Cause or Effect?

There’s a lot of angry unhappiness all over the world. In Europe, they protest. In many third world nations, they riot which often escalates into violent revolution and regime change. In some regions, asymmetrical combatants (“freedom fighters,” “soldiers of God” or “terrorists” depending on your perspective) raise holy terror, genocide and threaten civilizations with contrary views with extinction at their hands.

Even in traditional Europe, voters are leaving established political parties in droves, and new populist parties with rather radical economic and social agendas are finding increasing traction with frustrated constituents. There is increasing distance between traditional parties – often viewed as elitist – and the lives of most of their constituents. These factional alternatives threaten to destabilize Europe, starting with the January 25^th snap election in Greece that may well move that nation to reject the EU’s austerity measures and the concomitant debt, perhaps undermining the entire EU. Other examples of European elections with potential for unpredictable results cited by EIU [Economist Intelligence Unit] include polls in Denmark, Finland, Spain, France, Sweden, Germany and Ireland… ‘There is a common denominator in these countries: the rise of populist parties,’ the EIU says.” BBC.com, January 19^th.

Even in the United States, rising populist parties – like the GOP’s Tea Party – are growing in strength and digging their heels with no desire to negotiate or compromise. But like it or not, the world is changing, and often not in ways such populist movements are willing to accept.

Global climate change, with 9 of the 10 highest average temperatures recorded being experienced in the last decade, accounts for farm-destroying drought or flooding, migration of sea life and infestation of new diseases and insects well beyond traditional boundaries. Malthusian population growth, massive new levels of energy consumption and depleting natural resources have accelerated the underlying unhappiness all over the world, and natural migration patterns have been disrupted. We might not notice except when bombs explode or shots ring out, but extreme changes are happening everywhere.

People moving from increasingly unproductive regions to lands where they can feed themselves more effectively has been effectively blocked by incumbent occupants who have adopted the growing notion of “immigration” reform. New boundaries are forming as conquest meets rebellion. Well-armed militants often “take” what they need from unarmed peasants, sometimes under the uniform of the “legitimate” government, sometimes simply as regional war lords or revolutionary armies where “might makes right.”

While the notion of thermonuclear war still threatens, it is the general global instability whirling around us that truly sets the playing field. World War III may have already begun, some believe, whether it is through cyberattacks and terrorism or the callous invasion of one country by another. The old mechanisms of formal declarations of war from clearly defined countries, two sides squaring off with professional soldiers, may well be a thing of the past.

But underlying all of this brutal chaos is a fundamental observation. People with comfortable lives, sustainable hopes and dreams, don’t tend to riot, rebel or join/support horrific terrorist groups. When they perceive that they are the have-nots in a world of elitist haves, their reactions can get disturbingly violent.

To many in the developing world, the entire developed West are the haves, and their third world are the exploited have-nots. They don’t know about our economic “reset,” our underemployment and unsustainable deficits. They see our military power, our colonial tendencies and our seeming control – increasingly shared with China – of the global economy. They also see their own abject poverty, the few in the power elite (military or civilian) in their countries who have wealth and see themselves as having nothing left to lose. It’s the economy, stupid!

As the United States transitions from democracy to plutocracy, the one-percenters controlling the majority of our nation’s wealth and concomitant economic/political power, is the rest of the world following suit or are democracy and equality actually taking root in this flurry of global conflict? The numbers tell us that we are moving in the wrong direction and that the resulting instability is only going to get a lot worse.

“The wealthiest 1% will soon own more than the rest of the world's population, according to a study by anti-poverty charity Oxfam… The charity's research shows that the share of the world's wealth owned by the richest 1% increased from 44% in 2009 to 48% last year…On current trends, Oxfam says it expects the wealthiest 1% to own more than 50% of the world's wealth by 2016.” BBC.com, January 19^th. They already do in the United States. Until hope and a greater semblance of equality attack poverty and extreme economic polarization, we are going to be spending larger sums on military and police needs than ever before. It is a very uncomfortable reality, and we really need to start the necessary changes to restore balance right here on our doorstep.

I’m Peter Dekom, and I always wonder why the “let them eat cake” elite don’t see the inevitable result of their wealth: their own violent demise.