A scan through the major national newspapers in India shows a number of familiar traits. One such trait is the constant rubbing-in in almost every other article of how the power balance in our world is changing. The allusion here is to the 21st century being an Asian century and China and India to rise as the two greatest superpowers in the world displacing the United States of America and other great west European powers that have held sway over the last few centuries. While on the one hand this is an extremely encouraging trend, on the other hand it has certain worrying signs. History shows us that it is the natural course over time that superpowers are displaced and replaced by new ones. However, one cannot avoid pondering that China and India’s rise as the big powers may in at least one way herald a leap back in to the medieval age. The reasons for such a line of thinking I have explained below.
Pre-agrarian tribal societies were in essence egalitarian with leaders often elected by consent and power rarely being directly attained by each succeeding generation. With the advent of agriculture, human civilizations became markedly less democratic and power now centred in a few hands. In various forms under various names, it was a tiny elite which now increasingly made decisions for the vast majority of population within the state. This trend continued until industrialization set in. So roughly till the 18th century, major world or regional powers were known primarily by the amount of power and wealth the rulers had. The Romans, Arabs, Mongols, Turks, Mughals and the Spanish possessed enormous amount of real estate with millions of subjects. Yet the conditions of the vast majority of people within these empires may not have been much worse from empires barely exceeding the size of a few cities. In fact, the vast majority of people in pre-industrial (agrarian) societies cannot be called ‘poor’, as that was very much the norm and not the exception.
Industrialization brought many problems to this scenario and some of those problems (pollution?) show no signs of solution 200 years on. However over time, one thing industrialization and the coinciding democracy did was to distribute wealth among the people. Production of products reached such unprecedented levels and with increased education and exponentially improved transport networks, wealth no longer remained in a few hands. The common man now had a slice of empire building. Great Britain and other European powers in the 19th century and the USA in the 20th century were not powers solely because the sovereign possessed enormous amounts of wealth. Instead prosperity reached every nook and corner of the nations powered by highly improved technological nous. While distribution of wealth was never equal, the improvements from previous regimes were marked.
The 21st century new powerhouse theory deviates from the trends observed in the last two centuries. Whichever way one looks at statistics and whichever set of data is examined, one thing is for sure: India and China are home to hundreds of millions of people for whom the dawn of each day brings an unsure future. There are various calculations to determine the poverty rate, some say 1$ a day some say 2$ a day. Then there is mass debate on which poverty must be targeted- absolute or relative. But even at the best of scenario there can never be any doubt that China and India each have more people below poverty line than the entire population of every other country on earth (perhaps minus USA and Indonesia). So this brings us back to the pre-industrial era once again. Once again it is mass which counts and not individual strengths. A large country will always be able to generate greater revenue in totality even if individual contribution is relatively limited. The power of the ruling class (plus middle class) is now what is driving these two economies forward. In the medieval age, a rich country purely meant that the king was richer than other kings. Though not an exact mirroring of the medieval age, the modern age’s power balance is imitating the past.
