Australia: Never a World Power?

[AiA in Atlanta]

Years ago I read a biography of 20th century genius Buckminster Fuller and came across his Dymaxion Map. It caused quite a stir in the 1940's and has been improved upon since. What I recall is that Fuller claimed that Australia would never be a world power because of its position. Don't recall the details of that at all. Any thoughts?

[Chard]

He's right in that Australia becoming a world power is highly unlikely. He's wrong in the reason why. Has little to do with Geography, in fact, Australia's geology is one of the main reasons you have an economy down there (all that mineral wealth). The problem for Australia is there simply aren't enough Australians to drive an political or economic power, at least not on the scale that the US or China operate at. The only impact geography has on this isn't where Australia is located in relation to everyone else, it's you've got so much land that the small population means it's a bitch getting the sorts of worker concentrations needed for a large scale industrial society.

[AiA in Atlanta]

While your point regarding Australia's population is certainly true, it wasn't Fuller's point

[AiA in Atlanta]

No matter how the map is assembled Australia is always isolated. Is that it?

[AiA in Atlanta]

Who was that Australian politician a decade ago who was calling for Australia to adopt measures to increase the population to 80 or 90 million?

[Super Nova]

He's right in that Australia becoming a world power is highly unlikely. He's wrong in the reason why. Has little to do with Geography, in fact, Australia's geology is one of the main reasons you have an economy down there (all that mineral wealth). The problem for Australia is there simply aren't enough Australians to drive an political or economic power, at least not on the scale that the US or China operate at. The only impact geography has on this isn't where Australia is located in relation to everyone else, it's you've got so much land that the small population means it's a bitch getting the sorts of worker concentrations needed for a large scale industrial society.

I agree it is less a location issue it is about population.....

When you compare Australia's landscape to the USA the amount of space that is real productive space for humans to live and be productive is much smaller. Most of the place is desert or semi-desert or just bloody not fit for human farming or a dense population.

We can not support 300m or so people.

Number of people in the west is directly proportional to GDP and therefore the potential impact on the world economy is related and with that GDP wealth you can build a strong military and be a real market force.

We are just not ever going to make it to super power status. 52nd state behind the UK is where we will remain.

If you know both countries.... visualise what is useful... beyond digging it up for China.

[AiA in Atlanta]

Could you say that Australia's population is a result of its position?

[AiA in Atlanta]

This other projection seems to say the same thing about Australia:

[Super Nova]

Australia is the result of being mainly uninhabitable.

[Rorschach]

Yeah there's a lot of ignorance out there.
Doesn't say much for the US education system.
Australia is the world's most arid populated continent.