Golden billion

The golden billion (золотой миллиард) theory is a conspiracy theory that a cabal of global elites are pulling strings to amass wealth for the world's richest billion people at the expense of the rest of humanity. It is a popular term in the Russian-speaking world.

The term was coined by Anatoly Tsikunov (writing as A. Kuzmich) in his articles in the late 1980s and the early 1990s. They were assembled in 1994 in the book The Plot of World Government: Russia and the Golden Billion. The term was popularized by Russian nationalist and writer Sergey Kara-Murza.

Details
According to Kara-Murza, the majority of all resources on the planet are consumed by the top billion people, referred to as the 'Golden Billion'. Kara-Murza posits that if at least half of the global population began to consume resources to the same extent as the 'Golden Billion', resources would be insufficient. In the article which popularized the term, "Концепция "золотого миллиарда" и Новый мировой порядок", Kara-Murza calls on the concept of a New World Order, a conspiracy theory associated with antisemitic tropes. Additionally, the term "мировой элиты" is used, which translates to "world elite" and has associations with other antisemitic conspiracies.

This story is partly based on the ideas of Thomas Malthus, in its emphasis is on the scarcity of natural resources. However, whereas Malthus was mostly concerned with finite global crop yields, proponents of a "golden billion" are mostly concerned with finite natural resources such as fossil fuels and metal. According to Kara-Murza, developed countries retain high-levels of consumption for their citizens, and endorse political, military and economic measures designed to keep the rest of the world in an undeveloped state and as a raw-material appendage area for the dumping of hazardous waste and as a source of cheap labor.

Counter-arguments
Available data indicates that many countries are approaching consumption levels of developed countries.

In his book The Ultimate Resource, Julian Simon claimed that scarcity of physical resources can be overcome by human ingenuity. For example, the argument of oil scarcity could be overcome by energy development, such as use of synthetic fuels.

Modern estimates indicate that mineral shortages are not a threat. Resource usage trend analysis finds no imminent problems.

Application to the Russian invasion of Ukraine
During Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine, the concept has been used by leading Russian politicians including Vladimir Putin to justify the military invasion. In May 2022, Nikolai Patrushev, secretary of the Security Council, accused "Anglo-Saxons", of "hiding their actions behind the human rights, freedom and democracy rhetoric," while pushing ahead "with the ‘golden billion’ doctrine," which implies that only select few are entitled to prosperity in this world". This statement was made shortly after being accused of unlawful deportation of population (children), a war-crime under Article 49 of Fourth Geneva Convention.

In June 2022, speaking at the International Economic Forum, Vladimir Putin "reiterated his position that the Kremlin was 'forced' to initiate the invasion of Ukraine [...] 'Our colleagues do not simply deny reality,' Putin added. 'They are trying to resist the course of history. They think in terms of the last century. They are in captivity of their own delusions about countries outside of the so-called golden billion, they see everything else as the periphery, their backyard, they treat these places as their colonies, and they treat the peoples living there as second-class citizens, because they consider themselves to be exceptional.'”