Ian Welsh

The horizon is not so far as we can see, but as far as we can imagine

Category: Age of War and Revolution Page 1 of 19

Some Countries Need Less Population

By

On December 23, 2024

Comments

There is a genre of population decline doomerism. An example:

Here’s the thing, Japan imports about sixty percent of its food. Japan is, by any reasonable measure, over-populated.

If you can’t feed your population and if there is no reasonable prospect that you could feed your population, perhaps you have too many people?

Another country for which this is true is Britain, which imports about 80% of its food. Yet the British have also been importing over a million people a year.

One might suggest, as well, that any country which has a large number of homeless people is also overpopulated: clearly it has more people than it is capable of taking care of. (Though we all know that’s usually a choice, not a constraint.)

The world is overpopulated by humans and our domesticated animals. We are in classic population overshoot.

When climate change and ecological collapse and resource depletion hit, there isn’t going to be enough food to go around. When that becomes the case, countries are going to prioritize themselves first and their close allies second. Entire countries which are now breadbaskets will either produce less, or will no longer produce enough for themselves. When the Gulf Stream turns off, which is expected any time in the next 50 years, for example, Europe as a whole will face a huge food deficit.

Better to start shedding population now, gradually, than to do it thru famine, food riots, revolution and war.

If you can’t feed your population, you have too much population. (Partial exception for city states and small states. Partial.) If you can’t house your population, you have too much population.

There are very few countries in the world which genuinely need more people. Russia, perhaps. Japan doesn’t. China doesn’t. India doesn’t. Most European countries don’t. Most African countries don’t. Etc…

Population doomers never ask the simple question: Under what circumstances is population growth good and under what circumstances is population decline good?

And for whom?

There was no better time to live in Medieval Europe than after the Black Death.

Decline now, while it’s gentle. If you insist on not doing so, you will do it the hard way.

(Much of this is driven by prioritization of GDP, a desire for low wages, and a deep misunderstanding of what makes an economy strong. More on that in the future.)

SUBSCRIBE OR DONATE

Elon Musk Threatens Congress Successfully

By

On December 20, 2024

Comments

This is some amazing shit:

Congress was about to vote on a bill called a “Continuing Resolution”, which would fund the operations of the federal government. But yesterday, Musk started tweeting around the clock about how he hated the bill and that he would fund the campaigns of politicians who ran against Congress members who supported it.

….Shortly after Musk decided he was against the Continuing Resolution, Trump and JD Vance issued a statement saying they were against it, too. The politicians in Congress fell in line, and now it looks like the government funding plan is dead.

Here’s the thing. Being rich only means you’re good at making money in a specific way. It doesn’t mean anything else. Gates, for example, pushed the “Common Core” education changes, and there’s no evidence they did any good and some reason to think they were harmful.

We have a rich man (maybe a billionaire) as President. We have Musk, the world’s richest man, who spent a lot money helping Trump win as one of the most important people in the new administration, who has said he wants to cut Social Security and Medicare.

Money is the ability to tell people what do. It let’s you control their actions, either directly or indirectly.

FDR defined fascism as:

Ownership of Government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power

The US has been trending towards oligarchy for ages. The final victory for oligarchy was probably “Citizen’s United”, which made money the same as speech and thus protected under the first amendment.

The famous Princeton oligarchy study, which used data from 1981-2002, which is to say from back when the rich weren’t nearly as powerful as they are now, found that:

…when one holds constant net interest-group alignments and the preferences of affluent Americans, it makes very little difference what the general public thinks. The probability of policy change is nearly the same (around 0.3) whether a tiny minority or a large majority of average citizens favor a proposed policy change (refer to the top panel of figure 1).

By contrast—again with other actors held constant—a proposed policy change with low support among economically-elite Americans (one out of five in favor) is adopted only about 18 percent of the time, while a proposed change with high support (four out of five in favor) is adopted about 45 percent of the time. Similarly, when support for policy change is low among interest groups (with five groups strongly opposed and none in favor) the probability of that policy change occurring is only .16, but the probability rises to .47 when interest groups are strongly favorable (refer to the bottom two panels of figure 1). Footnote 41

Musk is the world’s richest man. He threatened members of Congress using his money, and they caved.

It’s always amusing when Americans call Russia an oligarchy. It isn’t. Russia’s oligarchs have very little power compared to Putin. If they cross him, he destroys them. They do what he wants, when he wants or they go to jail or have to flee the country, giving up any wealth in Russia.

America, on the other hand, is sickeningly an oligarchy and it’s going from indirect to direct oligarchical control.

SUBSCRIBE OR DONATE

How The Resource Squeeze Will Play Out

By

On December 17, 2024

Comments

Contrary to what many economists will claim, we’re going to move into a resource constrained era. This is a combination of climate change, environmental collapse and civilization decline.

Simply put, per capita, there’s going to be less stuff. As Gibson’s line runs, the future will be unevenly distributed. This will hit some places harder and sooner. Germany and Europe are in decline already. China is actually increasing production and availability of most products. The US is in decline, but actively cannibalizing its allies, especially Europe, but also Taiwan, so the stuff shortage will be slower and there may be short to medium term increase.

This is exacerbated in most countries by the insistence of elites that they need to grow their wealth and income in both absolute and relative terms. They must have more, and they must increase the percentage of their society’s wealth and income. So even as there is less to go around, they must have more. When they try to deal with problems like climate change they institute policies like older retirement ages, reduced pensions, lower welfare payments, cuts and privatization of healthcare and regressive carbon taxes. They don’t get rid of, say, mega-yachts and private jets, or tax the rich more and distribute to those in need.

This isn’t just a matter of greed. Capitalist elites are in a Red Queen’s race. If they fall behind other elites, those elites will buy them out (often whether they want to be bought out or not), and they will fall out of the true elite, those who control profit-making enterprises. They may still be wealthy, but they will lose their power and cease to be players.

So we’re caught in a situation where per-capita resources will go down even as elites take a higher share.

I’m sure you can understand what this means to you and those you know. Maneuvering around this means either being extremely valuable to elites, and irreplaceable, or finding ways to insulate yourself from their demands, which is difficult, since they have most of what you need and control the legal system and the violent enforcement mechanisms.

There will be a backlash. How successful it will be remains to be seen, but there is a point where people realize that risking their lives or even losing them is a better bet than remaining with the status quo. Food and water riots, “terrorism” and perhaps Mangioning elites will become a trend.

Plan for this, because it’s already started. You see it already in the vast numbers of homeless, the endless healthcare rationing, and the constant push to privatize and thus profitize ever bit of government which might make a profit if its put in hands which can squeeze.

If your having a good lifestyle doesn’t make some member of the elite richer than squeezing you into homelessness or denying you care, then you’re in the line to go on the butcher’s block.

SUBSCRIBE OR DONATE

Taking the Hit For Stopping Genocide

By

On December 11, 2024

Comments

I’ve noticed something interesting. Every time I write about what might be done to stop the Israeli genocide, actions which would require serious fighting, people say “well I understand whey they don’t want to do that because Israel will bomb the hell out of them.”

And that’s true (though not as true when it comes to Iran, which has plenty of effective AD.)

The issue here is that there’s a genocide going on. My estimate for casualties is over half a million, and other people are starting to make the same estimates. For the past two months Israel has basically let no food into Northern Gaza. The number at the end will probably be over a million dead.

So you’re either willing to do what it takes to stop it, or you aren’t. Both Hezbollah and Iran pulled their punches and let Israel set the tempo of engagement, choosing when and where to fight, instead of engaging it when Hamas still had a viable fighting force. Iran had the missile capacity to wreck Israel’s air defense and air bases. Instead they let their proxies fight alone, and that went very badly for them.

With the fall of Syria, well, it’s no longer possible to stop the genocide. Senior Iranian leadership told their juniors they were going to intervene, then didn’t.

At least half a million people are going to die because no one was willing to do what it took to stop it.

It’s unfair this was on Iran and Hezbollah. It’s an amazing indictment of every great power in the world, and the local Arab states that none of them did anything meaningful to stop a genocide and that many helped the genocide along.

As for Iran, they themselves have pointed out that one has to resist America and Israel wherever they attack, because the plan is to end up taking out Iran. Khameini, if he hasn’t already, needs to get his head out of his ass and build nukes. And if Russia and China want to keep Iran as part of their great alliance, they need to take action.

As for Hezbollah, well, they’re cut off from land resupply from Iran. Israel and America will get to them. Playing everything cautiously did not work.

America is falling, there is no question about that. But Empire’s rarely go quiet into the night. The Age of War and Revolution continues.

SUBSCRIBE OR DONATE

US/China Trade War Heats Up

By

On December 5, 2024

Comments

So, China has put export controls on rare earths.

People think “well, we’ll just mine them ourselves” but it often isn’t that simple. Gallium is refined as part of the process of aluminum smelting, for example, and the US has no aluminum smelting industry left.

More generally speaking the world is unfolding as I predicted: it’s splitting into two trade blocs, a cold war is developing (the Syrian “uprising” is a cold war maneuver) and the US is trying cannibalize its satrapies: that’s what Trump’s tariffs on allies are about.

Since the 50s it was deliberate American policy to offshore industry to its allies, especially South Korea, Japan and Taiwan, but also to Europe and the Anglosphere to some extent. Now it wants to pull that back in. This has been especially noticeable, of late, in Germany, where heavy industry is shutting down and much of it is moving to the US.

The problem, of course, is that China’s cost structure is lower and they are pulling ahead technologically. The Chinese believe in technology in a way the West hasn’t since the 60s—it’s good to them. They want more robots, more drones and more automation. They’re not scared of automation taking jobs, they associate rapid technological advancement with prosperity.

The problem with bringing industry back to the US isn’t just cost-structure, it’s the so-called competency crisis and the sparseness of the vast numbers of small industrial suppliers. The ecosystem which supports and allows rapid re-industrialization doesn’t exist in the West any more. A simple example is that almost all of the world’s machine tools and basic electronics which are needed to do everything else are produced in China (with a small machine tool industry barely surviving in Germany.)

The West is going to have increasing problems with resources, as well. Most of the “South” would rather do business with China, for reasons we’ve discussed ad-infinitum. As the US cannibalizes its allies it will also have difficulty with trade: if Europe’s poor and everyone else would rather buy Chinese, who are you going to sell to?

Trump’s tariff plans aren’t exactly stupid, but they require real industrial policy at the same time and managing relationships with trade partners, including partners the US insists on treating as enemies, and Trump isn’t up for that, any more than Biden was.

So America will decline, but will decline less fast than its allies, and the world will split into two competing blocs. Only this time the “Western” bloc will be the weaker, less technologically advanced one.

SUBSCRIBE OR DONATE TO OUR 2024 FUNDRAISER

Health Insurance CEO Assassinated

By

On December 4, 2024

Comments

Brian Thompson, CEO of United Healthcare. Apparently there had been threats, and those threats were related to denial of care. Even the Feds thought he was denying too much care (which takes some work, since denying care is the industry profit model.)

He had been chief executive since 2021, during a time in which the parent company and his division were rattled by federal investigations, even as it enjoyed profitable growth. The division has been criticized by congressional lawmakers and federal regulators who accused it of systematically denying authorization for health care procedures and treatments.

There doesn’t seem to be much sympathy, and indeed there is much satisfaction and even glee, among commenters.

I have been expecting, but not seeing, a wave of assassinations of important people in the US and the West for some time. I still think it will happen, it’s just taking longer than I thought.

The bottom line is that people like Thompson get rich by hurting other people. That’s what they do. Billionaires, executives and politicians all make their living plus a lot by taking from people weaker than them. Grocery chains raising prices faster than their costs’ insurance companies denying care to spike profits; banks creating fake documents to foreclose homes; private equity buying profitable businesses, larding them up with debt and then shutting them down.

Politicians making laws to benefit the rich, cutting their taxes, giving them huge subsidies and cutting programs for the poor and middle class. Politicians letting people be homeless and stealing their possessions when they raid homeless camps.

And so on. Entire books have been written about this and been non-exhaustive.

Powerful people get rich by killing, impoverishing and hurting people weaker than them and it’s very odd that more of those people, or their families or friends don’t return the favor with prejudice.

Thompson’s assassination will cause more execs and CEOs to bodyguard up, but that doesn’t matter much. Modern IEDs and drones are very very effective and getting cheaper all the time, though civilian drones are extremely restricted in the US, which has lead to China being the world leader.

I suspect they’re restricted in part to make assassinations harder. Guns are nice, drones are better.

Chinese leaders make the lives of most Chinese much better, not worse, so they aren’t scared of assassination.

Anyway, if you want an economy which works for everyone you can’t ask nicely, powerful Westerners only respond to fear. So if there are more assassinations, if it becomes a “thing”, well that might turn out very well for the majority. (Or it might not, but when the status quo is unbearable, people often lash out.)

This is just an observation of how things work, of course. One should never ever assassinate someone just because they are killing and impoverishing lots of people and would happily kill and or impoverish your friends and family or you because they need a fifth luxury home, third private jet and a second mega-yacht.

That would be very anti-capitalistic and un-American and letting the rich kill and impoverish you is what America is all about. You should be honored to die or live on the street or scream in agony as your health care is denied so some executive can increase profits by .01% and get a bigger bonus.

Die for the American way. Live homeless for freedom!

Update:

SUBSCRIBE OR DONATE TO OUR 2024 FUNDRAISER

The South Korean Coup Attempt

By

On December 3, 2024

Comments

Update: Report that the President may have backed down and will cancel martial law. Amazing.

The President of South Korea has declared martial law.

The legislature voted 190 to 0 to end the martial law, which is their right under the constitution, but the President has declared it will continue and the military command has said they will not end it till he says so. Even members of the President’s own party voted to end martial law.

I’m no expert on South Korea, but what I do know that the people with the guns have the final say. Back during the Arab Spring I noted that until the Egyptian army chose its side (it wound up choosing itself) nothing had been won.

The question, then, is the high command is unified and if lower officers and the rank and file will obey orders. So far the coup hasn’t been entirely competent: the military should have never allowed the legislators into the building to take such a vote.

There are unconfirmed reports that arrest warrants have been issued for leaders of opposition parties.

South Korea is America’s second most important ally, right after Japan. It has the highest science production per capita in the world and is a major industrial power.

One of the topics on the right hand side of the blog is “the age of war and revolution”. Coups are a type of revolution. This sort of instability will continue. Some nations will re-align against the declining West, others, in the core, as the decline continues, will become more and more unstable and serious political realignments will occur. The age of neoliberal ideology is also coming to an end (Trump’s tariff threats are as anti-neoliberal as it gets) and the global economy is being upended in ways it hasn’t been since the industrial revolution, as the core moves from a Western country to China.

Be prepared for much more instability.

SUBSCRIBE OR DONATE TO OUR 2024 FUNDRAISER

The Most Important Issues Facing Humanity

By

On November 19, 2024

Comments

There’s been a lot of attention, much of it apocalyptic, paid to Trump’s election, but Trump is just a symptom of one of our three main issues.

In order of importance, they are:

  1. Climate Change and Ecological Collapse;
  2. Mass disabling, largely due to Covid; and,
  3. The End of the Western Era, and the collapse of American hegemony.

If we manage a nuclear war during the collapse of American hegemony, it’ll turn out to have been the most important issue, but I’m betting we’ll avoid it. If I’m wrong, you won’t be able to tell me so.

Warming continues:

But just as important as warming is the collapse of biodiversity, loss of habitat and species. We are able to live and live well because other species form the network of life, which keep the atmosphere breathable, soil fertile and feed us. Worse, we just don’t understand these systems, we can’t create the simplest of biospheres: if it goes awry, we will have a hell of a time fixing it, and the loss of genetic diversity means a vast swathe of scientific advances will be cut off, especially medical advances.

(The below are from 2018, the situation is accelerating, and will be worse now.)

Average case scenarios for climate change and ecological collapse mean billions of deaths for humans a world with a significantly reduced carrying capacity. Recovery, especially of species, will take so much time that on the human timescale, it might as well be “never.”

Meanwhile, the Covid epidemic continues and we’re at risk for other viral plagues. If Covid just killed people, that would be bad, but the mass disabling is a huge problem and even people who aren’t symptomatic have suffered real damage.

This chart is from 2023, so it’s behind the curve, but it indicates the issues. (UK)

There’s no particular reason to expect this to end. We aren’t doing anything about Covid. Here’s a projection chart:

Having to care for large numbers of disabled people at the same time as everything else is going to shit is… bad. Very bad. There’s a reason why assisted suicide is becoming legal.

We could do something about Covid. Many things. But we refuse.

The End of the European Era is probably a good thing, but world hegemonic transitions are nasty. The last one led to two world wars. The Chinese are striving mightily to avoid “Thucydides trap.”

The Ukrainian and Gazan wars, plus the Yemen blockade which is part of the Gaza war are best seen as part of the death throes of the American empire. But it’s not just America which is losing power, Europe is shedding industry, has fallen behind on technology and is in serious, probably terminal decline.

The Western era, which is four to five centuries old, depending on how you count it (the case for 4 centuries is that in 1500 the Ottomans and Chinese were still vastly powerful) is coming to an end. China is re-taking its place as the most important nation in the world. I’d argue it has already done so. Russia, which has been Europe facing and European aspirational for centuries now looks East and is a junior ally of China’s.

China doesn’t want war with America. It doesn’t need a war. Absent a war, it’s already won, it just has to sit back and watch America continue its decline. Trump is not going to “make America great again”, that ship has sailed. What needs to be done to make it happen are policies (including real industrial policy and a collapse of asset prices and rent, plus increases in real wages) which are anathema to most of America’s elites, and which, in any case, they are incompetent to implement.

But hegemonic powers rarely go easy into that long night, and a world war is entirely possible. American elites don’t want to lose their pre-eminence, and they still have a powerful military (or think they do) and a lot of nuclear weapons.

So this transition period is one of great danger, potentially for everyone in the world.

These are the three big issues, everything else is trivial in comparison. Trans rights, wokeism, AI… whatever, are all rounding errors on these three issues.

 

***

(If you like the writing here, well, support it if you can. There aren’t a lot of places like this left on the Web. Every year I fundraise to keep it going. Please Subscribe or Donate.)

***

The worst of it is that we’re not going to handle the first one: climate change and ecological collapse. We’ve already made that decision. Even if we immediately started doing everything right, they’re now self-reinforcing, and we aren’t going to do everything right. Trump, after all, ran on drill, drill, drill. The Chinese are doing more than anyone else, with a massive build-out of renewable energy, but their system is still an extractive and polluting industrial economy with massive freeways and so on.

The only “good” sign is one that many are bewailing: collapsing birth rates. Human population is in clear overshoot, and it needs to be reduced. Yes, in theory we could increase Earth’s carrying capacity so that a massive population decrease wouldn’t be necessary, but we’re not going to.

Ecological issues are in the bucket of “fix them or nature will fix them for you” and we’ve chosen not to.

Keep these three issues at the forefront of your mind, your analysis and your planning for your personal future. Compared to them, everything else barely matters.

Page 1 of 19

Next

Powered by WordPress & Theme by Anders Norén