Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
30 years as a result of nine percent annual averaged economic growth—but where economic in-
equality now surpasses levels in the United States.
Just as economic growth produces winners and losers domestically, the level of wealth inequal-
ity
between
nations grows as the global economy expands. Today the disparity between average
incomes in the world's richest and poorest nations is higher than ever.
The primary forces working against inequality as economies grow are government spending on
social programs of all sorts, and international aid projects.
As economic growth stops, those who have benefitted the most have both the incentive to main-
tain their relative advantage and, in many cases, the means to do so. Which means that in a con-
tracting economy, those who have the least tend to lose the most. There are exceptions, of course.
Billionaires can in theory go broke in a matter of hours or even seconds as a result of a market crash.
But in the era of “too-big-to-fail” banks and corporations, government provides a safety net for the
rich more readily than for the poor.
High and increasing inequality is usually bearable during boom times, as people at the bottom
of the wealth pyramid are encouraged by the prospect of its overall expansion. Once growth ceases
and slips into reverse, however, inequality becomes socially unsustainable. Declining expectations
lead to unrest, while absolute misery (in the sense of not having enough to eat) often results in re-
volution.
We've seen plenty of examples of these trends in the past few years in Greece, Ireland, Spain,
the United States, and the Middle East.
In many countries, including the US, government efforts to forestall or head off uprisings appear
to be taking the forms of criminalization of dissent, the militarization of police, and a massive ex-
pansion of surveillance using an array of new electronic spy technologies. At the same time, in-
telligence agencies are now able to employ up-to-date sociological and psychological research to
infiltrate, co-opt, misdirect, and manipulate popular movements aimed at achieving economic re-
distribution.
However, these military, police, public relations, and intelligence efforts require massive fund-
ing as well as functioning grid, fuel, and transport infrastructures. Further, their effectiveness is lim-
ited if and when the nation's level of economic pain becomes too intense, widespread, or prolonged.
A second source of conflict consists of increasing
competition over access to depleting re-
sources
, including oil, water, and minerals. Among the wealthiest nations, oil is likely to be the
object of the most intensive struggle, since oil is essential for nearly all transport and trade. The
race for oil began in the early 20th century and has shaped the politics and geopolitics of the Middle
East and Central Asia; now that race is expanding to include the Arctic and deep oceans, such as
the South China Sea.
Resource conflicts occur not just between nations but also within societies: witness the ongoing
insurgencies in the Niger Delta, where oil revenue fuels rampant political corruption while drilling
leads to environmental ravages felt primarily by the Ogoni ethnic group; see also the political in-
fighting in fracking country here in the United States, where ecological impacts put ever-greater
strains on the social fabric. Neighbors who benefit from lease payments no longer speak to neigh-
bors who have to put up with polluted water, a blighted landscape, and the noise of thousands of
trucks carrying equipment, water, and chemicals. Eventually, however, boomtowns turn to ghost
towns, and nearly everyone loses.
