The West needs industrial action

However, Joel Kotkin, a professor of urban development at Chapman University in California, has pointed to a different trend emerging since about 2000 (“The real winners of the global economy: the material boys” Forbes, 6 March 2013). Many of the world’s best performing developed economies in recent years are resource-rich nations such as Australia, Canada and Norway.

Moreover much of the developing world is making a rapid transition from old-style agriculture to industrial production. Even leaving aside China, with its rapid manufacturing-centred growth, Brazil has expanded rapidly on the basis of manufactured and food exports as well as domestic energy production.