The Picture of Dorian Gray is a novel by Oscar Wilde. It is a story where a man sells his soul so that a painting ages and experiences the consequences of his own sin in his stead, so he can live a life of debauchery and sin forever without consequence.

I had a thought today, that in many ways the west, and the US in particular, and its relationship with China or other countries that aren't in "the club" is sort of like this story.

In the story, he is cruel to others, he murders, he engages in sexual promiscuity without regard of the consequences, and spends time ian opium dens because the photo suffers the ill effects rather than him.

The west consumes so much. Every home has a big screen TV. Every poor person has one or more premium smart phones. Even the poor can find a place to live that compared to many parts of the world would be considered a castle.

In the story, he stays young and beautiful and unaffected by his crimes.

The west gets to stay rich, pay all its workers very well and treat them well(how is a grocery clerk treated in the west compared to an engineer in China?), gets to maintain its environment in a pristine fashion, and doesn't have to use nearly as much fossil fuels or polluting chemicals compared to the countries it relies upon. Despite that, it takes all the output of the factories it considers itself too good to have. It insists on not doing dirty, dangerous, difficult work and insists that its people probably don't want those jobs anyway.

Meanwhile, China and other countries like it pay their workers trivial amounts and don't treat them well at all relatively speaking because the work actually needs to get done. The environmental impact of the industry is well documented. There are plenty of dirty, dangerous, difficult jobs done in these places. The west gets to sneer at these countries doing the dirty work they don't want to do, sneer at the reality of treating workers poorly and paying them poorly, sneer at the pollution created.

In the novel, near the end he realizes the gravity of his crimes and that he must repent; so he stabs at the painting, and in that moment the wages of his compounded sin are paid. His body ages quickly and he dies himself.

I can't help but look at the situation in the US and think that time is coming. The US and others will stab at China and these other countries, and will pay the wages of sin it wants to pretend it has not accumulated.

I've called that incoming moment "The day of the ant and the grasshopper", alluding to the fable of the ant and the grasshopper where an ant works hard and saves and is careful and the grasshopper lazes around and takes it easy, and winter comes and the ant is ok but the grasshopper freezes to death begging the ant for help; because people who have not built anything, people who haven't put anything away, people who have enjoyed the fruits of the incongruity without recognizing it isn't just or sustainable, they will find themselves in the midst of a long winter, and no matter what they believe...

The ants can't save them.