What happens if we run out of stuff?

When people worry about America facing shortages of oil or anything else, what we worry about is the supply running out, not that another country might buy up the supply and take it all away.
For the past half-century, that’s made good sense. America has used the lion’s share of the world’s resources (whether you consider that insanely greedy or right and proper, there’s no question that it’s true) because we’ve had an economy and infrastructure that can use those resources, and a lot of money with which to buy them. Most of the world can’t compete.
What happens if that changes? Multiple stories I’ve read over the past couple of years have me thinking the change may be under way already, as the economies of China and India have boomed.
Because of industrial growth there, copper is now so valuable in the world market that thieves are sneaking onto construction sites here to rip out the wiring. Other crooks are stealing catalytic converters because of the value of the platinum and other metals inside. And the demands of both nations on the food supply — as their people make more money, they can afford to eat a lot more — are one of the reasons food costs keep going up.
Neither of these nations is up to America’s level of industrialization yet, but they’re already having an impact on our economy. What will the effect be if all of China and India made enough money to live at the American level?
I don’t object to them living well, I’m simply wondering if their doing so will be cost-free for us. The world economy today is a pyramid, with us and a few other nations at the summit and most of humanity at the base. If a majority of the world’s people made it even to the middle of the pyramid, we might see big changes.
To take one example, we’ve had a policy for 30 years that Middle Eastern oil is a vital natural resource for America that we’re entitled to protect by force if necessary. One of the arguments for the first Gulf War was that if Saddam took over Saudi Arabia, he’d control enough of our oil supply to shut down our economy.
How do we apply that if China, 10 years from now, takes some of “our” share by paying more money than we do? What if we open up the Gulf of Mexico to drilling and they pay the oil companies enough to control some of that, too?
Do we stop them by force? By paying through the nose? Political pressure? Will we end up competing for and paying more for food, metal and other resources as well? Does the world even have enough resources for all of humanity to coexist at the middle of the pyramid?
I’m not advocating rationing or suggesting we should all stop acquiring stuff (I have stuff. I like stuff), but I do think someone should be thinking about what could happen 10 or 20 years down the line.
How will our economy cope if competition for resources makes the cost of everything rise? How badly will this affect the Americans at the bottom of the pyramid? If resources become scarce, how fast can we adapt? Can we come up with more efficient automobile motors, new power sources, boost agricultural productivity?
We’re seeing a little of that now, I think: Some parts of the Third World have gone straight to cell-phones, which means those areas will never need to lay down land lines. Necessity may prompt similar breakthroughs here that will solve whatever problems arise.
Then again, competing for a share of the global pie may become much tougher for America than I’ve imagined here. Nobody likes change, and we may wind up kicking and screaming against the new way of doing things until the absolute very last minute. It could be that as other nations claim enough resources to climb the pyramid, we’ll start to slide down from the peak.
That’s why I hope someone, somewhere — in academia, business or government — is thinking about what could happen and how America should deal with it. Because I’d much sooner see a world where everyone can keep climbing to the top.
Fraser Sherman is a Log reporter and can be contacted at (850) 654-8442 and Fraser_Sherman@link.freedom.com.