War-Related Deflections of Economic Trends in Eastern and Western Civilizations

Abstract

Economic trends for the Eastern and Western Civilizations were compared over the past three centuries and extrapolated into the next one. The convergence of these trends following World War I was deflected following World War II. Without this war, the combined economies of the Far East countries appeared likely to surpass the industrial output of Western countries around the turn of the 20th and the 21st centuries. The 1941–1945 war with Japan delayed the projected intersection of these trends. Extrapolation of the post-World War II trends to 2040 suggests that, without deflection of these trends, the economies of the Far East countries would be likely to surpass the economies of the Western countries around the middle of the 21st century.