Here's a chart of world GDP, broken down by country share. (

).

India

China

Europe

U.S.

Japan

China





Suppose countries end up with GDPs proportionate to their populations. What would that picture look like? I've added a bar to the right, showing the break-down of world-population. Look at the U.S. squished down, with less that 400 million out of a world population of over 7,000 million.





The biggest change is in the previously un-noticed 'rest of the world". If Africa, the Middle East and so on moved toward freedom, that could be the story of the century.





What if they do not? Here's a chart with a new assumption. Suppose the "rest-of-world" does not increase its relative share significantly, but the shares of all the other countries did become proportionate to their populations? Here's what we would see: China and India would far outweigh all others, followed by the U.S.





None of this is a prediction, by any stretch of the imagination. I'm significantly more bullish on the U.S. in relative terms. Still, it's an interesting "what if". It also puts the so-called "U.S. decline" into perspective.

Careful with the x-axis, it is not at all to scale!The basic idea is thatandhad large shares pre-industrial revolution, after whichrose. Theshoots up, to over 40% of world GDP by 1950. Then,begins to grow in the 1960s, andin the 1980s.