- Goldman, David P.
How Civilizations Die.
Washington: Regnery Publishing, 2011.
ISBN 978-1-59698-273-4.
-
I am writing this review in the final days of July 2013. A century
ago, in 1913, there was a broad consensus as to how the 20th
century would play out, at least in Europe. A balance of power
had been established among the great powers, locked into
alliances and linked with trade relationships which made it
seem to most observers that large-scale conflict was so
contrary to the self-interest of nations that it was unthinkable.
And yet, within a year, the irrevocable first steps toward what
would be the most sanguinary conflict in human history so far would be
underway, a global conflict which would result in more than
37 million casualties, with 16 million dead. The remainder of the 20th
century was nothing like the conventional wisdom of
1913, with an even more costly global war to come, the great
powers of 1913 reduced to second rank, and a bipolar world
emerging stabilised only by the mutual threat of annihilation
by weapons which could destroy entire cities within a half hour
of being launched.
What if our expectations for the 21st century are just as wrong
as those of confident observers in 1913?
The author writes the
“Spengler”
column for
Asia Times Online. It is
commonplace to say “demographics is destiny”, yet
Goldman is one a very few observers who really takes this to heart
and projects the consequences of demographic trends which are
visible to everybody but rarely projected to their logical conclusions.
Those conclusions portend a very different 21st century than most
anticipate. Europe, Russia, China, Japan, and increasingly, the
so-called developing world are dying: they have fertility rates not
just below replacement (around 2.1 children per woman), but in
many cases deep into “demographic death spiral”
territory from which no recovery is possible. At present fertility
rates, by 2100 the population of Japan will have fallen by 55%, Russia
53%, Germany 46%, and Italy 39%. For a social welfare state, whose
financial viability presumes a large population of young workers
who will pay for the pensions and medical care of a smaller cohort of
retirees, these numbers are simply catastrophic. The inverted age
pyramid places an impossible tax burden upon workers, which further
compounds the demographic collapse since they cannot afford to
raise families large enough to arrest it.
Some in the Islamic world have noted this trend and interpreted it as
meaning ultimate triumph for the
ummah. To this,
Goldman replies, “not so fast”—the book is
subtitled “And Why Islam is Dying Too”. In fact, the
Islamic world is in the process of undergoing a demographic
transition as great as that of the Western nations, but on a
time scale so short as to be unprecedented in human history. And
while Western countries will face imposing problems coping with
their aging populations, at least they have sufficient wealth to
make addressing the problem, however painful, possible. Islamic
countries without oil (which is where the overwhelming majority
of Muslims live) have no such financial or human resources. Egypt,
for example, imports about half its food calories and has a
functional illiteracy rate of around 40%. These countries not only
lack a social safety net, they cannot afford to feed their
current population, not to mention a growing fraction of retirees.
When societies are humiliated (as Islam has been in its confrontation with
modernity), they not only lose faith in the future, but lose their faith,
as has happened in post-Christian Europe, and then they cease to have children.
Further, as the author observes, while in traditional society children
were an asset who would care for their parents in old
age, “In the modern welfare state, child rearing is an act
of altruism.” (p. 194) This altruism becomes increasingly difficult
to justify when, increasingly, children are viewed as the property
of the state, to be indoctrinated, medicated, and used to its ends
and, should the parents object, abducted by an organ of the state.
Why bother? Fewer and fewer couples of childbearing age make
that choice. Nothing about this is new: Athens, Sparta, and Rome all
experienced the same collapse in fertility when they ceased to
believe in their future—and each one eventually fell.
This makes for an extraordinarily dangerous situation. The history
of warfare shows that in many conflicts the majority of casualties
on the losing side occur after it was clear to those in political
and military leadership that defeat was inevitable. As trends forecaster
Gerald Celente
says, “When people have nothing to lose, they lose it.”
Societies which become aware of their own impending demographic extinction or
shrinking position on the geopolitical stage will be tempted to go
for the main prize before they scroll off the screen. This means that
calculations based upon rational self-interest may not predict the
behaviour of dying countries, any more than all of the arguments in 1913
about a European war being irrational kept one from erupting
a year later.
There is much, much more in this book, with some of which I
agree and some of which I find dubious, but it is
all worthy of your consideration. The author sees the United States
and Israel as exceptional states, as both have largely kept
their faith and maintained a sustainable birthrate to carry
them into the future. He ultimately agrees with me (p. 264) that
“It is cheaper to seal off the failed states from the rest
of the world than to attempt to occupy them and control the
travel of their citizens.”
The twenty-first century may be nothing like what the conventional
wisdom crowd assume. Here is a provocative alternative view which will
get you thinking about how different things may be, as trends already
in progress, difficult or impossible to reverse, continue in
the coming years.
In the Kindle edition, end notes are properly linked
to the text and in notes which cite a document on the Web, the URL is linked
to the on-line document. The index, however, is simply a useless list of
terms without links to references in the text.
July 2013 