Greed of the rich will 'lead to global famine' in a few decades

Just over two centuries from now, our society will hit a crisis point where the poor no longer have enough to eat, and begin to die - while the rich obliviously feast on stockpiles of  delicacies and consumer goods.

It doesn’t take long, though, for the rich elite to follow in the footsteps of  the poor workers they barely noticed. With no workers to feed them, the Elites slowly run out of their stockpiled food, and they too die of hunger.

Death - across all levels of society - comes quickly - and centuries of deprivation follow.

The prediction was made by a computer simulation of different types of society, including modern countries and famous civilisations from the past - as well as our own, unequal, technological society. 

The paper, 'Human and Nature Dynamics (HANDY): Modeling Inequality and Use of Resources in the Collapse or Sustainability of Societies' by University of Maryland researchers, predicts collapse within 250 years - and after the famine, comes a desolate period where even rebuilding is impossible.

The computer model is the first to take into account factors such as divisions within a society between rich and poor, and the effect on consumption.

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The problem, the researchers claim is the wild consumption of the rich - which results in a famine which wipes out the workers that create their wealth. The researchers compare this to the collapse of Mayan society.

The prediction has been wildly controversial. American political commentator Glenn Beck has called for NASA’s funding to  be withdrawn - as the researchers used NASA mathematical tools to model their various predictions..

NASA has distanced itself from the research, saying that despite the researchers having used NASA computing equipment, “NASA does not endorse the paper or its conclusions.”

The researchers refer to previous ‘divided’ societies which have collapsed, such as The Roman Empire, and says that our own society is also vulnerable - technology has a cushioning effect, but in societies divided between rich and poor, it does little to protect the ‘have nots.’

Running the computer model (known as HANDY) for previous societies, the researchers found that economic division was a common factor in societies which had collapsed.

“Economic stratication is one of the elements consistently found in past collapsed
societies,” the researchers say.

The point out that in societies where everything appears fine, the consumption of the rich eventually sets the society on a pathway to destruction. “These societies appear
to be on a sustainable path for quite a long time, but … the Elites eventually consume too much.”

Pointing to historical examples such as the Roman and Mayan Empires, the researchers say that the slow progress towards destruction means that the Elites have ample opportunity to argue that nothing is wrong - preventing societies taking steps to save themselves.

“This buffer of wealth allows Elites to continue \business as usual" despite the impending
catastrophe,” the researchers write.

The paper has been highly controversial. Many of its conclusions have been questioned or rebuffed by fellow academics - especially the idea that modelling the collapse of ancient  societies can offer a perspective on the likely fate of our own.

Speaking to Discover Magazine, Oxford anthropologist  Steve Rayner says, “Whether historical empires were fragile or robust depends on your time perspective and how you divide up historical epochs. Nothing lasts for ever and arguably while individual human societies come and go humanity seems to be better off in general today than ever before.”

Whether or not HANDY’s simulation of our society is accurate, there is, however, a solution.  The researchers write, “Collapse can be avoided, and population can reach a steady state at maximum
carrying capacity if the rate of depletion of nature is reduced to a sustainable level and if
resources are distributed equitably.”