although
they are foundational for the civilization ahead of us, and reflect on the “core values” that we want
to install. Therefore we are proposing to prioritize their resolution just behind the ones that protect
our planetary survival (Peace, carbon zero and sustainability).
1. Birth Rates
Since the 19th century, our World model has been based on a constant increase in population and
standard of living: more consumers, individually consuming more, and therefore producing greater
economic growth. And the machine took off, with the success that we still know today. There were
a billion people in 1800, 1.6 billion in 1900, 3.5 billion in 1960, more than 6.5 billion in 2010 – and
we expect between nine and ten billion in 2050.
This exponential growth over the course of the last two centuries has directly generated the climate
situation that confronts us now, with an explosion of yearly CO2 emissions never before paralleled.
Al Gore put forth the following numbers (as measured in tons/year of CO2 emitted into the
atmosphere): around zero in 1800, two billion in 1960, five billion in 2000, eight billion in 2010,
and a prediction for the second half of the century, if the rate of increase remains the same, will be
about fifteen billion tons.
These two sets of numbers (human headcount and CO2 generated) are clearly and intimately
connected, and develop with the same order of magnitude – at around one ton per year of CO2 per
person – but the increase in CO2 continues even if human population growth stabilizes, primarily
given the growth in the individual global standard of living. Under our current energy model,
limiting the population to 6.5 billion as of today, still would not mean that the emissions would
stabilize at eight billion tons – they would continue to augment because each human would produce
more and more CO2.
The geographic origin of the increase in human population further darkens the picture, as the
increases will happen almost entirely in the poorest of countries – typically where Nature is more
sterile. In regions that are already fragile, this will intensify the environmental pressures on natural
resources – especially fresh water.
We are recommending the evaluation of a strategy that will address and reverse our current birth
rate trends, over a period of time. Due to the size and scope of possible future scenarios, we see as a
prudent step for the new government to stimulate a global policy to decrease birth rates.
It is impossible to anticipate how many people the Earth can support, since it will depend on the
evolution of the climate, the adaptability of our agriculture, and our collective human intelligence to
manage ourselves in a changing and growingly hostile environment. The World government is the
only form of governance that can launch a veritable cohesive plan that will have an allencompassing and concerted effort. We think that we should not hesitate to target an objective of
five billion people by the end of the century (or later if it takes longer to wind down cohesively),
rather than the nine or ten billion that are anticipated by 2050. It would be better to have five billion
humans that function in harmony with their Planet and among themselves – even if it is an aging
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population – than twice as many who are in a precarious state of conflict and survival.
Clearly, the fewer people there are, as we go through this transition, the easier the global solution to
transition to a sustainable society. Local policies that promote high birth rates – whether stimulated
by nationalistic or religiously beliefs - should be stopped, and considered harmful to Humanity as a
whole, as they make the overall problem worse.
Hopefully, we are starting to observe historical decreases in birth rates. They show a lowering not
only in industrialized nations, but also in the birth rate trends of developing countries. When
families become more affluent, they want to become smaller, and the turning point that took a
century in industrialized countries, is now happening in only two to three decades in developing
countries. The Economist anticipates that between 2020-2050, the rate of global fertility will fall
below the rate of species replacement – at 2.1 children per family – which will initiate a population
reduction for the first time in centuries, following the highest point in 2050. Moreover, for the first
time in History, the majority of women can decide how many children they want, rather than
systematically producing offspring, under male pressure and the capacity of their biology.
This is all good news and is moving us in the right direction – but not quickly enough.
Basically, because the decrease in the global population curve is not expected before 2050, we will
have over 9 billion people and a potentially much warmer climate, which could pose great risk for
everyone and have significant implications for our ecosystem.
We think that a democratic/humanist but radical policy to reduce the size of the species is necessary,
particularly in areas where birth rates are the highest, since 90% of infants are born in poor
countries.
We recommend to the first global government to prepare a program to reduce the global birth rate,
however we also insist that it should be articulated around evident humanist directives (and not a
forced one child policy), with the objectives to:
•
Strengthen education of all women, even in the poorest and most remote villages, on issues
of sexuality, contraception, economic opportunity, and on the coming risks associated with
the impending transformation of the World – all in complete transparency;
•
Establish a system which helps with contraception – there will be tension with the anticontraception and anti-abortion lobbies, but we see no way out;
•
Offer an efficient health system that will reassure women that their (fewer) children will
definitely survive, alleviating the need to have multiple children in order to guarantee that
some reach adulthood;
•
Create fiscal incentives for having fewer children – taxing a high number of children per
family as opposed to granting family credits for quantity.
Depending on the success of these actions, we should avoid a program like the one child policy of
China. Though extremely effective, it would challenge Freedom, and the ethic of a free Democracy.
However, if our efforts to thwart global warming prove unsuccessful, we should be pragmatically
prepared to impose a more radical solution to the most productive geographies, as the only possible
path – time will tell.
2. Migrations and climate refugees:
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Having established a defined policy for birth rates – which deals with the total quantity of the
population – the next subject to tackle is one of migration policy. In light of the recent increase in
economically motivated migrations – their potential benefit as well as the tensions they can provoke
– and the major risk of climatic migrations to come, an international policy must be established.
Since the federal government will be equipped to assist in navigating these citizens across borders,
we recommend that they establish an international charter for immigration.
In principle, migrations are positive. People should have the right to move freely in a World that is
globalized. Immigration relieves the country of origin (usually poor) and provides laboring hands,
or brains, to the welcoming country. It gives the immigrant a chance for a future that he or she
deems better and allows everyone to learn about different cultures, become more diverse and
enriched, and for Humanity to become more universal. Immigration, when well positioned and
accompanied by an efficient policy of integration, is quite virtuous. This has been demonstrated
over the course of our human History until recently, and it remains a dream for millions of people.
However, recently experienced immigration problems have developed, particularly in Europe, and
can be explained through three intertwined issues:
•
When the quantity of migrants surpasses the welcoming and integrating capacity of the
receiving country. The receiving country then does not have the time or economic means to
manage the additional infrastructure needs, nor the additional jobs needed to satisfy the
increased demand from new arrivals. Frustration results for the new arrivals as well as
residents, creating a source of social and civic tension.
•
When the attitude of migrants is incompatible with the logic of integration and is closed to
the society and culture of the welcoming country. In these cases, the arriving immigrants are
not there to become “one of us” but instead are arriving with cultural or religious baggage
that differentiates them from the host country and makes them cumbersome.
•
Or, when, on the other hand, the culture of the receiving country is extremely distinct and
monolithic (ethnically and culturally “pure”). The xenophobic attitude of the receiving
country makes all integration of a different culture extremely difficult. Certain paranoid
groups don’t tolerate any strangers in their country.
Therefore, an encompassing migration policy should do its best to address these different
dimensions:
i.
By implementing a Population Density Target Map, the government can influence
manageable volumes of immigrants by destination, so that the population can be channeled
and positively integrated in places where there is a need or room for them. Understanding
and rationalizing the real integration capacity of each potential receiving state should be the
foundation of this policy. It would more strictly control immigration toward areas that are
judged as “saturated”, or would try to increase the potential for further immigration by
investing in infrastructure and economic triggers. Migrations would be organized toward
destinations where they have a positive impact and can be prepared for and organized, rather
than received as an additional handicap by a state that is already encumbered.
Defining and managing the volume of integration should take into consideration both the
concentration of people in an area, and the economic and environmental capacity of that
area. The objective should be to gradually tune an optimal balance between the population
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volumes and the local infrastructures and resources, since this would minimize the stress on
the existing populations, as well as the natural environment.
The solution that we are proposing is to construct and put into operation a human Population
Density Target Map, reviewed in conjunction with the states, that would define current
population density of specific zones and what the targets would be for the future.
Let’s take the theoretical example of Northern Canada and Siberia: they each could receive
up to hundred million additional migrants over the next ten years. On the other hand,
Holland would be stable, and the Maldives would probably be better to reduce their
population by 200,000 inhabitants (these numbers are only indicative to help visualize the
concept).
This map would allow states to predict and organize the flow of immigrants for their positive
development, as well as guide issuance of authorizations to immigrants by the federation. It
would help the federation in helping to finance the infrastructures of those states receiving
the greatest volume of immigrants, and would assist all the populations in reaching a
dynamic balance between resources and densities, and therefore reduce the tensions during
the integration phase.
Fiscal advantages could be proposed to migrants and enterprises that invest in zones of
programmed immigration. Federal financial contributions would help local authorities in
zones targeted for heavy immigration to cover social and infrastructure costs associated with
immigration, and to proactively equip them to put their public services and housing on par
with the level of expected influx.
ii.
By reducing the needs for purely economic migrations. If the country of origin – typically
among the poorest states - can offer a decent leaving at home, its people don’t have to leave
in mass in order to survive. There are parts of the Planet where the only way for a young
person to survive – or have a better future – is by leaving his or her home. The fundamental
problem is that the economic differences between the receiving countries and the countries
of departure, where situations are miserable and lacking hope, are so very vast, that almost
the entire population shares in the dream of leaving, thus projecting their entire country
toward expatriation as a solution.
It is necessary, therefore, to be able to offer jobs, health services, the possibility for food
wherever people live, and a potential for a future that will not force them to leave – except in
cases of overpopulation in relation to the resources available.
The federal powers can kill the case for a lot of migrations, with a targeted support to the
poorest states. They can make a difference by ameliorating infrastructures, helping provide
more positive prospects for the future of these poorer citizens.
The impact can go well beyond the economical conditions, since the insertion of these
countries in the federation will give them equal chances, with a society politically
transparent, and a state of law that will eradicate corruption and tribal genocides. A World
government can obviously influence the democratization and modernization of these states
by facilitating the elimination of “banana republics” and their corruption, by injecting
resources, and by permitting the citizens of the area to join in equality on the road to
development.
A strong proportion of these local populations could be employed in the infrastructure works
programs, sponsored by the federal government, which would offer a path for economic
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evolution and integration, connecting these remote places with the mainstream activities of
the rest of the Planet.
The other global advantage of a reduction in economic emigration from the South, would be
for the industrialized countries to make a pause and catch their breath. A few decades with
much less new entrants from the same poorer origins – typically the most difficult people to
integrate - would help them to do a better job of integrating their recent waves of
immigrants, limiting the current and future risks of rejection.
To complete this virtuous cycle, the diminished need to systematically migrate due to purely
economic or political reasons should finally allow for some calming in the current NorthSouth tensions, which in the post-colonial era revolve mostly around the volume of
migratory flows. We therefore conclude that this investment in infrastructure for the poorest
(redistributing some wealth from the North), would have a very positive return for both
sides, almost immediately.
iii.
By establishing an Universal Charter on Migrations, which should clarify the vacuum of
international rules and regulations for these millions of cross-national people, currently an
unchartered territory in terms of rights, laws and duties.
The Charter should define the rights of the immigrants, but also their duties. It should help to
guide their behavior, so that their individual desire to migrate also translates into a general
benefit for the receiving community, and consequently allows well-understood actions to be
taken against abuse by either side, without unnecessary tensions across the communities.
The Universal Charter on Migrations would be particularly apt, because it touches on the
meaning of worldwide supra-nationality, which would have to be superimposed on our
existing national citizenship.
The question that supra-nationality raises is: in truly becoming citizens of the World –
citizens of a global federation - should we open all borders everywhere and to everyone ? Or,
should a valve of security be maintained, in order to control inter-state migrations and thus
leaving in place a form of country-based allegiance (preferential right), linked to the
birthplace or current residency ?
Our point of view is that immediately going away from borders – and totally free up
migrations or even lighten the control of borders to immigration - would likely create chaos.
It would open the door for a veritable invasion of the North by the South. So we recommend
establishing clear rules, around the Target Map and the Charter, so that the fluxes continue,
but get driven according to a coherent integration path toward clearly preferred destinations.
The overarching model should be based on a global view of sustainability, managing the
integration capacity of the receiving destinations, together with a much better migrants/hosts
preparation and behavior.
As such, migrations should continue to be regulated for the next few decades, at least until
the living standards between the rich and poor countries start to become somewhat more
even. Seeing the extremely fast pace of equalization over the last thirty years, we can
anticipate that another thirty to fifty years should get us much closer to a point where borders
(for permanent immigration) can be relaxed almost totally, all things being equal - unless
climate changes create amplified fluxes that require continued central/global channeling. In
fact, the density targets proposed above in the Map could become the accompanying catalyst
for the climate migrations that will be necessary in the future and could, therefore, be judged
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positively by a majority, allowing for greater migration volumes than we have already
experienced. Additionally, the Charter will regulate the rights and obligations of both the
individual and of the receiving states, and will manage conflicts allowing the possibility of
moving issues to federal jurisdiction.
For massive immigration to be successful, we offer that it needs to start with the migrants’
willingness to integrate. The Charter should therefore require that candidates pass an exam
that evaluates their commitment to formal civic engagement, and tests their willingness to
accomplish their duties of integration – a lighter version of what is done in most places to
acquire citizenship. This test – defined and calibrated globally - would assess the emigrant’s
acquisition of the language of the receiving country – or at least of English, the second
universal language – with a minimum level of proficiency required for definitive admission,
or a commitment to learn it (and be re-tested later on). It would affirm the emigrant’s
acceptance of the receiving country’s secular Democracy, and their formal commitment to
adopt a behavior that is compatible with that of the welcoming state. This would aim at
minimizing strong external differences, whether cultural or religiously aggressive.
Applicants would be asked to confirm in writing their willingness to abide by the laws and
customs of their future state, under which they would be governed. They would also commit
to contribute to the community life and to undergo a period of adaptation, during which they
would follow a training program of civic and cultural integration.
As for the receiving states, they do not have the responsibility of integrating the habits,
customs and beliefs of their new arrivals. But, they are formally obliged to tolerate and
respect those differences as long as they do not oppose those of the state. In particular, for
that which concerns questions of secularity and rights of men and women in the receiving
countries, the new arrivals will be held to assimilate to their new surroundings and to
endeavor to learn the culture, and not try to impose their own. Processes should be put in
place so that states can appeal to the federation, and after review eject abusers of the Charter,
who could be sent back to their state of origin. This would evidently target in particular
fundamentalists and extremists of every sort, and those who refuse the society that welcomes
them, as well as delinquents who are sowing the seeds of trouble.
We have already acquired sufficient experience on issues of mass-migration to understand
the risks and dangers associated with it. A small minority of migrants who disregard the
laws and customs of their new society can create a tension that puts the entire process of
integration for the majority of migrants into danger, a process that is already fragile due to
the volume and speed of immigration. The beliefs and attitudes of these challenging
minorities are reflected in their socially deviant behavior or dress. For example, in Europe
where the problem has become the most vivid, very small groups of Muslim extremists have
placed religion above the laws of the receiving states, and have become followers of Islamic
policy that puts aside the laws and customs of the society in which they themselves have
decided to join. They exacerbate the fears of many that Europe, despite its secular tradition,
will become an Islamic region under the pressures of immigration and the establishment of
the second generation. We need to reflect on these challenges, and make sure that the
Charter comprehends a clear antidote to such extreme behaviors.
In a world where migrations will be a necessary part of our survival and our future progress,
attitudes that conflict with the accepted norms of a state cannot be tolerated, and a well
defined process to send migrants back to their state of origin should be the exemplary
remedy.
iv.
Finally, by designing migration policies that would specifically prepare the World to deal, in
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a transparent and proactive manner, with the potential coming flow of climate refugees.
The objective of such policies should be to avoid the panic mode, which could be the source
of major conflicts. With annual predictions and migration capacity revisions, the Target Map
for population density will be the determinant planning tool, and will gradually permit more
precise adjustments to be made, infrastructures to be prepared, and the local mindsets to be
educated and readied, for the future balance of all.
In the extreme but possible case that an entire state – and thus the sanctuary for one’s ethnic
origins – is condemned to disappear (as for example, sea level areas like the Maldives,
Bangladesh, or the Bahamas), it doesn’t seem desirable to re-create new “ethnic states”
through the displacement of entire populations to another single destination, as was the case
for the creation of Israel under the emotion of the Shoah. Rather, through a long-term
universal and supra-national vision and logic, we would plan a decent welcoming of those
refugees into a few logical destinations that would be well prepared. By approaching the
situation in an anticipatory mode, these climate refugees can be welcomed and integrated
into their new environment, instead of being treated like passing carnival workers.
The number of climate refugees may only number in the tens of millions – under the most
positive of scenarios – or in the billions if half of the Planet becomes uninhabitable. The
process should continue to be one of anticipation and global management, all encompassing
and peaceful, and can only be put in place by a responsible system of global governance.
In any case emigration will continue, and probably even accelerate, as people learn to enjoy
crossing borders and becoming growingly flexible and compatible with a culture that
becomes more universal and tolerant. It is a good thing, and an irremediable one. However,
emigration should continue for the next few decades to be considered as a tolerance of the
welcoming state, rather than a fundamental right of any citizen to migrate anywhere. Twelve
thousand years of civilizations and borders building cannot be reset in a heartbeat. We need
to give some time to time, for the spirits to adjust and the society to fully capture the
paradigm change of the globalization of our finite setting.
3. Protection of identities and religions:
In a World federation where migrations are accelerating due to the transformation of the climate,
and the continued globalization of economies and cultures, one must pose the question: how we will
protect identities and religions ? What sort of society do we want to construct – should one size fit
all, or instead should we protect and continue to cultivate our differences, under the harmony of a
common roof ? We think that the answer is the latter – an universal foundational common ground of
tolerance and freedom should cohabitate with the wealth of cultures and traditions that we have
inherited of – diversity that is.
We come from a purely identity based History that, while rapidly universalizing, continues to be
profoundly attached, as it should, to its numerous cultures. Thus, the project that we recommend is
a three-headed beast – the culture to be constructed should know how to respect the positive weight
of the past, accelerate the convergences of the present, and learn to build a cultural future based on a
universal melting pot. The future of the global population is a multi-cultural and universal society.
It won’t condemn uniqueness by trying to turn us all into identical clones, but should instead be
based on tolerance, respect, harmony between individual liberties, and a cultural mix made rich by
its diversity. And, above all, it should be a stable and peaceful society, thanks to its long-term
convergence around the common destiny of the entire human race – finally unified under a common
political system, which should protect us all.
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“We, the people” want a society in which:
•
The identities and religions of every minority and individual should be protected, respected,
and tolerated, if not cultivated;
•
Domination by ethnic, political, or religious majorities over minorities should be prevented
by following a principle of democratic freedom, that protects minorities and may include
positive discrimination;
•
Intransigence in all its forms, including the dominance of national majorities, or the
terrorism of extremists of identity or religion, and fundamentalists, should be crushed;
•
Universalism should not be established like a dogmatic global religion with the federal
democracy as its dictator; instead tolerance should be the rule so that all the people are
allowed to live with their traditions and beliefs, as long as they don’t harm their neighbors,
and conflict with the common denominator of the federal law agreed and supported by all
the member states of the United Democratic States.
4. Universal Health:
We defend the case for a policy of Universal Health, which would slowly converge toward the
vision that a minimum level of medical care is a fundamental human right, everywhere in the new
federation. We think that the federal government should help re-enforcing the already robust
political framing of admirable actions already taken by the UN, development banks, individual and
government donations, and charitable organizations.
The better the health systems are in the poorest countries, the less there will be a temptation to have
multiple children, or to emigrate. Of course, when it comes to maladies and illness, there is still a
profound and shocking inequality in the World. Even with the financing of global health programs
and the initiatives of multitudes of public and private intervention groups, nothing short of a global
federal governing system will be able to solidly anchor these policies into the appropriate local
governments.
Currently, despite the international injection of 25 billion dollars annually to complement the
poorest states budgets, each year more than ten million children die before the age of five, from
malnutrition or illnesses that could have been avoided with access to basic modern medical care.
The policy of Universal Health should bring together the global efforts and resources of the entire
medical and pharmaceutical systems in order to offer basic, decent care for everyone everywhere by
investing in infrastructures and hospitals, increasing general access to medicines and vaccines, and
through the verification and rotation of qualified personnel.
A key objective should be to eradicate global illnesses – worldwide epidemics such as AIDS,
tuberculosis, or malaria – with widespread vaccination campaigns. Additionally, this policy would
help us deal with health issues related to the climate transformation, such as the proliferation of
microbes, and will push forward intensive research on tropical diseases.
In summary, the capacity of a World government to orchestrate the quantities, movements, and the
co-habitation of populations that are already overwhelming our environment, opens up not only
possibilities of survival with an incrementally efficient healthcare system, but also the prospect for a
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peaceful progress of our species, that would otherwise be unattainable in our fragmented political
system. In particular, the policies on birth rates and future migrations offer us the possibility to
approach climate change scenarios with maximum adaptability, by authorizing radical preventative
solutions that transcend yesterday’s sovereign national borders – borders that would otherwise
prevent us from adopting solutions based on global coherence – and empower us to become a Planet
of people, not a Planet of nations.
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Consciously, we are not positioning the Economy as the first priority for the future federal
government, while it is today the first priority for most local governments. However, given the
complexity and dominant impact of the subject for the financing of the whole new society in the
making, we have decided to do a slightly deeper dive than we have with the other seven, as we think
that it takes more level setting in order to agree on what the major issues are, so that our radical
recommendations get understood in the context of what they are trying to resolve.
The extraordinary global economic success of the last three decades has led us to a paradox without
precedent: the Economy completely governs the World. It has become the singular pillar but is
unstable and wobbly, as the crisis of 2008 has still not finished demonstrating to us. The Economy
drives and directs us with no counter-balancing force, and no direction other than growth (for
nations) and profitable growth (for companies). Beyond growth and profit, it does not have a true
direction that can channel its indisputable force toward a positive and desirable destiny for
Humanity, as if growth and profits had become an end destination by themselves, with or without a
definite link with a more generic and higher level goal for the society as a whole.
We think that the problem to resolve for the economic grand-plan that we recommend is double.
First we must ensure that growth and profits match some form of overarching goal for the society –
such as its sustainability (and do not instead play against it). Second, we must find mechanisms to
cushion the general instability of the system, that is racked with cycles - that lead from bubbles to
bubbles and from growth to recessions - and of imbalances between countries – those with record
debt and those who are their guarantors – and of multinational corporations who by definition are
spread out globally but governed nationally (although barely contribute to their homeland taxation).
Given our political fragmentation, no one is able to define and monitor the global direction. As the
whole system has heated up, certain imbalances have become so great – and therefore dangerous –
that they challenge the very foundation of our economic miracle: free exchange and globalization
themselves. In other words, we see a growing risk that globalization could go backwards, not
because it hasn’t succeeded – it has delivered and shared more wealth faster than any other model in
History - but because of its own lack of global policing which has turned it into a roller coaster.
We propose that the economic initiative of the new government to re-center the power of the global
liberal Economy as a positive force for the society – on top and above growth of wealth generation
alone. The Economy should accompany us – rather than guide us – towards a sustainable and stable
future.
A) The great imbalances of the economic semi-globalization:
The grand economic initiative should be elaborated to resolve what we see as the four great endemic
imbalances of the current model of semi-globalization:
Imbalance number 1:
The Economy is the master of our society - instead the objective of our overall sustainability
should rule.
Given our ecological challenges, we think that sustainability must become our number one political
priority, instead of the Economy, which currently rules pretty much everything. The position the
Economy as the number one priority for most governments – the necessary national quest for
economic success - has become excessive. It is primarily a mindset issue. It drives everything in the
pursuit of constant consumer growth with barely another finality than growth itself. The Economy
must assist our metamorphosis into a green society instead of fighting it, and serve in the greatest
cause that Humanity has ever combated – re-building the symbiosis with our environment and make
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our footprint sustainable. By taking the pivotal role, the Green Economy can turn this crisis into an
opportunity and propel us toward a new phase of human civilization, much like when Mankind first
discovered agriculture.
We can seize this chance to construct a new long-term economic momentum, one that is stable and
based on sustainability. It should be built upon a logics of globalism and free trade, but regulated
and channeled – just enough - so that it contributes toward the construction of a sustainable society
rather than remaining opportunistic and anarchic with regards to national borders and the effects of
pollution.
Imbalance number 2:
The Economy is now global, but the economic authorities are still national.
Maintaining a stable World equilibrium has become more and more due to the national
fragmentation of our economic authorities, leaving the overall system to navigate without a pilot.
No country alone is powerful enough to police the system – including the USA which now also
struggles with a heavy debt burden. This fragmentation provoked the economic crisis that is still
impacting us in 2013 (five years later), and continues to limit a definitive resolution to the crisis.
First things first, let’s take a look at some more numbers in order to measure the effects of this
crisis, and why we think that such an event should be considered as an exemplary failure of the
model – thus its root causes be corrected. According to the magazine L’Expansion, between 2007
and the end of 2009 we had accumulated $1.5 trillion of new public debt – 100 times more than the
Marshall Plan – and 60 million people became jobless (though the number is probably much higher
than that but difficult to gauge). One hundred thousand companies filed for bankruptcy in the
industrialized nations, and eighty countries plunged into recession in 2009. Things are now much
better in 2013, but we are coming out of a catastrophic situation, in which we were plunged
overnight in September 2008, with no anticipation at all, after years of superb “growth” for
everyone – the roller coaster effect at its best.
To simplify, we have entered into a domain of uncertainty never seen before, as so much is now
based on the free Economy that no one controls. These numbers would have been unimaginable to
any expert two years prior. How was such a cataclysm even possible in a globalized economy that
seemed so sophisticated and powerful and that was methodically polished by our biggest brains –
what are the fundamental causes that we need to eradicate ?
i.
The fragmentation of the World’s (national) central banks which are independent and
sovereign, and who have no ties between each other - except to the interest of the country to
which they belong – is the first challenge to a global economic governance.
This issue has been exacerbated by the disconnection in behavior of our two largest
countries (US-China), but in any case the central banks are the primary actors that define the
parameters that influence their overall national economy: interest rates, monetary policy,
stimulation of growth, and control of inflation. Their individual position provokes reactions
on the local Economy, but also indirectly regionally and globally if their country is sizeable.
The sum of their local economic policies, considered with their respective influence and
weight, becomes the economic policy of the World.
Each country’s policy is designed for its greatest benefit and the sum of the best of each
becomes, sometimes, the best for all. However, not always, as we are living through the
consequences right now, and no one has the means nor the political willpower to resolve this
anarchy.
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Each country is independent of its monetary policy, with the apparent exception of the Euro
Zone countries – connected through the Euro - who have just discovered that even a small
country like Greece is sufficient to start an infernal downward spiral that can derail the
whole of Europe, and so are now dancing around the need for a regional economic
unification, which can only happen through a political unification ...
ii.
With a weakening USA, international organizations struggle to be our pacemaker, as
they are not enough equipped to fulfill their role of central governance because the
national agendas on which they depend are incompatible.
The G20 definitely offers a sufficiently representative table for discussion, with its key
actors making up 85% of the world GDP. But they still have to reach agreement, which in
most cases in unlikely, as the individual interests compete with each other.
We are experiencing a crisis of global economic leadership. The economies of the Western
World first discovered that they had become part of a finite and restricted entity following
the crisis of 1929. They had become an interdependent ecosystem full of identified actors
that were linked to one another directly, making their individual actions inseparable. Since
then, this ecosystem has more or less progressed due to the leadership (or impact) of the
United States, and expanded geographically to most of the World in the 1990’s. Almost a
century later, the USA is still the number one power, economically, geo-politically, and
militarily, but it is seeing its leadership and the power of its currency erode; it is not the
unique example to follow any longer, after its recent bubble and resulting debt. New poles
are emerging, such as China. The G20 suffers from these emerging multi-polar tensions and
conflicting agendas, without a powerful enough influencer.
Beyond influence, the World needs more than ever someone to truly lead the multilateral
Economy and business – the USA has personified the role of the energetic stabilizer up to
this point and it wasn’t clear if they still could, or still wish, to continue in this position. The
new federation can definitely step in and reactivate this most needed weakening post. As
long as this position remained fragile, the risks of protectionism could not be ruled out. In
fact, one might even fear that without the emergence of the new global federation and a
strong leadership for a sustainable global free-trade, the model of free exchange that is truly
universal and that we had known since the fall of the Berlin Wall, was under immediate
threat.
iii.
The disequilibrium between the American policy (the former number one) and the
Chinese policy (the former number two) has destabilized a fragile World balance, and
precipitated the fragile European construction (unfinished Euro union) into nearchaos.
The evolution of this improbable couple, who together represent a half of the World
economy, but who have completely discordant policies, has been one of the profound causes
of the recent World economic anxiety.
The USA had to create debt in order to grow - credit cards, real estate, purchasing of
products that were almost exclusively manufactured in China - and has brought its deficit to
the highest level since 1946 – more than 70% of GDP, or $12.3 trillion. In 1946, after the
Second World War and another big debt, the US got itself going again by growing the
Economy faster than the debt, thus reducing the ratio of debt and facilitating its repayment,
while engaging itself in the reduction of state deficits, and by accepting an increase in taxes.
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The war was over and therefore required no additional financing, and the post war period
created strong economic growth, with American exports fueling the liberated World to
reconstruct itself. This time the deal is very different: the US has spent a trillion dollars on
the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan – just a small detail in the ocean of debt that it currently
holds – rather than being in a period of upturn, it is just beginning to experience some soft
growth, however the US is not the number one World exporter any more, and there is no one
around any longer with exponential importing needs.
China on the other hand has accumulated almost $3 trillion of monetary reserves – a quarter
of the American debt – by becoming the factory of the World, and certainly of the US exporting $100 billion per month. China’s expansionist monetary policy was based on a
delusion, as the Yuan was unconvertible (or fluctuating within narrow boundaries) at an
arbitrary rate set by the Communist Party. The USA and Europe implored China for years
(without any real success) to put their rate of exchange at a level less damaging to their
economy and the rest of the World (the yuan undervalued by about 20% compared with the
Dollar or the Euro), and finally China is starting to engage into some relative re-evaluation.
This authoritarian Chinese monetary policy has been a one-way street that benefited greatly
from global free exchange but, because it used a monetary value that was artificially and
unilaterally based and non-convertible, it represented a major menace to globalization and
for the economic liberty of everyone. The “War of the Yuan,” stained by latent
protectionism, has started to calm down as the Yuan gradually approaches a fair market
value, Chinese growth is plateauing, and the Dollar “strength” still continues to be softened
through the aggressive quantitative easing of the Fed.
As this collusion is starting to even out, Europe has now turned into the big unsettled castle
of cards, which must urgently be re-stabilized. If the European economy explodes, the
spread of the crisis to emerging countries will be inevitable. These last decades, the bright
period of the post-war in Europe have enabled a scenario of growth that was weaker but
more stable than that of the USA (a curve with less amplitude). The impact of 2008 was
such that it put into question the fragility of the new edifice of the Euro, which was
constructed to slowly evolve into a more complete construction, across the calm waters of a
low but stable growth. The public indebtedness of 2009 proved its Achilles heel – a
currency without the necessary economic and political tools of regulation.
China and the USA are stakeholders in this solution. Not because they are responsible for
the rickety construction of the Euro, but because their awkward relationship has
involuntarily led to the crisis that has destabilized the Euro. Helping Europe again to find its
equilibrium – helping to finance its debt with or without the Euro – has become the
immediate priority for all the members of the G20. Integrated Europe is the number one
World economy; its failure would create incalculable chain reactions.
iv.
This lack of global governance and leadership provokes cyclical bubbles that seem
systematic and regular, despite the fact that the one affecting us now demonstrates an
increase in amplitude.
One can thus assume that these cycles are due to an inherent characteristic of the model,
which is built on a permanent disequilibrium. It behaves like a great planetary economic
sinusoid, that repeatedly follows the same path. Phase one: first the USA overheats and
goes into crisis, it spreads to Europe, which is its economic extension, then to Asia where
everything is produced. Phase two: after two or three years, the US moves out of the crisis,
then Asia and then Europe. Phase three: so the World economy comes out better than
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before, everything is suddenly forgotten until the US starts to overheat once again, and back
to phase one.
This game of dominos reproduces itself regularly. The only question posed after each crisis
really, is one of timing and predictability of these unannounced earthquakes, rather than their
overall risk of happening again – as they will. Their risk of happening again is permanent,
and cannot be disassociated from the system’s logic (or illogic) construction.
One piece may have changed lately though – with the emergence of China. The game of
semi-random global dominos has potentially been altered fundamentally, with the entry of a
dominant yet totalitarian economic power, that uses directive tools to manage to maintain its
own growth, regardless of the ups and downs experienced by the free-trading West.
Eventually, with one heavyweight country continuing to manipulate the tools and loading the
dice so as to erase the unforeseen shifts in the market and control their individual long-term
future, the overall game might end up being altered.
Imbalance number 3:
Multinational enterprises operate globally, but there is no global enterprise governance,
taxation system or regulating mechanism that mirrors their sphere of activity.
Multinational companies – including banks - serve directly the interests of their shareholders and
indirectly of their governments of origin, but their global field of action leaves them with almost
total freedom over their own internal international regulations. They have the flexibility and choice
over where they will surface profits or losses (transfer prices), pay taxes or not, produce goods or
import, create or eliminate jobs, and sell products.
It is all great and allows these firms to flourish and to create a lot of wealth as never before, but by
virtue of their financial power and independence, they have become not only economic actors, but
also political agents. Because of their capacity to impact the fate of the countries where they
operate with their own economic decisions, “microeconomic” actors (individual companies) have
turned into “macroeconomic” influencers (individually so big and independent vs. locally
fragmented authorities). They have the power to invest in a region, or to decide to close operations,
putting them in the position of being courted by multiple countries that will compete to benefit from
their presence. Often, the wealth of these enterprises is greater than the GDP of the country where
they operate. The industrial policy of small countries is put in a delicate position because of their
dependence on firms with great economic power, that operate within their borders among many
others. Although operating locally, these giant actors are taking orders from somewhere else,
directing their business to achieve a global goal that, while inclusive of the social constraints of the
host country, has the sole objective of producing the most efficient global end-to-end transaction for
the shareholder back home.
The pursuit of ever better operational results can push enterprises toward aggressive developments –
like banks who shifted their core business before 2008 from retail and financing to highly
speculative financial engineering, for a while more rewarding that their traditional productive assets
– because they were systematically searching for stronger growth and profitability, as judged by
shareholders every quarter, within the imperfect boundaries of the isolated jurisdictions of the
countries in which they operated.
Taxation of multinationals doesn’t typically occur in the country where their wealth is generated.
These enterprises have learned, as a normal business practice, to legally optimize their taxes
internationally, and leverage – in good faith - the lack of international jurisdiction, as they would
leverage any other component of their activity. Their internal transfer prices easily blurry
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international regulations in order to minimize their taxes, maximizing profits where the local taxes
are the lowest. The American Congress estimates the annual US tax revenue loss only to be one
hundred billion $ a year due to offshore tax “evasion”. In the current global game, fiscal
optimization by multinationals is a perfectly legal science, one that has been made easy by the
fragmentation of states. Almost all enterprises pull these strings between their mother company and
their foreign subsidiaries by localizing their profits in those places where taxation is the weakest –
or almost non-existent in fiscal paradise. If they don’t, they handicap themselves against competitors
who will play such cards.
Since 60% of international trade occurs within these multinational groups (through internal revenue
transfer), the potential for this evasion is both enormous and legal, and remains difficult to measure.
According to a study by the journal Le Monde in 2010, it could represent up to 80% of the countries
consolidated tax collection gap. Remedies for the individual countries are difficult to put in place in
the framework of their global competition, since having one jurisdiction impose a severe policy just
makes neighboring states more enticing to the concerned enterprises.
More positively, multinationals can be viewed as the glue and engine of the global economy and
they operate as the single missing link between countries. They position the countries in the open
economic World exchange, which are otherwise cloistered by their political borders. However,
viewed negatively, multinationals create yet another uncontrolled challenge to local authority,
compounding the difficulties already created by the international fragmentation, as they excel in
leveraging this fragmentation to their own benefit. They guarantee that the World Economy is, in
its entirety, beyond the control of anyone. As a result, while the global economic machine steers the
World, no one can steer the machine, and we miss the opportunity to capture more value for the
benefit of the society, as well.
The extraordinary wealth generated by the global enterprises matches less and less with the taxes of
the countries in which they generate it, and therefore the local state budgets (with a traditionally
high taxation model in order to finance sophisticated local infrastructure and welfare) are at loss of
balancing their public spending with their country historical needs – else than through deficit and
debt. It makes the problem bigger than it was – impacting local state budgets in a massive way - and
becomes a growing factor of the international economic fragility and resulting political imbalance.
We do not see that it is not the fault of the multinationals, but the fault of the lack of globalization of
the political system that surrounds them. Globalization has turned the fragmentation of local
taxations – which fund the countries - obsolete, incapable of taxing the value where it is being
generated.
Imbalance number 4:
Pure market forces can only resist to the emergence of a Carbon Zero society.
Fossil fuel, without the true financial inclusion of its environmental impact, is and will be cheaper
for a long time. So only a global political alteration of the model can drive the preference of clean
energies. The fossil fuel economy cannot be transformed by the sole effect of market forces, unless
the full price of fossil fuel is being reflected, instead of its direct cost of extraction and
transformation alone, as of today.
Our industries, services, lifestyles, and society as a whole, are based on the consumption of fossil
fuel energy. All the forces behind free exchange involuntarily support fossil fuel energy because of
their propensity to constantly move toward the easiest possible path – which fossil fuel is when
considered independently of its pollution. Immediate profit favors fossil fuels, and, in fact, there is
just no cost effective alternative. The entire Economy depends upon fossil fuel, and for an
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enterprise or an individual to decide to use an alternative energy source – that goes beyond
marketing ploys and publicity – there will be a start up investment and the expectation of a higher
running cost.
Certain countries are already trying to alleviate this bare reality, by trying to establish a carbon tax
that reflects the total price of fossil fuel (including its pollution), but the fragmented political powers
that (fail to) oversee the global Economy make the individual national initiative of redirecting
energy consumption rather risky. In any case, in our current framework, the transformation will be
slow – too slow – because there is too little economic motivation, without a decisive global public
stimulation that will teach and stimulate enterprises and consumers to make better decisions. The
start-up phase cannot be only voluntary, as seen earlier we are advocating a clear public stimulus.
Surprisingly though, notwithstanding the bare economic forces, the wave of the new Green
Economy is ready to take off, and has been for a while. In the mindset of many popular forces, the
time has come to start to react, and much of the technology has already reached industrial
credibility, if not maturity. It needs a definite irrevocable public boost and commitment to initiate
the program, for the replacement of fossil fuel with a green infrastructure, one that will fill the gap
of pure economic competitiveness between the currently unmatchable fossil price and the
developing clean alternatives, compensating during the transition the cost vacuum with an
interventionist taxation, or stimulation (stick or carrot, both can work).
In summary, we think that the fantastic progress enabled by the globalization of the Economy
should not be taken for granted: protectionism can be back, justified by our current fragility, crisis
and imbalances, unless the economic globalization gets complemented by a full political
globalization – granting globalization the full true consistency and homogeneity that it currently
misses.
To protect and reinforce the globalized Economy, global institutions and regulations must be put in
place to reduce these dangerous imbalances. The new federal government should lead this initiative,
with the principal objective of stabilizing the economic machine for the long-term, and turning it
into a tool that serves our greater political purpose – make it the engine of our Green Revolution.
B) The Grand Economic Initiative – a fully globalized economic model:
We recommend the federal government to initiate a Grand Economic Initiative, with the ambition to
form a new economic model, which serves the universal society that we want to build. It should use
the current ecological risk and economic instability as the catalysts of a new virtuous and long-term
momentum, for a stable, balanced and sustainable development.
We fully support the global liberal capitalist model, but one that is truly regulated by corresponding
international sovereign economic authorities.
The logic of the Initiative should be to defuse those factors that currently lead to economic
destabilization and to a resistance to the sustainable society, by integrating the financial and
monetary organizations at the federal level rather than at the state level, thus enforcing the necessary
alignment of the actors and of their regulation mechanisms (a model similar to one of the USA,
expanded to the global perimeter of the United Democratic States). Beyond the installation of a
proper global governance (which will install stability), we also have the ambition to stimulate the
Carbon Zero Economy, supporting the development of clean technologies, and lifting up the
poorest of countries infrastructures to a minimum acceptable level, so that all can participate to the
new prosperity.
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Following is our recommendation of five axes for the architecture of this decisive plan:
1. Installation of a global and sovereign economic governance:
The concept is so simple - to lift up the economic institutions, that are today national, to a federal
level, thus permitting an harmonized economic policy and regulation at the planetary level, that is
concerted (stability) and strategic (sustainability). We think that it can be achieved with four critical
decisions:
i.
Centralize the economic policy and monetary powers at the federal level.
The federal government should define the general economic policy and determine the budget
for its implementation. The federal tax system will overlap the state tax system, with an
identical logic to the American model, where the states are limited to local affairs while the
federal government guides all the financial bodies of the country – the country being the
Planet.
Federalism signifies a multi-dimensional sharing of power between the
federal/planetary level and that of the states. Each state could eventually retain its
constitution for state affairs – notwithstanding the parts that would conflict with the federal
one, as there should be systematic integration with the federal constitution, by default, in
case of any conflict.
The federal government would have exclusive powers, such as printing money, maintaining
security between states, and regulating inter-state commerce. The state governments would
retain exclusive power over internal matters of their state, with a tax system that covers their
own budgets – and which would be but a fraction of current state budgets since the
centralization of power would greatly increase the scale and synergy, and will free up
legions of national officials.
The federal tax system would allow for redistribution of funds across states, and ensure
fiscal solidarity on a planetary level. It would help anticipate and avert the failure of the
most fragile states, by organizing and supervising their policies and expenditures –
ultimately being their warrant. This system should also impose a general carbon tax
(balancing the cost of pollution of fossil energy), which would help accelerate investments in
clean energy. The government would encourage virtuous migrations that coincide with
targeted population density zones, finance large projects that would create employment and
stimulate developing economies, so they may reach a required and vital level of
infrastructure in the fields of communication, transportation, medicine, education, and
housing. Finally, the federation should support strategically a program for space
colonization (Priority 8), and the creation of ecological sanctuaries (Priority 3).
ii.
Create a global currency:
We are proposing to baptize this currency with a symbolic but neutral name: CORE
(Currency of Republic Earth). Alternatively, using the name of an already existing currency
that already has reference might be more reassuring – like the World Dollar – since the name
is used in the USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Taiwan, Singapore, and certain states
in the Antilles and in Africa (it may be perceived as too American).
A single currency is indispensable (though not sufficient, as seen in the example of the Euro)
for the solidification of a homogenous economic entity, because it allows for an unified
monetary policy: the amount of money issued, interest rates, and thus the stability of prices
and the direction of monetary flows toward savings, real estate or the stock market.
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A single currency, which is upheld by a unified monetary policy, can avert the massive
problems that are imposed by currency fluctuations, as well as the problems of
inconvertibility (like the yoyo game we have seen between the Dollar, the Euro and the
inconvertible Yuan). It would avoid the battle that occurs when economic blocks artificially
value their money as a competitive tool, and it would eliminate the destructive speculation
that some specialists of profitable destabilization (profitable only to them) use when they
launch an attack against one economy or another, to the great detriment of their prey.
A single currency would offer an extraordinary tool for illustrating and definitively
establishing stability, transparency, and ongoing convergence of economies across the
World. The economy would never again be as it was before. It would be able to selfregulate because the currency fluctuation game would suddenly be obsolete.
Finally, a single currency for the World should allow for truth and transparency of price and
cost, because we would all use the same calculator with the same unit of measurement.
Only then can we talk about a true global economy, one with a robust and transparent base,
with laws that are the same for everyone, and that commend true performance instead of
opportunistic speculation over fragile currencies, artificial exchange rates or fragmented
interest rates.
iii.
Empower one single global Federal Bank to go hand in hand with the single
currency:
To accompany the single currency, the global central bank should articulate the World’s
monetary policy, of which the objective should be to avoid or level off fluctuations across
states and globally, by monitoring the overheating and/or shrinking of local economies, the
manipulation of interest rates (which cannot remain at around zero forever), and managing
the money supply (of the single currency).
This sovereign global institution should be empowered as the “Global Fed’” (the G-Fed’),
capable of imposing a responsible monetary policy on all states. The bank should aim at
enforcing economic stability, concerted development of local economies, and would make
completely pointless today’s immense energy waste in intra-country/currency speculation
and lucrative destabilization (free of any value add).
iv.
Globalize the perimeter of the Stock Exchanges:
The ownership of multinational companies should continue to globalize, and mirror the
spread of their activities around the World. Multinationals should be truly global, not only
with their operations, but also with the pool of their shareholders and their governance,
instead of having to rely mostly on the guidance of a country-based influence (shareholders
and home country law).
While every individual should be able to easily buy goods and services just about anywhere
with a single currency, there should no longer be a risk of dissuasive exchange for an
investor. Shares from all the public firms of the World should be sold in a global market by
globalized stock exchange institutions, like the NYSE or the NASDAQ, with open access to
every investor, public or private, everywhere, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
The federal regulating body for the global stock exchange should be a global agency –
equivalent to a “Global SEC” (Global Securities and Exchange Commission).
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2. True global expansion of a free-market, liberal capitalistic economic model.
With its capacity to stimulate and bring together the creative, ambitious and competitive
characteristics of human nature, the current liberal economic model has proven that it is capable of
best cultivating and combining the forces of imagination, work and wealth creation. Economic
freedom stimulates work and progress, rewarding performance and success with profit. While it
was thought to be historically more of an Anglo-Saxon cultural trait, it has become the engine of
globalization, and during the last decades has demonstrated that it can be endorsed extremely well
and even mastered by all our legacy civilizations and cultures.
The federal government should continue to promote the globalization of the liberal and capitalistic
model, which stimulates profit and economic liberty, and we recommend that to ensure its legacy,
the federal government should seal the global free market economy as part of its governing
principles, and make it an inalienable part of its constitution.
Of course, Capitalism can be criticized for its tendency toward creating inequality, as can
Democracy for its propensity for fragile electoral tactics. But in light of the collapse of the socialist
ideal, the individual motivation that capitalism provides stimulates the individual to exceed their
own expectations and aspire for progress, rather than experience apathy in an overly egalitarian and
enclosed system where initiative and human drive remain pointless, because it is not recognized or
compensated.
We do not see any better alternative, as long as we inject its missing ingredient: global economic
and political governance. This being very strongly said, we can also anticipate two fields in which
the absolute freedom of the market should be channeled and controlled and its momentum directed
in order to satisfy two strategic and fundamental ambitions of Humanity, and our vision for our
species:
•
The winding down of fossil fuel use, as the government frames its new fiscal and
technological/industrial initiatives toward Carbon Zero;
•
The strategic balancing and prioritization of geographic development across states. We
should avoid extreme economical/infrastructures imbalances between geographies (with
for instance the risk of industrial wastelands in old economies, or zero participation to
the global prosperity in some remote parts of Africa), through the stimulation/creation of
infrastructures in targeted geographic zones that will support local development when it
strategically needs help. Such efforts should be calibrated as a function of future climate
migrations to come, to prevent mass economic immigration, or just to ensure that no
place in the World is being excluded from the global exchange and cultural/economical
brewing made possible by the new regime.
3. Focus the economic policy on the stabilization of cycles, the stimulation of the poorest
economies, and the ramp-up of the “green” growth engine.
Once achieved the task of establishing the new economic authorities and regulations of the
sovereign global government is achieved, the key task should be to lay out the priorities for the
economic policy. We think that the policy should concentrate on three fronts:
i.
Stabilize the cyclical growth curve through a better balanced economic model:
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We should aim at deliberately constructing a global Economy that is more balanced
(including regionally), has less debt and is less prone to overheating.
The first step should be the management of the transition toward the new federal institutions
and processes, in particular making key decisions on the initial conversion rates into the
single currency for the new member states – defining such rules and objectives will be key
for the respective competitiveness of the states, and should help re-balance commerce and
costs to the true rates of exchanges, at least within the CORE zone (single currency zone) to
start with.
The objective, for the countries that join the federation in the first wave, would be to create a
zone of monetary transparency in which the rate of exchange will no longer be a weapon for
competition, but a transparent alignment tool within the CORE zone, in which competition
becomes fair (including costs and taxes). This would already significantly reduce the risks
cyclical heat-ups, as it paces the potential for artificial upturns.
Beyond the CORE zone, sooner than later, the decision for China to join the Union would be
in gestation. We, of course, would hope for her participation as soon as possible, but if it
should arise that China would decide to initially stay on the sidelines, it would be necessary
to require the Party to make the Yuan convertible, or at least accept a reasonable parity with
the new currency. If, against the general interest, she would refuse, then the threat of
opposing her through a solution of protectionism would be the only unwelcomed outcome.
We should all try to avoid this, and would rather inspire China to open to a mode of
exchange that is finally equal with the rest of the World. In the absence of an agreement, the
result for China would be economically and politically intolerable for the short term, since
the initial weight of the Union would already represent the majority of the World’s GDP the economic issue could force the political one.
Also, in order to eliminate the magnitude and extent of the bubbles and cyclical growth and
recessions, the monetary policy should have global consistency, and guide a moderate but
sustainable level of growth (slowed down anyway by the transition to clean energy),
monitoring very tactically the money supply and interest rates.
Then comes the critical issue of the debt. We want to offer that as a one-off event, the
federation makes a bold step, and frees up the states from their public debt by taking it on at
the central level. The historic deficits of the countries - now states would be absorbed
centrally on day one of the federation, for all the day one members, so that all states may
start again on a robust and equal playing field. It would be a sort of a general public chapter
11 for indebted states. We think that this is quite a carrot for the first wave of members to be
overwhelming.
The central government would be able to absorb part of this central debt burden over time
thanks to enormous efficiency gains in the public system, obtained with the reduction in the
individual governmental budgets, by using the synergies available as a result of centralizing
the national states into a single federal apparatus. The centralization of federal duties (and
modernization in the case of many countries) and overall public operations should allow for
considerable savings, which would accelerate the repayment of the public debt and as a
result strengthen the World financial system.
Additionally, since a part of the debt is from a public debtor to a public creditor within the
federation, some of the debt could be written off within the federation’s own account, as it
would become its own debtor and creditor.
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Geographically, future growth should be favored in development zones as defined by the
Target Map of populations. Infrastructure needs based on these priority areas from the
density population map should be shouldered by federal investments. They would occur
primarily in the extreme North and South. Such a strategic federal stimulus policy would
make our current national economic competition more relative – if not obsolete – as it would
create a sense of teamwork across the regions of a same Planet (all funded by the same tax
CORE or Dollar), that we see within a country today, but which is totally missing at the
international level.
In parallel, a slow convergence in living standards should be achieved through the policy of
large infrastructure works programs, with the additional support of more favorable taxations
in difficult areas – but it must be recognized that while the Planet is in its period of political
integration, there must be tolerance of still disparate standards of living. Total social justice
will not occur for many generations, it is just not realistic.
ii.
Ramp-up the Green Economy:
There is great opportunity with the wave of new technologies that are nearing their mass
launch phase. It takes a loud and clear central political signal of long-term commitment, to
ignite and enable the creation of a formidable green leverage of growth for the global
economy, to be built around “Cleantech”, while old fossil fuel industries will be forced to
transform rapidly.
The tools used by the federation should be both carrots – direct investments and tax relief and sticks – taxation on the total cost of fossil products and services including the real cost
of their carbon footprint - as well as the forced reduction of fossil applications for which
there is already an efficient and clean alternative.
The magazine l’Expansion estimated in 2012 that the potential number of green jobs that
could be created in the US alone, is between 16 and 37 million. Green jobs could make for
an overall total that could replace or even exceed the total number of jobs that were
eliminated by the economic crisis of 2008.
To accelerate the “green wave”, the government should prepare a pool of initiatives, which
would welcome complementary private funding, and ways for the oil and gas industry to
recycle itself. As seen earlier, these funds should come from the almost complete transfer of
military budgets, representing two points of the World. This will create an economic
stimulus over many years and of a magnitude never before equaled in History. We believe
that this will constitute the long awaited economic electroshock, which can initiate for real
the Zero Carbon revolution.
iii.
Develop a global program of large-scale make-work infrastructure projects – “New
Deal 3.0”:
A policy of public works should help to stimulate three economic, geographic and sectorial
dimensions:
•
a) Economically: the World’s poorest countries - since their infrastructures will need
to be brought up to an acceptable level allowing them to participate in the
globalization of education, communications, agriculture, transportation and
medicine; and to limit massive emigration due to economic reasons. The focus
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should be on sub-tropical countries and concentrated in Africa.
•
b) Geographically: the areas that are targeted for population expansion by the Target
Map - as they will receive climate and economic migrants and their infrastructures
must be prepared for the increase in population – essentially the opening spaces in
Siberia, and Canada.
•
c) Horizontally: everywhere in the “Green” sector, the investments enabling the
society’s sustainability – such as solar farms in the deserts, off-shore wind farms,
development of the global energy grid, rationalization of the environmental footprint
of the megalopolis, and much more.
The policy of public works should have a stimulating effect on the economy overall, ensuring that
two engines fuel the strength and stability of global business and employment, as the society is in
the middle of its transition: the emerging Green Economy (taking over from the traditional fossil
fuel based economy) and the overall catch-up of the “rest-of-the-World” infrastructure (which will
over time accelerate the economic emergence of the poorest countries still left over from
globalization).
4. Initiation of social solidarity on a global scale.
The federal government, having become the federation serving all people and countries, should
enable the continuation of the recent effects of global free-market capitalism on the eradication of
poverty, and take the challenge of eliminating poverty by the middle of the century. Helping to even
out the World’s wealth across geographies, through the convergence of financial and social
strategies, should be a long-term concern for the economic policies. Despite the realities and
constraints, we think that there should be an overarching ambition for more planetary solidarity.
There should be a path that is no longer just philanthropic (by NGO’s and wealthy individuals) or
voluntary (by richer states), but that would also institutionalize the process of solidarity (solidarity
and not at all Communism), as a central design for the universal society, leveraging the following
strategies:
i.
Individual employment and benefits solidarity:
We do not think that it is realistic to try to unify a social benefits system on a global level –
not for a very long time, at least fifty years. Enormous economic variances in standard of
living, historical and cultural differences, perceptions of the role of the state (as either a
protector or a necessary evil), are all too disparate and therefore impossible to merge into
one single model, for the foreseeable future. In practical terms, a one size fits all system for
social benefits would not be financially feasible nor would it be politically desired. The
disparities between costs and the flexibility gained by hiring workers from around the globe
are not ready to disappear, because these issues are directly linked to local economic realities
and the evolution of cultures.
Nevertheless, we should think about convergence. The initiation of a harmonization of
workers’ rights, if not a short-term social benefit system, should be put in place, so that all
systems can be inserted into a framework, which becomes more cohesive over time. It
should begin with the overall prohibition of child labor, the establishment of a maximum
number of hours per week that can be worked, the affirmation of equal opportunity
employment regardless of gender, ethnicity or religion, the right to a safe working
environment, the access to basic preventive medicine, and finally, a system to aid the
survival of the unemployed (which would certainly be a controversial topics).
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The long-term objective will be to reach the compatibility of systems, well before they get to
be financially comparable. The value of individual social benefits would continue to be very
diverse from state to state, but points of benefits convergence would have been put in place,
though they would be relative as a function of historic living standards.
ii.
General welfare solidarity:
The policy of the federal government should help supporting welfare programs in the poorer
member states, primarily through investments in education, and the dissemination of basic
medicine for everyone.
The first step should focus on children. We should systematically combat extreme misery,
hunger, and illnesses that affect more than a billion children – half the children of the globe.
Since we know that local corruption has been a critical issue in channeling humanitarian
funds to the most disadvantaged places, the effort should concentrate on the poorest member
states, where there would be evidence of a transparent democratic political structure,
following the integration to the federation (it will act as an additional stimulus for
populations of Third-World countries to join the federation).
We also propose to create a federal taskforce of intervention, which would be empowered to
dispense directly or indirectly (leveraging existing NGO’s), on the federal budget, the most
needed humanitarian assistance anywhere in the federation, in a situation of crisis,
emergency or endemic misery – so that everyone in the federation can at least get basic
access to some food and medical care. Individual state inefficiencies could be overruled by
direct federal action, in case of extreme humanitarian situations. Epidemics that systematic
vaccinations should also be centrally monitored, to ensure proper preventive control of
global epidemic spreading.
5. Regulation of the global governance of enterprises.
Companies across the federation should be governed by the same rules and regulations, using the
IFRS (International Financing Reporting Standards) as the common global language for business.
Taxes should be a combination of a single federal tax, plus the local one, which can vary by state.
For publicly traded companies, the shares should be offered for exchange on the global market, to
which every investor could access. In this way, every enterprise would be truly globalized, from
their shareholders, to their financial regulations, and their contribution to an identical federal tax
system. Tax evasion would be made mostly obsolete, through the generalization of a fair federal
taxation, while state and local taxes would be sharply reduced, as a trade-off with the federal tax.
Certainly, tax heavens would not be a viable business model any longer.
We think that this clear unification of the rules of enterprise governance would have direct
implications on their leadership, strategies, behaviors and culture. With the universe of their
business leaders and employees globalizing more quickly than the rest of the society, multinationals
will continue to spearhead the universal cultural laboratory. International careers for managers or
engineers will become the norm, and become necessary to have a successful career, as few
companies of a substantial size would remain contained to the borders of their original state. The
opening of borders in the federation would further reinforce the reality of the free exchange of
talents, but these migrations would finally be seconded by a political and social ecosystem, which
they have been missing so far.
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We propose that the federal authorities should study the use of positive discrimination in managerial
staffing, so that the management and directors of an enterprise might better reflect on the diversity
of their markets. For example, if a global enterprise has a third of its business in America, a third in
Asia, and a third in Europe, the logic would be that the composition of its management team should
mirror this diversity.
Enterprises should operate in complete freedom, primarily motivated by their market-led objectives.
However, as proposed earlier, in order to make sure at the high level that the market channels the
strategic causes of the society, there should also be a policy of corporate fiscal simulation, which the
intent of encouraging the businesses to participate and invest in the grand design for the sustainable
society. Practically, companies will be fiscally motivated to contribute to the key strategies
prioritized earlier:
•
The construction of a sustainable society, with tax-free investments in sustainable
technologies (carrots) and carbon taxes on fossil utilization (sticks), in order to encourage
the acceleration of the green transformation of these enterprises;
•
The participation to the construction of infrastructures for the poorer member states, favoring
the generation of local employment and added-value;
•
The development of the zones of future growth on the Target Map, stimulating new jobs
creation there, in order to attract immigrants there where the density maps deem it most
virtuous.
To summarize our proposal for the Grand Economic Initiative, we want a strong economic engine
for the global society. One that is unified in its governance, offers more stability and eliminates the
case for cyclical downturns, continues to generate wealth for a growing number of people and helps
eradicating misery, while it assists the heavy transformation of our industrial and consumerist model
into a mode of long-term sustainability.
Nothing is impossible in the business World, it is all about opportunities, and clarity needed to
minimize risks of return on investments. Capitalism has demonstrated its strength during wars and
crises and has won over all other economic models. Strategically regulated and stimulated, it
constitutes the most powerful engine for the transition to come. We want to guide the government
with a clear mindset – it should be business friendly and fully supportive of the economic actors people and business make the society.
The key to our future is to forge a sentiment of fundamental confidence. Re-establishing faith in the
future, establishing a missing vision for the society to which the markets can rally, is paramount.
The new global actors will have to gain respect and support from the business World – despite the
frightening short-term transformation of the business model that they will promote. Confidence in
the global project will be the key to its success, and to our prosperity. Business people are friends of
globalization. They have understood long ago that the biggest opportunities lay across our legacy
borders, which have become irrelevant to them, else than for the fragmented rules imposed by the
local governments. The business community knows yet unconsciously that we must unite to create a
grand solution, and avoid the return to protectionism. With the right – clear – messages, these
critical actors are easy to engage – they need to see above everything the positive American attitude,
and their fervent undertaking in the enterprise.
Big transformations always end up being beneficial to businesses, as they create disruptions, which
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lead to new growth opportunities, surfaced by new generations of entrepreneurs, fueled by a
reinvigorated sense of creativity and energy. Building the global green economy is a superb chance both economic and societal – that will not only anchor our society in a sustainable ground, but also
stimulate a wave of redevelopment and growth, and help us jump over the ecologic and protectionist
wall.
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We believe that access to a transparent and universal education and information should be the
irrefutable and fundamental right of every citizen of the federation. In a Democracy, the level,
quality, and pervasiveness of the population’s education is directly proportional to the health of its
republican political system and to the level of engagement given by citizens to support the programs
initiated by politicians. The citizens must be able to have a point of view on the key issues of their
society, for Democracy to be able to operate.
In a Democracy that reaches a planetary dimension, there is an even greater challenge for the
majority of the citizens to keep pace with the complexity and quantity of information available, and
understand what is going on with the business of the government. It takes more self-motivation,
curiosity and interest, for them to make the effort to learn and understand a World that is so multifaceted and astoundingly complicated, that getting them the tools to be informed and educated
becomes paramount.
A mass of passive citizens, disengaged with the affairs of their federation, would lead to a dual risk:
•
The government could turn into an anonymous bureaucratic machine, led by an elite of
intellectuals disconnected from their people, which given their unmatched universal power
would be extremely dangerous;
•
The citizens, uninterested with the global issues that they would struggle to understand (or
that would appear so distant from their practical life), could regress into their nearest
traditional horizon, and by default isolate their interest to local affairs, or sports … so much
easier to comprehend.
At the same time, some of the greatest obstacles in the current engagement of citizens in our
national democracies – nationalistic parasites and insolvable ethnic separations – will have been
removed from the system with everyone being brought to the same page to face our common
planetary challenge, and using the same political tools to resolve that problem.
This
“simplification” of the issues to the resolution of vivid global problems should bring forth common
good sense, that benefits the general interest rather than relative benefits over one small group or
another. It will take some time to observe how it all plays out, but we can see a scenario where a
global Democracy would engage some phenomenal interest and involvement from most, as such an
exciting change in the political game could everywhere reenergize the “Res Publica”. The case for
a global agenda has the potential to offset the relative lethargy and disinterest that we can see in the
older free regimes. Old democracies unfortunately take Democracy for granted, while they see with
disappointment that their current politicians are stuck into issues bigger than their sphere of
influence, incapable of taking the big decisions needed to resolve the challenges that really matter.
The first task for the global leaders will be to energize the citizens around the global agenda, and
their educational role will be essential: they will have to simplify the global complexity, make it
palatable to the multitude.
While education matters for the global citizens, we also want to raise the awareness of a new
challenge for the leaders of the federation, in particular for those in the first wave, who will
construct its first government. Each of them will have to deal with the perception of the citizens that
they intend to favor their country of origin. Before it becomes natural to have a leader from another
nationality (as it is in a multinational), most people will have to go through an adaptation phase, and
again education will be key. We anticipate that it will take a long time for national prejudices to
disappear, and it will be essential that both the education system and the media help understand the
reality of the true challenges that transcend the global community individuality, so that we all may
see beyond the filters of our own prejudices.
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Barack Obama himself, if elected, as the role model for all, will have an extremely difficult and
emblematic task, and should ensure that he surrounds himself with exceptional men and women
whose impartiality reflects this message of universalism, are great educators/communicators, while
still driving forcefully to the right decisions and strategic agenda.
Education, peered with transparent information, is the key to realizing and forever implementing the
promise of global Democracy. Even the best political system and leadership is powerless if its
populace is uneducated, and/or blind in front of the true challenges and choices at hand. In order for
the government to successfully manage the radical transformation of the federation, it will need to
be supported by an enlightened popular support. Therefore, an information and educational system
that enables the understanding of the top issues – for people all around the World and not only a
more fortunate minority - should be a key priority, as general success will be impacted by our
people’s lowest denominator – knowledge or ignorance. A super smart minority leading with a
democratic constitution can do nothing for a blind electorate. By the same token, a totalitarian rule
can’t last long with an informed and educated population that is curious and responsible.
Open and transparent information and universal education will be the foundation of our new
planetary civilization. They will be the link between cultures as well as generations. The universal
ethic should be one of freedom of access to all, by all, without censure. Our wish for everyone –
young and old – is the universal right to information and to an education that internationalizes,
bringing us closer together, and opening us up to the many new realities that we will confront as a
global team.
1. The right to transparent and open information for all.
Media has become digitalized allowing information to be transmitted from one medium to another.
All news can be immediately shared everywhere, and converge into a multimedia stream, whether
the source is written, oral, photo or video. Books have become electronic and can be downloaded
without ever touching paper or even a publisher or a bookstore. High definition images can be sent
from one telephone to another, and video no longer needs the cinema or television since it can be
transported through uploads and downloads at any hour on a multitude of devices. The Internet has
become the means of universal multimedia and multi-device transport, with billions of devices
connected, and already ninety percent of the traffic carrying video in the US.
The future is now, it’s all gone at light speed, a true total revolution of information and
communication. Transmitting and accessing any information, in real time, has become trivial. We
have even become overly informed due to the quantity of information that assails us, from our
newspaper to our radio or television, from our telephone to our tablet. We probably aren’t far from
having a chip implanted under our skin (the ultimate portable electronic device) that would allow us
to access all information, wirelessly.
It all appears as if the Internet was evident, irremediable, as if all could use it forever. In reality, it is
a fragile edifice, that nobody quite manages to nurture and protect – it is everybody’s best friend and
enemy. The Internet is fragile, as it relies on a long chain of willing players to exist. It has emerged
as an unequaled universal power – the only one – and his strength (his Freedom) is also his Achilles
heel: nobody can defend it, or make it “behave” in a way that he doesn’t get too rogue, or even
ensures that it doesn't incidentally goes dead.
A. The Internet needs more cohesive governance.
The roles of ICANN (The International Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) and ISOC
(The Internet Society) should be fully globalized and elevated as official governing bodies of the
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Internet, beyond the definition of the next technology standards such as IPV6, but also more
importantly to business and societal issues, now that the Internet has such an impact on society as a
whole. A global government can “manage” the Internet.
We recommend that, with the support of the government, these entities should help enforcing
globally four principles for the Internet - universal equal access, freedom of usage, cohesiveness of
taxation and rights, and policing of illegal usage:
i.
Universal equal access:
The extraordinary capabilities of the Internet make access inequalities that much harder to
tolerate. We have concluded that its universal access should become a right – the right for
Freedom of information – with the Freedom of access to the Internet (and its future
evolutions) to be everywhere for anyone.
The Internet has become the great facilitator of a new universal and egalitarian society. It is
not only the vehicle, but also the symbol of the emerging culture. It is everything and
everywhere, it is interactive, constant, immediate, global, egalitarian, educational, and
democratic. It facilitates cooperation and satisfies almost every curiosity. The example of
Wikipedia, the encyclopedia constructed and maintained by its users, is absolutely
fascinating. Search engines open an infinite library to us. There – on line - one can learn,
study and be informed, check the mail, shop around, make new acquaintances – even
intimate ones, work, play, cultivate networks, find old friends, pay taxes, vote and participate
to virtual encounters through videoconferences. The Internet is a stupefying tool that goes
beyond a decade old imagination. It is unreal in its power and multitude of possibilities. It
projects us into the infinite of knowledge and curiosity. This pervasive vehicle for modern
civilization has become the forum of our global village and granted communication access to
everyone to such a degree that it has become a major economic actor and is the embryo of a
global political tool as well.
As the porthole to universal knowledge, it is quickly becoming impossible to live a modern
and engaged life without being on line at almost every hour and in every location. The
Internet has become a need and should, therefore, be viewed as a right of all individuals.
The federal government should assure the functionality and universal access to the Internet
with the same operational guarantee that is accorded to public services. We offer that it
should recognize Internet access as a link between citizens and as a fundamental right, the
right to information, communication, and knowledge.
The implications are multiple in terms of ensuring that the Internet “works” for all. It
includes ensuring about the creation of infrastructures – underwater cables, satellites, and
basic connections to homes or wireless spots everywhere – to make sure that service is easily
attained by everyone everywhere. It also comprehends to combat the inequality between
Internet speeds – since multimedia drives a lot of bandwidth.
In North America and Europe, the Internet usage has already surpassed the written press and
audiovisual, in the number of hours spent by users, and three quarters of all American
households are connected. In total, nearly 2 billion families had access to the Internet in
2010, of which one-fifth are Chinese. Poor countries, on the other hand, are greatly
underprivileged in this domain with still only 10% of African households having access to a
connection, despite a recent doubling.
There are truly two dimensions when viewed through the filter of Internet access, and it is
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clear that the Internet is still a tool for the very rich. This must change, rapidly. The
government should commit itself to the infrastructure means needed to create relative
equality in digital information and under the best possible time limits. It should also
encourage ongoing private funding, similar to the marvelous program “One child, One
laptop” which has already furnished a million Internet terminals to the most underprivileged
children, thanks to its high-tech sponsors.
ii.
Freedom of usage:
It is not a coincidence that the Arab Spring and the tensions in Russia are occurring in
conjunction with the universal tool of unification that can be so elusive through its social
networking, or that thousands of Chinese spies are censoring the usage of the Internet in
China so that the government there can “protect” itself. The Internet is the involuntary
enemy of totalitarian governments – and is being treated accordingly - because it allows
transparent information and communication, and generates freedom of thoughts.
The censorship and control over mass communication in non-democratic states cannot
handle a borderless communication vehicle that is so universal and pervasive. China and
Iran among others (Russia to a lesser degree) are paying the price – each in their own way.
Since they cannot ban the Internet outright - as it would have profound popular and
economic repercussions - they are attempting successfully to control it by blocking
thousands of sites and organizing a policing system over the Net, as well as by paying fake
Internet surfers to influence the debates taking place on line.
For the citizens of totalitarian states, despite this censorship the Internet has become a
liberation force. They learn of what has been censured by traveling under the (apparent)
anonymity of the Net. The Internet is their fragile but exciting window to the outside World
and to other Internet users who live in free places. By communicating with strangers, they
threaten the monopoly of “correct” information that the political police are attempting to
control - even within countries, online “chats” have become a means of communication and
of revolt. The authorities increasingly fear – and with good reasons - that the online debates
could turn into uncontrollable protests in the streets. From now on, one can become
informed and even demonstrate, (almost) sheltered from view, while developing the
confidence needed for the greater struggle to come.
In China where the Internet was authorized under the cover of massive censorship, the
system is beginning to skid out of control. Eric Schmidt, the General Manager of Google,
was greatly criticized for his initial partnership with China because of their censorship of the
search engine. Google has since then often threatened to throw in the towel, as much
American players there. China is managing a particularly delicate situation. While the
Chinese are now the number one users of the Internet in number and the number one
manufacturer of parts, the Chinese government is also the most active censor – how long
will the Chinese tolerate this false liberty ?
Beyond this immediate conflict, these rumblings demonstrate the importance of the Internet
as a universally democratic tool and the ongoing conflict between a totalitarian regime and
freedom of information. Once again, the defense of the Freedom of information – digital or
analog – should be an intransigent right for every citizen of the federation.
But there is another side to the Freedom of the Internet, which is not restricting its usage, but
watches it ... The Internet is secretly used – or misused – by otherwise pro-freedom and
democratic governments, as an intelligence tool. In other words, as highlighted by the NSA
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issue, normal citizens are being watched - spied - on the Internet, for governmental
intelligence work. “Big Brother” is watching anything that is worth paying attention to,
based on what people are looking at, or the way they communicate – in case there would be
terrorists surfing, on anything else that they might be interested in. Here as well, we
advocate for a strict and transparent governance mechanism – the federal government should
not be above the law.
iii.
Coherence of global/local taxation and rights compensation:
For a long time global e-business players have been allowed, as a tolerance or an
afterthought, to surf around local taxations, not only like other multinational firms with
corporate tax, but also avoiding local VAT for their customers (thus gaining an unfair
competitive advantage against local brick-and-mortar competitors and missing their local
contributions). Also, most e-players have historically failed to fairly compensate authors and
publishers for their rights (potential copyrights infringements) in exchange for the work of
the authors being made available on the Internet.
As the Internet and its e-business wing moves from being the underdog to the main business
(distribution) actor, this loss of income for the local states and the creative sector becomes a
problem to be resolved, or at least clearly rationalized globally. We strongly suggest that the
federation should ensure that proper mechanisms of governance (through ICANN and ISOC)
take care or policing such issues on a global basis, as it is really nobody’s role right now on a
global basis.
iv.
Policing of illegal usage:
Any strength comes with its weakness – and the anonymous Freedom of the Internet has also
its downside – anybody can do anything with it, from anywhere to anywhere. It is not all
good, as it also gives ground to spam, and perverse or dishonest practices – some that touch
children who are also freely accessing anything that an adult can do or see. These issues of
child e-abuse and e-pornography can hardly been fought across borders, as often the source
and the receiver are in different countries, and there is also a vacuum of global governance
on these issues, made so critical with the time children are spending on line. The extended
jurisdiction of the union should enable the international governing bodies to enforce the
necessary surveillance and rules on what universal positions could be, on the limits of the
(un)acceptable – such fragmented rulings are impossible in the current local framework.
B. Continued expansion of television and radio channels with international reach:
Mass media are going through their own revolution, due to the multitude of new technologies
available, and insatiable appetite of their audiences. “Old” media are finally benefiting from the
Internet as well, after a period of destabilization and trauma, and have now learned to make it a
growth engine, for television, music/radio and even books. In parallel to the growing presence of the
Internet, the volume of contents consumption continues to increase also on television or music/radio
channels, more and more specialized, with thematic or identity specificity (micro-channels) –
transmitted through satellite, cable, or on-line (OTT “over-the-top”). Channels successfully multiply
throughout industrialized countries, because of how easily they can now be received and adapted to
the precise interests of their users, but are also exploding in emerging countries where new waves of
media consumers are hungry for contents they can now access. Tens of thousand of channels are
now available throughout the World through various transmission technologies, and growingly the
Internet – as people now spend more time playing with digital media in the US than in front of their
TV (five hours a day). It isn’t difficult to observe that even in developing areas where cables are
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still absent and the few state sponsored channels lack quality (non-propaganda) programming, there
are balconies and rooftops covered by thousands of little white dishes.
Television operators are also beginning to transcend their borders. International news channels are
becoming more regional or planetary and are a godsend to populations that have spread all over the
World – cosmopolitan audiences for CNN or BBC, or often identity driven channels like Al-Jazeera
for Muslim or TV5 for Francophone, and many others for Hispanic audiences. These channels
participate in the liberty of universal expression and offer to a majority of the people in the World
(often) impartial access to information and cultures, and even contribute to disrupting the control of
totalitarian states, as censorship becomes more and more intolerable when so much information is
otherwise at everyone’s fingertips. The information society is growingly universal, accessible,
affordable (a lot of the contents are becoming free), with identical or similar contents being played
to a growingly diverse audience, which can more actively select what it wants, and watch or listen to
it on the go. Digital technology enables the media industry to pilot new models, and while
experimentation is usually free for the user, they turn into paying services when successful.
This seamless access to unfiltered information (although not everywhere) will be hard to stop, as
people are getting used to it, and become mature and decisive in managing their access to their
favorite information, instead of passively sitting in front of a screen as before.
If the United Democratic States are to finally happen in our lifetime, they will owe it primarily to
the cultural change made possible by this universal explosion of shared knowledge, and the impact
that it has on taking billions of people away from the relative obscurity of their traditional horizon.
The federation should be the unequivocal advocate and facilitator of this growing Freedom of
information, and make sure – with paranoia - that its power or groups of interest do not get along the
way, ever.
C. The written press and books:
Newspapers and books are the mothers and fathers of our historic cultures. As the traditional
vehicles for writing and mass communication for half a millennium, they see they traditional
business model economically transforming, due to the emergence of new electronic competitors and
their own economic model is rebounding on the digital income, as we move – so fast - from the
Gutenberg civilization to the digital civilization. It further expands the borders of Freedom, as it
provide authors with more choices, anyone can write a blog (even if not a journalist), anyone can
publish a book on-line (and eventually be recaptured by traditional publishers later on if successful,
like Fifty Shades of Grey).
Although difficult for most of us emotionally, we think that it is a good thing. The future will further
condemn the print industry, since its carbon footprint is hard to accept in a sustainable society. The
paper fabrication process generates seven hundred pounds of CO2 per ton of paper. A study by
Subak and Graighill, in which they discuss the effects of paper manufacturing on global warming,
reports that the paper industry represents three percent of the World’s GDP’s, with vast
environmental repercussions, impacting a wide spectrum of natural resources: its fiber requires
trees, its manufacturing requires oil, and its recycling (after use) emits a multitude of green house
gases including methane. They estimate that the emissions linked to paper production, taken as a
whole from all over the World, are higher than the total emissions (industrial, agricultural,
transportation) of the entire country of Australia – who is the number one emitter of polluting gases
per inhabitant. Even if it were possible to stabilize paper manufacturing emissions to their current
level, it would require a 2.5 percent increase in re-forestation, just to compensate for the climatic
effect. This represents an immense and unnecessary waste, which can now be avoided with digital
publishing.
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We recommend that for the written World to be sustainable and further flourish in our modern and
growingly educated society, paper as a medium, must simply give way to digital media – especially
since screen use on a multitude of devices is now so pervasive. A World that uses almost no paper
is conceivable, but the intellectual protection of journalists and writers should be greatly re-enforced
so we don’t risk losing their contributions to society – as it is evidently hard to do much quality
work “for free”.
We recommend that the new government should act as a role model, and operate paper free – a
federal administration that is entirely paperless - and encourage the business World to follow the
same path – paperless bills, electronic markets, and electronic filing and archiving instead of
anything physical, making any regulations compliant with a paperless society. Electronic signatures
should become the norm. New personal devices and related technologies now make this possible –
from smart phones to tablets, and personal computers to TV screens. An entire library can be made
available on a tiny personal device that weighs just a few ounces, not to mention the possibilities
made available by the “cloud.”
Everything can already be done paperless on a technology viewpoint, all of these services already
exist and are fully ready for widespread use. Now we just need the new federal government to help
move to a phase of systematic use, and to invest in minimizing the time latency of the poorer
regions, where the current infrastructure does not yet allow the full emergence of the digital society.
2. The right to universal education for all.
We recommend that the right to access basic education should be universal and mandatory, within
the federation, up to the high school level. We also see that contents should be universal at the core,
so that all receive at least the same coherent base of integrative knowledge, evidently with the
addition of a localized layer of traditional identity related materials.
With the increase in living standards, a basic education for the majority of children is accessible
already in most parts of the World, and has become mandatory – at least officially – since most
societies view education as a tool for future progress of the country as a whole. In rich countries,
high education levels have become the norm for an increasing number of the population, but in
developing countries providing a basic education can cost the state up to one third of its budget.
Education has never been as pervasive as it is now, and a true tendency toward international higher
education is developing for a growing elite class, preparing them to become the cosmopolitan
spearhead of the future global society that we want to build.
We think that providing schooling and education should remain under the authority of the member
states. However we encourage the federal government to support and enhance these efforts within a
more precise global framework, and also help accelerate their financing and rationalization, by
concentrating on the following universal priorities:
i.
Expand the reach of education in the poorest countries – especially Africa:
Despite the many commendable efforts of the UN and UNESCO, and their program EFA
(Education for All), trying to provide access to education for everyone continues to be an
overwhelming task. We recommend that the federation should ensure that education is provided to
all children of the Earth, in particular to girls who are traditionally more challenged in the poorest
places.
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There are still a billion illiterate adults, made up mostly of women, due to rampant gender
discrimination in certain cultures. However, there are many advances underway throughout the
World, with many countries understanding the importance of educating their citizens in a more
complex society, and in which technology has become a greater force.
The continent of Africa has the youngest population – nearly half of sub-Saharan Africans are under
the age of 15. Despite an exponential increase in scholarly instruction over the past few years, the
barriers remain high, both for girls and for the poorest ethnic minorities. In many places, the culture
surrounding girls is a roadblock in their long-term education, and secular traditions confine them to
the home. In particular, there is a taboo around menstruation and a lack of sanitary products, and
the desire to keeps girls hidden away to protect their virginity until they are of marrying age.
Additionally, children – boys and girls – are indispensable workers starting around the time of
adolescence, so the parents must also be educated in order to convince them of the importance of
school as a path toward a better life.
The federal government’s objective should be to monitor the state programs, so that they not only
offer a basic education to all their children, with a compatible core, but also to generations of young
and older adults, in order to establish, faster, the basic education level that all citizens of the
federation need, to be effective independent voters.
ii.
Provide an education that is global and modern:
Given the different points of departure between countries and social classes, it wouldn’t be realistic
to impose a common curriculum on all the children of the World. Reciprocally, it is necessary to
leave the rigid traditional education models, that are exclusive, ancestral, and often xenophobic, and
that rely on the idealization of a nationalistic or religious past, that the conventional teachers judge
as indispensable to a solid identity based education. So there should be a fine line to play with, as
the overall model transitions.
The objective for universal education should be to open up the mindset of our children and students
to the unity of the World – on one hand helping them discover and understand the “rest of the
World” with its differences, on the other building the intellectual bridges needed to understand the
commonalities and our joint destiny. The core curriculum should focus on those things that bring us
together as humans, rather than the ones that divide us.
For example, we think that our children be better served by not being taught to glorify the past
identity of their nation, by studying ancient writers and the exclusive history of their country, as a
winner against the rest of the World – or a martyr instead. We argue that it would be better to
replace those teachings (or their relative quantity) with a multi-faceted History of the World, within
a more transparent picture of how their own local culture has been influenced by their surroundings,
everything being positioned in a more holistic and evolutionary context (instead of celebrating the
remembrance of wars, battles and victories against the archrival neighbor).
Moreover, we offer that the almost exclusive study of a maternal language with its grammatical
structures that are infinitely complex and often elitist (not to say useless), must be balanced by at
least a bilingual education, starting at a very young age, so that every child can at least communicate
and think in two languages (one of then being English).
A basic global secular curriculum should prepare children to become engaged actors in our
transformation and not jest defenders of the myths of their national or ethnic histories. It should put
emphasis on the understanding and value of openness, and have a curiosity of all histories and
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cultures, positioning how they all added to each other, instead of idealizing just one, and making
others evil. Such an education should offer the keys to see between identities, rather than bolting
doors that make it difficult to liberate oneself.
We anticipate that the common curriculum of all our children in the federation, would come
together around a foundation of openness and diversification for the future citizen of the World in
preparation, and should have the following educational objectives:
•
Sufficiency in oral and written communication in English, ideally with one or two more
languages;
•
Basic understanding of the History of Humanity in its entirety from the angle of the
evolution of civilization and Mankind, rather than national glorification of wars and
struggles between civilizations;
•
Awareness of basic scientific disciplines including fundamental generic knowledge;
•
Understanding of the construct of the Planet, laws of evolution, our fragile ecosystem and
risks (global warming), the food chain of life, and the necessity of a sustainable society;
•
Familiarity with diverse human cultures and religions (including non-religions) –
understanding their differences and valuing their commonalities, including major
international authors;
•
Capability to follow, in context of their key mechanisms, the economy, geopolitical events
and their interaction;
•
Comprehension of the political systems and how Democracy works, federal constitution,
government and legal system, traits of our modern civilization and scenarios of evolution;
•
Basics of justice, morale, diversity, tolerance, and civic education.
Modern education should be attached to the old and new realities, and feed itself on the ambivalence
of the past, present, and future, in order to move our species along on its voyage to becoming Homo
Sapiens Universalis:
•
Sapiens: modern educations should teach students to anticipate and understand the trends of
the future, with curiosity and flexibility, and to pay attention to the events that illustrate and
demonstrate great transitions, such as the one we are experiencing. The contents should
constantly evolve (not stay frozen in the old books and disciplines), and endeavor to adapt
to the diverse and changing realities of immigrant children in particular, helping them
assimilate to their new World (destination state).
•
Universalis: modern education should insist upon meeting the specific needs of each group
of students, rather than imposing a curriculum that is fixed, too generic, and immaterial for
them. And finally, it should push us to live together as an international community that is
undergoing a blending of races and cultures, rejecting racism and extremism, and trying its
best to continue this goal by giving each child the desire and proactive motivation to be
curious and learn. School and the educational system are the cultural foundation of society,
the ferment of the community’s behavior, and as such should be valued and strategically
considered as the noble tool of integration in our globalizing civilization.
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iii.
Re-evaluate the importance of the profession of teaching:
If the objective of the government is to elevate the greatest number of children and young adults to
the highest level of professional preparedness possible – notwithstanding where they grew up - and
to make them well-informed globalized citizens, then this ambition must be transmitted by qualified
responsible teachers that are engaged and committed to seeing their students succeed, in a society
that is undergoing an accelerated metamorphosis. Our great ambition for global education must be
translated through ambitious teachers, who feel respected and rewarded for the importance of their
role.
The noble vocation of teaching would become strategic again in the new convergent society. It
should be re-valued, in alignment with its defining place, once again at the heart of society, as it
used to be each time the society took a quantum leap in its development. Its position on the social
ladder should be a place of respect and its compensation should be adjusted to correspond to the
importance of its mission.
Together the government and the states should provide a widespread program of training and hiring
of qualified teachers from diverse origins, who embrace the idea of an enlightened future that is both
modern and global. As much as their linguistic capacities would permit, these teachers should be
encouraged to pursue their careers at an international level, in order to set an example for their
students that they themselves are grooming for the new global village.
iv.
Establish English as the universal language:
We have concluded that the federation and its associated businesses need a single language with
which all can communicate. At the end of the day, a meeting between various leaders or citizens
should take place without translators. People need to talk with people, directly – or they remain
aliens. So if we re to pick one, it must be English, just because we need one, and English starts with
a clear international edge against any other language.
The mastery of English, the official language of the federation – and second language for all (except
English first speakers) – will be indispensable to those who want to travel outside of their state, or
who want to develop regional or global responsibilities, and will quickly become useful to every
citizen who wants to have access to our common universal culture. English should become the
principal universal language for communication in all domains, from culture to politics, business,
and education.
All schools should be at least bilingual – taught in both the official language of the state as well as
in English, the one of the federation. For their part, in states that already speak English, we think
that children should be required to also learn a second language - like Spanish in the US, French in
Canada, Chinese in Australia, or Hindi in the UK – because the systematic understanding of at
least two languages – of which one must be English – would force all individuals to open up to our
multi-cultural environment. How can you understand what it represent for a Korean to speak
English, if as a native English speaker, all you speak is English ?
The teaching of languages would be profoundly transformed, by having each school present its
entire curriculum in two languages, as opposed to adding the teaching of the new language to its
own menu of courses, just as a course by itself. This means that English would be integrated into the
whole of a child’s education from a young age, in a fully bilingual educational system. Courses
would be taught “in English” – versus English being a course by itself.
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This is a much more powerful approach (used by international schools today), making the language
a tool as opposed to an end in itself. This approach would allow English in the school to go beyond
the status ‘subject’ and become instead an active language of communication, which is ongoing and
alive in the daily routines of the students.
Bilingualism should be omnipresent – at school and outside. Producers should be encouraged to
make films and television series in English, with local language sub-titles, while local channels
would still air films and local programs in the local language. All traffic signs, public notices, and
official documentation would be written in both the local language and in English.
We think that this radical transformation should have an effect in only one generation. The
objective would be that by the second half of the century, everyone would be able to read an article,
write an email or text message, understand a speech, have a simple telephone conversation, and vote
… in English.
The construction of our otherwise complex Tower of Babel would be greatly facilitated, humanized,
and perpetuated, because it is just unbearable in our view, to live in a country when you can’t
understand the language of the rulers (because there must be one for the country to be able operate
at such a large scale).
This ambitious objective of bi-lingualism (or rather one – English – to many – all the others) might
seem like an insurmountable mountain, to someone who speaks only one language. And yet, this
problem certainly does not arise for children who, as any bi-national parent would tell you, are like
linguistic sponges. When fully immersed, children can learn another language in just a few months
as opposed to years. After a few weeks of passive silence that might seem like an emotional
blockage, the new language will suddenly come out, as if something just clicked, and the child will
speak almost fluently after having appeared to be paralyzed. The time period is incomparably
longer for adults than for children who will have the language taught during their very first exposure
to school.
In reality, we believe that the long lasting linguistic barrier that we face, is driven by politics and
identity protection. The majority of local governments encourage education in their own language,
with the whole educational system being built around that language, and making (at various
degrees) the learning of English a much longer shot. Obviously this is normal in the political logic
of a nation. But in the federation it doesn’t need to be. The world government can erase this
resistance from the moment that a state joins the federation. The only variable should be the speed
with which the required number of English teachers can be trained and deployed to the nonAnglophone states.
v.
Normalize international mobility for students and teachers:
If students are at the forefront of the society, they must be the ones pioneering the discovery of
universalism, same for their teachers and professors. The accelerated mobility of our young brains,
across states and geographies, will vivify the global village, with students melting away into the
society.
University studies can make the biggest difference, and a conjunction of public and private
initiatives should encourage and fund students to pursue their studies in several member states,
while international equivalencies for diplomas (within the union) should be generalized in all
specialties. Study grants should favor inter-state educational courses and help maximizing the
number of students who would have the opportunity to study outside of their home state. This
geographic mobility for advanced students should become the rule instead of the exception, much
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like it is between states in the US today.
The objective should be to learn about at least one new culture, to break away from one’s comfort
zone and learn to live like a minority, so the student would better understand the lives of so many
migrants. Teachers should be also be financially motivated to pursue an international career and to
teach at least once in another state, if their linguistic capacity allows it. Put quite simply, the
government should encourage future generations (and their mentors) to become the models and
vehicle for a universal culture that is tolerant and respectful of its diversity and its minorities –
making them migrant-students in their early formative life.
We see a new universalist information civilization in the making, with English as a common
language, founded on full, transparent access to information – powered by a more regulated Internet
- and a modern and globalized education system, one that favors exchange of students and teachers
across states.
Women and men are born with such innate capabilities, the smartest of all animals, currently the
ultimate evolution of life, by a long shot. Their widespread access to proper information (almost
infinite with the Internet) and an education liberated from their traditional legacies, should further
stimulate their natural intelligence, and motivate them to candidly understand their common destiny,
valuing what brings them closer together, rather than the borders that have separated them
historically.
Together, finally united and strengthened politically, educated men and women will aspire to
become the engaged actors and engineers of the sustainable society for which we all hope. The
long-term salvation and re-development of our species depends on our ability to spread the word
and educate the multitude - about the need to manage to our common destiny towards a sustainable
outcome. Together we can and we must, through a permanent investment and commitment into
transparent information and modern education, win the battle against the legacies of obscurantism
and extremism. They are the sole enemy of the new democratic federation, for they have been the
systemic causes of our divisions - and sometimes bear the risk of our entire future destruction.
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The final priority that we are recommending for the new federal government has a different
dimension. It is far reaching, and clearly disconnected from the others for it is something for which
the benefits will happen well into the future rather than trying to bring resolution to our immediate
crisis. We advocate that we need to re-launch an ambitious space exploration program, supported by
the decupled economic power of the federation, and primarily positioned in the context of risk
management, for the long-term sustainability of the human species. We think that the possibility of
colonizing space is a long-term lifeline for Humanity, given the sensitivity of the Earth ecosystem to
our own expansion.
We are drawing this conclusion from what appears to be the genetic desire for expansion and
adventure of human beings, as well as the future restraints posed by living on our fragile and
diminished Planet that has no new territory to discover and is geographically finite. Can the human
species survive endlessly (of for several more centuries) with the ecologic stress that billions of
humans will continue to inflict to our Planet – unless we do miraculously well with the grand plan
that we are developing here - and at the same time will our Planet continue to remain relatively
static to permit human life, independently of our own aggression ?
Clearly our current natural conditions are not eternal, there are time boundaries to how long we can
remain in existence on Earth, even if very distant ... Recent studies show that the Sun is heating up.
As a result, it is estimated that life in its entirety should totally disappear from Earth in around 2.5
billion years, and that in less than a billion years already, conditions on Earth could not support
human life any longer. Stephen Hawkins, the British physicist made famous with “A Brief History
of Time” is much more dramatic. Including our own impact to the ecosystem, he doesn’t think that
humans would survive another thousand years “without escaping beyond our fragile Planet”, and
also urges the continuation of space exploration – for Humanity’s sake (Huffpost Science, April 11 . 2013).
th
Most recent scientific hypothesis claim that Life did not originate from Earth, but from Mars.
Professor Steven Benner just proposed that three billion years ago, when Life is supposed to have
started its first evolution, conditions on Earth did not match the equation for the seeds of Life to
erupt out of the chemical World. The minerals needed to “template” atoms at their crystalline
surface, in order to coax the RNA (ribonucleic acid), which is the first ingredient needed in the
chain of Life, would have dissolved in the oceans which completely covered our early Earth, while
at the same time Earth didn't have enough oxygen. Mars was much drier at the time, and with more
oxygen, and had minerals such as boron and molybdenum in abundance. It presented and much
better conditions for pre-biotic Life to happen. The idea here is that life was created on Mars, and
then transported to our Earth via a meteorite. “The evidence seems to be building that we are
actually all Martians; that Life started on Mars and came to Earth on a rock” commented Professor
Benner (Goldschmidt meeting, Florence, Italy, August 2013). While landing on Earth, life found over time great
conditions to evolve to where we are today, while on Mars, after billions of years, Life has
disappeared due to worsening natural conditions. So if Life cannot forever survive anywhere in the
Universe, and if we originated from Mars, then flourished on Earth, shouldn’t we already start to
seed the irremediable long-term need for our next move ?
Notwithstanding this existential risk on Earth, should we be forever condemned to live only here, or,
on the contrary, should we search for a passage, like the pioneers of the Renaissance aboard the
Nina, toward another flourishing land for Man - but this time, beyond our Blue Planet ?
As seen in our earlier priorities, we should first re-calibrate our human civilization, so that it would
become again compatible with our setting for the foreseeable future – Carbon Zero, and
Sustainability. However, we also want to begin preparing an extraterrestrial option and vision for
Humanity. The evolution of our Planet is largely beyond our control now that we have created the
post-industrial conditions that derailed it from its normal path. Maybe the Earth will marvelously
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re-align itself again once we reach our goal of Zero Carbon. But, it is also possible that we are
already too late, that the enormous machine of consumption could only be stopped too slowly, and
that the increase in temperature is going to alter our climate in an irreparable way, for example the
out-of-control spiral – difficult to model - that will occur if the permafrost melts and releases an
unknown amount of methane in the atmosphere.
Only a World government can have the true capacity to construct an option for life elsewhere, to
invest in a plan of space colonization that would wholly ensure the future of Man. We are placing
this objective at the end of the priority list since its outcome will not be seen until fairly far in the
future, and it sort of represents the next big step. But we are convinced that it merits its place in the
general thinking that we have brought forth during this project aimed at ensuring the universal and
eternal vocation of Humanity.
Sooner or later the Earth will be our limit, and someone could make the case that it already is. We
believe that we must prepare a parallel and proactive strategy for space exploration, moving toward
colonization of an area outside of our atmosphere in order to assure our ongoing success, or simply
to excite the pioneering spirit for the unknown. Man has always been curious and adventurous,
always looking for a new frontier – now he has found he next new frontier in the infinity of space
and maybe in the discovery of other life forms. It may be that our future space aliens will become
Columbus’ American Indians.
We think that the ambition of the first global team should clearly be to first protect the Earth as our
original sanctuary. Following its ecologic re-balancing, it will become an ideal environment for its
predator turned respectful and wise protector. The Earth should be the former and future paradise
for the human species.
But, we should also learn to domesticate the hostile and infinitely grand Universe that surrounds our
Earth, for the Earth, though universal for Man, is just a speck of dust in the greater Universe.
Once we have successfully overcome our immediate ecologic “sound wall”, thanks to the execution
of the first strategic priorities of our global plan, the risks weighing on the stability of our Planet
over time will still remain. We are living on the thin terrestrial crust of one Planet among billions of
others, and we are still ignorant of so much within our Planet, as well as that which surrounds it.
We are only protected from space by a finite and fragile atmosphere – that our human proliferation
has already damaged. How can we ignore the space that surrounds us and forms the quasi-totality of
our Universe ? Space is not something outside of our grand planetary Universe – space is
everything, of which we are only an extremely tiny piece.
Our ecosystem is a dynamic and unpredictable union of universal processes and laws of nature – the
chemical composition of the Planet’s atmosphere, the biological evolution of life, and finally,
chance. These factors do not ensure that Mankind can wisely anticipate being comfortably
ensconced on the Planet for all of Eternity, even if we learn how to cherish and protect it.
Statistically, we can already bet that random chance is inevitable and that it will disrupt our comfy
nest sooner or later – with a huge meteorite ? The evolution of life on Earth is marked by numerous
catastrophes, whether comets or asteroids, and these random occurrences have permitted new life
forms to develop and have dictated the extinction of others. It seems like every two to three
hundred million years a natural cataclysm occurs, that perturbs the slow and patiently fashioned
evolution of life. For example, barely sixty five million years ago, while the dinosaurs ruled over
our current home, a meteorite, measuring about 100 kilometers wide, accidentally bumped into
Earth. The point of impact was just recently confirmed in Mexico. It provoked the extinction of the
dinosaurs, giving an opportunity to our mammalian ancestors – who were like tasty morsels for the
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dinosaurs – to prosper and succeed. This will happen again, it is a statistical truth. Our species, if
only terrestrial, is condemned to only exist for a miniscule duration in the overall timescale. Let’s
repeat the obvious: as Stephen Hawking has said, the future of Humanity lies in space, if Humanity
has a long-term future.
Our discovery of space is in its infancy. Its enormous cost of space is not rewarded really, except
through media and national glory. Economic benefits have still been limited, and commercial
technology, which puts satellites in orbit and is indispensable to our communications and GPS, is
treated as an end instead of a means to something greater. The last colossal program, at the end of its
life and with no official successor, is the international space station. To date it has cost $165 billion
– but to what benefit if the space program is going to cut short without a vision for the destination
point, supported by a political continuity ? The great political stimulus behind space exploration has
disappeared since the end of the nationalistic struggle between the Americans and Russians to
demonstrate the superiority of their technology. The Chinese are attempting to reactivate the game,
but their program remains very much at the inception stage so far.
At the eve of the twenty first century, after the excitement of walking on the Moon half a century
earlier, space programs are quietly vegetating with their meager allowance, barely in cruise speed.
They are trying to maintain old spaceships for the long haul, and to send out exploration telescopes.
Astronauts’ greatest problem to solve these days is their own unemployment.
National financing have been replaced by international or regional pools, like the European Space
Agency (ESA). NASA is desperately awaiting an American President that fantasizes about a
manned spacecraft to Mars, and they are disturbed by the idea that within ten years China will use
space as a superb communication tool, to build up technological superiority over the rest of the
World.
These days of local competition, over such a global project, will hopefully be gone soon. We
recommend that new federal government, strong in its capacity for financing and its ability to gather
together the World’s scientific minds, should now unify and converge the space and science
agencies under one single banner, and articulate an ambitious global space plan around three
strategic objectives:
1. Colonize the Moon:
Despite its desert terrain, extreme temperatures, and its absence of atmosphere and life, the Moon
presents an immense advantage for space colonization because of its relative proximity to Earth. It
is but a nanosecond from us – just a few days travel with our current technology, and almost live
communication. Ice (which could eventually be transformed into water) was recently discovered
under a dusty layer in the Cabeus crater near the South Pole, which could represent the basic
resource necessary for a permanent future station on the Moon. We regard the Moon as the
potential site for our first space laboratory, and the easiest candidate for our first extra-terrestrial
colony. With Mars so far away given our existing technologies, it appears to be the most logical
destination for the second permanent implantation soil for the human species – unless some
exceptional advantages for a settlement are discovered on Mars in the meantime.
To make the best from our Planet’s only satellite, we could prepare to make it a member state by
itself in our federation, with a leadership team responsible for its future colonization, with mission
to be a beta test to gain experience for future space colonization. There is a wide range of
possibility even though the challenges and opportunities on the Moon ore of such scale that they
will keep our scientists busy for generations to come – with some extremely exciting projects …
For instance, from what we can learn of current prospective studies, the first inhabited station
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outside of the Earth – on the Moon - should probably be embedded in an underground trench, in
order to protect it from meteorites - at least until we can implement a detection and diverting system
for asteroids before they impact the planet’s surface. In fact, a suitable space has even already been
identified. The station would be supplied abundant electricity through solar energy, which will be
available in infinite amounts. By locating the station near the underground ice deposits, the
colonizers will learn to generate a micro-atmosphere within the trench, and using the humidity, they
will cultivate fresh products of primary necessity, eventually recreating a mini artificial ecosystem
within a giant bubble.
After the confirmation of the viability of the first station, others can follow, and a wave of pioneer
life can see its day on the Moon – just like it happened on Earth with a new island or continent being
discovered. There will be migrants (we anticipate many candidates), then babies will be born there,
and experimental stations will turn into villages and cities. With the quite notable exception of a
natural atmosphere, one can imagine, nonetheless, an alternative life that is ultimately quite livable.
The Moon, much less fragile than the Earth since it is already a desolate terrain due to its lack of
atmosphere, can be economically valuable in the medium term as an “Earth factory” as well as
depository for the pollution from the Blue Planet. We would be able to concentrate the majority of
our polluting activities there, into one location: our factory and our trashcan. This may not sound
very enticing, but the logic is convincing; we use our desolate and nearby satellite in order to clean
up those things that are degrading our Planet. It is a practical and tangible project that could be
brought to fruition within a few decades. We already possess all the necessary technology - it is all
about strategic political focus, and financial means.
We think that the Moon can be beneficially transformed into a location for our most polluting
activities, a treatment and storage station for our trash, including radioactive waste. While it will
remain difficult for Man to live on the Moon due to its lack of atmosphere, there is still the potential
for infinitely available energy to be produced at low cost. Thus, one can imagine a “colonial” model
for the Moon, in which the indigenous population would be made up of electric robots that work on
the surface, powered by the Sun, while the “masters” would be the expatriate humans, protected
from the “elements” within the bubble of their station, or underground – a realistic science fiction
tale ... We can get there tomorrow, it is not a problem of technology, just a question of political and
economic ambition – and we recommend that soon enough, the federal government should re-direct
the global space efforts in such a practical direction.
The economic logic of a Moon that becomes the factory of the Earth, a generator of jobs for
qualified engineers and for curious, adventurous young people who would become the
Conquistadors of the colony (with no living slaves), is very compelling, and can be turned into a
nice buffer for the fragility of our own Planet. We would shield the Earth from the most damaging
effects of heavy industry and concentrate activities on the motherland, with what only she can do:
the culture of animal (breeding) and vegetal (agriculture) life, in the only environment that we know
which can nurture life.
We advocate that the Moon, our only satellite, can be made instrumental as a direct industrial and
economic partner. It would fully integrate globalization through a Moon-Earth relationship
(“global” then encompassing our satellite as well). It would allow us to externalize (from China to
the Moon) all activities that are not associated with the transformation of life (primarily the
industry) and that harm the terrestrial ecosystem. It would be a distant machine room, and a
laboratory for extra-terrestrial expansion to come.
The lunar environment lends itself to becoming a large base for space science, a laboratory under
true space conditions, to help prepare for more distant explorations and facilitate further
understanding of the possibilities of the Universe. In our mind, the moment to colonize the Moon
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has arrived, and this is a perfect time for the first global government to take ownership of the
project.
2. Explore the space, to find a “Sister Planet”:
Finding and traveling to a Sister Planet may be a utopian dream, certainly futuristic, but this
research continues to mobilize astronomers all over the World, and should as well stimulate the
visionary interest of the federation.
Currently, there are more than 400 identified Exoplanets – planets outside of our own solar system –
but they are mostly massive gas giants that are larger than our Earth, and therefore unlikely to
sustain any life similar to our own, since the gravity from their mass would crush us. Additionally,
their temperatures are so extreme that they would be unable to support life. It will be a long and
arduous task to identify signs of life – of which the signature elements are oxygen, ozone or
methane – but there is no reason to think that among the billions of planets out there, one doesn’t
exist.
Since 2008, scientists have been debating over the possible existence of Life on a planet that is
found 20 light years from us – 300,000 years of travel with our current speeds - in the Libra
constellation: “Gliese 581 d”. For the first time, they think that they may have identified a planet
where the conditions and temperatures might permit the existence of liquid, in the form of a large
ocean, and therefore possibly Life, though with a mass that is about 10 times that of our own Planet,
adaptation like our own would be just impossible (each of us would weight about a ton).
More generally, new discoveries are made every day – like the abundant find of 14 candidates by
the Kepler observatory at the end of 2011 – but they are thousands of light years away.
Nonetheless, identifying a Planet just like our own – perfectly sized and perfectly sunny so that Life
can emerge - is still dubious. There should be a hunt with the support of the global federation, in
case there is even a marginal chance that there is something like our Sister Planet – it is absolutely
worth the continued effort.
But the hunt may remain opened forever, as was the Northeast Passage for the Renaissance
visionaries. For our vision for Humanity is universal, not just terrestrial – so as time goes by,
finding a path beyond Earth is paramount.
3. Leverage science and innovation to repair our Planet as we continue to discover the
Universe:
The more we encourage scientific efforts, the more we learn about the Universe – from the infinitely
small to the infinitely grand – the better we will understand the mechanisms that can fix our
immediate environment. The fundamental public research should emulate private developments,
through a culture of innovation and global creativity.
We recommend that the Silicon Valley model should be spread all over the World, motivated by
entrepreneurial freedom, risk taking and quest for innovation, so that the twenty first century even
exceeds the extraordinary scientific creativity of the twentieth, but this time concentrating on
repairing the excesses of the last century.
As for education, the globalization of the scientific community should continue to become
commonplace. In fact, scientists are already quite advanced in their level of globalization; their
research is international and their projects often transcend our futile borders. Globalizing the
financing of research would offer scientists and researchers more equal working conditions
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throughout the World, and an opportunity for increased geographical mobility.
We reject the case for the demonization of Science, under which it is accused of being the cause of
“progress”, and therefore of the ecologic drift of the consumerist society. On the contrary, we see
Science and its discoveries as the translation of human’s curiosity, which should be nurtured and
valued as a positive vehicle of the evolution of Humanity. Our curiosity and comprehension of the
marvels of Nature are the very traits that differentiate Man from other species, and which give us the
chance for such a unique destiny – through them we may learn how to live on other planets in the
future. However, we also thin that the government has a role to play, to guide the overall effort in a
direction that benefits and serves the vision of the society.
We believe that Science should be empowered to repair the destructions that have been committed
under its name. Now that we understand the impact of our actions and face the ecologic wall,
Science – in particular with its green technologies - can help Man to repair the very destruction that
was the result of the inventions of the industrial revolution, and beyond that, one day, even teach us
how to live above and beyond the fragile constraints of our Planet. Using the same intelligence that
brought about the excesses, we can bring forth the solutions – as long as we succeed in establishing
the universal governance that will be necessary to channel and concentrate all our efforts to repair
the damage.
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Barack and Hillary have started to share the draft of the program in confidence to a few trusted
advisors around the World, also the leaders of the first wave are gradually building consensus
around the key items. With the growing interest around his Earth Our Country Initiative, Obama and
the leaders of the first wave finally decides to let the draft be published with their blessing and
sponsorship. The document immediately captures the attention of the World’s political scene.
Debates begin in every country, and what was an utopian idea – interesting almost no one - just a
few weeks earlier, is suddenly projected to the forefront of national societal, political, and economic
debates – more or less everywhere where there is freedom of speech.
What is the end of this tale ? Did Barack Obama successfully install a federal constitution for the
great democracies of the World ? Was he elected the first President of the United States of the
Earth? Did the exceptional team of founding fathers, the great leaders of the Free World – manage
to bring together the key politicians around them, in order to rally the necessary support to execute
this planetary plan that we just projected ?
I am dreaming that they won the game, and that when I switch on my TV set (or iPad) in a few
minutes, I will hear the latest moves of the new government of the global federation. Maybe you
are too, although we know that these few pages were a pure political fiction. But, I am afraid that it
is time to return to the reality of today.
Which is: nothing questions the established order of the nation states of the World. Countries are
the elementary building blocks of our human political construction.
Copenhagen and Durban among others, demonstrate that very little is being done to anticipate the
ecological impasse that is coming, carrying the risk of endangering the fragile our ecosystem which
enabled the emergence of our species. Our divisions continue to blind us to the possibility of a
common solution, not only for the green society, more generally for anything that really matters. It
is enough to see how the situation unfolds in Syria as I write these lines.
However, I hope that we now know that an alternative solution does exist if we want to see it, and
get over the taboo of Utopia. We have just detailed a vision that is rather complete, even if far from
perfect, given the limited means and detailed knowledge assembled to construct it. This scenario
was only meant to help us visualize how everything is intertwined, but also how together we can
detangle this great bowl of spaghetti that over millennia we have prepared together. It can be done,
and the question rather becomes - do we want it done ?
Since the beginning of the public debate on climate change, economists and the majority of
politicians have casted doubt on the conclusions of environmentalists and scientists – even though
very recently the political tone has changed substantially, even outside of Europe. The discourse of
Al Gore was the first to have a profound effect on American opinion, one that the US executive
branch is now starting to timidly echo. The Communist Party of China also has changed its
thinking, and seriously pays attention to pollution. Strangely, Canada has now pulled out of the
Kyoto agreement, which is a disappointment.
Regardless, scientific evidence is slowly capturing the minds and spirits of the World, but we must
remain conscious and perceptive. We are only at the starting point of our reaction, and negativity
continues to feed off itself with sufficient success that it immobilizes politicians. It is a time game
however, as the inertia of our consumerist society (and of its resistance agents) is huge, and we
don’t really know yet just how bad the harm on the environment is, how big are the effects of our
disturbance on the extremely complex natural machine that surrounds us.
Just recently, in the post-Copenhagen confusion, scientific experts were put on trial, with
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“revelations” on their lies, and for their fundamentalist catastrophism, even attacking the IPCC
(Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change - the UN itself). We are still navigating in full
“Climategate” suspicion, which is a great cover for lack of decision-making and crisis management
avoidance.
We all know that vast uncertainties remain, that the range of economic and climate scenarios that
could arise are enormous, and that the great catastrophe of this century is but a possibility –
nonetheless a very real possibility, and even probable. The cost of action – two percentage points of
the global annual GDP, is really quite minor in the grand scheme of things, and an excellent price
for a assurance of life. The cost of inaction, on the other hand, is much greater, as it leaves the
possibility of a cataclysm for our children - should we be one hundred percent sure of having a fire
in our home tomorrow in order purchase insurance, or is the evidence of a risk sufficient ?
The wall – or its material risk - is coming straight at us, and our collective response, which is at this
point almost nothing, is absolutely irresponsible. Let’s be honest with ourselves: we talk about
climate change and the disastrous economic vortex that has cost millions of jobs, but what structural
change have we made to our lives and to society to react to the size of these challenges ? None.
There has been no change worthy of the challenges facing us, by us, or by our leaders.
We have to believe, nonetheless, that despite everything, the leaders of ours countries are no fool,
they have access to proper intelligence, and they cannot be ignorant of the risks facing us. They
know what is at stake, evidently, but they are mitigating the risks (for everyone) with the political
cost (for themselves) of the dramatic actions needed. They are weighing the political hazards of
action against their responsibility to future generations, and in such a context, any option to delay
the tough call is welcomed – so much easier. For a country leader, playing with a complex and
fragmented chessboard, the task of driving to a sustainable vision is at best delicate, and at worse –
one country barely makes a difference anyway to the overall game.
The economic problem – and thus political problem since the one affects the other – is that the
mitigation of global warming in the country-based model will require huge investments whose
returns are uncertain and distant, and will not be seen for decades (or never if one country makes an
effort alienated by the other). Politicians and corporations can invest in many areas that are more
predictable and that will pay off in the near future. So why try to impose such unpopular measures ?
In other words, we can portrait the current status quo as follows: local governments feel individually
unable to act effectively (both in terms of the political effect of their action and of its visible
ecologic impact). When they get together at an UN conference, they can’t agree with each other.
Consequently, they condemn themselves to inaction, although they may truthfully believe that
action is needed – most are pro-action but end up paralyzed by the system.
The competition between countries translates reflects the decision to abandon the fossil fuel
economy into political and economic suicide for one country to do it alone. Countries’ agendas –
and position in the cycle of economic emergence or in their national energy independence - are so
vastly different, that there can be no convergence – and as lofty as their intentions, there are few
results in reality as a result. In any case, a locally isolated solution is not politically viable for a
democratically elected leader, nor is it economically viable for an investor in a free market solely
ruled by fast returns.
We can plainly see that individual (state or enterprise) action is stifled by the need for popular votes
and immediate return on investments, and that catch 22 is what keeps us in a blind holding pattern
of immobilization. An ecologic cataclysm would evidently generate a robust reaction, but would it
be too late ? In the meantime, life goes on with minimal change to the established order, although
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all the decision makers ruling us know that there is a ninety five percent chance for big trouble at the
horizon, with most probably around three degrees of average temperature change in a few decades.
Collective irresponsibility it is. But individually, everyone can comfortably try to look good, and
finger point the other, as being responsible for his own inaction. That is the convenience of a multicountry World, there are many other countries that can be blamed, that are beyond anyone else’s
control, and that make local politicians look good: “if only the other countries would agree with me,
I could fix it, but you all know that they don’t”.
A page in History is turning, now: the established order is no longer morally acceptable
considering the risks facing us. The morally just solution is to think differently and to think big –
and fast. Our bit of political fiction demonstrates just how quickly we could affect this change. The
risk of accelerated warming, and our incapacity to react, demonstrates that the moment has come for
us to reorganize our political governance, in order to manage together a positive outcome for us and
for our Planet. We all understand that our political model is not adapted for our future, but we also
know that it is the established, untouchable, accepted, and legitimate heart of our human
civilization.
We should not be concerned with the Economy. She is the Queen of adaptation, like fresh water,
always finding its easiest and fastest way to the sea across mountains and valleys. She will adjust to
a new global political model, and strive more than ever owing to its simplification and coherence.
The election of a World government would give confidence to CEO’s and investors to quickly
change the direction of their industry and businesses towards the confirmed green popular interest,
for their ability to adapt is much more rapid and pragmatic, because they follow their profits before
anything else. What we need to change is not the free Economy in order to “fix” globalization. It is
the other way around: we need to “fix” the very foundation of our political establishment – the
countries – so that the Economy can adjust to a fully globalized model and vision.
1. The solution is political
The problem to resolve is not economic; it is a problem of political governance – it all starts there,
and on this ground, the inertia and resistance is much bigger, this is not a field for fierce innovation,
or reinvention – else than revolutions, which are unnecessarily traumatic as they tend to destroy
before they rebuild. National apparatus are so strong, they represent the ultimate power everywhere,
and by definition constitutions are above the executive leaders themselves, involving checks and
balances, as stability is always the primary factor for a well built national political system.
Our political horizon - not the one of parties or leaders that come and go – but the one made up of
national borders and associated political “establishment”, is infinitely strong, popularly supported,
and legally enforceable. Only the multitude of the people can shake it up, no single force or
individual stands a single chance, without a massive popular support. And this is us - “We, the
people”.
The solution is political, because our political model right now is blocking cross-border resolution.
None of our eight priorities could be attacked efficiently (and they are not) with a country-bycountry approach. The solution will come about through a geographical redistribution of
investments (scarifying some local interests to higher level ones) that a single country, imprisoned
by its artificial borders, cannot manage. Only a political World power can launch the appropriate
reaction to a challenge of this size. It is also the only way to change and adapt Mankind for a postdomination period of our Planet, one where the focus on conquest surrenders to the one on harmony.
The moment has just simply come for us to think big and come together as a species, to build our
destiny together (our vision) and to manage it together (our plan). But politically, and this is the
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dizzying chasm between reality and real necessity, there is absolutely no institutional dimension for
this solution. There is no global policy - everything is national. Everything that leads and controls
us is national.
I promise you that someone, in the future - distant or not I really don’t know - will look at our times
and tell our grand-grand (please add as many “grand” as you would like) children: “This was the
time when the nations totally ruled the Earth. Nothing could be done logically for everyone’s sake,
everything was a mess, but it was everybody else’s fault. Everything was decided locally for and by
the local powers – as it was in the medieval era, caste by castle. For millennia the nations made the
World, and war, and competed. Some won, and some lost, but ultimately everyone reached a great
wall. Until men and women, decided that they were the same people after all, and that their
divisions would destroy them. Then, they turned a page, and decided that the World should become
their nation. So they made Earth, their country”.
Every minute, as I write this book, I am asking myself if I need to go and see a psychiatrist: is an
united Earth really possible – or is the reality of our fragmentation here to surpass forever the dream
of our unification ? Today, the countries rule, and there is no justification for this at all, else than
History. It is inadequate, unjust, inconsistent, inept, unreal, impossible, unthinkable, and idiotic, but
it is completely true, and everyone agrees, as if it was a given state, “hard-wared” - forever. Our
passports separate us completely and our governments govern but a perimeter that is traced out only
on paper, and yet it is the absolute construct of our society. The only fools have been the
Europeans, who, traumatized by the madness of their wars, have dared to try something else –
shame on them, and hopefully the ill conceived Euro will be their grave and demonstrate their
unforgivable Utopia …
Well, unless … Unless my psychiatrist surprisingly confirms that … Rather suddenly, our countries
finally enter in spatial collusion, with their saturated environment, in their extended space
(economical, cultural, influential) that has become shared, with common resources, common
market, and instant communication around the global of anything to everyone (a few milliseconds
between any point).
Earth, with a unified political construct, is the only solution. Earth our Country.
2. The solution is moral
Our generation is the first one to understand the crime that we are committing against our future
generations. We have the moral obligation to find a solution, for them if not for us.
We just cannot ignore the challenge and risk, if we consciously decide to stick to the real and
scientific evidence. We can argue that eventually there is a small chance that it is not happening,
but no one can argue that the risk is not very material. Therefore, morally, we have to act – or we
are guilty of complicity.
One can “believe” that the climate may not be changing, and/or that it is not because of our own
making. At this point of our discovery of the issue, it is just like one who cannot “believe” that the
evolution of species exists.
Henry Ford could see nothing but the benefits, when he launched the production of the Model-T.
Everyone was going to enjoy the automobile, and have access to mass transit – the freedom of
transportation for all. He didn’t foresee the pollution that would follow. Today, however, we all
know. We can play the ostrich and stick our heads in the sand. We can take pause over the speed of
the phenomenon to come – one degree to six degrees increase by the end of the century, and enjoy
the difficulty of the debate – to make it null.
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But no political leader can look his citizens in the eye any longer, and state that we are not the cause
of the exponential acceleration of global warming that generations to come will have to address, if
not our own.
The Earth unified, to fight climate change, with the moral duty of making our society sustainable for
our children, is the solution. Earth our Country.
3. The solution is holistic
As we have seen in the draft of the global grand plan, most issues are inter-related and require a
unified holistic solution. While the problems look very complex at the global level, their solutions
become so much simpler when globally executed. The physical dimension of our natural space, the
one of Life and of Mankind, is the one of Planet Earth. This is the most common denominator for
the problems that countries cannot resolve. It is not Europe – which is also an artificial sub-set. It is
the homogeneous sphere of Life to which we belong.
Everything is converging toward one single solution: a political union for all of Mankind, driving a
unified vision, with a holistic plan of action, which includes Peace, Carbon Zero, Sustainability,
Food, Identities, Economy, Education, Communication, Space.
We are not talking about a solution that is good for America and bad for China, or good for the
Christians and bad for the Muslims. We aim at a multi-faceted solution, one that is good for all if
not always everyone, one that serves the general interest of Mankind, and takes care of its long-term
destination.
“Utopia! It’s an impossible and unrealistic dream”, resounds again and again. “Maybe it could
happen in a thousand years, but certainly not in the near future” – maybe … How do we vanquish
the dismissal of Utopia, that systematically results when we propose a universal homeland ? The
more necessary the change becomes, the more our system of reference makes it seem unrealizable,
or even superfluous given its extreme disconnect with the way things currently work.
The United Democratic States are the ultimate holistic solution. They enable the complete re-set of
our chain of command, and fragmented decision-making. Earth, our Country.
4. The solution is realistic
For those who are willing to see our challenge, as defined in its most simplistic terms – a global
problem that can only be fixed with a global solution, the unreal and the unrealizable give birth to
the luminous realistic logic of an inconceivable solution.
“You must carry chaos inside you to give birth to a dancing star,” wrote Nietzsche in Zarathustra,
prefiguring the superman. One can feel that our current chaos prefigures the imminence of such a
transformation.
“Barbarian forces of division, blindness, and destruction that make a planetary political system out
to be utopian, threaten Humanity. They indicate, on the contrary, that the policy of humanization
and the planetary revolution are responding to a vital need (…). We are facing a paradox in which
realism becomes utopian, and where the possible is impossible. But this paradox tells us that there is
a realistic Utopia, and that there is an impossible possible”, was the prophecy of the philosopher
Edgar Morin in his Homeland Earth manifesto.
From Utopia to reality – time reverses any paradox:
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•
In a few decades, the Neolithic revolution transformed Nomadic life to flourishing
civilizations.
•
In one voyage, Christopher Columbus reversed the destiny of an entire continent, proving
that the World was round, and invented globalization.
•
In one century, Democracy – then at a complete starting point and a fully utopian idea –
became political normalcy.
•
In a matter of years, the invention of the fossil combustion engine and electricity created our
industrial civilization.
•
In a matter of months, the Perestroika disarmed the number one army of the World, without
a single drop of blood, and made the Planet a free market.
•
In a few days, after thirty years of continuous world growth, Lehmann-Brothers declared
bankruptcy, and would have dragged down the entire global financial system if the
governments hadn’t mopped up their debts for $1.5 trillion.
•
One hundred fifty years after the abolition of slavery, and fifty years after Martin Luther
King, the United States elected a Black President.
•
In a few years, a small, meager unarmed man liberated India from the most powerful Empire
and made it a social mosaic and the largest Democracy ever.
•
In one year, the Arab Revolution deposed three dictators, and sent an uncontrolled wave of
democratic destabilization to all the most solid potentates of the Middle-East.
•
In twenty years the Internet connect 2.5 Billion people – with one Billion connecting to
Facebook every month.
•
In ten years, Steve Jobs reinvented individual and collective communication, and Google
made information easily available to everyone.
How many more days, weeks, months, years, decades, centuries, or millennia will it take for
Mankind to establish a government for Mankind ? It is probably possible in two to five years, the
time necessary to run a global campaign, and to drive an agenda of constitutional change, in the US
together with the Democracies joining the first wave.
For the agenda to unfold so quickly, there is only one possible way: we need the leadership of
Barack Obama. Not only for who he actually is, but what he represents symbolically for most
people in the free World (unless he gets pulled into any nasty gregarious adventure such as Syria in
the meantime). He is the leader that can help reinvent Humanity’s destiny and replace the Planet of
the countries, religions, and races with a reality made up of a Planet of humans. There isn’t such
another iconic global political figure at sight for now.
In reality, the speed at which the utopian paradox can be reversed is unforeseeable. It can be
tomorrow – with a miraculous enlightenment for Obama and our current leaders, or it can be well
after them, after the collapse of our economic and ecologic wall, after more conflicts, fascism,
genocides, revolutions, and the quasi-destruction of our species.
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We, the people, are in charge after all. Only the future holds the answer of the timing though –
when, but not if. Earth, our Country.
5. The solution is irremediable
Sooner or later, if man survives as the dominant species of the Earth, it is unimaginable that the
current anarchy of nations will survive. The reality of our Humanity has caught up with us. The
fragility of our model of civilization is becoming more acute. The paradox will do nothing but
reinforce its illogic nature, even though political and religious systems in place will do all they can
to resist the change toward Universalism, by trying to reinforce the culture of differences and
racism, to fuel economic growth at any cost, and to continue to praise demographic fertility so that
the nation becomes more powerful. Every step of the way, as countries continue to develop and
enforce their individual and isolated strategies while the overall system digs a bigger hole, the
solution will become more and more evident.
The reality is underway. The truth is that for many of us, and more ahead, Earth is already our
Country. The established order is breaking apart in the Middle East, Russia, Korea, and probably
sooner or later in China (maybe in a more orderly way there, as I suspect that the Party, with its
proven smartness and maturity, will know when the time has come, and how to deal with the
transition). Disorder will further amplify, if political change can’t anticipate our new World order
to come.
As do hope that while reading this manifesto for the United Democratic States, you have received a
little positive shock in you mindset, became more familiar with the idea and its implications, and
that we now share the conviction that a World order is irremediable, if Mankind is to progress much
further. As we continue to reflect by ourselves, while we move on to other daily duties, we together
should attempt to open a peaceful breach in the normalcy of our national political social models, and
start to proclaim the foolishness of the dominant thinking. Together we are now aware, we have
become Homo Sapiens Universalis, and it is time to think about how we can best individually
deliver around us the message that challenges such an unreal reality – the established order, the
absolutism of countries, the national order that involuntarily disorder the entire World.
It won’t be easy, because countries have been governing the World, the way we know it, for over
6,000 years, and even if their borders are invisible from anywhere in the Universe, they are still so
profoundly anchored in the individual and collective social psychosis, that their perceived reality
supersedes all real evidence. It took a while for people to believe that the Earth was circular and not
flat, because every day they saw a flat land around themselves, and everyday, most people live in
their same country, and it represents all they know, and materializes their comfort zone, representing
their enlarged house (the country) and family (their compatriots).
But we now know what is in the making, what supersedes our immediate horizon, and the new
dimension that we have to deal with a little more every day – with our career, our children’s
education, the impact on our local Economy, immigration, wars, pollution … It feels like an
irreversible trend, or it will take a hugely disrupting break, to stop it. The dimension of the space
into which we exist is clearly shifting, during our generation, it’s getting harder and harder to hide
inside of our delightful or obscure corner. Earth, our Country.
6. The solution is urgent
To get farther – faster - in the transition process, implies that we must engage ourselves in preparing
for the political change, in an action that hits the most likely swinger in the people’s mentality. What
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would make most people pay attention – and think the way you now are. In a World in which instant
global communication reigns, we need a superhero, a messenger worthy of the opportunity, a
personality as iconic as the message that it represents. A man, whose strength comes from his
unique background, his personality, his ability to lead, and the influence of the country to which it
belongs.
Only President Obama can be that man – and I would assume that the historic crisis that continues
to shake us everywhere makes the other great leaders more open to an innovative “lateral” solution,
than they have ever been before. To maximize the speed of change, they should minimize room for
misunderstandings: there should be no debate over protecting the refuge that identities provide to
the multitude - this is a lost battle, and doesn’t have to be one, since identities should be protected
under the global federation. They should only challenge the political status quo, the full sovereignty
of each country, and look at a path of least resistance to transition to a member state status, under
the global federation, instead.
Individually, the country leaders may not have the political power to influence such a change in the
constitution of their own country – there is so much at stake, with a separation of powers, and
stringent rules that prevent constitutions to be altered, everywhere. To lead these constitutional
adjustments in a timely manner, they should concentrate on leveraging a strong global political
momentum, behaving like members of a global leadership team, together with their peers of the first
wave, under the stewardship of Obama. They should ignite popular support at home, and build their
messaging on a foundation of complementarity between all identities, which represent great blocks
that, when assembled, will build a pyramid, for they are necessary for the past and will bridge the
gap to our future.
Time is of the essence. The popular realization that political unification is a realistic and extremely
positive possibility as our society globalizes, is urgent, because the countdown against our impact
with the Great Wall has started.
Still, the universal idea currently has a huge and almost unexplainable handicap against its logical
potential. We are at point zero in the popularity context, because it doesn’t even cross the mind of
most people, for whatever reason – the “hardware” thing … If only that, I do not see why a true
universal movement shouldn’t have a strong voice, so that we can at least start walking before we
run. We should get started though, and I sincerely hope that this book will help to create some form
of realization and conscience around the One Country idea.
I wish that the idea of making the Earth our Country catches the trade winds soon - as it should and aggressively engages into a political “start up” mode. You and I are not politicians, but we are
responsible citizens. We should not hesitate to attract the awareness of our friends and family, and
hopefully help a buzz to begins and spread all around the World, enlightened by such a compelling
vision. May it be, that the utopian idea makes room for a dynamic international opinion that will
become the missing link between these democratic attempts flourishing around the World. May it
give the strength and courage to those who dream of liberty and fraternity, to those who believe that
the women and men on Earth are equal and are cultivating the same garden.
As I have tried to explain in this book as convincingly as I could given my limited means, I believe
that we have reached such a stage in our evolution, that the time has come to think big, and to push
our leaders to have the necessary courage, to unite before History. We need to pool our resources in
a common direction, to serve Humanity’s cause and to create the United Democratic States of Earth,
starting by planting the seed with the democracies, and letting the dominos unfold. If I can make a
wish, realistic or not, I would love to see this political unity happen during my lifetime.
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President Anote Tong of the Republic of Kiribati, also sees the clock ticking. He leads a state of 33
islands that are at risk of disappearing under water in Micronesia, like the Maldives and the
Marshall Islands, and keeps warning the international community that his country may become
inhabitable by 2050. He has been trying for the last five years – with very little success - to initiate a
gradual migration of his people to Australia, New Zealand, Fiji and eventually to Africa. “It is too
late for us, but we must do something drastic to eliminate national boundaries (…). To plan for the
day when you no longer have a country is indeed painful, but I think that we have to do that”.
There are some magic times in History, when somebody catches the wave and still the momentum
toward a new direction. We are living through such times, with the Euro crisis, the economic
emergence of the other half of the World, the Arab revolution, the certainty of climate change, and a
Black President at the White House. I believe that it is the magical moment that we must grab on to.
Let’s launch an appeal to Barack Obama and all the leaders of the great democracies so that they
will dare to seize the moment and give birth to the federation of The United Democratic States.
Earth, our Country.
7. The solution is our hope
Hope is everywhere, the men and women of the entire Planet are breathing in a New World and just
as Nietzsche said, chaos represents the ideal ground for the birth of our new star. This is just the
beginning of a new era, we are entering the global revolution.
Hope is everywhere, even in the Arab World, where people are fighting for Democracy. Even in
Russia, where aspiration to a new Democracy gives more people courage to raise their head again.
Mikhail Gorbachev was asked recently how he sees the future in such a troubled World (L’Express,
December 2011): “I do not panic ! And I wish that nobody panics ! What is happening is not so
disturbing. It is only a difficult phase of transition, which goes together with the passage from “the
Old World” to the “New World”, global and interconnected. The old defensive walls are falling
apart, but in fine it is a salutary process.”
Hope is everywhere, we believe in Man, in the strength of his intelligence, and in his instinct to
survive. But to see the future survival of the ten billion people on Earth is going to call for a true
effort of strategic planning for the species. It is only by using our ingenuity through cooperation
and radical reorganization of our civilization that we will succeed in reflecting and planning our
solution together.
If not, our generation will carry the responsibility of having known – the first to know – and to have
done nothing. We will pass on a more difficult problem to our children, one that, due to our delay,
risks making our Planet unrecognizable and less hospitable than ever before. We are the species
that Nature (intentionally or randomly) has elected on Earth – either to destroy it, or to make it our
quasi-paradise. If we give ourselves the chance, to collectively take on the responsibility of our
Planet as our finite and most precious life-line, nothing will be impossible for us.
We will avoid the Big Crunch of the species. Irresponsible predatory, and collectively suicidal
animals that we are, we will become the caring protectors of our environment, the guarantors of our
own destiny. Earth, our Country.
8. The solution is our destiny
A more balanced World will then arise from this crisis, so that we can rebound and continue our
journey towards our promising unified future. Humanity, enlightened by the lesson of this new
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victory over its destiny, will pursue the extraordinary epic tale of its constant metamorphosis, and
further evolve toward a form of civilization and lifestyle that is more advanced, in its eternal quest
for creating its Domain of the Gods.
Since you have invested your precious time to read this book and get to this last page - some of you
maybe still wondering what to make of it - let me thank you for your patience, openness, curiosity
and tolerance, and for having made the step of taking this journey together. I feel honored.
Finally, please allow me to leave you with a closing message:
If you still believe that your Country is an Island, do not forget to love the Sea.
I hope that our journey is only beginning.
Earth our Country.
San Francisco, September 2013
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Second start:
I wrote a first version of this book in 2009, in French, when living in Paris. Having never published
before, I sent my manuscript to the French publishing establishment. One courageous publisher
responded positively, but I declined to use due to its poor reputation and astonishing contract
(keeping all rights). Most of the feedback I otherwise received from the publishers was evasive: in
summary something like … “Really interesting but not in line with our editorial line. Your
Humanism is suspect coming from a business leader. Your vision is pure Utopia”.
Also, I sent a manuscript to some leading French-speaking politicians of the time for whom I had
respect - Nicolas Sarkozy, Jose Manuel Barroso, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, Valery Giscard
D’Estaing - and to Edgar Morin, a colorful philosopher. Not obtaining much more than a polite
reaction from them either, I turned disappointed that I was unable to successfully voice a message
that I believed so profoundly.
On one hand I was evidently feeling hurt in my confidence, but also I was amazed by what I saw as
a lack of understanding by French intelligencia for the unavoidable evidence of my thesis. Some
inner force though was telling me that I shouldn’t give up. Reflecting on the reason for this lack of
receptivity, I started to convince myself that an “Old Europe” audience was less appropriate.
Despite all of its shortfalls, only one country could look at global governance without fear: the USA.
Still at the helm of the World although loosing its grip, America – or at least one side of its bipartisanship - could possibly see a scenario for a universal control of our destiny as a new positive
beginning. France on the other hand - despite its humanitarian legacy - would struggle more with the
concept, due to its entranched “cultural exception” and constant fear of the Anglo-Saxon
dominance.
So early 2010 I stopped my publishing attempt altogether, and with my family we returned to the
United States. I took a new demanding job in California and left the task temporarily unfinished.
The manuscript became my Sleeping Beauty for almost four years.
Over time, I nurtured the objective to re-formulate my thoughts in English (with some initial help),
and to try to reinvent my utopia into an innovative political project. I imagined that I could evoke
the case for a positive rebirth of the American Dream, elevating it to a unique project for Mankind,
and associate its birth to the “third term” of the first American President with a global DNA, Barack
Obama.
We moved to our new home in San Francisco, a truly tolerant multinational city that we learned to
love. And while I was fully concentrating on my heavy duty job, the events in the World continued
to play out at a stratospheric pace. First the Arabic Spring unfolded. My dream of a global
Democracy was starting to turn into a reality - even there in the Middle East, where it should be the
hardest. Democracy was now rising in a new region, owing much to the Internet, and increasingly
challenged the precarious global order, given the “Islamic Republic” outcome of the first free
elections that resulted of these revolutions, and the civil war in Syria. Second, the Euro-construction
and its political ecosystem started to get into trouble, part of a never ending reverberation of the
2008 financial crisis, and China continued to push forward its advantage as the emerging global
leader. Was it the end of Europe or the crisis that would finally provoke its ultimate unification ?
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I was upset of not being able to voice “the solution” to it all ... In my mind everything was aligning
even more than when I had first started writing. It all looked like the World was moving backwards
– while the communication tools of unification of Mankind were developing at lightspeed.
It felt like no one would stand up to show what the definitive and only hope could be for all – start
to think as One People, One Team, One World – scared of even proposing the obvious, and be taken
for a fool.
Near the end of 2011, almost two years after reaching out to him, President Giscard D’Estaing took
the time to send me a delightful and thoughtful response. It restored in me some of the hope and
confidence I was missing to dare to start again. Maybe someone I highly respected – one of the most
active fathers of the European Union - thought that despite the idealism, there was something of
value in my proposal. In fact, he seemed to completely agree with my analysis of the situation of the
Planet, only having reservations as to the capability of Mankind to save itself … No debate here, but
I concluded that if we can agree on the situational analysis, then the solution must be at sight.
2013 gave me the time to restart, as I got time again for myself, and the freedom to think in a
vibrantly creative place, San Francisco. My challenge remained though: how to transform an
idealistic idea into a truly possible political scenario ? Could a credible politician of international
visibility carry the One World flag ?
And then it hit me. Of course, there was only one whom I could think of. Still young and re-elected
for a final second term, he would have no mission in three years – could this one become his ?
Could the unique universalism of his origins and of his message offer a possible inflection point ?
What if President Obama would take a break from the rush of the global crisis and reflect on the
uncontrolled sequence of events that he had been part of - could he stand up and change History,
like Moshe taking the jews from Egypt to Israel ?
What if President Obama could take on this challenge during the latter part of his second term ?
Assuming he made some progress with his key internal priorities, could he then change gear and
step up with a grand vision, as the initiator of our first global agenda – a virtual “third term”, and an
opportunity to eventually become the first elected universal President ever – first of a long new
lineage ?
Barack Obama, President of the United States of America, could propose to help to elect the first
President of the United Democratic States.
An American, of European and African descent, raised in Asia - who else is in sight for such a
destiny ? If anyone could turn the ideal into a genuine political discussion in the foreseeable future,
it would be him. “Yes he could !”.
I can’t believe that The Second Start project is now completed. It has been an exciting and
rewarding experience, a unique and intriguing personal journey, and certainly quite a challenging
one - fully rewriting and repositioning in another language a four year old text as external events
unfold daily in the news. I wanted to do this, at least for myself, and I am glad that I finally did.
Suddenly I wonder – am I going to miss such a private intellectual stimulation – it doesn’t feel like
this is a subject with room for a sequel though …
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