2023 FUTURE OBSERVATORY

5200 RESOURCE DISTRIBUTION

We can reasonably assume that, across the world as a whole, resources and technological capabilities are effectively unlimited. This is an important assumption; and one which is fundamental to the on-going development of humanity. In particular, though, the distribution of resources is very uneven; especially between the rich and poor, and between First and Third Worlds. Such unevenness in the distribution of resources is clearly inefficient from the point of view of the world as a whole. Torsten Persson and Guido Tabellini's study of 56 countries finds a strong negative relationship between income inequality and growth in GDP per head. It even more clearly creates great hardship for those who are deprived. This is a political problem. Resolution will require that political decisions need to be taken; and these decisions will demand considerable courage from the governments making them; though they probably have no alternative, if the future progress of humanity is not to be imperilled.

The planning of resource distribution, probably applying though to new resources rather than to a significant redistribution of existing ones (which would make the politicians' job that much harder!), should be a high priority for any form of world government - or of the agencies that stand in for it. This was recognised, in theory albeit not in practice, by the so-called Poverty Summit of 1995. At this summit, President Mitterrand made the very brave suggestion - for a politician - that such redistribution should be funded by a 0.5% tax on every financial deal; which would have also stopped financial market speculation almost in its tracks. It was interesting to note that it required a ruler who was dying of cancer, and had nothing to lose, to suggest such a brave scheme; and that almost nobody else gave him any backing! Indeed, the scheme was quietly killed a few months later, a respectable time after he had relinquished the presidency of France.

Whilst overall resources are effectively unlimited globally, the distribution of these resources is very uneven - meaning that significant resource constraints still apply in many localities. This is ineffective globally and often literally disastrous locally; and should therefore be a high priority for global planning in theory - which it already is - and practice - which it is not. 

Redistribution of resources is another sensitive subject, which - unlike our groups - few futurologists seem willing to address. Yet it will become a major issue over the next decades. Thereafter, the rise of the economic power of the current Third World may, by itself, resolve the problem.  

The precipitous change in the position of the US, with the Bush Jr. presidency, has meant however that the divide between poor and rich is unlikely to be reduced in the near future; and indeed the US has made it a matter of policy that it will continue to take the lion's share of global resources! 

Redistribution of resources is another sensitive subject, which - unlike our groups - few futurologists seem willing to address. Yet it will become a major issue over the next decades. Thereafter, the rise of the economic power of the current Third World may, by itself, resolve the problem.

Fuelled by injections of massive funds (in the form of substantial farm subsidies, especially in the form of cheap water),wheat output from the Saudi Arabian desert has increased a thousand-fold and the country is even now the world's fourth largest exporter of grain. And, of course, most of southern California - one of the most productive agricultural regions on Earth - would also be desert without (highly subsidised) irrigation water being brought from the Colorado River!

Indeed, Hamish McRae says that "Shortage of fresh water is probably going to be the most serious resource problem the world will face in 2020...the problem is not one of global shortage but of uneven distribution." Ismail Serageldin - Vice-President of the World Bank - has stated that 80 countries have water shortages that threaten health and economies, and 40 per cent of the world's population does not have access to clean water. McRae adds the important footnote, though, that "Some 70 per cent of the water people use goes to irrigation" - and those multinationals working in this field emphasise that it is this use in irrigation which poses the main problem - and this will be resolved as soon as the water used is priced realistically. So, even here, the problem is ultimately that of food distribution rather than that of water. Water can, in any case, be made available - by canal or desalination perhaps - anywhere, as long as the money is made available to fund this.
The New Scientist[b] forecasts that - assuming that food production grows at the same rate - by 2050, even with a global population of 10 billion, there will still be an average of 247 kilograms per person each year; against a requirement of 200 kilograms. It does, however, go on to warn that "Before 1984, total production climbed 3 per cent per year, now this averages 1 per cent per year." The problem is, as the New Scientist[b] goes on to say "Even now, with production at around 300 kilograms per head, 700 million people are malnourished [because] China already consumes 300 kilograms of grain per head by eating some of it as meat. Italians eat 400 kilograms; Americans, 800." Per Pinstrup Andersen - head of the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFRRI) - is quoted (in the same New Scientist editorial), putting this in a more general context, "We could copy the Saudis, and grow everything with hydroponics in the desert if money was no object. But the grain would be so expensive no one would buy it."

Torsten Persson and Guido Tabellini, quoted by the Economist "...argue that inequality may even be harmful to growth. Their study of 56 countries finds a strong negative relationship between income inequality and growth in GDP per head.". Paul Kennedy makes the basic point that "A population explosion on one part of the globe and a technology explosion on the other is not a good recipe for a stable international order." The Economist[g] adds its own voice "The task of the coming decade - discovering how to spread the benefits of economic efficiency more widely..." but with a caveat " it will be far harder than that of the tax cutting, for instance [which it says characterised the 1980s]."

Though the World Bank, in its 1991 World Development Report, was able to claim "Famines disappeared from Western Europe in the mid-1800s, from Eastern Europe in the 1930s, and from Asia in the 1970s." 

5 May 2003 

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