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Culture War Roundup for the week of January 9, 2023

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Can geopolitics also be culture war? I'd argue yes.

PM Modi: Global South must create new world order

“We, the Global South, have the largest stakes in the future. Three-fourth of humanity lives in our countries. We should also have equivalent voice. Hence, as the eight-decade old model of global governance slowly changes, we should try to shape the emerging order,’’ he said, while underscoring the need to escape the cycle of dependency on systems and circumstances which are not of developing world’s making.

My question is, what makes people living in Third World countries think that just because they are numerous, that means they count? Nigeria has a much bigger population than France. Which country matters more in international affairs? Why is Taiwan so important? The country has a huge footprint in semiconductors despite having only 24 million people. Had it been a primitive basket-case, its potential capture by China would still be opposed but there wouldn't be fears of far-reaching economic ramifications.

I worry that a narrative of "our time is due" has set in, giving birth to unreasonable expectations of international influence that may in fact never materialise for most Third World countries. Once this finally dawns on them, rage and jealousy may set in, a feeling of being betrayed of "our rightful influence". Influence is earned, not given. I'm reasonably optimistic about India but not so optimistic on most other poor large countries (Egypt, Pakistan, Ethiopia etc). Given disparate birth rates over the world, a growing imbalance between countries who hold the actual power versus where most of humanity will increasingly be located could lead to increased international tension.

This isn't so much the west vs south as global financial elite vs the rest. We have lived in a world order in which a liberal elite class in a few major cities have wanted a world consisting of atomized consumers in a global market managed by a few large institutions in the west such as NATO, the world bank and the IMF. The ideas to really turn the world into americanized urban sprawl in which we are all free to choose what Hollywood sequel we want to watch and what Nestlé product to consume.

This worked when the rest of the world was entirely dependent on the west. Banana republics either had to accept the trade deals they were offered or go back to the 1700s. They sold bananas to the west that were delivered on GM trucks using Exxon's oil and that were paid for with US dollars using american financial institutions. The profits were used to buy goods made in the US. Today Huawei telecom products are used to sell bananas shipped on Chinese ships using Saudi oil and profits are used to buy clothes from Cambodia and software from India.

In the 50s militaries either faught with western weapons, Sovjet weapons or laughably obsolete weapons. This isn't true anymore as the west has had real difficulty even against the taliban and countries like Iran, China, Pakistan, India etc have improved their arms industries and militaries by leaps and bounds.

What Modi is saying is that the world no longer is Goldman Sachs, the state department and people in the City of London. Their power levels aren't dwarfing China's. The rural Americans that the US sent to Iraq to ensure that Iraq was inline with American interests would be much less friendly to the coastal elites and less willing to fight today. If anything the elites in the west are having an increasingly difficult managing their own countries let alone an empire which maintenance costs are shooting through the roof. Empires tend not to be defeated by getting steamrolled by an enemy army as much as declining due to rising costs of maintaining the empire. Taiwan has gone from being a cash cow to a major liability for the US. Defending American influence over Ukraine is causing all sorts of economic mayhem and is draining western stockpiles of military hardware.

Modi isn't envisioning India and Nigeria running the world together in a revanchist alliance, he is telling the people who live on a skyscraper on Manhattan that the world doesn't revolve around them.

This isn't so much the west vs south as global financial elite vs the rest.

The elephant curve implies that the objective interests of the various social classes don't line up this way. During the neoliberal era (roughly from the fall of the Berlin Wall to the present), the big picture in global inequality is:

  • The "tail" of the elephant consisting of poor people in poor countries which are not developing due to civil wars or such like: 5-15% of the world's population depending on how you count.

  • The "body" of the elephant consisting of the respectable working and middle class in rapidly growing economies including China, who are experiencing rapid income growth: c.60% of the world's population

  • The "neck" of the elephant - around the 80th-90th percentile of the world's population we see very low income growth, driven by the bottom 80% in rich countries who have been the main losers of globalisation.

  • The "trunk" of the elephant - the top few percent (including most of the top 20% in rich countries) who are doing well, with the top 1% doing better still and the super-rich making out like bandits.

The idea of an alliance between the "body" and the "neck" against the "trunk" to repeal neoliberal globalisation doesn't make sense. And if you look at what Modi is saying, he isn't saying that. The demand isn't "reverse neoliberal globalisation" it is "give me money". The anti-globalisation faction in Indian politics is peasant advocates, because Indian peasants are part of the "tail".

Banana republics either had to accept the trade deals they were offered or go back to the 1700s. They sold bananas to the west that were delivered on GM trucks using Exxon's oil and that were paid for with US dollars using american financial institutions. The profits were used to buy goods made in the US. Today Huawei telecom products are used to sell bananas shipped on Chinese ships using Saudi oil and profits are used to buy clothes from Cambodia and software from India.

The problem with Banana republics isn't that they could only trade with one partner, it's that their elites are able to extract all the natural resource wealth and are anti-incentivized to educate their populace. Being able to trade with different countries that give even less of a shit what they do to their slaves doesn't really spell their ascension.

A world without western hegemony isn't a many polar world where poor countries take an equal place at the top, it's one where the US no longer protects oil shipments from the middle east along the somali coast if they aren't bound for US controlled markets and the price of energy rises for developing countries multiplying their problems.

Modi isn't envisioning India and Nigeria running the world together in a revanchist alliance, he is telling the people who live on a skyscraper on Manhattan that the world doesn't revolve around them.

The response of the global south to the world no longer revolving around safe manhatten board rooms should properly be terror and trembling, not triumphalist speeches.

A world without western hegemony isn't a many polar world where poor countries take an equal place at the top, it's one where the US no longer protects oil shipments from the middle east along the somali coast if they aren't bound for US controlled markets and the price of energy rises for developing countries multiplying their problems.

In other words a world in which countries aren't dependent on the US for oil It is essentially like not being on a bus where one person has a gun and everyone else is unarmed. It is a world in which countries have their own ability to protect their oil shipments, write their own laws and aren't controlled by an american elite who rig global trade in their favour. It is a world in which millions of Iraqis won't be bombed to death, a world in which European countried don't have to ask the US for permission to sell things in the middle east, and a world in which companies don't have to dance to the tune of wall streets ESG-ratings.

It is a fundamental prerequisite for sovereignty in this world and for the survival of what makes our countries unique so that we don't all become a giant wallmart.

A world without western hegemony isn't a many polar world where poor countries take an equal place at the top, it's one where the US no longer protects oil shipments from the middle east along the somali coast if they aren't bound for US controlled markets

I have never understood if Zeihan seriously thinks this is a hard problem or merely uses it as a way to gesture at an entire class of unclear novel threats.

Poor countries could hire Wagner or something to hunt pirates. In a world without Western hegemony these challenges would be possible to solve on a functional safety market.

I think this is ignoring the obvious, opposite incentive- Saudi wants to be able to ship their oil safely, so they're incentivized to suppress piracy. They will probably choose far less humane means to do so than the USA would, partly because the Saudi military is built around terror to incentivize accepting Saudi bribes, but a bunch of Somali camel herders being ruled under a brutal islamic theocracy that bans sea travel is not terribly relevant to goings on in the capitals of the world.

When you have a hegemon above the conflict you really do prevent a lot of incentive patterns from forming. If there is no world police committed to totally free trade to appeal to what actually stops state level piracy or looting? Sure, you can hire some mercs to stop some small time Somalis on fishing boats but what happens when Japan notices that their idle navy can keep themselves sharp by doing a little state supported piracy? What if china decides to do this? Who is going to stop them?

This is the old stationary vs roving bandit thing. The Japanese don’t want to pirate so much that they stop shipping activity altogether, because this would be a loss for them. Instead, they want to introduce moderate tax, extracted by threat of their state approved piracy. This is, of course, bad, but this is not much different than the status quo, it’s just the tax proceeds will go to different recipients.