This blog, like many others, has a distinct tendency to indulge in the 'glums'. Somehow bad news is exciting whilst good news is boring. Well, here and now, as I whistle Python's famous anthem, "Let's all look on the bright side of life", I bring you some good news courtesy of the City-Journal whose headline says it all:
English is an ascendant language, the primary global language of business and science and the prevailing tongue in a host of key developing countries, including India, Nigeria, Pakistan, South Africa, Kenya, Malaysia, and Bangladesh. Over 40 percent of Europeans speak English, while only 19 percent are Francophone. When German, Swedish, and Swiss businesspeople venture overseas, they speak not their home language but English.
Long-run trends in the developing world also point to the expansion of the English language. French schools have been closing even in former French colonies, such as Algeria, Rwanda, and Vietnam, where students have resisted learning the old colonial tongue. English is becoming widely adopted in America’s biggest competitor, China, and it dominates the Gulf economy, where it serves as the language of business in hubs such as Dubai. The Queen’s tongue is, of course, broadly spoken in that other emerging global economic superpower, India, where it has become a vehicle for members of the middle and upper classes to communicate across regional boundaries. In Malaysia, too, English is the language of business, technology, and politics.
'Over here' and 'over there', much is made of what is called 'the greying' of our populations and the fear that there will be insufficient workers to support the elderly. However, according to the authors of this essay, things are even gloomier in China:
Meanwhile, the nation that so many point to as the twenty-first-century superpower—China—now has a fertility rate of 1.6, even lower than that of Western Europe. Over the next two decades, its ratio of workers to retirees is projected to rise from 11 to 23. Other countries, such as Brazil and Iran, face similar scenarios. These countries, without social safety nets of the kinds developed in Europe or Japan, may get old before they can get rich.
And when it comes to the brute facts of economic lfe:
A little-noted fact these days is that the Anglosphere is still far and away the world’s largest economic bloc. Overall, it accounts for more than one-quarter of the world’s GDP—more than $18 trillion. In contrast, what we can refer to as the Sinosphere—China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Macau—accounts for only 15.1 percent of global GDP, while India generates 5.4 percent (see Chart 1). The Anglosphere’s per-capita GDP of nearly $45,000 is more than five times that of the Sinosphere and 13 times that of India (see Chart 2). This condition is unlikely to change radically any time soon, since the Anglosphere retains important advantages in virtually every critical economic sector, along with abundant natural resources and a robust food supply.
There! Feeling better, are we? Well, go to the link and read the whole thing and cheer yourselves up because I know, and don't ask me how I know, there is some bad news hurtling towards us as even as I write!
Please keep quiet about the demographic time-bomb ticking away in China. The last thing we want is more of them, all desperate to persuade the Africans to give them what is customarily ours!
Posted by: Whyaxye | Tuesday, 27 March 2012 at 10:40
"Feeling better, are we?"
Why yes thank you very much! But then I started thinking about why we (meaning the incompetents in power) decided to dump our Commonwealth trading partners for those obviously 'not quite up to our standards' Johny Foreigners.
Then I started thinking about which areas are not experiencing such ageing populations and the effects of even more mass immigration.
Then I noticed the Caveat warning of my Karmic destiny that for every thing I like, enjoy and feel better about there has to be three of the type to remind me how FUBARed the whole situation is. (No, I'm not superstitious - I just don't walk under any black cats is all)
So I am now returned to my normal resting state, absolute pessimism. But happy, as I'm only happy when I have something to moan about.
Posted by: Able | Tuesday, 27 March 2012 at 12:04
"the Anglosphere is still far and away the world’s largest economic bloc." What rubbish: it's not a "bloc".
Posted by: dearieme | Tuesday, 27 March 2012 at 12:51