It sounds like a conspiracy story straight from the depths of QAnon: the world only has enough resources for a billion people, and these “elites” will survive, leaving the remaining 7 billion people on earth to wither and die.
The only problem is that the average QAnon follower would be considered one of the elites – conspiracy theories aren’t that much fun if you’re one of the experts.
The gold billion theory has its roots in Vladimir Lenin, and was most recently popularized by Anatoly Tsikunov in his 1990 book “The World Government Plot: Russia and the Gold Billion.”
Vladimir Putin, seeking wartime justifications that can play on the Russian public, has revived the theory in an us against the world appeal to Russian nationalism, and to win support among Third World nations that might be of some use to its flagging economy.
The Golden Billion is basically a code for the western world. These elites are hoarding all the world’s resources, which they buy for pennies on the dollar in the name of building their own wealth. Russia, rich in timber, gas, and oil, and not much else, is the heroic figure standing up to those thugs who would plunder the world of its assets without fair compensation and inclusion in the world’s upper echelon clubhouse.
Putin, of course, is the first to bristle at any suggestion that Russia is somehow a second-class global citizen. Maintaining the dual narratives that Russia is both a world superpower and a little boy who is beaten daily for his lunch money may seem like a tall order, but perhaps no more so than claiming to be a very stable genius who has nonetheless been outwitted. by nefarious election thieves.
The other obvious flaw of the Golden Billion is China. In the 1940s, when Chiang Kai-shek’s motley armies were fighting Mao Zedong’s even motley armies over the future of China, the United States only reluctantly supported Chiang, believing that no leader was capable of changing China. such a backward nation.
So the formative gold billion theory did not assume that one day China, with a population of 1.4 billion, would be hoarding the world’s resources with the best of them.
But any good conspiracy theory has elements that deserve at least some consideration. There can be no doubt that in world history, rich nations have exploited the poor. And last week, the Democratic Republic of the Congo put the world on notice that it does not intend to be one of those left behind.
Home to the second largest carbon sink on the planet, Congolese leaders had previously pledged to save these ecologically precious rainforests and peatlands. But he abruptly changed course and announced that he would auction off the land for oil and gas drilling.
Horrified environmentalists said this would be a “catastrophe” and a climate change tipping point on the road of no return. Faced with these emotional protests, the leaders of the Congo shrugged their shoulders. “Our priority is not to save the planet,” said an oil and gas ministry adviser.
Who’s to blame, especially since members of the ostensible Golden Billion have shown that saving the planet isn’t their priority either.
The Congo is desperately poor, but it would be in a position to reap spectacular wealth for its people by opening its rainforests to destruction. In some ways, that’s more honorable than the behavior of Americans like Joe Manchin and Mitch McConnell, who are selling out to the fossil fuel industry for a pittance.
And, when Norway is drilling more again and President Biden is turning to Saudi Arabia begging for more production, who are we to criticize a poor African nation for believing that oil is its salvation?
Lenin may not have foreseen it and Putin may be too obtuse, but the gold billion can have real traction on a planet where an inhospitable climate makes it harder to survive. We are beginning to see that the scientists were wrong: climate change is happening at a faster rate than they themselves believed.
At some point you will need to be “elite” to survive droughts, fires, floods and winds. You’ll need to have the means to live somewhere other than sub-Saharan Africa, coastal Indonesia, or an Oklahoma trailer park.
Perhaps Congo is bluffing, hoping the world will step up with a cash payment to keep oil companies out of the rainforests. Maybe it’s a desperate call to be among the gold billion: a gun to the head of planet Earth: if the Congo doesn’t survive, no one survives.
“Our priority is not to save the planet” is a frightening statement, but also a curious one. Because if the planet is not saved, what is left?
Tim Rowland is a columnist for the Herald-Mail.