Welcome to stay onboard. Next stop for this ship of covid TITANIC is India, our final destination. Before we get there, we need a head count of the passengers aboard. There’s been a concern among political scientists and economists about the rising global population. Can the Earth handle a seeming uptrend of global population that is dependent on its limited natural resources? Does the ship of covid TITANIC have enough food and drink for her passengers?
The letter M looks like a double-humped camel. Its shape describes vividly the polarized society with its extreme rich and the extreme poor. The middle class in a society gradually disappears. The concept came from William Ouchi, an American business educator. On the ship of covid TITANIC, the floors toward first class and third class are now packed with people. The individual distance for the first class is more spacious than that for the third class. The management will need to consider opening the second-class rooms for the third-class passengers to even out the weight of different part of the leaky ship.
The uneven distribution of passengers on the ship of covid TITANIC in reality is like the M-shaped society. To escape the pandemic, the extreme rich can fly on a private jet to a remote island instead of being housebound with social distancing. The extreme poor live in inner-city slums with children and elders so intimately that you’d wonder if they can be separated. You’d think 2020 is a terrible economic year for everyone. Urh-urh. As said in my previous op-ed piece, the large public companies in America are running a similar model synonymous to China’s central planning. CEO’s big pay packages are unscathed despite last year’s economic slowdown. An executive board of a company—like China’s Politburo of the ruling party—can make changes to the intricate formulas that determine their CEOs’ pay that can help make up for losses created by a crisis in general. Except that this is not a romantic relation between the poor and the rich, ABBA’s “The Winner Takes It All” speaks it all.
China’s Politburo has given a green light to allowing up to three children per family to cope with the country’s aging population and shrinking labor force. Precisely, according to China’s 2020 Census data, the percentage of working-age people 15 to 59 in the population fell to 63.3% last year from 70.1% a decade earlier. The group aged 65 and older grew to 13.5% from 8.9%. The fertility rate in 2020 was 1.3 births per mother, well below the 2.1 that would maintain the size of the population.
It’s ironic that in my lifetime I’ve witnessed the rapid changes of China’s family planning policy from allowing only one child to two children per family in 2015, to today’s three children per family. In the U.S., a monumental policy change oftentimes takes decades or even two or three generations. No wonder legislation is always behind circumstances. If our founding fathers came back to life with artificial intelligence they would definitely point us to the ship of CINATIT, the reverse of TITANIC. All American passengers are protected by and benefit from—not only by words but by results—the true significance of the preamble of the U.S. Constitution. It reads:
“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”
The underlined words perfectly sum up the social pillar of sustainable development. This is a collective endeavor for generations. In fact, universally speaking, what makes the head of a state powerful is exactly because she represents the people. The people make up a society, establish a country and form a government. The people give meaning to the words “domestic,” “common” and “general” in the preamble. Nevertheless, the vision of our founding fathers is unfulfilled. What’s worse, it’s getting harder in the M-shaped society.
The M-shaped society in the U.S. is a warning that the leadership is steering away from the center. In the face of the pandemic and climate change, the common defense is more about building domestic infrastructure and a safety net for every citizen, leaving no one behind. History has told us that an iceberg caused the Titanic sink. The ship of covid TITANIC will encounter more than one iceberg.
Time is ticking. The glacier is melting. And icebergs mushroom after breaking off the glacier .
With respect to population growth, the U.S. doesn’t do well either. According to the U.S. 2020 Census data, the stagnation in national population growth persists. The current fertility rate in the U.S. is 1.73, better than China (1.3) but still below the 2.1 figure considered to be the replacement rate. Even before the pandemic, the U.S. population growth fell to its lowest levels in the past 100 years.
Why does the U.S. perform better than China in fertility rate even though China has the world’s largest population? Immigration. The U.S. legal immigration process allows global citizens to build a new life with their exceptional skills, to reunite with loved ones, and most importantly, contribute innovative ideas and expertise derived from diversity and inclusion to a new country that they call home. Some of the first class passengers on the ship of covid TITANIC are naturalized citizens of a few democratic countries that welcome immigrants. A number of the third class passengers are also seeking their way out with their talents to make a living in a democratic country that welcomes immigrants.
I didn’t know until I’ve researched for this piece of writing that the result of the U.S. Census has another meaning to lawmakers. It’s the barometer of political power of the party at the local level and federal level. I’ve learned a new word “apportionment.” This is an arcane term understood by few and confusing many education-deficient voters. The Cambridge dictionary explains it is “the act of sharing something between several people or organizations.” The American dictionary Merriam-Webster explains “the apportioning of representatives or taxes among the states according to U.S. law.” This is eye opening. It once again reaffirms my belief that big topics like COVID-19 and climate change require universal standardization and localized strategic plans. A word gives rise to different meanings resulting from its context. Not to mention that the user of the word has a different intention and represents different identity groups. Phew. Communication is a hard-earned degree.
Will the first class passengers on the ship of covid TITANIC be willing to contribute a bit more financially to repair the leakage of the ship?
Will the third class passengers on the ship of covid TITANIC be willing to stay calm and follow directions for safety?
Will the leadership of the ship of covid TITANIC be willing to put aside differences and simplify safety and rescue language and legislation?
This is a universal basic public health code of conduct: mask adoption, contact tracing, quarantine and vaccination.
If it’s a bit difficult for some passengers on the ship of covid TITANIC to make the first step toward a shared goal: survive plus thrive, Dr. Helen Riess’s talk about the power of empathy will give you strength and hope in the Year of Healing of 2021.
In the information-overloaded Conceptual Age, technological development, if done right, can reduce extreme poverty. But if not done right will further accelerate wealth inequality. The M-shaped society is equivalent to greater inequality that fuels distrust and social unrest. A European study in 2018 shows that individuals whose income has grown less than others’ more often support radical right-wing parties. Not to mention those in extreme poverty are the first hard-hit victims of the dual crises—the COVID-19 pandemic and climate change. Those are the third class passengers on this ship.
Back to my question in the beginning about if the rising global population will hinder economic growth and increase the rate of environmental degradation. I think Dr. Hans Rosling has the best yet explanation and projection of global population growth. We should not forget that the COVID-19 pandemic has already taken so many lives. A new study estimates more than 900,000 lives have died of covid in the U.S., a number 57% higher than official figures. So the pandemic may have slowed the estimated global population growth. Following Dr. Rosling’s no-one-left-behind projection of global population by 2050, we will transform the M-shaped society into the W-shape society in which middle-income families and individuals are a majority.
Embracing this feasible hope, may I propose that all passengers on the ship of covid TITANIC should comply with the simple code of conduct: mask adoption, contact tracing, quarantine and vaccination?
“Don’t give up the ship.“
—Commander James Lawrence, War of 1812