The Post-Globalization Order: The Views of Peter Zeihan

[Alex_Krycek]

Recently I've been reading and watching some of Peter Zeihan's views, specifically in his latest book: The End of the World is Just Beginning: Mapping the Collapse of Globalization.  Zeihan is an expert on demography and geopolitics, and combines the two disciplines to produce some sobering forecasts about what the world will look like in the coming decades, particularly as numerous countries suffer irreversible population implosions due to insufficient birth rates. 

China is possibly the most well known case, but many other countries will suffer exactly the same fate in the 21st century.  A key point that Zeihan makes is it will be extremely difficult, if not impossible, for countries to regain their population levels after this happens, namely because it takes so long to generate, well, a generation.  This article points out just how serious China's population decline is anticipated to be.  Link to Article

The United States, on the other hand, seems to be in a pretty good place, demographically and geographically speaking, to make the transition.  Overall Zeihan has some interesting points.  Many of his points are directly inferable from current events.  For example, he points out that Russia is basically in its last generation before collapse, and Putin is only accelerating this.  According to Zeihan, the planned 500,000 man onslaught,  a result of Russia's winter-long mobilization effort which it will throw at Ukraine this spring, will be Russia's final ability to fight a conventional war (should they not have a resounding victory across the board).  They just won't have enough people (in this case fighting age men) after this.  

Zeihan has a youtube channel and a website if you want to investigate him.  His views are somewhat antithetical to the idea that less people in the world would be better.

Zeihan is obviously an expert in his field, and his predictions are based on verifiable trends, and are quite pessimistic for most countries.  He sees some countries regressing rapidly into a state of anarchy due to the breakdown of critical infrastructure and logistics, for example, triggered again by not enough people.  However, I wonder what unforeseeable (or foreseeable) events might drive the world into an alternate state of reality other than the one Zeihan portrays.  

For example, I can easily see A.I taking over much of the human labor that will vanish as a result of the population collapse.  Interestingly, the US and its allies strategy to control microchip and semiconducter production seems to be a very relevant gambit designed to prevent any adversary from developing a viable A.I. integrated military, or at least one that can compete with the West and its allies.  

Another example might be human cloning or so called "baby farms" where humans are produced en masse in a laboratory, not unlike the Institute in Fallout 4.

In short there are many avenues for adaptation in a world with much less people.  Finally, there's the viewpoint that population collapse for the world is long overdue, thanks to the threat to biodiversity and collapsing ecosystems caused by globalization.  Zeihan points out that Japan has already reached a "post boomer" society, and has handled it rather elegantly.   Perhaps the coming population decline and deconstruction of globalization will be a net positive for everyone. 

Thoughts?

Edited February 2, 2023 by Alex_Krycek

[Genady]

18 minutes ago, Alex_Krycek said:

numerous countries suffer irreversible population implosions due to insufficient birth rates

What are the causes of this? In what sense are they irreversible?

[Alex_Krycek]

21 minutes ago, Genady said:

What are the causes of this? In what sense are they irreversible?

I suppose it's not technically "irreversible" on a long enough timescale.  A country just can't produce enough people overnight to regain the population levels that it needs.  Decades are required.  It's not like ordering a product where that product can be topped up in an inventory when the next shipment arrives.  These are deep, seismic shifts that are occurring.    

The main point Zeihan makes is that globalization is necessary to sustain the critical infrastructure of most modern countries, and there is a necessity to maintain a certain amount of people to sustain most countries' ability to interact meaningfully within a globalized system.  So without the people, a country can't participate in a globalized system, and if they can't participate in the globalized system, there will be massive destabilization in many sectors of that country due to the effect it will have on its critical infrastructure (due to its reliance on the interconnected relationships (trade, defense, transport, energy) that globalization affords.   

This explanation about the current state of the Chinese collapse illustrates the overall point of the population "death spiral":  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0MSV2bh48MA

 

 

Edited February 2, 2023 by Alex_Krycek

[mistermack]

7 minutes ago, Alex_Krycek said:

A country just can't produce enough people overnight to regain the population levels that it needs.

Why does a country need a certain population level? It's governments that like a rising population, they like to have more money to spend. But the people are generally better off with a smaller population. A plot of land doesn't cost an arm and a leg, and you're not breathing in everyone else's farts. Defence and international influence are the main things that benefit from higher populations, that's why politicians like more people.

The main thing for the welfare of the people is to have stability, with slow population movements. And as the world is massively overpopulated by humans, I would aim at a slow decline, as a population policy.

[Alex_Krycek]

6 minutes ago, mistermack said:

Why does a country need a certain population level? It's governments that like a rising population, they like to have more money to spend. But the people are generally better off with a smaller population. A plot of land doesn't cost an arm and a leg, and you're not breathing in everyone else's farts. Defence and international influence are the main things that benefit from higher populations, that's why politicians like more people.

The main thing for the welfare of the people is to have stability, with slow population movements. And as the world is massively overpopulated by humans, I would aim at a slow decline, as a population policy.

This is what I always thought too.  Apparently rapid population decline is massively destabilizing though, according to PZ.

China is going to be the "canary in the coal mine" to watch.  However Japan has managed to do well.

[Genady]

1 hour ago, Alex_Krycek said:

Decades are required.

Decades long crises have happened before. Perhaps, will happen again.

However, what are the causes of the insufficient birth rates that seem to be in the root of this crisis?

[Alex_Krycek]

3 minutes ago, Genady said:

Decades long crises have happened before. Perhaps, will happen again.

However, what are the causes of the insufficient birth rates that seem to be in the root of this crisis?

I believe generally speaking it is urbanization: as people move to the city people see children as an expensive burden, not an extra set of hands like on a farm.  So movement away from the countryside to the city would be one factor.  Also a rise in intelligence.  The smarter people get, the less interested they are in having kids until later in life, and generally they have less kids than in the past.  Finally I would think sheer pessimism and gloom would be another component.  With the state of many countries and how many people are struggling to make ends meet, having kids is the last thing on their mind (which kind of goes back to point 1: kids have become an expensive luxury).

24 minutes ago, Genady said:

Decades long crises have happened before. Perhaps, will happen again.

 

I mean, historically speaking the world has been in never ending crisis and upheaval for all of human history, just some places have it slightly better than others some of the time.   Also we have to keep in mind that the norm for civilizations historically speaking is to rise and then collapse, so this might be an inevitable downward cycle.

However, one achilles heel of analyses like PZ's is he doesn't take into account the unknowns.  I know its obvious, but the development of human society isn't linear, that much is clear.  The situation could diverge in ways we can't currently comprehend, especially with novel technology affecting the situation. 

[TheVat]

2 hours ago, Alex_Krycek said:

  A key point that Zeihan makes is it will be extremely difficult, if not impossible, for countries to regain their population levels after this happens

Excellent news!   Eight billion is not sustainable if everyone seems to want a western lifestyle.  And there are clear quality of life benefits (open green spaces and wilderness preserves and uncut tropical forests producing oxygen and so on) in having population drop back to 2-3 billion.  

(A plus one to @mistermack for noting the need for reduced population, with a slow decline.)

Economic systems that depend on endless growth must be reformed.  Endless growth is the doctrine of a cancer cell.

2 hours ago, Alex_Krycek said:

In short there are many avenues for adaptation in a world with much less people.  Finally, there's the viewpoint that population collapse for the world is long overdue, thanks to the threat to biodiversity and collapsing ecosystems caused by globalization.  Zeihan points out that Japan has already reached a "post boomer" society, and has handled it rather elegantly.   Perhaps the coming population decline and deconstruction of globalization will be a net positive for everyone. 

I would think so.  It will also help free up resources to aid countries that are still struggling to reach their demographic shift.

Edited February 2, 2023 by TheVat
missing things

[Genady]

8 minutes ago, TheVat said:

population drop back to 2-3 billion

Yes, it might happen. After the crises is over, people will live happily, for some time. This happy life will encourage them to have more children, ... We know how it goes, don't we?

[TheVat]

Just now, Genady said:

Yes, it might happen. After the crises is over, people will live happily, for some time. This happy life will encourage them to have more children, ... We know how it goes, don't we?

Yes that thought has crossed my mind, too.  Once you reach a generation that forgets the crowded and dirty old days, then they may restart a cycle of overpopulation.  Or maybe the smaller family by then will be part of society's basic ethos.   But who knows how long any ethos lasts?

[Peterkin]

1 hour ago, Genady said:

Yes, it might happen. After the crises is over, people will live happily, for some time. This happy life will encourage them to have more children, ... We know how it goes, don't we?

That happened following the carnage of WWII - in fact, it didn't wait for the post-war economic boom.

But if that were the norm, wouldn't the prosperous nations of the 20th and 21st century have a higher birth rate than the poor nations? https://www.theglobaleconomy.com/rankings/birth_rate/

3 hours ago, Alex_Krycek said:

The main point Zeihan makes is that globalization is necessary to sustain the critical infrastructure of most modern countries, and there is a necessity to maintain a certain amount of people to sustain most countries' ability to interact meaningfully within a globalized system.

What's good about a globalized system? What's bad about it? If I really put on my thinking cap, I suspect my bad list would be longer. Why do we want to sustain a system that is so miserably failing to sustain so many of us? https://www.unhcr.org/figures-at-a-glance.html

3 hours ago, Alex_Krycek said:

there will be massive destabilization in many sectors of that country due to the effect it will have on its critical infrastructure (due to its reliance on the interconnected relationships (trade, defense, transport, energy) that globalization affords.   

Destabilization is inevitable anyway, what with bad governance, disrupted climate and predatory economic arrangements. The trade and defence treaties are causing more problems (e.g. Ukraine, Afghanistan, Palestine) than they solve; all that global transporting of resources and goods is killing the oceans and along with them, a major source of food for all the millions of unemployable people. If we don't move to decentralized local energy production pdq, we're done for. On top of the neverending pandemic, we're also borrowing and profiteering ourselves into a massive economic depression - which of course, given the global situation, will hurt everyone.   

 

Edited February 2, 2023 by Peterkin

[Genady]

26 minutes ago, Peterkin said:

That happened following the carnage of WWII - in fact, it didn't wait for the post-war economic boom.

But if that were the norm, wouldn't the prosperous nations of the 20th and 21st century have a higher birth rate than the poor nations? https://www.theglobaleconomy.com/rankings/birth_rate/

Of three causes of the current low birth rate mentioned by the OP - urbanization, intelligence, and depression - the first and the third will supposedly be eliminated in the happy, 2-3 billion people world. Maybe intelligence will suffice. (?)

Edited February 2, 2023 by Genady

[Peterkin]

1 minute ago, Genady said:

Out of three causes of the current low birth rate mentioned by the OP - urbanization, intelligence, and depression - the first and the third will supposedly be eliminated in the happy, 2-3 billion people world. Maybe intelligence will suffice. (?)

Intelligence will suffice to do what? Some very clever people have engineered situation where lots of little soldiers and peons are made for the state to squander on its wars. Some other clever people have devised reliable, cheap, safe methods of birth control. High birth rate is not usually a result of sober human reflection: it's emotional and conditional. When there is a strong prospect of babies surviving to adulthood, people invest their resources in raising one or two; when infant mortality is high, they hedge their bets with six. That's one factor. Of course, there are others.

[Genady]

2 minutes ago, Peterkin said:

Intelligence will suffice to do what?

To do this:

2 hours ago, Alex_Krycek said:

... a rise in intelligence.  The smarter people get, the less interested they are in having kids until later in life, and generally they have less kids than in the past. 

 

[Lorentz Jr]

4 hours ago, Alex_Krycek said:

The main point Zeihan makes is that globalization is necessary to sustain the critical infrastructure of most modern countries, and there is a necessity to maintain a certain amount of people to sustain most countries' ability to interact meaningfully within a globalized system.  So without the people, a country can't participate in a globalized system, and if they can't participate in the globalized system, there will be massive destabilization in many sectors of that country due to the effect it will have on its critical infrastructure (due to its reliance on the interconnected relationships (trade, defense, transport, energy) that globalization affords.

Wow. I'll put him on my "don't bother" list. There may be a "big fish eating the little fish" effect that works against small countries, but that has almost nothing to do with technology (cf. the Roman Empire), and reducing the global population would bring supply and demand back into a more sustainable balance. 90 percent of the time, when there's a recession, it's because there are too many workers and not enough demand for their labor. The Covid pandemic and the 1970s oil crisis were rare exceptions. In the usual situation, unemployed workers destabilize society, they kill each other off in a war, and the survivors start the whole process all over again. With technology reducing the number of workers required to support any given lifestyle, population shrinkage is one of the best things that could happen to this planet, ecologically, economically, and politically.

Edited February 2, 2023 by Lorentz Jr

[Peterkin]

31 minutes ago, Genady said:

.. a rise in intelligence.  The smarter people get, the less interested they are in having kids until later in life, and generally they have less kids than in the past. 

That's an oversimplification. Human intelligence has not changed significantly in 200,000 years.  People with educational opportunities, in a society with room for upward mobility, defer reproduction while they establish a career. If women in that society also have these opportunities, and defer reproduction, couple have no time for more than one or two children. And don't need more, even though they are financially able to support more, since they have confidence in the two growing up successfully. That's not about intelligence but progressive politics and prosperity.

The influence of religious organizations is not a function of relative intelligence, but does have a major effect on reproduction. (See USA, 2022; Saudi Arabia 2020) Also, periods of peace tend to encourage tolerance and social services, while war demands both economic sacrifice and human sacrifice. In precarious conditions - war zones and ghettos - people expect to die young, so they mature sexually at an earlier age and have babies sooner. It's not because they're less intelligent than the residents of upscale neighbourhoods; it's because because they have very different expectations and nature hates to miss a generation to experiment in.

[Genady]

1 hour ago, Genady said:

 

3 hours ago, Alex_Krycek said:

... a rise in intelligence.  The smarter people get, the less interested they are in having kids until later in life, and generally they have less kids than in the past. 

 

@Peterkin, this ^ would be a correct attribution.

Or this:

3 hours ago, Alex_Krycek said:

a rise in intelligence.  The smarter people get, the less interested they are in having kids until later in life, and generally they have less kids than in the past. 

 

[swansont]

6 hours ago, Alex_Krycek said:

irreversible population implosions due to insufficient birth rates. 

Why is it irreversible?

6 hours ago, Alex_Krycek said:

Zeihan is obviously an expert in his field, and his predictions are based on verifiable trends, and are quite pessimistic for most countries.  He sees some countries regressing rapidly into a state of anarchy due to the breakdown of critical infrastructure and logistics, for example, triggered again by not enough people.

What level is “not enough”?

[MigL]

Globalization is bad ??

It has improved the living conditions of countries like Japan, South Korea, China and Taiwan, Singapore, etc., that were considered 3rd world countries 70 years ago.
It is improving the living conditions ofEastern Europe after 50 years of oppressive dictatorial Communism.
It does this by industrialized countries becoming 'consumers' that outsource 'production' to lesser developed countries, until they too become consumers, and production shifts somewhere else, eventually bringing the playing field level for all.

You guys are speaking in terms of abstracts; let's look at real world situations.
The UK had a referendum against a form of globalization. BREXITwas a retreat from a more global organization; how did it work out for them ???
Instead of the 300 million savings per year, advertised on the sides of buses, they are losing Billions.
It is the only country in the Eurozone experiencing a large negative economin growth.
And it can't be attributed to bad governance, because there are many countries with incompetent governments.

[exchemist]

6 hours ago, mistermack said:

Why does a country need a certain population level? It's governments that like a rising population, they like to have more money to spend. But the people are generally better off with a smaller population. A plot of land doesn't cost an arm and a leg, and you're not breathing in everyone else's farts. Defence and international influence are the main things that benefit from higher populations, that's why politicians like more people.

The main thing for the welfare of the people is to have stability, with slow population movements. And as the world is massively overpopulated by humans, I would aim at a slow decline, as a population policy.

You are not taking into account the age distribution. The problem many countries face - and will do increasingly - is a growing cohort of the old, who are now living to very advanced age, needing increasingly costly medical care and other support, while the working age portion of the population shrinks, because the birth rate is insufficient to replenish it. We no longer drop dead at 70 from a lifetime of smoking. That's a problem. Solutions may involve further raising of the retirement age, on the basis that older people are in better health than they were when retirements ages were originally set. But that is hard to do (cf. strikes over it in France, currently) and may not be a complete solution.

(Your comments about governments liking more money to spend are absurd, by the way. Governments in democracies are elected and it is the people that elect them that are constantly demanding they spend money, to provide an increasing range of services to society.)  

[mistermack]

24 minutes ago, exchemist said:

You are not taking into account the age distribution.

Age distribution problems arise as a one-off after a population bulge. If you didn't have the the bulge, you wouldn't have the old people problem. I covered that with " The main thing for the welfare of the people is to have stability, with slow population movements."
Yes, people are living longer. But you CAN raise the retirement age, and if they have to, then eventually they will. But you ignore the fact that machinery has taken the place of human labour on a huge scale, and will continue to do so at an accelerating rate. You might have fewer workers supporting more old people, but the real picture is fewer people, and more and better machines. 

26 minutes ago, exchemist said:

(Your comments about governments liking more money to spend are absurd, by the way. Governments in democracies are elected and it is the people that elect them that are constantly demanding they spend money, to provide an increasing range of services to society.)  

And why is that absurd? I said they like more money to spend, and you just volunteered a reason why. That doesn't contradict my statement, it reinforces it.
 

[exchemist]

1 hour ago, mistermack said:

Age distribution problems arise as a one-off after a population bulge. If you didn't have the the bulge, you wouldn't have the old people problem. I covered that with " The main thing for the welfare of the people is to have stability, with slow population movements."
Yes, people are living longer. But you CAN raise the retirement age, and if they have to, then eventually they will. But you ignore the fact that machinery has taken the place of human labour on a huge scale, and will continue to do so at an accelerating rate. You might have fewer workers supporting more old people, but the real picture is fewer people, and more and better machines. 

And why is that absurd? I said they like more money to spend, and you just volunteered a reason why. That doesn't contradict my statement, it reinforces it.
 

What strikes me as absurd is the idea that government is some kind of separate entity with its own agenda, rather than being what people vote to get. Government doesn't have an agenda to get a bigger population so that it has more to spend. Its expenditure is essentially per capita. So it will need more to spend if the population is larger. If it is smaller, it needs less.

Ageing is not a one-off bulge. It's a long term, irreversible change in the age distribution. I agree that if government can get the retirement age raised that will help a lot. But it is also inescapable that the coming age distribution will be more costly to support than the previous one, due to the extra permanent tranche of very elderly, infirm people. 

[swansont]

52 minutes ago, exchemist said:

What strikes me as absurd is the idea that government is some kind of separate entity with its own agenda, rather than being what people vote to get

What about countries where there is no right to vote?

2 hours ago, mistermack said:

Age distribution problems arise as a one-off after a population bulge. If you didn't have the the bulge, you wouldn't have the old people problem. I covered that with " The main thing for the welfare of the people is to have stability, with slow population movements."

That’s one possible cause, but another is increased lifespan from medical advances. 

[TheVat]

26 minutes ago, exchemist said:

What strikes me as absurd is the idea that government is some kind of separate entity with its own agenda, rather than being what people vote to get.

Less absurd to an American.  We have quite the smorgasbord of legislation and Supreme Court decisions that run counter to what a majority of constituents want.  

33 minutes ago, exchemist said:

Ageing is not a one-off bulge. It's a long term, irreversible change in the age distribution. I agree that if government can get the retirement age raised that will help a lot. But it is also inescapable that the coming age distribution will be more costly to support than the previous one, due to the extra permanent tranche of very elderly, infirm people. 

This seems true in one sense but not in another.  It's true that a proportionally smaller working age population shrinks the tax base, but it also raises the value of labor especially for those on the lower rungs of the scale, who would be in high demand for assisting the elderly.  Unemployment would be (unless massive robotic replacement becomes reality) near zero.  And an older population has fewer young couples with children, who are the most costly segment of population in terms of government services.  Those schools and soccer fields cost a ton of shekels.  Also running counter is the trend in medicine to push back the age of infirmity.  

Also the "top-heavy" effect of the first couple generations of Big Shrink will be reduced somewhat as following generations won't be from baby booms.

[exchemist]

1 minute ago, swansont said:

What about countries where there is no right to vote?

That's another matter, I agree. But even in places like China or Russia, the motive for wanting a rising population is not just so government can spend more. It's things like having a bigger army, having a bigger economy and thus more power in the world, being less reliant on other nations etc.