AFTER TRUMP’S VICTORY - WHAT NEXT?

What has happened with Trump's triumph is an irrational rejection of the unstoppable process of globalisation.

For long, long decades, Americans have been living beyond their means, fooling the world with their rhetoric "there is no such thing as a free lunch in the world", while they were plundering the riches of the rest of the world (oil was only USD 3 a barrel in the late 1960's, the prices of the iron, copper, tin, gold diamonds of Africa and Latin America were also incredibly low, while the agricultural pre-eminence of Argentina in those days was undermined by subsidies to American/European farmers, the cost of which subsidies were borne by the illegitimate profits from the exploitation of the oil and mineral resources of the Asian, Middle-Eastern, Latin American and African countries).

Since the 1974 Oil embargo, followed by the Iranian Revolution and then the illegal wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and Libya, America has been suffering deep self-inflicted wounds (yes, it has inflicted far worse devastation on its perceived enemies), which have made it evident to all knowledgeable economists that America has to adjust its consumption path down, even while it reduces income inequality in the US itself. Unfortunately, neither Bush nor Obama has been willing to do the necessary adjustment, income inequality has become more pronounced. It is the bulk of the former middle class that had, during the past 2 decades, sunk into the low-income class that has voted Trump to power.

But, the unfortunate members of that group do not have the skills to graduate into job openings that occur in a high-tech post-globalisation economy. Nothing can stop the emergence of artificial intelligence-driven production processes, the green-technology-driven infrastructure-construction jobs, biotechnology-based agriculture and other bio-tech production functions, etc. Chinese, Indian, Arab and Latin American scientists and university-trained workers have caught up with their American counterparts and are outperforming them.

The Americans will have to adjust their consumption path downwards, and reduce inequality, which at the same time increasing the slope of the consumption curve. This translates into : (1) the 1% gracefully accepting a reduction in their wealth and consumption to the benefit of those who have lost out during the last 2 decades and the latter vastly increasing their discipline and effort at excelling in the acquisition of productive and employable skills; (2) Europe and America making room, in trade (WTO), finance (World Bank, IMF), security (NATO, SCO --- Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, OIC -- Organisation of Muslim Countries, etc.) for the rest of the world to have an equitable share in power to run the global governance system.

The first part will involve immediate readiness to accept much pain for later gain.

The second part will involve immediate gain for the world's disadvantaged of yesterday, who have borne their past suffering with dignity, and are now ready to assert themselves  whether Trump and his bravado concedes it or not. Trump will not dare to wage insane wars as Bush did, just to avoid the pain of adjustment. Even somebody as dump as Donald Trump is not so dumb as to repeat the mistakes of Bush. The world WILL be a better place but only after Trump's one-term Presidency is over and probably only after the Presidency that follows Trump's one-term Presidency is over.