While watching the lunchtime news today I was suddenly struck by what a strange assortment of countries constituted the G8 and so did a little research on Wikipedia. The G8 constitutes: France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada and Russia. This group is termed eight of the world’s leading industrialised democratic nations. It does not include Spain or China or India presumably because they’re not leading, industrial or democratic enough.
Anyway, I then decided that I didn’t really know enough about the spread of power inside the G8 so I swiftly knocked up a couple of pie-charts to try and get my head around who had most or least influence in the group and came up with the following (stats courtesy of the impressive CIA World Factbook):
This first one is the make-up of the G8 by population (and ordered by population). The United States contains around 300 million people, which is roughly a third of the population of all of the G8 countries combined – equal to Japan and Russia combined and to Germany, France, Italy, Canada and the UK combined.
This second one is the make-up of the G8 by GDP (ordered still by population though so you can see disparities). The US makes up almost half of the GDP of all the G8 countries combined, much more than its population alone would suggest. In contrast, Russia has much less of a proportion of GDP than it does population. Japan, Canada and the European countries have roughly the same share of GDP as they do of population, with European members again making up a third of the overall proportion.
All of which leads me to two conclusions – firstly that it’s hardly a shock that the US has so much influence in these organisations, and secondly that it’s also hardly a shock that the US right-wing is so snotty about the concept of a United Europe.
The other thing that it reminds me is that the British shouldn’t be so negative about our country. Sure, as a nation we don’t stride the world like giants any more. But for Christ’s sake – we’re a country which at its widest point is only a few hundred miles across and yet we’re the eighth biggest economy in the world. (Or higher – depending on who you ask) That’s enormously impressive. We could change the world with that…
7 replies on “Brief thoughts about the make-up of the G8…”
Nice work and research you’ve done. Just a technical nitpick: some of the colours are too similar and I can’t tell which pie piece belongs to which country listed on the left. I’m Canadian and until I read your explanation I thought we were getting the big pie piece.
Yeah – sorry about that – if it makes it any easier the legend on the left is in presented on the right in a clockwise direction…
The other thing that it reminds me is that the British shouldn’t be so negative about our country.
But that’s what keeps the British great – our negativity. No ego, no arrogance (or very little of it), just never-ending cynicism. I’ve always blamed it on the weather myself, because how can the glass possibly be half-full when viewed in such a dull, grey light?
Plus, most people don’t really appreciate how significant the City is in world terms, and just think that it all went irretrievably downhill after the fall of the Empire.
All of which leads me to two conclusions – firstly that it’s hardly a shock that the US has so much influence in these organisations, and secondly that it’s also hardly a shock that the US right-wing is so snotty about the concept of a United Europe.
Snotty? I’m not sure I would use that word, but maybe I don’t understand the word the same way you do. I hear a lot of cynicism from the Right in the US about a United Europe, if that’s what you mean. I suppose business interests in the US, usually identified with the Right – but you might be surprised about the reality of the situation with regard to the alliance of the center-left and business in the US, might get testy about a United Europe from time to time.
Really though, if you are in favor of a United Europe, then you should also welcome “snottyness” from the American Right. That’s pretty much one thing you can get Europeans to rally around, opposition to whatever it is the American Right wants.
On the other hand, If you are against a United Europe, then you could perhaps take some comfort from the American Right and any perceived opposition to a United Europe. Even if you are no friend to the American Right, the enemy of my enemy is your friend, etc.
If you want to see an even more lopsided graph, do military spending.
If you want to see an even more lopsided graph, do military spending.
As a % of GDP, it wouldn’t be that lopsided. Russia would be the leader there, with France and England spending close to the same as the US, although I haven’t looked at it recently with the Iraq War costs, I imagine the US Military spending as a % of GDP has gone up some.
Look, the elements of the “right” in America are completely wrong if they donít want a strong Europe. Europe is our number two total trading partner and our number one in FDI. Their prejudice is completely nationalistic and not economically based like they would like to believe. But overall, the leadership in Europe is completely elitist as is the “right” is in America. As is evidenced by the recent popular failure of the EU constitution in the countries that benefit most from the EU system, especially the CAP. There are still too many nationalistic and aristocratic barriers to a United Europe to really make it a legitimate economic rival (arguments of Euro valuation of oil and OPEC exchanges aside, since we invaded Iraq.) Overall, Europe and the U.S have more commonality than they do difference. The average political knowledge of most Europeans in just a parochial and media manufactured as the average American (however most Europeans are more secular, which is an advantage). However, the European political landscape embodies more differences in culture and language per square kilometer than that of Americans. Nonetheless, Europe has a longer legacy of intolerance than does America. Bottom line, neither side has a monopoly on political virtue as both of our political leaders are equally implicated in their shares of international scandal. Furthermore, neither continent has a monopoly on intelligence and political acumen. People are as stupid or as smart as they are going to be where ever you go, it is a finite occurrence. The only problem is that the US is a belligerent adolescent in international relations, but judging from history, the states of Europe have not been the example of temperance or of just exercise of power either, so shut up. Maybe there is an inherent problem with Western culture, however, it is the paradigm that has offered the most progress and freedoms and empirical advantages on the face of the earth. HmmmÖ..