FUTURE SHOCK THE THIRD WAVE

Posted by admin_akashic on Aug 7th, 2022 in Space

THE IMPERIAL DRIVE

This belief hardened into dogma in the generations that followed and still prevails today, although its implications often go unnoticed. For just as the division of labor in any economy created a powerful need for integration and thereby gave rise to an integrational elite, so the international division of labor required integration on a global scale and gave rise to a global elite—a small group of Second Wave nations which, for all practical purposes, took turns dominating large parts of the rest of the world.

The success of the drive to create a single integrated world market can be measured in the fantastic growth of world trade once the Second Wave passed through Europe. Between 1750 and 1914 the value of world trade is estimated to have multiplied more than fiftyfold, rising from 700 million dollars to almost 40 billion dollars. If Ricardo had been right, the advantages of this global trade should have accrued more or less evenly to all sides. In fact, the self-serving belief that specialization would benefit everyone was based on a fantasy of fair competition.

It presupposed a completely efficient use of labor and resources. It presupposed deals uncontaminated by threats of political or military force. It presupposed armVlength transactions by more or less evenly matched bargainers. The theory, in short, overlooked nothing—except real life.

In reality, negotiations between Second Wave merchants and First Wave people over sugar, copper, cocoa, or other resources were often totally lopsided. On one side of the table sat money-shrewd European or American traders backed by huge companies, extensive banking networks, powerful technologies, and strong national governments. On the other one might find a local lord or tribal chieftain whose people had scarcely entered the money system and whose economy was based on small-scale agriculture or village crafts. On one side sat the agents of a thrusting, alien, mechanically advanced civilization, convinced of its own superiority and ready to use bayonets or machine guns to prove it. On the other sat representatives of small prenational tribes or principalities, armed with arrows and spears.