Terza guerra mondiale?

Jacques Attali makes a point during an interview with The Yomiuri Shimbun in Paris.

Jacques Attali, a renowned French economist and scholar who served as an adviser to President Francois Mitterrand from 1981 to 1991.

http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/20100108TDY01301.htm

Jacques Attali: I would say that, in my view, we are going to go through five successive steps, which are not five scenarios, because I believe that all the five steps will happen one after the other.

The first one is, coming through the economic crisis we are in, is the decline of the American power. Certainly a decline of the relative American power, if not absolute. This will not lead, in my view, to the second phase, to the domination by another country. Nobody will like to replace the U.S. as the head of the world. And, the U.S. will not be able to be the head of the world.

In the second phase, it's a place where between 10 and 12 countries will share the burden of leading the world, including Japan, China, India, the European countries, and some others. That will be the second phase.

The third phase will be not the domination by one of these countries...I don't believe, also, that nothing will happen, but pure domination by the market. The market will dominate the world, without any rule of law.

Market without the rule of law is very dangerous because it leads to illegal economy, criminal economy, and lack of coordination, lack of property rights. And then you may see a lot of scarcities and a lot of inequalities, the development of frustration and worse. The fourth phase will be a global war.

The fifth phase, which happens either after the fourth phase or instead of the fourth phase, is a global new order, which will be based on not only individualism, but altruism. A world of lonely, selfish people is not sustainable.

Altruism, at least rational altruism will be the basis of a new world, with a new global government and development of nonmarket economy.