Also we really aren't only talking about BRICS, but all other countries in South America, Africa and Asia as well. With sizable populations who certainly want to increase their quality of living by most means possible.
I think the number of countries ready to limit their increase of living standards if not already high are only those that are truly impacted. For everyone else they will try to find some other way around issues. And probably anyway end up better of than they are now.
I'm sure countries in Latin America, Africa and South-East Asia are also seeing an overall increase to their standard of living over the past 30 years.
They already are. And calling the rest of BRICS poor and weak is just overt trolling, but also a probably an indicator of a more genuine misunderstanding of how trade and 'globalism' more generally actually works. For instance Niger most certainly is not a wealthy country, but the 'West' in general is having a fit about the coup there (and getting ready to start yet another war over it) is because in spite of being a small, deeply impoverished nation - they supply something like 25% of all of the EU's uranium needs, at rock bottom costs - in an echo of colonial times.
I want China and India and Africa to have first-world standards of living, with similar per-capita GDPs. That will be awesome, both for them as well as for the US and Europe.
The whole global economics is currently based on shifting inconveniences around to other countries. Cheaper countries are simply countries that are not charging the social/environmental cost. That, in turn, favors corrupt governments.
That's why BRIC will never have true democracies or truly good HDI. If people in these countries make money and consume in the same level of Europe and US, there won't be cheap workers and corrupt governments to turn the economy wheel.
On the contrary, maybe it's time to acknowledge that some economies may have over-extended in their promises about what standards of living we can come to expect.
Rich western countries still depend heavily on other parts of the world being cheap. The last 100 years were the result of the riches extracted from previous centuries of plunder and occupation, and the rush to modernize after the largest government spending projects in history (WWs I and II) induced an unsustainable march toward technological "progress" that could not continue without some later shock and consequent regression due to the inevitabilities (some refer to them merely as externalities) borne of dependence on finite resources. We are currently living through that shock.
There's no short-term solution effective enough to make much difference, that doesn't reduce the standard of living in rich countries, and/or cap the standard of living in developing countries. It's not happening. Rich countries aren't gonna say "OK, everyone, you get a lot less stuff and can't travel as much now" and developing countries aren't going to accept that they can't aspire to a "Western" quality of life. Hell, an abrupt decline in standard of living is one of the surest ways to get political unrest, violence, and revolutions, even when the reduction is from "very, very high" to "very high" (and even "very high" would probably still be too high, in this scenario).
That's to be expected with increasing wealth in those countries and while I said a lot of western countries need to make adjustment it's also true for growing economies like China and Indias as well.
I'm not saying they shouldn't get improvements, quite the opposite, I'm saying that we should be able to do better and without reducing the quality of life in countries where capital formation is already developed.
Those living in the rich nations can hardly blame the people in emerging economies for trying to achieve a similar standard of living (well, not without being huge hypocrites). And yes, large countries like China will have a large impact. But that is going to happen regardless of whether the rich nations make a change or not. So why wouldn't we try to reduce our own impact? What alternative do you suggest? Do nothing and make the problem even worse?
As I second to that in principal, I do also have my doubts. India, China and the other emerging economies do have some drawbacks regarding quality of life (some more, some less): infrastructure, legal system, existing and/or arising environmental problems ..., just to name a few. Most western countries still have advantages of location, which might get more important in the nearer future. Just some thoughts ...
Have you spent any time in developing and undeveloped countries? Do you have any idea what would happen to your life if we averaged out the standard of living across all countries?
After living in Ecuador, Bolivia, Peru, etc for years, I honestly believe the majority of people in the developed world would die if they were forced to live like that.
Here are some interesting graphs from arguably the most transformative economic miracle in human history [0]. The risk isn't the US doing nothing, it is India, Africa, etc, etc deciding that they seriously want a comfortable standard of living.
My point is people all over the world with high quality of life don't want to lower their quality of life to benefit others. It happens on a city level, state level, country level, and global level.
With sufficient resources, you can buy access to all countries, just like you can move to the nice part of town.
Global living standards have been rising sharply for the last 50 years, first in China, then South East Asia, recently India and there are signs it's going to start happening in Africa.
The idea that the newly middle-class in Asia ( including software developers working for international companies ) are increasing desperate and precarious is simply not true.
Poorer countries (I am from one) will want higher living standards and there are a lot of people in that condition. I think they will condone sea mining to reach them.
To be honest, it seems that living standards are declining all around most of the developed countries. The USA is very much included in that.
Some developing nations have seen living standards raise, mostly because the baseline comparison to 20-30 years ago was pretty low (China, India, Brazil, etc.).
We don't expect or desire (or IMHO even consider it acceptable) for these places to stay poor - the less developed countries on average have had steady improvements, a major reduction in poverty and the associated increase in consumption. The growth in emissions of China are not caused by some population growth but by the increase in prosperity of Chinese people, and we'd also expect places like DR Congo to steadily grow their consumption-per-capita.
I think the number of countries ready to limit their increase of living standards if not already high are only those that are truly impacted. For everyone else they will try to find some other way around issues. And probably anyway end up better of than they are now.
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