Talk:Golden billion

message: This is a common concept, an article is needed. Thus it's not a candidate for speedy at all! Paranoid 23:47, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section. 
The result of the debate was don't move. —Nightstallion (?) 06:47, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Untitled

message: :Add *Support or *Oppose followed by an optional one-sentence explanation, then sign your opinion with ~~~~
*Oppose: no need for "the" in title. Thumbelina 17:54, 19 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Survey

message: online search for the terms "gold billion" or "golden billion" suggest that the term is little known in the English-speaking world - a simple comparison of Google searches for "golden billion" and "золотой миллиард" shows that this is not quite true (there are more instances in English). Dimawik (talk) 06:09, 30 January 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Relative popularity in Russian and English 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: Presumably the countries in the so-called "Global Billion" are the richest countries in the World - per capita.
Let's go through them - Ranked by Population:
European Union - 447 Million;
United States - 334 Million (781 Million Cumulative);
Japan - 125 Million (906 Million);
United Kingdom - 67 Million (973 Million);
Gulf Cooperation Council - 57 Million (1.030 Billion);
South Korea - 51 Million (1.085 Billion);
Canada - 40 Million (1.125 Billion);
Australia - 26 Million (1.151 Billion);
Taiwan - 23 Million (1.174 Billion);
Switzerland - 9 Million (1.183 Billion);
Israel - 10 Million (1.193 Billion);
Singapore - 5 Million (1.198 Billion);
Norway - 5 Million (1.203 Billion);
New Zealand - 5 Million (1.208 Billion).
Essentially it's the Top 50 Countries by GDP Per Capita and it's about 1.2 Billion people now.
When this theory was first posited 30+ years ago it would have been about 1 Billion people.
Some might quibble with including the GCC (Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain, UAE, Oman & Kuwait) - but these are amongst the Top 50 Countries in the World Per Capita and they are integral to supplying energy (oil & gas) to the "Golden Billion" - especially Europe, Japan & South Korea. Perhaps that's why there are so many large military bases in the GCC. There are other smaller countries of under 1 million population - mainly in Europe but including Bahamas, Brunei as well that slot into the richest countries as well. They are somewhat more peripheral - but wasn't FTX based in the Bahamas?
As you can see - over 900 Million are based in Europe & North America with about 300 Million spread around the rest of the world - East Asia, Oceania & Middle East.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2405:6E00:208F:9135:1D35:166:8F8D:B451 (talk) 13:00, 2 February 2023 (UTC)
thread_title: Which countries are in the "Golden Billion"?

message: It should not go into article, but some interesting facts.
While Tsikunov/Kuzmich articles did not contain any serious sources (rather invented ones from UN which never existed), Sergey Kara Murza in article http://filosof.historic.ru/books/item/f00/s00/z0000698/index.shtml (in Russian) found one author in the west, who indeed, spoke about one billion people. It's David Pimentel. I did not find his exact work from 1987 (because Kara Murza did not provide reference or name of the article and in 1987 Pimentel seems not to write anything about one billion people), but found another work. From 2010
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/225689329_Will_Limited_Land_Water_and_Energy_Control_Human_Population_Numbers_in_the_Future where Pimentel 'computes' that optimal population should be 2 billion people. He computes it on the base of available land. And here is a funny part. He states, that each person needs 1 hectare of land to produce energy to live. Let's take American. American consumes 12 kWh of electricity per day. With electrification all other non electric needs could be covered by 40 kWh per day (likely less, probably around 25 kWh). Now, current solar panels on the market produce 1 kWh/m2 per day, due to need to overbuild to compensate solar fluctuation it should be 60 meters of solar panels, but even if one needs 3 times overbuild (with that overbuild one does not need external connections to the world to exchange energy at all) it's 120 meters. But hectare is 10000 meters. So Pimentel just fooled everybody with this article. His trick (which is not in the article, but in his other works) that he intended to produce electricity using old conventional power plants with 30% efficiency from.... biofuels. With that approach - he could get even less 'desired' people. Even assuming his approach 0.5 ha for food and that extra 1 ha for energy we already see - it's not 2 billion people, but 6 billion people. But ... let's take rich Netherlands - they extensively use modern greenhouses. And greenhouse is 5-12 times more efficient depending on crop. In fact it's even possible to grow wheat in vertical farms with 23-49 more efficiency (up to 600 times in one german publication). So figure out - what the possible optimal population might be. is it 5*6 = 30 billion people or 10*6 = 60 billion people, or maybe 600*6=3.6 trillion people?
so even if there was one particular person with calculations which Kara Murza tried to find on the west (there are somewhat more, but again not very many such 'researches') their calculations were bogus from the start. Somehow professor of chemistry (which Kara Murza once was) did not see elementary calculus problems in Pimentel work (otherwise he was extensively criticized for his 'biofuel' calculations) SergeyKurdakov (talk) 15:52, 15 January 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  Some observation on the history of the term 

message: this wikipedia entry is entirely propaganda. Putin is very clear, as are even the cited sources: the Golden Billion refers to the populations of NATO countries (US allies).
It's not some idea about a cabal of a billion elites. Putin knows that the "billion people" include plenty of proletarian and peasant and just regular folks with Western nation citizenship.
Just because NPR et al, in response to the "full scale invasion of Ukraine" calls it a conspiracy theory, doesnt mean that the theory is more absurd/ less plausible than other analyses.
In fact, the golden billion is a conspiracy theory in the way that Dr Michael Parenti (noted anti-imperialist) defends conspiracy theory: its a conspiracy analysis. Specifically, the golden billion is a reference to Western/NATO imperialism and neo-colonialism.
Wikipedia editors should NOT tolerate this website becoming a host for Ukranian and/or NATO war propaganda. Regardless of the fact that the "reputable sources" have completely debased themselves and lost nearly all credibility in their fascistic participation in the New Cold War. 2601:5CF:8000:6B60:F553:2707:FA3A:2F2B (talk) 00:48, 24 January 2024 (UTC)
replies: text: you are wrong on context of use. Russians do understand what Putin means when he uses the term, you might see it from russian article by Sergey Kara Murza (main author who spread the theory) where he explains Putin's take https://vnnews.ru/istoki-zolotogo-milliarda/?ysclid=lrvost3zmi642926502 (get google translate). Now if it's conspiracy theory it's not only NPR. If it is really good theory? Initially both Tsikunov and Kara Murza used forged sources, or severely altered facts from authors which they used as a base for their conclusions. It's a clear indication. So if you are conspiracy theorist yourself it does not mean that what you try to disseminate is not a conspiracy theory  SergeyKurdakov (talk) 06:25, 27 January 2024 (UTC)

text: and "It's not some idea about a cabal of a billion elites.  Putin knows that the "billion people" include plenty of proletarian and peasant and just regular folks with Western nation citizenship." is your own original 'research'. Both Tsikunov and  Sergey Kara Murza included 'western proletariat and peasants" into Golden billion category, for them all citizens of western countries benefit from alleged system. SergeyKurdakov (talk) 11:24, 27 January 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  It's not 1 billion elites, it's one billion Westerners 

message: US State department issued paper on Russia with more English language details about Golden Billion conspiracy theory
https://www.state.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/GEC-Special-Report-More-than-a-Century-of-Antisemitism.pdf 
Probably an article could be extended with this information SergeyKurdakov (talk) 19:51, 27 January 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  US State department paper with details on the Golden Billion 

message: Who thinks it is a “conspiracy theory” that “the elites” (that is, the people with the most money and power) “pull strings” in an attempt to help the richest & most powerful people (that is, themselves) continue gaining wealth & power, at the expense of the rest of humanity? 
This seems to me to be exceedingly obvious. Indeed, such a sentiment is probably one of the few things that both American leftists and American conservatives would agree upon. How is this so different from Bernie Sanders’s railing against the top 1% ? 
Are you sure you are not calling it a “conspiracy theory” merely because it is popular in Russia and has been on the lips of Vladimir Putin ? It seems to me, that, only as an outgrowth of intense & even hysterical Russophobia, so entrenched and incuriously accepted as just & righteous in the West, would anybody frame this wholly uncontroversial assessment to be a “conspiracy theory.” It appears that many people, particularly those who have fallen deep into progressivism, have forgotten what “conspiracy theories” are, and now make use of the term at whim as a way to dignify dismissing out-of-hand any idea or viewpoint which they do not like or which has been voiced by someone whom they have deemed to hold the incorrect political opinions (that is, opinions that are not sufficiently progressive). Virtue Rewarded Richardson (talk) 00:13, 10 February 2024 (UTC)
replies: text: You should start from original authors. It's not about related concepts but the way resource concerns were put down. Tsikunov claimed, that the world would end as a prison for all by early 2000s by apparent exhaustion of resources, and that the plan to make it to happen was in UNESCO documents (which is of cause not true, UNESCO is educational branch of UN and is not concerned with planning to end the free world). so false documents, false accusations of UNESCO to draft plans to end free world. Kara Murza also assembled documents and claimed they constitute a clear plan to end the world, while in no cited documents there was a hint of the  actual plan. So related western concepts are their concepts about resources, not that those concerns are real plan to end the world as a prison for all outside 'few chosen' as envisioned by either Tsikunov or Kara Murza SergeyKurdakov (talk) 06:27, 10 February 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  Are you certain “conspiracy theory” is the correct term? 

message: there was an attempt to bring them back, some details could be found on user discussion page after revert 
User_talk:2A00:1028:96CB:F556:6581:E0BD:5623:85C8
the background is this: before active start of push of this concept to the world by Russian authorities it was known in Russia, that Tsikunov/Kara Murza stories are fabricated, but 'conspiracy theory' is relatively rarely used phrase in Russian, so it was not called as such. Also western auditory did not know much details and there were no major publications. Now they exist and have a clear label for a golden billion - a conspiracy theory. Due to this change in how well known this term in the world, the article also evolved (with a big lag, due to lack of English speaking contributors). Still propaganda efforts (twitter influencers, Russian embassies abroad) is now focused to prove that it's 'commonly used word by russians (actually there are two groups or Russians - one uses Golden Billion as way to joke on 'slow guys' because it's really funny theory (and this group is larger on the internet, based on my searches on twitter/reddit, but it's only personal opinion), another uses in pure conspiratorial way, both use the term infrequently. and that it is a valid theory of 'exploitation'. It would be nice if some major author would cover particular details of the theory, because, as anyone can see here on discussion page - there are a lot of questions, which are valid, given lack of details for public. 
That the page is relatively empty is sad, and somehow initial text which was written by (I suppose) qualified propagandist with multiple issues was long retained here and still some parts try to resurface. So efforts to either translate more from Russian wikipedia page, and even to write detailed academic texts which could be used in article are important. It's not clear for how long Russian authorities will keep pushing the term onto world public (and their aim is clear - conspiracy theories are easy ways to destroy adversary or the West), but more details will serve to avoid major harm. Anyway, in order not to hide details - there was a discussion about changes to the page. I was not cool enough, but anyway, it's quite possible that demagogic attacks will be happening now, in future if I see the attack, the discussion will be here, not on user page. SergeyKurdakov (talk) 22:28, 19 February 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  Online (on reddit) and here in edits appear complains that Tosno factory story and other old stories were deleted 

message: Here are some observations which possibly could be formatted and added to article, because it adds a context - why such and old conspiracy theory is used and is it still popular in Russia? it might also reveal why the related article content had such an uneven road. 
the Golden billion is not new concept, at had a peak of popularity upon publication by S Kara Murza, but largely had lost any relevance for public by mid 2000s. In 2004 an Orange revolution happened in Ukraine, and russian political technologists started to assemble material to work with as propaganda talking points. The leading candidates in 00s though were theories by Parshev (S Kara Murza colleague in patriotic press), and then again, by mid 10s the concept of the Golden billion was almost forgotten (btw Parshev's theories were also destroyed by counterarguments, so it won't be used later). in 2000s some propagandist added his own research on the concept here and because it was not really dangerous for the public and had a context how russian propagandists write, it largerly remained as it was initially put. Now we come to current times.
The first push of Golden billion in recent times was by Putin at Davos speech in January 2021. The use was in pretty conspiratorial way and not as some try to claim 'population of developed countries' it was an allergedly dark western concept of which Putin is aware and warns against. After that the use of term has skyrocketed by various associates - Patrushev, Lavrov etc (see refs in https://www.state.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/GEC-Special-Report-More-than-a-Century-of-Antisemitism.pdf ). Russian TV regularly has talk shows where Golden billion is slammed hard (probably on daily basis - I do not watch TV, but at times I passed via working tv - 1/2 of the time the content was about golden billion - so it's pretty intense). at this point a strategy is to both pretend that it's a popular saying (which died two times by natural means) and has a conspiratorial meaning. The part with popular saying allows to push use of the term wider and then to switch to more conspiratorial meaning, when needed. In sum. No - it is not a popular saying, probably it was at some point in late 90s, currently it's purely propaganda phenomenon, initiated by Putin in 2021 SergeyKurdakov (talk) 02:36, 26 February 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  History of use as an ideological  weapon 

message: In interview to Kiselev on Russian TV on Mar 13, 2024 Putin says: (from trascript on unofficial copy of interview on propaganda channel https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pNEFCFkdmF4 )
"Golden billion...they have been accustomed for centuries to fill their bellies with human flesh and their pockets with money, but they must
understand that the Vampire Ball ends" SergeyKurdakov (talk) 09:33, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  Some new Golden billion related Putin citations 

message: From what I've gleaned off this article, it sounds similar to the dependency theory of international relations. It should be analyzed more objectively, its believers more thoroughly studied than just brushing them off as quirky stupid conspiracy theorists who should watch more Western media to know the truth about the world. Shoshin000 (talk) 12:09, 2 April 2024 (UTC)
replies: text: S Kara Murza (second founder of concept) cites dependency theory in his works multiple times and it's influence is apparent. But the theory in article is different, it is not that there is somehow happening uneven exchange (btw after WW1 Europeans and Americans protected their markets and tried to substitute Latin American goods, so it was natural, that prices of Argentinian wheat/meat was lower (which on of initial author of dependency theory studied) - indeed in 20s there were policies which now would be called anti-competitive practices, after WW2 Europians and US agreed to avoid such practices in Breton Woods accords and later WTO), but about new (but not specified) evil policies which were introduced after Club of Rome report Limits to growth (both Kuzmich and S Kara Murza refer to it) and writings of David Pimentel (S Kara Murza reference). SergeyKurdakov (talk) 11:47, 2 May 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  Not entirely baseless 

message: https://www.ifri.org/sites/default/files/atoms/files/ifri_laruelle_russia_ideology_march2024.pdf
https://sh.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:1846696/FULLTEXT01.pdf SergeyKurdakov (talk) 19:52, 26 May 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  Some new publications, discussing use of term by Russian officials