The Future of Humanity

Warning: Contrary to my other posts, this one is very subjective and hence is biased.

It is about the current disgusting situation of the world and its bleak future.

Today (as was the case yesterday) the world is run by the rich. Unfortunately, that will be the case tomorrow.

However, in the future, life of the rich will be more and more difficult. They will become more isolated, depressed, scared, uneasy, stressed and paranoid as they try to maintain or protect their fame, capital and power (any combination).

What do I mean with rich? Any identity, institution, government or person that aims to increase its capital, fame and power (any combination) by using any mean which affects the poor in a negative and unfair way. There should be a better word to describe what I try to define. I cannot think of any at the moment. In one way, they are imperialistic.

The poor’s resources have permanently been stolen by the rich throughout the history. Imperialists have always justified grabbing other peoples resources by invoking lofty goals such as spreading religion, modernity, democracy, development, economic growth, human rights or peace. The rich in poor countries (now also called tyrants and despots) have oppressed the poor by using violence, religion or whatever means necessary (sometimes in collaborating with the rich in rich countries).

Transnational corporations and international organizations have become the soldiers of imperialists to expand and protect their interests. And they call this globalization, which obviously isn't working very well. And there is not much room left for way out.

Today 1.2 billion inhabitants of this planet get by on $1 a day or less and struggle to meet daily critical requirements such as adequate nutrition, uncontaminated drinking water, safe shelter, and sanitation. They have no access to basic health care, education and modern energy. And nearly half of the world’s population lives on less than $2 per day.

This situation happens at a time when a European cow receives $2.50 a day in subsidies,[1] which made Joseph Stiglitz to say “It is better to be a cow in Europe than to be a person in the Third World.”

A recently released UN report (World Economic and Social Survey 2006: Diverging Growth and Development) points out that “by many measures, world inequality is high and rising…..Inequality in incomes between rich and poor countries is growing and must be confronted to prevent global destabilization…. Rising global inequality is in part explained by the process of globalization ....by imperfections that characterize global markets and which are inadequately countered by global policies and rules….Seventy per cent of world income inequality is explained by differences in incomes between countries.” The gap between people’s incomes in the richest and poorest countries has never been wider, having risen from 50-to-1 in the 1960s to more than 120-to-1 today.

All the efforts around reducing the share of people living in poverty are concentrated on encouraging overall economic growth. That, however, misses the point that increasing average income does not necessarily mean that income is distributed evenly. Widening income inequality matters, not overall economic growth. This fact has still not been grasped.

Reducing poverty and narrowing gap between rich and poor require basic government services such as infrastructure, health, education and modern energy. Thus recommendations such as less developed countries should cut back on their spending on those services to make room for the private sector (as if private sector in less developed countries has enough capital), if not liberalize, is a complete deception and a recipe to be raped by rich countries. There is no such thing like free market. You want to have a free market? Then privatize the private sector first.

Yes, the world is full of ironies of the rich.

World military expenditures in 2005 are estimated to have reached $1118 billion. The USA is responsible for 48% of the world total, distantly followed by the UK, France, Japan and China with 4–5 per cent each.[2]

Moreover, developing nations continue to be the primary focus of foreign arms sales activity by weapons suppliers. In 2004, the value of all arms deliveries to developing countries was $23 billion (the highest since 2000), making up over 60% of all arms transfers.

Add to that the facts that rich countries gave $106 billion development aid (an important part is military aid) in 2005 while subsidizing their farmers with $280 billion. And they do not want to change this while forcing the poor to open their doors, privatize and liberalize.

The rich have no limit and moral. For example, they have always used religion as one of the most powerful tools to suck the poor.

There is a saying: when they (“civilized”) came, we had land and resources, and they had the Bible. They thought us to close our eyes and pray. When we woke up, we realized that we ended up with the Bible, and they with our lands and resources.

Religion combined with nationalism is used by the rich to weaken the potential rivals. If that was not enough the rich used religious fractions to create disorder and to weaken the countries. For example, in Turkey they created Kurd-Turk separation. In the other parts they have used sunni-shia separation. Ask any Iraqi or Turk, for example, whether they gave a dime to such a thing in the past. Religion is something between the creator and an individual. Whoever pokes his nose in between falls into the Rich category, according to me.

Religion worked in modern times to create conflict between poor countries and inside a poor country. Rich needed another mean to fasten the process, something like rich against poor. And they selected the buzzword democracy. Some rich countries are proclaimed to be founded on the principles of democracy. What they did not learn or know that democracy cannot be imposed. It comes with democratization. And democratization cannot be introduced by war. That is why it is said that the rich are the world’s most powerful, except for moral. The world needs democracy in a democratic way, not under the shadows of 27000 nuclear war heads and military superiority. Today, there exists no real democracy in any part of the world.

Is there a real democracy in the US anymore? Besides all these nowadays security paranoia, just take another simple example. Can a US citizen go to Cuba with a stamp on his passport?

What the people of world needs is a basic set of common goals - peace, national sovereignty, human dignity, social justice, individual freedom, cultural pluralism, equality, and ecological consciousness based on solidarity, respect, mutual understanding, dialogue and cooperation.

Disinformation is at its historical highs, and a deliberate aim of reducing world’s population is on the way, extermination of the poor.

Today one third of the world population barely survives. They do not have anything to loose, but their lives. This is the root of terrorism. This is the world’s most important problem. It is the rich who create terrorists. How? Just watch CNN. A scene or report on miserable life in Africa, two seconds later, commercial on Gulf, fancy shopping, and luxury. Have’s and Have Not’s.

To upgrade a life style is much easier than to downgrade. A continuous downgrade will bring today’s middle class closer to poverty. With time, middle class will be squeezed and there will be a few rich and a lot of poor. Then what? Rich in golden cage and poor in misery. As is the case today, it will be called civilization in the future.

For how long? As long as the ones in golden cage can postpone the clash with the ones in misery. No, I don’t mean the clash of civilization of Huntington. I mean a clash between poor and rich.

By the way, there was a computer game called civilization. In that game (in the version I played about 15 years ago) if a civil disorder happened in your cities, you would create some entertainment (call it music festivals, sports, movies, games etc). That would calm down the situation a bit. But at the end you would always loose.

Unfortunately humanity is on the way to becoming an endangered species.

Notes:
[1] Simon Robinson, “The Farm Fight: The WTO tries, once again, to curb farm subsidies that distort global prices”, Time Asia, 20 November 2005.
[2] Petter Stålenheim, Damien Fruchart, Wuyi Omitoogun and Catalina Perdomo, Chapter 8. Military expenditure, Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) Yearbook, June 2006.

see you where parallels intersect.