ABSTRACT
Understanding the complexity of existing problems is not enough. We also need to get a feel for how things might develop in the next century, in terms of consumption patterns in the North, spreading industrialisation in the South and the relationship of South and North. In the first part of this chapter, we look briefly at economic growth and consumption patterns of the most influential superpowers, North and South, at the turn of the century: the USA and China. Along with Europe, the superpower of the 19th century, they represent the emerging pattern of major tri-polar trading blocks: North America, and an expanding North American Free Trade Association (NAFA); an expanding European Union (EU), now 15 countries and 369 million citizens and likely to grow further to encompass Central and Eastern Europe; and Asia, with a huge population base, a growing number of NICs and, by 2010, one third of the world’s productive capacity.
