The New World in 2030 – “You’ll Need Good Global Management”

By on December 13, 2012 in News 11

Picture: Струјајое (CC)

“The bureaucracy is expanding to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy.”

- Oscar Wilde

Every few years US intelligence agencies release a report outlining how they think the world will look in our near future. The most recent is an attempt to project forwards into 2030. In a nutshell the power of the US is going to continue to decline as China’s rises. One of the more interesting factors outlined in the report is the acknowledgment of the increasing power of the individual in relation to governments. The idea of a third world war is seen as being unlikely and the Mayan calendar doesn’t even get a mention!

According to NPR the intelligence agencies appear to be concluding that there is a pressing need for an overall global authority to help contain the problems they foresee.

NPR reports:

NPR has the fuller story here:

By the year 2030, for the first time in history, a majority of the world’s population will be out of poverty. Middle classes will be the most important social and economic sector. Asia will enjoy the global power status it last had in the Middle Ages, while the 350-year rise of the West will be largely reversed. Global leadership may be shared, and the world is likely to be democratizing.

Or you can download the full PDF report here and hopefully add your own thoughts into the comments section of this piece.

The release of this document chimes perfectly with another story where Pope Benedict XVI is said to be calling for the implementation of a remarkably similar solution to the world’s problems. The Examiner reports:

New World Order? Pope Benedict XVI is calling for the “construction of a world community, with a corresponding authority,” to serve the “common good of the human family.”

The pope made his call for a new world authority on Dec. 3, while speaking to a plenary session of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace. The Council is scheduled to meet for three days to discuss the theme of “political authority and global governance.”

For many, the notion of a global moral authority brings to mind frightening visions of a dystopian New World Order, a totalitarian one world government. However, Benedict claims the world authority he envisions is merely a means to ensure global peace and justice.

Full story here.

It’s nothing new for the Catholic Church as his predecessor was hot on precisely the same idea, Guardian 2004 Pope calls for a new world order. It displays remarkable tenacity though, given that the potentially horrific consequences of centralised power structures currently surround the Vatican from all angles in the form of the disastrous EU project[1]. I personally find it difficult not to wonder if the vanity of these so-called world leaders might be getting the better of them in places. Particularly given the fact the “GLOBAL TRENDS 2030: ALTERNATIVE WORLDS” report even admits many of the EU’s current problems have their roots in the inherent difficulties caused by giant centralised power structures:

Europe is a special case: economic and fiscal issues are entwined with political decisions on the future of the EU, including more centralized powers for EU financial management. EU leaders want to avoid a breakup of the euro zone even though current efforts to avoid such an outcome have resulted in a crisis atmosphere, sowing uncertainty about Europe’s future global markets. The current mode of crisis management is unsustainable over the long term. Possible solutions such as a multispeed Europe will spawn questions about Europe’s capacity for unitary political action. Economic divergence and market volatility are likely to continue to characterize the EU throughout much of this period even if—as some expect—“Europe is well on its way to completing the original concept of a comprehensive economic and monetary union [and] . . . will emerge much stronger as a result.”

Nick Margerrison

FOOTNOTE:

[1] One example from last month (15th November): The Daily Record, “Riots take place at anti-cuts protests across Europe”:

“In Italy, protests turned violent as well, with some of the tens of thousands of students and workers clashing with riot police in several cities.”

  • emperorreagan

    I’ll read this tonight/this weekend, but I suspect the underlying issue that as the western nations decline, they want to continue to have a significant say in global policy after decades of dictating to other countries.

  • marssuit

    If you want to talk about NWO that’s fine, just don’t try to say it is a bad idea. World peace and food and shelter for all. I also believe in the need for a better buearcracy, and of course we will ask for better leaders to help run our global democracy. I’ve come to these conclusions in my own head after reading the Ender series by orson scott card.

    • http://twitter.com/TedHeistman Ted Heistman

      What is the NWO? I mean is it a good thing or a bad thing-how can you know? Seems like everyone uses it in a different way.

      • alizardx

        The consensus definition of NWO is here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3npZJ4p2Yw No idea what marssuit thinks he means and I’ve read the series he’s referring to, but suspect that George HW Bush and Obama would find what he’s saying equally confusing with respect to a “NWO” context.

        Short definition: world where no transaction of any sort can take place without the top 0.001% getting its cut, where *all* resources are under their control.

        • http://twitter.com/TedHeistman Ted Heistman

          Well, I’m definitely against that!

  • BuzzCoastin

    all of this assumes that none of the impending challenges
    like: resource shortages: food, fuel, water, financial collapse or climate issues
    will not have an impact
    the decline of the US is unlikely, given it’s vast, relatively unspoiled resources
    the decline of the Homeland government is another matter

  • http://twitter.com/TedHeistman Ted Heistman

    There is a weird coalescence of Science Fiction writers and Intelligence analysts in the “futurist” genre.

    Have you heard of the “Long tomorrow?”

    • alizardx

      That’s been true since WWII. What’s new is that futurism has gone from attempts to predict outcomes of visible trends so society and government can prepare for them to propaganda “there will be technology pie in the sky by and by” making promises about the glorious future (e.g. mass availability of life extension and intelligence enhancement tech) that the Silicon Valley tech money funding the movement haven’t any intention of keeping with the implicit condition being unconditional support of technology capitalism and technology capitalists. Note that Silicon Valley money and expertise played a heavy role in the Obama campaigns.

      The good news is that I no longer believe that the NIC report is being used as a planning document by government. It’s Futurist Silicon Valley technocapitalist Party Line propaganda.

      “Long tomorrow”? I hadn’t, and google points at a graphic novel and a Leigh Brackett SF story, neither of which makes sense in what I think is your context.

      • http://twitter.com/TedHeistman Ted Heistman

        Whoops! I mean the Long Now http://longnow.org/
        Anyway they want to build a huge clock that lasts millennia and they have lots of intelligence people giving talks. .

        • alizardx

          They’ve got some interesting ideas. Some may even come to pass if ways are found to limit the power of the transnational elites which include the wealthiest techno-capitalists to make a long-term future for technological civilization possible. Ironic that the same kind of people who’d fund LongNow are also the people who are also finding creative mechanisms for tax avoidance which have a corrosive effect on the infrastructure elements required for the continuation of technological civilization. Civilizations collapse when the wealthy opt out of paying out of their own pockets for upkeep, they collapse faster when they go from tax avoidance to capturing the government as a rent-extraction mechanism,

  • alizardx

    “By the year 2030, for the first time in history, a majority of the world’s population will be out of poverty. Middle classes will be the most important social and economic sector.”

    This is the second section of the NIC report that’s revealed itself as steaming bullshit. Is it even worth the trouble to read the rest of it?’ Could the problem be the same as the section discussing how we’re all going to be able to afford implanted neural enhancement, i.e. too much input from the mass-market Futurist movement and too little analysis based on what’s really going on in the present?

    The future comes from trends visible in the present, and the most visible present trend is the upward transfer of wealth to the extremely wealthy transnational elite facilitated by the government they bought and the US two-party system, in which both “left”-centrist and right-centrists believe that the sole legitimate purpose of government is to enrich the people who pay for their re-election campaigns and their retirement packages. The “government of, by, and for the super-rich” program has spread to almost every Western “democracy”, it drove the financial meltdown and it drives the “need for austerity” the mass media they own tell us about. All this is at the personal expense of everyone who is not wealthy, and it’s the main reason why the middle class is shrinking. Wouldn’t necessarily bet on Asia being an exception to that, google on “in-shoring” for an explanation.

    Any “New World Order” that will come out of what they discuss will be for the purpose of expunging the last traces of democracy in government as implemented via suppression of dissent and elimination of civil liberties, also among the most visible trends of today.