# The Long Road to Solidarity via Population Dynamics By:: [[Brian Heath]] 2024-07-09 Very few people seem aware of long-term yet highly predictable trends. For example, birthrate tells us much about a region's future population. If it is low, the population will eventually decline. Conversely, if it is high, the population will grow. This is intuitive, but few extrapolate these changes' meaning or full impact. At a macro level, if a region's population is declining, they are left with too much infrastructure and insufficient economic energy to keep the resources flowing. If the trend continues and they cannot find creative ways of immediately increasing or maintaining the population, a ghost town emerges. The flip side is just as bad, if not worse. Here, one does not have enough infrastructure, too much economic energy, and not enough resources to go around. Poverty, famine, wars, and many other challenging dynamics unfold. There is a delicate balance between growth and decline. Sometimes, one needs to grow; other times, one needs to shrink. This is easier said than done, as beliefs and politics often lag far behind the time to act. Other times, one is moving against the systemic force of nature where nothing will turn the tide. Here, one has no choice but to deal with the dealt hand. Looking around the world, here are some of the most concerning population dynamics that will come to define the 2020s and 2030s. The largest economies in the world are about to have more people retired than working. This is a first-time-ever event. Additionally, Russia, China, Germany, and Japan, amongst others, are seeing massive population declines while birthrates also continue to decline. What will become of these economic and resource-rich powers when no one is left to maintain the infrastructure and resources stop flowing? It may be the end of globalization as we know it or the end of these countries as we know them because they'll have to import workers at an unprecedented rate. If a country is the people and all those people change, what comes of the country? We already see much backlash from this dynamic before most even know where the ship is sailing. Those countries who cannot find an identity in human solidarity beyond race, ethnicity, and nationality face a long road of disappointment. #### Related Items [[Geopolitics]] [[Nations]] [[Systems Thinking]] [[Economics]] [[Future]] [[Solidarity]] [[Population]]