The World Order in 2050: Global Convergence toward the Middle Class Society

Since World War II, it is plain to see that a high degree of convergence has occurred all over the world around the institutions and practices of political democracy and economy. Country after country has followed the American model based on the rise of the middle class.

The attractive idea that the vast majority of people can – and should — enjoy a decent standard of living and a high quality of life. Is a matter of fact that today we see China, India, Brazil, Russia and other countries around the world looking to adopt their own version of this middle class development model. China alone has added 200 billion people to the middle class, a remarkable achievement, though China still remains very much a poor and developing country, with most of their 1.3 billion people still living in difficult conditions.

Similarly with India and Brazil, their developing economies are passing through the familiar pattern that leads to the middle class society: wealth creation via entrepreneurship and private industry, followed by wealth accumulation, followed by a slow but steady redistribution of that wealth. Some nations are following this path more quickly and adroitly than others, some have adapted better institutions that foster both wealth creation/entrepreneurship and a broadly shared prosperity in a way that is slowly growing the macroeconomy, boosting consumer spending, automatic stabilizers and standards of living. In this process, effective governance has been an essential ingredient, in many ways the sin qua non that determines success or failure. But this process takes decades and in truth we best measure success or failure in hindsight, not in real time.

So the question is : will these countries be successful in fostering this middle class model? And can the planetary environment handle this explosive growth of adding approximately 5 billion people to the middle class?

I believe the answer to the first question is an emphatic yes. The middle-class lifestyle, to a large extent, responds to some of the most basic urges of the human being. The lesson of the Arab Spring, just as the Velvet Revolution before it, is that most countries around the world aspire to their own version of the middle class dream and will continue to try and create it for their people; people will demand it, despite the political obstacles, because that demand is as persistent as green grass growing up through the cracks of the sidewalk.

Of course this convergence will look different in different nations, but it will share some things in common. The challenge for the poorer countries of the world will be to foster a political economy that allows not only wealth creation but also a degree of representative democracy, since the latter is an essential step towards redistribution, reducing corruption and growing the middle class.

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