"...So, then, what are the characteristics of the emerging framework, and how can we plan for it? First, the characteristics:
· The core populations of “advanced industrial societies” are already reducing dramatically, a factor disguised by inward migration and urbanization, dramatically affecting the nature, political patterns, and efficiencies of these societies3;
· The overall global population of the world is tipping toward substantial decline within the coming decades, as reproduction rates decline even in Africa and South Asia4;
· Declining core population levels in major industrial states, in particular, compounds the transformation of economies, particularly urban-dominated economies, which rely on real estate valuations to generate credit. In other words, perceived economic value is reduced.
Bearing in mind that asset values represent the core leveraging for fundraising and for taxation, this will in turn diminish R&D and project funding, will lead to greater debt financing and currency creation, inflation, and ultimately greater protectionism and systemic collapse, unless alternate economic models are created (ie: not dependent upon increasing consumer scale);
· The reality is that the possibilities of linear extrapolation of current technologies or the creation of sufficient breakthrough technologies are unlikely to occur because of transformations of population and economic patterns5;
· The transformation of societies and power balances will result in a continuation of the pattern of declining prestige of, and trust in governments, requiring governments to engage in more systemic suppression of populations in order to sustain order.
“Democracy”, in other words and as we knew it a half-century ago or even 20 years ago, is dead, although the word will be used increasingly to legitimize authoritarian governance, and “political correctness”. It is also critical to recognize that prestige and trust — psychological values — also determine the viability of currency and credit systems, with a “crisis of trust” leading toward greater caution in trade. In this context, it is worth remembering that internal disarray in any society creates a distraction or vacuum which allows other societies to flourish. Internal disarray also often causes leaders to lash out at external distractions in the hope of clinging longer to power;
· The great tool of “gross domestic product” (GDP) as a means of determining viability has already become brutish, imprecise, infinitely variable in its interpretation, and underpinned by the shifting sands of currencies of questionable prestige. Moreover, GDP was designed to fit the rigid structure of the post-World War II-defined “modern Westphalian state”, something which, by the early 21st Century, the urban societies were anxious to dismiss.
Vitiating the sovereign nation-state reduces (or eradicates) the meaning of GDP and other standards of wealth/power measurement. Whither, then, the objectivity of economic planning?"