Once in a while I find something that really affects me. The first big change in my thinking based on new data, not new models, was Rudy Rummel’s work on democide.

Note: RWA is short for Right Wing Authoritarian, a group identified by prior psychological screening.

Unauthoritarians and Authoritarians: Worlds of Difference

By now you must be developing a feel for what high RWAs think and do, and
also an impression of low RWAs.23 Do you think you know each group well enough
to predict what they’d do if they ran the world? One night in October, 1994 I let a
group of low RWA university students determine the future of the planet (you didn’t
know humble researchers could do this, did you!). Then the next night I gave high
RWAs their kick at the can.

The setting involved a rather sophisticated simulation of the earth’s future
called the Global Change Game, which is played on a big map of the world by 50-70
participants who have been split into various regions such as North America, Africa,
India and China. The players are divided up according to current populations, so a lot
more students hunker down in India than in North America. The game was designed
to raise environmental awareness, 24 and before the exercise begins players study up
on their region’s resources, prospects, and environmental issues.

Then the facilitators who service the simulation call for some member, any
member of each region, to assume the role of team leader by simply standing up. Once
the “Elites”in the world have risen to the task they are taken aside and given control
of their region’s bank account. They can use this to buy factories, hospitals, armies,
and so on from the game bank, and they can travel the world making deals with other
Elites. They also discover they can discreetly put some of their region’s wealth into
their own pockets, to vie for a prize to be given out at the end of the simulation to the
World’s Richest Person. Then the game begins, and the world goes wherever the
players take it for the next forty years which, because time flies in a simulation, takes
about two and a half hours.

The Low RWA Game

By carefully organizing sign-up booklets, I was able to get 67 low RWA
students to play the game together on October 18th . (They had no idea they had been
funneled into this run of the experiment according to their RWA scale scores; indeed
they had probably never heard of right-wing authoritarianism.) Seven men and three
women made themselves Elites. As soon as the simulation began, the Pacific Rim
Elite called for a summit on the “Island Paradise of Tasmania.” All the Elites attended
and agreed to meet there again whenever big issues arose. A world-wide organization
was thus immediately created by mutual consent.

Regions set to work on their individual problems. Swords were converted to
ploughshares as the number of armies in the world dropped. No wars or threats of
wars occurred during the simulation. [At one point the North American Elite
suggested starting a war to his fellow region-aires (two women and one guy), but they
told him to go fly a kite--or words to that effect.]

An hour into the game the facilitators announced a (scheduled) crisis in the
earth’s ozone layer. All the Elites met in Tasmania and contributed enough money to
buy new technology to replenish the ozone layer.

Other examples of international cooperation occurred, but the problems of the
Third World mounted in Africa and India. Europe gave some aid but North America
refused to help. Africa eventually lost 300 million people to starvation and disease,
and India 100 million.

Populations had grown and by the time forty years had passed the earth held 8.7
billion people, but the players were able to provide food, health facilities, and jobs for
almost all of them. They did so by demilitarizing, by making a lot of trades that
benefited both parties, by developing sustainable economic programs, and because the

Elites diverted only small amounts of the treasury into their own pockets. (The North
American Elite hoarded the most.)

One cannot blow off four hundred million deaths, but this was actually a highly
successful run of the game, compared to most. No doubt the homogeneity of the
players, in terms of their RWA scores and related attitudes, played a role. Low RWAs
do not typically see the world as “Us versus Them.” They are more interested in
cooperation than most people are, and they are often genuinely concerned about the
environment. Within their regional groups, and in the interactions of the Elites, these
first-year students would have usually found themselves “on the same page”–and writ
large on that page was, “Let’s Work Together and Clean Up This Mess.” The game’s
facilitators said they had never seen as much international cooperation in previous
runs of the simulation. With the exception of the richest region, North America, the
lows saw themselves as interdependent and all riding on the same merry-go-round.

The High RWA Game

The next night 68 high RWAs showed up for their ride, just as ignorant of how
they had been funneled into this run of the experiment as the low RWA students had
been the night before. The game proceeded as usual. Background material was read,
Elites (all males) nominated themselves, and the Elites were briefed. Then the
“wedgies” started. As soon as the game began, the Elite from the Middle East
announced the price of oil had just doubled. A little later the former Soviet Union
(known as the Confederation of Independent States in 1994) bought a lot of armies
and invaded North America. The latter had insufficient conventional forces to defend
itself, and so retaliated with nuclear weapons. A nuclear holocaust ensued which
killed everyone on earth–7.4 billion people–and almost all other forms of life which
had the misfortune of co-habitating the same planet as a species with nukes.

When this happens in the Global Change Game, the facilitators turn out all the
lights and explain what a nuclear war would produce. Then the players are given a
second chance to determine the future, turning back the clock to two years before the
hounds of war were loosed. The former Soviet Union however rebuilt its armies and
invaded China this time, killing 400 million people. The Middle East Elite then called
for a “United Nations” meeting to discuss handling future crises, but no agreements
were reached.

At this point the ozone-layer crisis occurred but–perhaps because of the recent
failure of the United Nations meeting–no one called for a summit. Only Europe took
steps to reduce its harmful gas emissions, so the crisis got worse. Poverty was
spreading unchecked in the underdeveloped regions, which could not control their
population growth. Instead of dealing with the social and economic problems “back
home,” Elites began jockeying among themselves for power and protection, forming
military alliances to confront other budding alliances. Threats raced around the room
and the Confederation of Independent States warned it was ready to start another
nuclear war. Partly because their Elites had used their meager resources to buy into
alliances, Africa and Asia were on the point of collapse. An Elite called for a United
Nations meeting to deal with the crises–take your pick–and nobody came.

By the time forty years had passed the world was divided into armed camps
threatening each other with another nuclear destruction. One billion, seven hundred
thousand people had died of starvation and disease. Throw in the 400 million who
died in the Soviet-China war and casualties reached 2.1 billion. Throw in the 7.4
billion who died in the nuclear holocaust, and the high RWAs managed to kill 9.5
billion people in their world–although we, like some battlefield news releases, are
counting some of the corpses twice.

The authoritarian world ended in disaster for many reasons. One was likely the
character of their Elites, who put more than twice as much money in their own pockets
as the low RWA Elites had. (The Middle East Elite ended up the World’s Richest
Man; part of his wealth came from money he had conned from Third World Elites as
payment for joining his alliance.) But more importantly, the high RWAs proved
incredibly ethnocentric. There they were, in a big room full of people just like
themselves, and they all turned their backs on each other and paid attention only to
their own group. They too were all reading from the same page, but writ large on their
page was, “Care About Your Own; We Are NOT All In This Together.”

From chapter one of:

http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~altemey/