Tuesday, July 03, 2012

The Long Range Problem

We have become one world. Communication, transportation, and commerce have weakened national borders and culture.

Meanwhile, world population continues to increase.

The choice to be made is whether private enterprise or governments will be allowed to dominate world affairs.

If private enterprise is allowed to dominate the world will end up like countries that now exist where an elite exploits resources and labor for their own benefit at the expense of the mass population. This will result in a few living a life of luxury while the mass population exists at a subsistance level or below.

If governments can be organized to represent the interests of the mass population, resources and the rewards of productivity can be broadly distributed to the mass population. This will necessarily result in a lower standard of living for the elite few to afford a slightly higher standard of living for all.

As world population continues to increase resource shortages will reduce the standard of living accordingly.

So, the dilemma is how to contain world population to maintain a comfortable standard of living and how to create governments that act in the interests of all instead of an elite few. It’s the problem humanity has had since it came to dominate the world. But, previously it operated on a national basis, with some nations doing better than others in achieving these goals. Now it’s a worldwide problem the must be confronted on a worldwide basis.