A Short History of our Global Chaos

By Shlomo Maital  

    Historian Yuval Noah Harari writes fascinating histories of everything, in 500-800 pages.   His latest, Nexus, is a history of information networks – and a diatribe against AI, in some 581 pages. 

    I will try to emulate him – but in 400 words.  How did the world get into such a terrible chaotic mess?

    In July 1944, the US convened the Allies at Hotel Mt. Washington, in Bretton Woods, NH, to rethink the architecture of world trade and finance.  The result:  An open system, with zero or low tariffs, and more or less free flow of information, capital, technology and even people. 

      The result was a stupendous wealth-creating machine that drove global growth, especially in Asia.  Americans at the time had all the money.  Their willingness to buy stuff from Japan, China and other Asian nations drove rapid growth. 

      The number of global billionaires grew by an order of magnitude.

      But alas, many nations and many people living in them were left behind.  The rich-poor gap grew, within countries (especially within the US), and among countries. 

      Result:  Migrants in poor countries poured across oceans and jungles, toward the rich countries, to find a better future for their kids.  The left out and forgotten in the rich countries turned to the far right.

      Result: Backlash.  Far-right politicians, riding the wage of anti-migrant sentiment. In the U.S., in Germany, France and the UK – and with autocrats emerging in Hungary, Russia, China, and perhaps even Poland. 

       Rather than an open global wealth machine, we have a divided world, them against us, West against East, with terrible wars in Sudan, Ukraine and Israel. 

       What did we do wrong?  A few policies to share some of the enormous wealth with the have-nots could have done wonders.

       Did we learn anything from this huge mistake?   I don’t see a great deal of soul-searching or intense analysis. 

        As the song goes:  When will they ever learn?

        (312 words).