Seeing tomorrow through the lens of economic history! Humanity is heading toward disaster (4)

FIRST PART OF THE ARTICLE

SECOND PART OF THE ARTICLE

THIRD PART OF THE ARTICLE

Another economic bloc has been established against the economic bloc of the US and the EU. BRICS… (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa)… The bloc is growing. Just recently, in the last week of August, the BRICS countries accepted the membership applications of Saudi Arabia, Argentina, Iran, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, and Ethiopia and invited them to join. The full membership of these countries will begin on January 1, 2024.

The BRICS countries aim to break the West's dominance in the global financial system and target a fairer global competitive environment instead of the increasing inequality in the neoliberal order.

The weight of the BRICS countries, which account for 40 percent of the world's population and 25 percent of the world's Gross Domestic Product (GDP, total production of goods and services), will undoubtedly increase significantly with the new additions. Especially the efforts of oil-producing countries Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to move away from the US axis seem likely to heat things up quite a bit.

It is a distant possibility for now that BRICS countries will create a common currency. However, they accept trading in local currencies as a principle. It is no secret how the US will respond to oil producers Saudi Arabia and the UAE exporting oil in a currency other than the dollar. The fates of Saddam's Iraq and Gaddafi's Libya, who spoke of selling oil in Euros rather than dollars, are still very fresh.

While the US is provoking the war between Russia and Ukraine, which share the same religion and sect, on one hand, it continues to encircle Russia at full speed on the other. This increases tension. Now, a Jewish-Muslim conflict has begun again in the Middle East.

A US aircraft carrier and its accompanying fleet, including ships from the British Navy, have joined the war zone. Could the war turn into a conflict between a Jewish-Christian alliance and the Muslim world?

A LITTLE BIT OF TECHNOLOGY

During this time, major developments are also taking place in technology. The advancement in information technologies is among the greatest threats to employment and labor rights. Robots and artificial intelligence seem likely to change production relations and, consequently, distribution in the near future. In the near future, in parallel with developments in artificial intelligence, we will witness changes in the world's economic systems, class conflicts, and production and distribution relations.

These technological developments have already begun to create a separate pressure for change on the Neoliberal order, which has reached a dead end due to the inequalities it causes. Could another reserve currency replace the dollar? I constantly answer this question as follows: Unless there is a major war where the US is the loser, no other currency can replace the dollar…

Let us not ignore these possible developments. The world will either turn toward a new social state that uses high wealth taxes as a resource, or it will transform into digital dictatorships controlled by multinational corporations. The question is: Is a major world war in which many people die needed for large-scale digital dictatorships?

CONTINUING TO SEEK THE ANSWER

The problems accumulated since the Second World War and technological developments are forcing a major “conflict and/or war,” and a radical change in the economic and political system.

Have the conditions for this matured? It is not possible to answer this immediately.

The assassination of the Austrian Archduke and his wife in Sarajevo by a Serbian nationalist did not start a war of revenge, but rather the First World War based on accumulated problems. If this event had not happened or had not triggered the war, the First World War would still have happened. Perhaps not in 1914, but in 1915 or 1916…

Will Hamas's attack on an Israeli concert area, killing more than a thousand people including citizens of other countries, be a war of revenge, or will it trigger a new major war?

Even if not today, the developments we have listed above are harbingers of a great disaster… Let us end the article with a reminder about wars and losses.

In 1900, the world population was 1 billion 600 million. In the First World War, approximately 20 million people lost their lives, including about 10 million soldiers and 10 million civilians. The most lethal and effective weapons of the war were, in order, machine guns, cannons, rifles, and bayonets…

During the Second World War years, the world population was around 2 billion 300 million. It is said that deaths due to attacks, conflicts, famine, and subsequent diseases exceeded 80 million. The most lethal weapon of the war was the two atomic bombs the US dropped on Japan. 150 thousand people lost their lives with these bombs. Other prominent weapons of the war were aircraft carriers, submarines, airplanes, aerial bombings, long-range cannons, radar systems, tanks, and rockets, which were incomparably more lethal and high-tech weapons than those of the First World War.

Today, the world population has exceeded 8 billion. Those who estimate the lethal effect of nuclear and chemical weapons that would be used in a possible war say that the vast majority of the world's population would be wiped out. As a famous scientist said, “I do not know what weapons will be used in the Third World War, but the Fourth World War will be fought with stones, sticks, pickaxes, and shovels.”

We are always on the side of peace. But when we look at history, there are wars, and unfortunately, humanity is running headlong toward a disaster while knowing the end.