Nepal: The Himalayan Canary in Late-Stage Capitalism’s Coal Mine

KATHMANDU—While the rest of the planet obsesses over which billionaire will colonize Mars first, a modest Himalayan republic the size of Arkansas keeps quietly demonstrating how to survive the twenty-first century without losing its soul—or its sense of irony. Nepal, population 30 million and falling off the map every time Google’s servers hiccup, has become the global economy’s designated canary. When it wheezes, the rest of us should probably check our oxygen tanks.

Consider the latest actuarial comedy: one-third of Nepal’s GDP now arrives via Western Union, a remittance stream so steady the finance ministry sets its fiscal calendar by the festival of Dashain, when diaspora sons dutifully wire home “sorry-I-can’t-be-there” cash. In effect, the country has franchised its workforce to the Gulf, Korea, and that perennial safety valve— the British Army’s Gurkha regiments. Nepali economists call this “labor export”; abroad it’s called “every Uber driver in Doha.” Either way, the arrangement lets the industrialized world outsource both carbon emissions and guilt; we get clean consciences and clean hotel linens, while Nepal gets foreign currency and a recurring epidemic of broken families. Everyone wins, especially Western Union shareholders.

Meanwhile, the climate crisis has turned the roof of the world into a very expensive swimming pool. The Khumbu Glacier—once a slow-motion conveyor belt for Everest’s queue of egos—is now receding faster than crypto investors’ optimism. Tour operators have begun marketing “Last-Chance Everest” packages, complete with bottled oxygen and commemorative NFTs of the summit selfie you’ll probably die taking. Nepali officials, ever pragmatic, simply raised the climbing royalty again. Death may be inevitable, but the $11,000 permit fee is non-refundable.

Down-valley, the geopolitical seesaw tilts daily between Delhi and Beijing. India still controls the petrol taps; China still builds roads that end abruptly at landslides, like a high-stakes game of infrastructural chicken. Washington frets about “debt-trap diplomacy,” apparently having trademarked the concept elsewhere. The Nepali response is quintessentially Himalayan: smile, pocket grants from both sides, and keep the yaks moving. Non-alignment has never looked so profitable—or so precarious.

Yet for all the macro cynicism, Nepal keeps administering small, bitter antidotes to global despair. When the 2015 earthquake pancaked half of Kathmandu, foreign correspondents filed breathless “nation in ruins” dispatches. Within a week, local teenagers had crowd-sourced tarpaulins via Instagram; grandmothers cooked communal dal bhat over bricks salvaged from their own kitchens. International NGOs arrived with laminated contingency plans and left three years later, baffled that recovery had already happened without their PowerPoint. Turns out resilience isn’t a deliverable.

Now the pandemic has added a fresh layer of absurdity. Stranded trekkers discovered that meditation apps are markedly less effective when you’re actually meditating—i.e., stuck in a monastery with no Wi-Fi and only fermented yak butter for company. Nepal Tourism Board, never missing a branding opportunity, rebranded quarantine as “mindfulness retreat,” proving that with sufficient chutzpah, even lockdown can be monetized. Lonely Planet is reportedly updating its guidebook as we speak.

What does all this mean for the wider world? Simply that Nepal functions as a preview reel for late-stage capitalism’s blooper reel: climate blowback, labor arbitrage, debt blackmail, disaster tourism, and the frantic monetization of everything sacred. If you want to see how the Anthropocene ends, skip Davos and book a ticket to Lukla—assuming the runway hasn’t slid into the Dudh Kosi yet.

The moral, delivered with the gentle shrug Nepalis have perfected over centuries of empires rising and falling in the valleys below: the planet will keep spinning long after our supply chains snap. In the meantime, someone still has to grow the lentils, guide the trekkers, and remind the universe that dignity isn’t denominated in dollars. Nepal does all three, while politely asking if you’d like another cup of tea—cash only, small bills appreciated.