Global Culture

With his post On re-thinking immigration, Michael Parekh provides insightful comments on an article from the Wall Street Journal entitled The Coming Crunch where the pros and cons of population growth are analyzed. All this in light of the recent 300 million americans milestone recently reached by the U.S.

Michael, working in the financial industry, has some interesting views about the value of people in the new century:

“The catalyst has already been ignited, when two of the six billion people on the planet switched from the “barely developing” to “rapidly developing” column, just over the last decade and a half.

The milestone reached by the U.S. pales in comparison, but what is even more puzzling is the fact that the politicians are playing the election game with issues that would continue to create bipolar positions on the matter of migration, when it is obvious that the only thing that makes sense in the long run is to allow the large volumes of migrants to participate in the economy.

In countries like China & India, there are millions that still have to make their journey from the country to the big city, without the need to seek foreign nations to find opportunities. For the U.S. this process can only be fueled by those migrants coming from the South.

According to Michael, whichever country is capable of incorporating the most people to their economic activity, improving their standards of living in this globalized world, wins.

Right now, China and India have the absolute numbers in their favor, with the U.S. in solid third place. And in terms of a growing younger demographic in their populations, India is in the cat-bird’s seat with the U.S. in solid second place.

It has been said for quite sometime that everyone should be learning Mandarin in order to prepare for the coming Chinese cultural hegemony, but India may be in a better position to influence global culture with a massive new generation of youngsters born in the age of globalization.