Political economy food and demographic control

Traditionally, the power of the countries has been associated to the size of their population.
Power and population has been synonymous; but with the development of the science and technology that perception has changed.
Now, the synonymous of power is the scientist knowledge domain; the atomic weapons were the main cause of that transformation.
In the past, the military force was determined by the number of soldiers’ and the conventional weapons; now, the military supremacy is decided by the possession of nuclear weapons.
The atomic experience caused a great impact in the world. The nuclear powers learned the lessons of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. In the following decades the great nuclear countries participated in new war scenarios ---Korea, Vietnam and Middle East--- but in none case they used the atomic energy.
The military power and the economic power are strongly tied. Without economic development the military power is not possible.
In turn, the economic development is related to the size and purchase capacity of the market ---population--- and other key issues like the availability or not of factors of production and their appropriate use.
Since the theorist point of view, each one of the factors of production ---capital, land and work--- has the same hierarchy. None of them is more important than other. But, in the 21st century reality, the natural resources (land) have acquired a special paper; the reason? Because of signs of scarcity and contamination are already visible in many regions of the world especially in the agriculture sector in matter of water and land.
A similar perspective occur regarding the other forms of energy, like the petroleum, because the reserves are draining in specific areas, among them, the North Sea, the United States, Mexico and China. Hence, a constant increase of the petroleum price is very possible.
The agriculture is the basic form of energy because it provides the food that feed our lives. The food is energy. Now, in the modern world, the petroleum is a basic input for the agriculture because it determines the crops yield by mean of the fertilizers and supply the combustible that move all the machinery, among other basic inputs of the productive chain. So that any increase in the petroleum price touch directly the agriculture costs. The mentioned facts exert a significant impact on the possibilities of the agriculture expansion and the food production at mid and long term.
Demographic control
The other important issue is the population growth. According with the FAO projections, the most augment will occur in the developing countries. In change, the minor growth will be in the industrial nations, because of the demographic transition phenomenon, which mean a high rate of longevity and a small birthrate. If this phenomenon augments in the coming years, the industrial countries will suffer a process of deep cultural change since that new migratory flows sure will transform the custom of those societies. The influence of the migratory groups already is evident in the industrial countries like the United States and in Europe. This will provoke a change in the politics and the economy not only of the recipient countries but in the rest of the world. This is a subject that deserve be considered in a complete work.
The effect of the population growth on the food production will be one of the most important issues for humanity in the coming years.
There are three options to satisfy the growing food population needs: a) to increase the production, b) to reduce the population growth or c) both.
The restrictions that affect the agriculture expansion are well known like the land scarcity, the water stress, the contamination and the inflation in the energy prices; so that the demographic control might be an alternative to tackle the reality.
The demographic control is the action adopted by the states through their policies of population for regulating ---increase or diminish--- the birthrates in a country or region. The objective of the demographic control is to determine the population size at mid and long term.
There are successful cases of demographic control; China, for example, diminished their birthrates in the 20th century notwithstanding to be the most populated country of the world. Other overpopulated nation, like India, has employed too the demographic control to lessen their birthrate. Where the situation is out of control is in Africa.
In other moments of the history, like in the thirty and forty decades of the 20th century, leaders as Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler used the demographic control to stimulate the birthrate in its countries. They promoted the marriages and for each son the government gave a reward to the parents. The objective of those governments was to increase the number of soldiers for the war.
The mentioned examples demonstrate that the demographic control has been used in two contradictory directions: by a side to enhance and by the other to restrict the birthrate, according to the population policies of the countries.
A fact that must be mentioned is that the demographic control was employed principally by autocratic governments in the 20th century; but it does not mean that it is a mechanism proper of that kind of regimes, no, the demographic control is an instrument of the policy of population that may be used the same by the democratic regimes and other type of governments.
Unsustainable
The true problem is the global high rate of population augment of the last century ---the most in the history--- and their projection, a trend that will be unsustainable for the limited resources of the Earth at mid and long term. Only the technology might help to curb the consequences of the overpopulation improving the methods of production and distribution of goods and services.
In the thirty years between 1970 and 2000, the world population increase was of 64.43 per cent; the developing countries augment of 81.75 per cent and the industrial countries growth rate 24.48 percent.

The international agencies, like FAO, assure that the population growth of the thirty years between the year 2000 and 2030 will be the half of the average observed in the last three decades between the year 1970 and 2000. They do not explain which the reasons are for suppose that the historical behavior will change. The projection for the year 2030 is 2,059 million of inhabitants more regarding the year 2000, as may be appreciated in the following table.

The foreseen total population increase for the year 2030 is a big amount, approximately the third part of the current global total; it mean that will be necessary producing the food that the new population will need. This requires more land and more water, including a most exploitation of the oceans resources and more petroleum and coal. In turn, this implies more contamination. How conciliate all these situations is the key question.
Conclusion
The political economy and the technology might supply the theorist and practice support to tackle basic issues like the production increase and the struggle against the poverty to face the future high population growth. But the demography must play a privileged paper. The demographic control to diminish the birthrate in the developing countries will be something necessary. On the contrary, the birthrate increase will be fundamental for the industrial nations to reduce the impact of the demographic transition phenomenon, which threat to become those countries in societies of old people, societies of senior citizens condemned to disappear at long term. A balance between the population growth of the developing nations and the industrial nations is the fair.
Realistic policies of population should be developed by all the nations; this encompasses key issues like the policies of immigration and the policies of population distribution in the space, to favor the nature and the environment, among others.
What do you think?

The natural resources future

In the developed world, North America, Western Europe and Japan, for the majority of the people are not yet perceivable, at first, the signs of a natural resources crisis, but it is a latent process, a developing process that very soon will be felt globally.

An inhabitant of New York, Washington, London or Paris, possibly does not know what not having water for one or two days per week or for a long period of time is. Probably he doesn’t know what electricity restrictions are like; but in other regions of the world these types of limitations are something common or frequent.
Nevertheless, the situation in the developed countries has begun to change and already it exist regions and states in the United States where has been declared the water emergency supply and where also there are problems with the electricity supply.

You, the reader of this essay, perhaps have a doubt and ask yourself if really there is a worldwide crisis of natural resources.

The answer is yes.

Which resources?

There is a crisis of oil, water, food and electricity.

How may be it demonstrated?

The best prove of the natural resources crisis is the price increase of these commodities.

The price of a good reflects its abundance or its scarcity.
In the years 2007 and 2008, the evidence of the natural resources crisis was clearer than in other years:

- The oil price surpassed US$ 90 in October 2007 and two month later, on February Tuesday 19 2008, the West Intermediate Texas reached US $ 100.10 in the New York market; on March Monday 3 the price touched US$ 103.95, passing the barrier of April 1980, that adjusted by inflation was for March 2008 US$ 103.76. The race of prices continued on March 2008 and on Monday 13 the West Texas Intermediate went to US$ 107.
On Friday May 16 2008, the Light Sweet Crude for June delivery reached US $ 126.20 in the New York Market Exchange. In July 2008 reached their maximum level, over $140. As a consequence of the financial crisis and the recession the oil price dropped during the first months of the year 2009 but already has begun to increase over $70 in the last months of the year 2009.

- The wheat price and the price of other cereals reached a record;
- The food price in general grew in an important percentage;
- “Over the past five years, municipal water rates have increased an average of 27% in the United States, 32% in the United Kingdom, 45% in Australia, 50% in South Africa and 58% in Canada.” - (1)
The electricity price registered the same trend; between the year 1990 and the year 2000 the electricity rates in the United States increased in an average of 5.23%but between the year 2000 and 2005 the enhance average was 26.25%, five hundred per cent more. (2)

Until now, first decade of the 21st century, the crisis due to water shortage has been limited to specific regions of Latin America, Africa and Asia and has not had a sufficiently important impact to have the attention of the big world-wide mass media nor of the governments of the developed countries. The same has happened with the oil crises, which only have generated increases in the prices of crude and its derivates but without affecting the availability or the supply of these products, except in the 1973 crisis, when the Arab countries decided to suspend their exports towards the United States and other nations of the West.

We can say then, that in spite of the oil crises which have lifted the prices, the inhabitants of the developed nations have always had abundance of derivatives of petroleum, gasoline, diesel, oil, lubricants and other products and this fact has contributed to create the illusion of the existence of infinite reserves, but this is not true.

But the situation of apparent abundance will change very soon as a result of two facts: the over-exploitation of the natural resources and the contamination. Water will be the most appreciated good and in second place will be petroleum, since these two resources are every day scarcer, as it can be verified when considering the evolution of the contamination processes, deforestation and blighting at world-wide level and analyzing the behavior of the oil reserves. The pollution increased by the emissions of carbon dioxide and other elements that contribute to the global warming, the extinction of numerous species, the contamination of waters of the seas, rivers and lagoons and the nuclear tests, among other elements, constitute a serious threat to life.

The aggression to the environment will have an immediate effect and it will be reflected in the reduction of natural resources availability and also in the diminishment of the food supply. At the same time it will also cause an increase of the conflicts among the countries and within the nations.

The intense fight for the natural resources hence will be the main characteristic of the international policy in the next years to come and this will not only generate important geo strategic and geopolitical changes, but also it will be a determinant factor for the War or the Peace in the 21st Century.

Other important nations, like China and India, the most populated countries in the world, have in front of them the perspective of a great burden due to the water crisis, while the United States, Mexico, the United Kingdom and Norway, among others countries, will see their petroleum reserves reduced drastically.

That, in general, is the international situation in the first decade of the 21st century. The territorial problems related to the problems of shortage of natural resources, constitute the main cause of the conflicts.

(1)Earth Policy Institute, March 7, 2007. “Water Prices Rising Worldwide,” by Edwin H. Clark II http://www.earth-policy.org/updates/2007/updated 64.htm
(2)Energy Information Administration Annual Energy Review 2006 table 8.10 page 257.

Mathematical demonstration of the petroleum depletion

The figures speak by themselves. The oil crisis is very near. The mentioned countries are consuming the end of their reserves. How much time will be necessary for to build the substitute infrastructure of the oil? Will be it possible at medium term?
The book Running Out: How Global Shortages Change the Economic Paradigm (Algora Publishing, New York, 2008) presents a complete vision of the natural resources situation.

A radical change in the economic theory

The concepts of the book Running Out: How Global Shortages Change the Economic Paradigm, (Algora Publishing, New York 2006 and 2008), represents a radical change for the economic theory. The main idea of the book is that the world is facing an unprecedented situation: the global scarcity of natural resources, especially water and petroleum.
The phenomenon already has begun to be visible in many regions of the planet. An oil producer as Indonesia, for example, has exhausted their reserves and had to retire from the OPEC recently.
The oil reserves of the North Sea are in critical situation; the same happen in Mexico and in the United States. The situation of the water reserves is not best. In many regions of the world the water scarcity is already a reality.
The book assures that capital will not be the main scarce factor of production as has been until now. In the near future the natural resources will be the scarce factor of production and this means a complete change for the traditional economics concepts.
The overexploitation of the resources and the contamination of the environment are the causes of the situation.
Only the development of new sources of energy less contaminants, the massive construction of green cars and a policy of reforestation and conservation of the forests that still survive might diminish the impact of the problem. But it is necessary a global effort.
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