Dambisa Moyo, a member of the 21st Century Council, is an economist and the award-winning author of “Dead Aid: Why Aid Is Not Working and How There Is a Better Way for Africa” and “How the West Was Lost: Fifty Years of Economic Folly – and the Stark Choices Ahead.” Her latest work is “Winner Take All: China's Race for Resources and What It Means for the World”.
Q. What is the central thesis of "Winner Takes All?"
DM: The book basically looks at how supply and demand for commodities are going to shape the future. On the demand side, we have a rapidly increasing population, from 7 billion today to 10 billion by 2100; an unprecedented rate of economic development and global wealth whereby the emerging markets will deliver 3 billion new people into the middle class; and, finally, a massive rate of urbanization. These three factors are straining, and will continue to strain, commodity resources. On the supply side, there simply are not enough land, water, energy and minerals to support these trends.
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