investorpolitico

This post will be controversial.

There is a beautiful article on StratFor which analyses how civilization disappears.

In the last century we had economic bust and booms – but not a civilization extinction event – even with 2 world wars

Stratfor went back in time to see what is the difference with the fall of the great empires (Roman, Greece, Mesopotamia, Egypt, China, Pakistan, South America).

Interestingly enough they all have 5 causes together and many are unfortunately present…StratFor aptly call them the 5 Knight of the Apocalypse

1. Mass Migration (look at Europe/ Western World – in history 1/10 of the population was enough to tilt the balance
2. Sickness – often brought by mass migration (see Ebola and Zika virus and the restart of some old sickness – in history the Black Death has been brought via  the steppe migration channels)
3. Collapse of Trade – (not yet present, but there are a lot of protectionism on the rise, see Brexit – in history the final collapse of the Roman Empire has been brought when the vandals in Africa cut off the grain supplies from Egypt)
4. Climate change – very fallen empire had a climate change situation (we have it and there was global cooling at the fall of the Roman Empire or the Han Chinese dynasty)
5. State failure – this is present more in the Middle East than the West

Can we avoid it?

Yes!

History shows that just killing one or two of these Apocalyptic knights can avoid the Dark Ages – one recent example is the Marshall Plan after the World War 2.

But it takes a strong leadership that is hard to achieve in democracy and sometime hard choices.

The people “feel” this with a political swing to the right/populistic figure (Trump, Marine Le Pens, Boris Johnson, Alternative for Germany Party, Freedom Party in Austria).

The people is not always right (well it is often wrong), but if Brexit succeed to wake up the current political class – the English would have saved the world from the Dark Ages.