November 16, 2021
This is a possible scenario by ~2040: Centralized China vs International India. Surveillance state vs decentralized digital diaspora. Two rising powers, with very different cultures. The US may be like the declining British Empire, whose dominance in 1913 was gone by 1945. https://twitter.com/buirachel/status/1460508564359823374
Ascending class & descending class is a better frame than poor, middle-class, rich.
First, poor Indians in the ascending class are happier than rich people in the descending class.
Second, ascent/descent captures rate of change, shows class isn’t static.
Last, all can ascend.
The ascending class and descending class is the microeconomic version of the ascending world and the descending world.
Rather than assume static categories, like developed/developing world or rich/middle-class/poor, it puts the focus on rates of change.
The various versions of the elephant graph show the phenomenon of the ascending and descending class.
Roughly speaking, most of the world along with the global elite has been economically gaining in recent years, while the Western middle class has not.
brookings.edu/research/whats… 
