The wrong type of population: why demography is the new democracy
Last year I stumbled across this book on Lee Kuan Yew and finished it in one sitting. LKY is the ‘founder’ of Singapore — responsible for its economic miracle and impressive diplomatic record.
I’ve often thought about one point he makes in particular:
that demography, not democracy is now the most critical factor behind security and development.
“When an Italian government minister asked my advice on how to rejuvenate their economy I told him to encourage the population to start families earlier. He looked at me strangely”
Economic and political power will shift over to those countries with growing and relevant citizenship, whether that’s by birth rate, immigration or both.
China is a great example of how demography will effect growth. Mainly due to the ‘one-child policy’ that was imposed in 1980 to unlock economic growth — bringing a focussed, dedicated workforce and an attitude that there was a responsibility shift from individual to society.
But after 35 years in place, the ‘one-child policy’ is now going to shape China’s politics in a very different way. Mei Fong highlights, in her brilliant book, One Child:
“The policy is imperilling future growth because it rapidly created a population that is too old, too male, and, quite possibly too few.”
China’s population is now ageing faster than anywhere else, meaning that there will be far fewer working adults to support a retiree population.
Fong says that China’s 800m strong workforce started to contract in 2012, and will continue doing so, driving up wages and contributing to global inflationary pressures.
With the worker/retiree ratio shifting from 5:1 to 1.6:1 in 20 years, the impact on China’s politics will be massive — and the country’s Generation Z (born 04–17) will grow up in very different circumstances to their parents, with drastically different risk-profiles and world-views.
China’s ambition to dominate the region and maintain its economic prowess will be held back unless the government has a way to wriggle out of this.
Also with ageing populations, Europe & the US will undoubtably face a similar demographic problem as a result of growing and integrated economies, but this time in the hands of millennials.
On the whole, Millennials, more than any other generation are after experiences. Weaned on a diet of seamless economies, a flat, Facebooked world and on-demand services — they see boundaries and life-plans very differently to even my generation (b.1984).
Coupled with authentic experience, they crave flexibility — in work, in choice of home, even country of residence. There’s already a huge bulge in the number of freelancers in the millennial demographic, and that’s fuelled by this dynamic — free spirit, fragmented identity and individual life-plans.
As a result, millennials will get married later , when they have ‘settled’, and therefore have fewer children, adding to the West’s own ageing population issue.
Population power will come from the less developed economies, but without the legitimate political structures in place to make them attractive trade partners for the West, this will be inconsequential.
But there are some mega-trends bubbling that can throw this trend off course…
Global Cities
Cities can respond in a way that countries can’t. By making politics more City-led, countries become less homogenous and more diverse, and their management more responsive. Not only do millennial not need to shlep themselves across the world to achieve culture, niche and identity — but city-economies can thrive with freelancers and career-changers.
Benjamin Barber’s If Mayors Ruled the World puts forward a really strong case for this (even though it did feel like a strain to read). His article on “Cities will be a powerful antidote to Donald Trump” is a good place to start.
To see this in action, look at how mayors of the major European cities reacted to the EU referendum result “Brexit won’t tear us apart say London and Paris mayors” and “London Mayor demands ‘privileged access’ to the single market post-Brexit”. These are small steps but fairly significant moves.
Intelligent Immigration
In the UK we’ve seen the backlash against immigration (aka Brexit) and the 48% fightback, with super-companies like TransferWise railing against a disastrous decision for startups based in the UK and stupidity of Trump’s immigration policies.
Countries like Dubai (who have a plan to have all government services on blockchain by 2020) want to use the emerging platform to solve their immigration issues — keeping the flow of smart people running their way and losing out on their share of IS-potentials. Whether it works or not, it’s an important step to upgrading globalisation to something workable.
Postcapitalism
Or maybe the ageing population solution lies in progressing capitalism to a point where it’s done, and technology can take over, leaving us with a universal basic income and an opportunity to escape the rat race.
It’s no surprise that Norway is trialling this project — which isn’t a million miles away from how Scandinavia works already.
Although Postcapitalism and Inventing the Future both had me interested in theory, it was How to Live Danishly that tipped me over the edge here. Denmark is a great example (in most areas) of how a country can operate to create a happy, fulfilled society — and it doesn’t go as far as calling the end for capitalism.
What is abundantly clear, is that while we enjoy the simplistic political narrative painted to us by media, LKY’s reality is much more apparent – demography and how we respond to it, is what drives the future.
So how should we operate?
LKW puts Singapore’s development down to 3 things: leadership, efficient government and social discipline.
We’re severely lacking in strong leadership — there’s a huge chasm between the incumbent political figureheads and their understanding of both technology and the generations that are native to it. But maybe politics has moved on, and the real leaders are the Elon Musks, Bezos’s and Googles of the world?
Efficient government may not be too far away — maybe Dubai’s Blockchain 2020 strategy or Barber’s global cities change that (and solve the leadership problem too), and their examples turn into the gold standard for others to follow without perceiving them as a risk.
Social discipline means shifting the West’s ‘entitlement’ culture closer to the East’s duty based society, even if it’s a slow movement, changing direction will make a huge difference. Maybe Brexit, Indyref and GE2017 in such quick succession could empower the UK to do that.
Yes, the examples of Denmark (5.5m people), Singapore (5.4m) and Norway (5m) are relatively small — but if we think about global cities, there’s a workable comparison (London — 8.6m, Berlin — 3.5m, Chicago — 2.7m) and obvious starting point — leaving little excuse not to innovate and improve.
