WPR's The New Rules: Time to Worry About Over-Eating, not Over-Population

Monday, September 26, 2011 at 10:40AM
Thomas P.M. Barnett in WPR Column, agriculture, food, global economy, global middle class, globalization

The real clash of civilizations in the 21st century will be not over religion, but over food. As the emerging East and surging South achieve appreciable amounts of disposable income, they're increasingly taking on a Western-style diet. This bodes poorly for the world on multiple levels, with the most-alarmist Cassandras warning about imminent resource wars. But the more immediate and realistic concern is the resulting health costs, which will inevitably trigger a rule-set clash between nanny-state types hell-bent on "reining in" a number of globalized industries -- agriculture, food and beverages, restaurants, health care and pharmaceuticals -- and those preferring a more free-market/libertarian stance.

Read the entire column at World Politics Review.

Article originally appeared on Thomas P.M. Barnett (https://thomaspmbarnett.com/).