Introduction
In his book "Us vs. Them," political scientist Ian Bremmer explores the growing divisions in our world and the factors driving them. He examines how globalization has created both winners and losers, leading to rising inequality, cultural anxieties, and populist movements across the globe. Bremmer argues that these trends are reshaping politics and society in profound ways, creating an "us vs. them" mentality that pits different groups against each other.
The book provides a comprehensive look at the challenges facing both developed and emerging economies in an era of rapid technological change and global interconnectedness. Bremmer analyzes issues like immigration, automation, inequality, and environmental degradation to paint a picture of a world grappling with the consequences of globalization. He also explores how governments are responding to these pressures and what might be done to address the underlying problems.
While the subject matter is complex, Bremmer presents his analysis in an accessible way, using concrete examples and data to illustrate key points. The book offers valuable insights for anyone seeking to understand the forces shaping our world today and the potential paths forward.
The Promise and Perils of Globalism
For decades, proponents of globalization promised a future of economic growth, rising incomes, and the triumph of liberal democratic values around the world. The free flow of goods, capital, information, and people across borders was supposed to create prosperity and opportunity for all.
However, the reality has proven more complicated. While globalization has indeed produced tremendous wealth and lifted millions out of poverty, its benefits have not been evenly distributed. Instead, it has created clear winners and losers, both between and within nations.
In developed countries like the United States, globalization has contributed to the hollowing out of the middle class and the loss of manufacturing jobs. Since 1979, the US has lost nearly 40% of its factory jobs as companies moved production overseas or automated operations. The American middle class, once the economic majority, has declined significantly. In 1970, middle-income households earned 62% of total income in the US. By 2014, that figure had fallen to just 43%.
These economic shifts have bred discontent and insecurity among many workers and communities. Polling in 2015 found that only 6% of Americans, 4% of Britons, and 3% of French citizens believed the state of the world was improving. This pessimism and frustration has created fertile ground for populist movements and "us vs. them" rhetoric pitting ordinary people against elites and immigrants.
We've seen this dynamic play out in the rise of figures like Donald Trump in the US and Marine Le Pen in France. Trump successfully tapped into anger over factory closures and job losses, blaming the political establishment, bankers, and immigrants. Le Pen similarly campaigned on an anti-globalization, anti-immigrant platform, calling for a "revolution" against open borders.
The backlash against globalization isn't limited to the economic sphere. It has also heightened cultural anxieties in many countries, particularly around immigration and national identity. The influx of immigrants and refugees has sparked concerns about the dilution of traditional culture and values.
In the UK, for instance, the proportion of foreign-born residents more than doubled between 1993 and 2015, rising from 3.8 million to 8.7 million. The Brexit campaign successfully channeled anxieties about this demographic shift, arguing that uncontrolled immigration was straining public services and changing the character of British society.
Similarly, Germany's acceptance of over 1 million asylum seekers in 2015-2016 contributed to the rise of the far-right Alternative for Germany party, which became the first such party to enter the German parliament since World War II.
Across Europe and elsewhere, we've seen growing hostility toward immigration and multiculturalism. A 2015 poll found that a majority of Western European voters favored ending the Schengen system of open borders between 26 European nations. The underlying drivers of these sentiments - economic insecurity, cultural change, and terrorist threats - show little sign of abating.
Frustrations in Emerging Economies
While much attention has focused on the backlash against globalization in developed countries, emerging economies are also grappling with popular frustrations. Despite impressive economic growth in many developing nations, citizens are increasingly dissatisfied with inequality, corruption, environmental degradation, and unfulfilled expectations.
China offers a striking example. Official figures show that the number of protests in China rose from 8,700 in 1993 to over 127,000 in 2010, at which point the government stopped publishing the data. These demonstrations have been driven by a mix of economic, environmental, and political grievances.
Rapid industrialization has taken a severe toll on air and water quality in many Chinese cities. It's estimated that air pollution alone kills around one million Chinese citizens annually. In late 2016, residents of smog-choked Chengdu staged protests demanding action on air quality, placing pollution masks on statues and holding up signs reading "let me breathe." The government eventually cracked down, but the underlying discontent remains.
Other emerging economies have fallen victim to their own success in some ways. Turkey, for instance, saw dramatic reductions in poverty as its economy boomed in the early 2000s. The proportion of Turks living in poverty plummeted from 30% to just 1.6% between 2002 and 2014. However, this created a growing middle class with rising expectations that the government has struggled to meet.
In 2012, Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan promised average incomes would reach $25,000 by 2023. But by 2016, per capita income had stalled at just under $11,000. Many Turks have grown frustrated with stagnating living standards and inadequate public services as rapid urbanization strains infrastructure.
We've seen how seemingly small grievances can spark major unrest when they tap into broader dissatisfaction. In 2013, a mere nine-cent increase in public transport fares in São Paulo, Brazil triggered massive nationwide protests. The fare hike became a symbol of government corruption and failure to provide adequate services despite years of economic growth.
Citizens across the developing world are increasingly angry about environmental harm, disappointing economic results, and poor public services. And as in wealthier nations, these frustrations are often intensified by stark inequality.
The Problem of Inequality
Economic inequality has reached staggering levels in many countries, creating social tensions and fueling populist movements. The gap between rich and poor has widened dramatically, even in nations that have experienced significant growth.
In the United States, the divide is stark. In 1981, the top 1% of adults earned 27 times more than the bottom 50%. By 2016, they were earning 81 times more. The concentration of wealth at the very top is even more extreme in some developing countries. In Nigeria, for instance, the richest man earns more in a single day than 8,000 times what a poor Nigerian spends on basic needs in an entire year.
Russia provides a case study in how inequality can persist and worsen even amid overall economic growth. Russian incomes rose significantly between 2000 and 2010 as the country recovered from post-Soviet turmoil. But since then, economic stagnation driven by weak oil prices has hit poorer Russians hard. The government has stopped increasing pensions and public sector wages in line with inflation, eroding living standards for many.
Meanwhile, Russia's political and economic elites have amassed enormous wealth. An estimated 24% of the country's wealth is now held offshore, beyond the reach of domestic taxation. The gap between rich and poor in Russia today is wider than in almost any OECD country.
This level of inequality breeds anger and social instability. People become frustrated when they feel they are working hard for little reward while elites prosper. In 2017, Russian anti-government protests featured demonstrators carrying yellow rubber ducks - a mocking reference to Prime Minister Medvedev's lavish lifestyle and alleged corruption, including building a duck sanctuary on one of his many properties.
Research suggests inequality may also fuel hate and social division. An analysis by FiveThirtyEight found that income inequality was a strong predictor of hate crimes in US states, both before and after the 2016 election.
Unfortunately, technological change threatens to worsen inequality further in coming years. The rapid rise of automation and artificial intelligence puts many jobs at risk, potentially leaving large segments of the population struggling to find work.
The Rise of the Robots
Automation and artificial intelligence are advancing at a breakneck pace, with profound implications for the future of work. It took half a century for the first million industrial robots to be installed worldwide. The second million will be in place in just eight years.
These technological changes are making more and more jobs obsolete across a wide range of industries. A 2017 study projected that by 2035, nearly half of all jobs in major American cities could be replaced by automation. This includes not just manufacturing work, but also food preparation, administrative jobs, truck driving, and many other occupations.
Traditionally, economic theory has held that while automation eliminates some jobs, it creates new, higher-paying jobs to replace them. Humans move up the economic ladder as robots take over lower-skilled work. However, recent research challenges this assumption. A study by MIT and Boston University found that robots eliminated 670,000 US manufacturing jobs between 1990 and 2007, with insufficient creation of new jobs to offset the losses.
This dynamic creates major challenges, especially for less-educated workers. As low and medium-skilled jobs are lost to automation, people need higher levels of education and training to remain employable. Those who can afford advanced education may be able to transition into fields like software development or healthcare. But laid-off factory workers often lack the resources to retrain for the new economy.
The rising cost of education compounds this problem. In the US, college tuition is increasing by about 6% annually. At that rate, a four-year degree for a child born in 2017 will cost $215,000 at a public university or $500,000 at a private one. This puts higher education increasingly out of reach for many families, potentially locking them out of economic opportunity.
The impact of automation may be even more severe in emerging economies. UN forecasts indicate that 65% of jobs in Nigeria are at risk from machine learning and automation. In India it's 69%, and in China a staggering 77%. When you consider the massive populations of these countries - 180 million in Nigeria, 1.4 billion in China - the scale of potential displacement becomes clear.
In the past, large and growing populations gave developing countries an advantage, providing plentiful cheap labor to drive industrialization and growth. But in an automated world, this becomes a liability. Even when economies are expanding, fewer new jobs are created as robots take on more work.
Developed countries like the US or South Korea have the resources to invest heavily in education and retraining to help their workforces adapt. But many emerging economies lack this capacity. South Africa, for instance, faces numerous obstacles to preparing its people for an automated future. Poor transport infrastructure isolates many citizens from job opportunities. A history of inadequate investment, high inequality, and 40% youth unemployment among black South Africans create major hurdles.
Without the means to invest sufficiently in education and R&D, countries like South Africa risk falling further behind as the tech revolution accelerates. Unable to benefit from automation and seeing traditional paths to employment vanish, citizens in these nations may face rising inequality and social unrest.
Government Responses and New Barriers
Faced with the challenges of globalization and popular discontent, governments around the world are grappling for solutions. Many are reacting by erecting new barriers to manage the flow of goods, information, and people across borders.
Economic protectionism is on the rise, with the US under President Trump leading the charge. But it's not just developed countries - the number of non-tariff barriers to trade among Southeast Asian nations rose from 1,634 in 2000 to around 6,000 in 2015.
Governments are also working to control the flow of information, often in heavy-handed ways. China imprisoned 38 journalists in 2016, while Turkey jailed 81. Some regimes have gone as far as shutting down internet access entirely during times of unrest, as Egypt did during the Arab Spring protests. Russia has developed the capability to disconnect from the global internet and run its own state-controlled internal network if needed.
Physical barriers to restrict the movement of people are proliferating as well. The Economist reports that over 40 countries have built border fences or walls since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.
As automation eliminates many jobs traditionally held by immigrants in wealthy nations, governments may become even more selective about who they allow in. The economic argument for large-scale immigration of low-skilled workers weakens when robots can perform much of that labor. We may see a shift toward immigration policies that favor only highly educated or wealthy migrants.
These types of barriers may provide a sense of security in the short term. However, they don't address the underlying issues driving popular frustration and inequality. A more productive approach would be to fundamentally rethink the social contract between governments and citizens.
Reimagining the Social Contract
The challenges posed by globalization and technological change require us to reconsider what citizens can and should expect from their governments. The social contract - the set of mutual obligations and expectations between state and citizen - needs updating for the 21st century.
Traditionally, citizens have expected their government to provide basic security, law and order, and perhaps some public services in exchange for taxes and obedience to the law. The US Declaration of Independence famously asserts the rights to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."
But today, many people have much higher expectations. They want not just security, but education, healthcare, transportation infrastructure, internet access, environmental protection, and more. Governments need to carefully consider what they can realistically provide in a globalized, automated world.
Education should be a key focus. In a rapidly changing economy, learning can no longer stop after high school or college. Workers will need to continuously update their skills throughout their careers. Singapore offers an interesting model here. Its Workforce Singapore agency helps businesses retrain employees to keep pace with new technologies. The government also provides every citizen over 25 with an "individual learning account" - funds they can use for skills training.
Taxation is another area ripe for reform. As automation reduces the number of human workers, the traditional model of income and payroll taxes may no longer be sufficient to fund government services. Some, like Bill Gates, have proposed taxing robots to make up the shortfall and fund worker retraining programs.
Others advocate for more radical solutions like universal basic income (UBI). Under a UBI system, every citizen would receive a modest income from the state, regardless of employment status. This could provide a safety net as automation displaces workers, while giving people the freedom to pursue education, part-time work, or family care.
These are complex issues without easy answers. But it's clear that the forces of globalization and technological change will continue to disrupt societies. Building walls - physical or metaphorical - may feel reassuring in the short term. But in the long run, reimagining the social contract to meet the needs of citizens in a changing world is likely to be more effective.
Conclusion
Ian Bremmer's "Us vs. Them" provides a sobering look at the divisions emerging in our world today. The forces of globalization have created tremendous wealth, but also stark inequality and cultural anxieties. From American factory towns to Chinese megacities, citizens are increasingly frustrated with political and economic elites they feel have left them behind.
The rise of populist movements and "us vs. them" rhetoric is a natural outgrowth of these frustrations. While it's easy to criticize figures like Donald Trump, they didn't create the conditions that brought them to power. Large segments of the population in both developed and emerging economies want change, and feel the current system isn't working for them.
At the same time, technological change threatens to exacerbate many of these issues. Automation and artificial intelligence put millions of jobs at risk, potentially worsening inequality and social tensions. Governments - particularly in the developing world - may struggle to help their populations adapt.
Bremmer argues that we ignore these underlying issues at our peril. Building walls and scapegoating immigrants or elites may provide temporary catharsis, but won't solve the fundamental challenges. Instead, we need to seriously grapple with questions of how to create broadly shared prosperity in a globalized, automated world.
This will likely require reimagining the social contract between governments and citizens. From education to taxation to social safety nets, many of our existing systems and assumptions may need to evolve. It won't be an easy process, but it's necessary if we want to heal divisions and create a more stable, equitable world.
"Us vs. Them" doesn't offer simple solutions to these complex problems. But it provides a valuable framework for understanding the forces shaping our world today. By clearly diagnosing the sources of popular discontent, Bremmer's analysis can help inform more effective responses - both from policymakers and engaged citizens.
The book is a call to take these issues seriously, to look beyond symptoms to root causes. It challenges readers to empathize with those who feel left behind by globalization, even if we disagree with their proposed solutions. And it asks us to think creatively about how to build a world with more winners and fewer losers as we navigate the challenges ahead.
In the end, Bremmer's message is one of urgency but not despair. The divisions in our societies are real and concerning. But with clear-eyed analysis and bold thinking, we have the potential to address them. The future is not yet written. It's up to us to decide whether we'll let our differences tear us apart, or find ways to create a more inclusive prosperity that bridges the divides of "us" and "them."