Golden billion

The golden billion (Russian: золотой миллиард, tr. zolotoy milliard) is a term, in the Russian-speaking world, referring to the relatively wealthy people in industrially developed nations, or the West.

Explanation

According to Sergey Kara-Murza, the golden billion consumes the lion's share of all resources on the planet. If at least half of the global population begins to consume resources to the same extent, these resources wouldn't be sufficient. This is partly based on the ideas of Thomas Malthus, in that emphasis is placed on the scarcity of natural resources. However, whereas Malthus was mostly concerned with finite global crop yields, anti-globalists that advocate the idea of a 'golden billion' are mostly concerned with finite natural resources such as fossil fuels and metal. According to Kara-Murza, the developed countries, while preserving for their nationals a high level of consumption, endorse political, military and economic measures designed to keep the rest of the world in an industrially undeveloped state, and as a raw material appendage area for the dumping of hazardous waste and as a source of cheap labor.