A Pause for Optimism

What with TV screens filled with mayhem and panicked pundits screaming that all is lost, it is easy to throw up your hands and lose all hope.

But Michael Barone suggests that all is not lost yet. He uses the model of Thomas Barnett, “who divides the world into a functioning "Core" (North America, Europe, East Asia, rising China and India) and a nonfunctional "Gap" (the Middle East, most of Africa, part of the Andean chain in South America).”

Barnett’s Big Idea is that we should we working to expand the Core and shrink the Gap, expanding the realm of interconnected wealth creation and shrinking the world of thugs and terror.

From Barnett’s point of view things are not going too badly. Says he:

"Plenty of people look at the world today and see only decline and violence and chaos since September 11 [2001]. I am amazed at how little the Functioning Core of globalization has suffered since that date: no real violence or threats of same amidst our ranks, slow but steady political integration that's still not keeping up with the economic bonds that are booming, spotty but emerging sense of shared security values, and the usual pinpricks of harm inflicted by terror and God, but all in all, nothing really bad despite all this 'tumult' centered in the Middle East and the rising price of oil."

The point is that what Marx would call the “productive forces” all weigh in the advantage of the Functioning Core. And if you look at GDPs you will see that the troublemakers of the Gap are all puny players that for now are hitting way above their weight. And if, say, the price of oil fell by 50 percent they would really be in a world of hurt.

(A way to help that along would be to drill for oil in the Arctic and offshore. Just a thought.)

The difference between the Core nations and the Gap nations is the difference between the rule of law and the swing of power. In the Core nations an ordinary person can get ahead by following the rules. In the Gap nations you need a powerful patron.

As the Mexican immigrant said: In Mexico you need to know a politician if you want to get a job. In the US, in most areas of the economy, all you need is right between your ears.

The United States is the richest country in the world because it has the least amount of privilege weighing on its economy.