Behind the Iron Ocean: Views from the Second World.

Alfred Sauvy (1898-1990) coined the terms “First World,” Second World,” and “Third World” in 1952, at the height of Cold War I,i to refer, respectively, to Capitalist America, Communist Russia, and Everyone Else.

Of course, Sauvy, being the good Catholic he was, went further: Capitalists = Nobility of Global Power, Communists = Clergy of Rigid Ideology,ii and the rest of the onlookers and caught-in-betweens were just there to be mercilessly exploited.iii Perhaps this sounds familiar to contemporary readers, but with the decaying Europe/Americas as Clergy and re-emerging Asia as Nobility? Certainly the “futuristic” (ie. “unfair”) life perspectives on the spotless streets of Moscowiv and Shenzhenv are in stark (and wickedly unflattering) contrast to the pock-marked, smoked-out, barbarian-infested, drug-zombie-laden, fake-money-twisted wastelands that are the teetering-on-the-bring, old-woman-dominated vestiges of WASPian greatness.

So as it stands today, no, we can’t buy Xiomi cars,vi Huawei phones,vii DJI drones, or nice things in general. Sure, we can lull yourself to sleep with intoxicating hymns of “human rights” and “IP”… all while ignoring the crumbling infrastructure, replacement-level invasions, horrifying numbers of deaths of despair, “healthcare” systems suiciding your loved ones, plastic food… but only for a few more decadesviii until we’re so undeniably poorix that we can be properly culled and moulded once more. So the cycles go. Round and round the mullberry bush. Pop goes perfection!x

So ya, hate to be the bearer of bad news – don’t shoot the messenger and all that – but Es ist keine schlimmere Knechtschaft als die, wenn man sich für frei hält und es nicht ist (none are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free). Plus, if it’s any consolation, in 1820, China+India=50% Global GDP, and we’re just winding our way back to that “normal” state of affairs this century.xi

And the sooner we accept our demoted place in the universe and stop whining about “First World Problems” as if we actually knew anything about them, the sooner we can turn the tide, reorganize, and ultimately rebuild better lives for our children. Sauvy certainly believed it possible.xii Can’t we?

  1. Indeed, we’re now in Cold War II. ↩
  2. ie. “our democracy,” “our liberty“, etc.. Put bluntly:

    ↩

  3. The broad umbrella of the “Third World” was intended to model the broad umbrella of the Ancien Regime’s Third Estate, viz. as Abbé Sieyès (1748-1836) famously declared, “What is the Third Estate? Everything. What has it been until now? Nothing. What does it demand? To become something.” ↩
  4. This video should by all accounts rattle western viewers. Honestly name me another western city that looks this lively at night:

    Now it’s been a few years since I’ve been to Barcelona or Istanbul, but from what I can tell on YouTube recently, party-goers there show nowhere near as much confidence, nor are having anywhere near as much fun. But if you, dear reader, have other suggestions, please to leave them in the comments. ↩

  5. Would you believe it if you saw it with your own eyes?

    ↩

  6. This is the phone-maker’s 1st ever car, and for all intents and purposes it’s faster, handles better, and boasts far more cutting-edge tech than Porsche Taycan Turbo GT costing all while costing 1/3rd the price! You might give up something in build/material quality, but realistically it can’t be more than 25%…

    Of course, your Trabant Tahoe is just as good, comrade! Those evil authoritarian Chinese will just never understand. ↩

  7. Yes you can jailbreak Huawei phones to use in the NA market, and after watching Linus, you might be tempted to do exactly that!

    ↩
  8. We pray it’s only decades and not centuries, but Dark Ages have been known to last for longer than you might expect… even if they also were far from as “dark” as you’ve been led to believe. ↩
  9. You can scarcely imagine how satisying it feels to have written these words… in 2018:

    Now that America is busily retreating into its tortugan Shell Of Greatness, its worth reassessing the socioeconomic landscape that’s crystallising before our very eyes.

    Between the tariffs and general trade warz are glimmers of the Hamiltonian approach to economic growth : id est protectionism until prosperity and then free trade until domination. That’s right. The Firer-In-Chief is once again practicing what the best of his forefathers preached with all of the vehemence and gusto of days gone by. That doesn’t mean you should hang off every crazy word Agent Orange tweets – always follow an old carnie’s hands, not his lips – but you’d also be unwise to underestimate both the necessity and the value of protectionist policies […]

    It wasn’t a generation or two ago that America was Great. It was four. It was four generations ago that America enjoyed prosperity as a result of the foundations laid a century prior to that by Alexander Hamilton. And even Hamilton’s foresight wouldn’t have been enough had America thought itself so Great in the first place. Fortunate, of course, but Fortune is seized upon and sacrificed for whereas Great just Is. So on the contrary, America knew full well in the 1800s that it was dirt poor and would have to put on a hell of a showing (and get a few lucky breaks) to prove to the rest of the world that it wasn’t just some lousy goodfernuthin’ jonny come lately.

    That’s the spirit that’s so desperately needed and earnestly desired by wealthy politicians, wealthy private citizens, and really anyone worth their salt today. The yearn for the Great Again is, ironically, the yearn for the Poor Again. It’s the yearn for The Hunger Again.

    Living in the future is a hell of a drug, I tells ya. One of the best yet devised!

    ↩

  10. Remember this? 1990s was indeed Peak Popular Americana:

    Goodness knows our boys are loving the movie classics from that era, including Happy Gilmore, Billy Madison, Jumanji, Men In Black, The Sandlot, Home Alone, Beethoven, etc. ↩
  11. I’ve very much enjoyed working with my new research assistant on this analysis with this week, so I hope you find these historical trends as interesting and elucidating as I did. Note that I’m using gold-denominated (not “CPI“) Gross Domestic Product (GDP) factoring in Purchase Power Parity (PPP) net of phoney-baloney “services”, ie. FIRE+healthcare+education+gov spending, which is to say industrial output+agriculture uber alles! The rest is net-neutral or net-negative, let’s be real:

    The results of this analysis is that China’s real economy is already 500% larger than America’s, and that after 3 years of war, the average Russian today is 50% more productive (and wealthier?) than the average American. How unfair math is sometimes!

    Not that any of this will come as a surprise to students of LKY. From his 2004 interview with Charlie Rose:


    ↩

  12. Sauvy was also a big pro-natalist! For which there is actually a long tradition, dating back to at least King Louis XIV, who, at the instigation of his finance minister Jean Baptiste Colbert, issued an edict that exempted fathers of more than ten children from all taxes for life as early as 1666. ↩