Pads drained between societies

The measure as written

In THE DESTINED FUTURE (HSPs), the Shock and Pad Theory names the Pads:

The instruments that are employed to reduce the societal agitation are the Pads, while the process of their deployment is called padding or foaming. Pads that are prevalent in our society are Wealth, Entertainment and Mental satisfaction (which can be illusory).

It then shows where a society takes them from when its own are not enough:

Likewise, a society with high HSP violation is so disturbed that it tries to satisfy its members with Pads, and as these Pads are not enough within itself, it steals them from other societies (mainly in the form of wealth).

The same paragraph gives the measure of the drain:

(In practice, this can be measured by how much of the NEPs a society is producing and how much of it is being exported, i.e. a society that exports a large share of its NEP production while its own NEPs remain unmet is being drained of its Pads.)

What it measures, in plain words

In the family example of the same paragraph, the quarrelling parents do not fix the source of their unrest; they satisfy themselves with solo trips and brand-new things. A society with high HSP violation does the same with its Pads, and when its own are not enough, it draws them from other societies. The measure looks at the other end of that flow: the society the Pads leave, and whether its own people are left short. The NEPs are the Needs (food, shelter, clothing, organizational tasks, peace and security), the Environmental Stress and the Physical Stress (see THE UNJUSTIFIED BURDEN AND ITS IMPLICATIONS). A society is drained when both parts of the measure hold.

First, a large share of its NEP production goes to others. It is the share that counts, not the amount, because a large society can send out much and still keep most of what it produces. It is read on four sides:

· Food, the first of the Needs: the food calories a society sends out minus those it brings in, as a share of the food calories it produces.

· The work that produces the NEPs: the hours worked in farming, forestry and fishing, in making food, and in making textiles, clothing and leather that end up in what the people of other societies use, as a share of all the hours of this work done at home. Hours show the work itself, whatever price it was sold at.

· Doctors: a lack of doctors is the very example given of "a shortage in one of the NEPs". Read as the doctors trained in a society who work abroad, as a share of its doctors at home and abroad.

· Wealth, the Pad that moves most easily from one society to another ("Wealth, being a mobile form, is the main instrument in this regard"): the interest a society pays abroad on its debts, as a share of its own income. Of the income a society pays abroad, only the interest is counted: in RESPONSIBILITIES FOR THE WEALTH, lending is by interest-free loans, and of investment, "profit is allowed, but it is not the first intention"; wages are pay for work done.

Second, its own NEPs remain unmet. Read from the share of its people who are undernourished: 5% or more counts as unmet. For doctors, it is read from the health workers per 10,000 people, against the 44.5 that the World Health Organization takes as the minimum.

A society that sends out a large share while its own people are fed gives from what remains beyond its own NEPs, and by this measure it is not drained. The same flows also show the other end: the societies that draw in more NEP work from others than they send while their own people live in plenty. They are shown as drawing in, not as stealing: the hours show where the NEP work of others arrives, not how it was obtained.

How we measured it

The measures. Each side is read from figures published for most countries of the world, so that each society can be set against the others:

· Food: the Food Balances of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), every country and every year from 2010 to 2023. Each food item is turned into calories with FAO's own calories per tonne of that item in that year, worked out for the world as a whole (food supply in calories ÷ food supply in tonnes). Production counts only the primary items, as oils, sugar, sweeteners, alcohol, butter, cream, fish oils and infant food are made from primary items already counted; what is sent out and brought in counts every item as it crosses the border. What is brought in is taken off what is sent out, as food that only passes through a society on its way to another would swell what it sends out.

· NEP work: the jobs in farming, forestry and fishing, in food products, and in textiles, clothing and leather, by the country whose final demand they serve (OECD, Trade in Employment, 2023 edition), with the weekly hours actually worked in each country (International Labour Organization; for China in 2020, 47.0 hours, as in Part 1), times 52 weeks, every year from 2010 to 2020. The hours sent out are a society's own jobs that serve final demand abroad; the hours drawn in are the jobs in other economies that serve its final demand. The tables cover 58 to 59 economies; Nigeria is not among them.

· Doctors: the doctors trained in each country and working in OECD countries (OECD, Health Workforce Migration, the latest year since 2015 in each country where they work), against the doctors working at home (World Bank, from the World Health Organization's health workforce figures: doctors per 1,000 people in the latest year, times the population of that year); health workers per 10,000 people are the doctors, nurses and midwives, each in its latest year (World Bank, as in Part 3). One reading, for 193 countries.

· Wealth: the interest paid abroad on external debt (World Bank, International Debt Statistics), as a share of the society's own income (its gross national income), every year from 2010 to 2023, for the 116 to 118 low- and middle-income countries it covers.

· NEPs unmet: the share of people undernourished (FAO, through the World Bank), in the same year. FAO prints its lowest reading as "under 2.5%"; a society at that reading is counted as living in plenty.

A large share. No number was given, so the line is taken from the societies themselves: a share is large when it is larger than in three of every four societies measured that year (for food, 170 to 177 societies; for NEP work, 58 to 59; for doctors, 193; for interest, 116 to 118). The line is worked out again for every year: for food it lay between 0.3% and 5.7% (2.8% in 2023), for NEP work between 44.9% and 48.1% (44.9% in 2020), for interest between 0.99% and 2.38% (2.38% in 2023), and for doctors it is 13.5%.

Measured years only. No value is carried from one year into another: each year uses the food, the work, the interest and the undernourishment of that same year.

Checks. For 2020, the hours of NEP work sent out equal those Parts 3 and 6 work with, for all 59 economies. Nigeria's doctors abroad (16,708, 16.2% of its doctors at home and abroad) equal those of Part 3, and so do the health workers per 10,000 people of all seven.

What the seven societies show

The measure has two conditions, and a society is drained of its Pads only where both hold: a large share of its NEP production goes to others, and its own NEPs remain unmet. A share counts as large when it is larger than in three of every four societies measured that year. NEPs count as unmet where 5% or more of the people are undernourished; for doctors, where a society has fewer than the 44.5 health workers per 10,000 people that the World Health Organization takes as the minimum. Wealth, the Pad named first, is read as the interest a society pays abroad on its debts, as a share of its own income.

Two of the seven are drained, Nigeria on one of the four sides and Egypt on two. Nigeria and Egypt send abroad a larger share of the doctors they train than three of every four societies (16.2% and 18.7%), while Nigeria has 20 health workers per 10,000 people and Egypt 25, against the minimum of 44.5. Egypt is drained on a second side as well: it paid a larger share of its income abroad as interest than three of every four societies in 2023 (2.50%), while 8.6% of its people were undernourished; from 2010 to 2022, its interest stayed under the line (0.28% to 1.36% of its income). On the other sides that were measured, neither is drained. On food, both brought in more food calories than they sent out, on balance, in every year from 2010 to 2023 (Nigeria, 10% to 20% of its own production; Egypt, 64% to 98%). On NEP work, Egypt sent out 7.3% to 13.1% of its own NEP work (2010 to 2020), far under the line (44.9% to 48.1%); Nigeria is not covered by the employment tables. On wealth, the interest Nigeria paid abroad stayed under the line in every year (0.10% to 1.31% of its income). Their people go short all the same (Nigeria, 10.5% to 20.8% undernourished; Egypt, 5.1% to 8.6%), but on these sides no large share of what they produce goes to others. India is drained on none of the four sides: it sends the second-most hours of NEP work in the world (59 billion hours in 2020), yet these are only 9% of its own NEP work, so its large workforce keeps the share small, and the interest it pays abroad (0.33% to 0.86% of its income) stays under the line.

On the other side stand the societies that draw on the NEP work of others while their own people live in plenty. The United States draws in 48 billion hours of NEP work a year, about 4 hours a week for each of its capable adults, and sends out 1.1 billion. Russia draws in 4.9 billion hours of NEP work a year while its own people are fed.

China and Brazil send NEP work to others (China, 13% of its NEP work, and Brazil, 37%), and Brazil also sends food (47% of its food calories on balance), but their own people are fed; by this measure, that is not a drain.

Across the world, 12 to 18 societies a year sent abroad a large share of their food calories while 5% or more of their people were undernourished; 19 societies short of health workers have more of their own doctors abroad than three of every four societies (85,229 doctors in all); one society sent a large share of its NEP work while 5% or more of its people were undernourished, in ten of the eleven years (46% to 55% of its NEP work); 30 to 35 of the 58 to 59 societies in the employment tables drew in more NEP work than they sent while their own people lived in plenty; and 14 to 20 societies a year paid a large share of their income abroad as interest while 5% or more of their people were undernourished (2010 to 2023; three of them in every year).

Beneficiaries and sufferers at each level

The stealing of Pads is placed at two levels at once. Inside a society, it is taken from the underprivileged:

This has led to the stealing of these Pads … from the underprivileged by devising a system of dominance that is based on inequality and oppression.

Among societies, it is taken from other societies, as the warning signs above showed. Both levels were measured across the world, and at both the sufferers' side was read from the people who go short of food, drinking water and sanitation.

Among societies. Who draws and who gives was read from the broader form of the Participation to Burden ratio (all hours of work, not only NEP hours): the hours a society works, divided by the hours of work contained in what it uses. Below 1, what it uses draws on the work of others; above 1, it gives more of its work than it draws. The seven, as the average of 2010 to 2020: United States 0.67, Egypt 1.02, Russia 1.03, Brazil 1.06, India 1.12 (from 2015), China 1.14; Nigeria is not covered by the employment tables. The United States is the one that draws: for every hour its people work, what it uses holds about one and a half hours of work. Across 59 economies, the lower this ratio, the fewer people go short (rank agreement +0.71), and where a society's giving grew from 2010 to 2020, its share of people going short fell less or rose (+0.42). The hours of human work a society commands per person in a year, its own and other people's, in everything it uses, were: United States 1,425; China 1,174; Russia 982; Brazil 966; India 814; Egypt 571. Commanding many hours goes with fewer people going short as well (−0.56), yet when only economies that command the same hours are compared, the link with drawing on the work of others still holds (+0.51, and +0.37 for the change).

Inside a society. The rich having large wealth is not by itself a sign of leeching. The guardians of wealth hold large wealth, but it is not theirs alone: their wealth taps into the society. The question is whether the wealth was taken fairly, and whether it is circulated back. In RESPONSIBILITIES FOR THE WEALTH, those who hold the third assigned part are "the guardians of wealth", and "more wealth means a bigger obligation"; in GUIDANCE AND ITS GUARDIANS, wealth is "a matter of regulation", and those who regulate it "are not the real owners". The rule of RESPONSIBILITIES FOR THE WEALTH makes the return a duty:

"An individual must consider wealth as a compressed form of the net work done by other individuals, which must be returned to the society one way or the other to maintain a balance in the society."

How it flows back is told as well: the third assigned part is kept "just like the water level maintained by a dam to benefit the people", and "when the need rises, more of the TAP flows back into the society". The first question, whether the wealth was taken fairly, i.e. earned by work and not drawn without it, is the one Part 2 measures for the richest groups. The second shows in the people: where the wealth flows back as the need rises, their NEPs are met; where the richest tenth hold a large share while many still go short, it is held back. So here the share of income (or, where the survey measures spending, of consumption) held by the richest 10%, from household surveys, is read against the people who go short. The seven, first and last survey from 2010: United States 29.4% (2010) to 30.9% (2023); Brazil 41.7% (2011) to 40.7% (2023); China 32.6% (2010) to 28.4% (2022); Russia 30.6% (2010) to 25.1% (2023); Nigeria 26.7% (2010) to 26.3% (2022); Egypt 26.1% (2010) to 24.6% (2021); India 24.8% (2011) to 20.5% (2023). India's surveys measure spending, and what households own tells more. In India's own surveys of household assets, the top tenth of households held 50.8% of all household assets in rural India and 55.7% in urban India in 2018, while the bottom half held 10.2% and 6.2%. In 2012 the top tenth held 56.5% and 63.7%, and the bottom half 8.1% and 3.3%, with buildings then valued at guideline values, not at market prices. Across 163 societies, where the richest tenth hold a larger share, more people go short (+0.53), and the link holds among the 57 whose hours are known when the hours commanded are held the same (+0.40).

Chance alone would give each of these links in fewer than 1 of every 100 random orderings. At both levels they run the way it was described: the societies that draw on the work of others have their people's needs met, the societies that give their work have more people going short, and inside a society a larger share for the richest tenth goes with more people going short.

The two levels are joined. Where the rich of a society take their wealth unfairly and do not circulate it back, they live on their own society as parasites; then they pull their money abroad, disguised as investment. This gives the stealers of Pads a cover to steal from other societies: what leaves a society whose own NEPs remain unmet passes as investment, not as stealing. RESPONSIBILITIES FOR THE WEALTH gives the test that tells the one from the other:

(In practice, an investment can be judged by weighing all its benefits to the society against all its costs, not only the profit it brings to the investor.)