TRUDEAU TO ADDRESS UN,
• Justin Trudeau will use his first speech to the United Nations General Assembly this week to present his brand of economics as an antidote to the angry nationalist politics flaring up on different continents.
The prime minister intends to state his case to the convention hall that government policies geared toward broad-based prosperity make for more hopeful societies — and ultimately for more stable politics.
He’s making that speech in a year where popular resentment has led to Britain leaving the European Union, Donald Trump contending for the U.S. presidency and once-fringe nationalist parties looking increasingly competitive in different European elections.
A common theme for these movements is blaming foreign forces for the struggles of domestic workers — while Trump talks about U.S. steel, coal and cars, France’s Marine Le Pen emphasizes farming and agriculture.
The prime minister intends to argue governments can apply some preventive medicine for that frustration in the form of policies aimed at the working class. A spokesman cited as examples his government’s deficit-financed infrastructure spending and its parental benefit of up to $6,400 per child.
“The prime minister will emphasize his view that a more peaceful and unified world can be achieved through broad-based, shared prosperity,” the spokesman said, “and that governments have a role in implementing policies that have a positive effect on the middle class.”
The prime minister will address the assembly Tuesday on his second day of meetings at the United Nations, following a leaders’ conference on refugees Monday. In that meeting, Trudeau intends to address some of the challenges in successfully integrating newcomers amid a historic refugee crisis spurred by Syria’s civil war.
It’s his first General Assembly speech — although he’s spoken at the UN twice already, once at a climate conference and at a women’s forum where he announced Canada’s campaign for a temporary seat on the UN Security Council.
It comes a few days after his economic policies were applauded by the head of the International Monetary Fund. Trudeau’s domestic opposition said in response that Canadian taxpayers will be stuck with the bill for a growing national debt.
However, a new book by the former chief research economist at the World Bank casts the global challenge in darker terms.
Branko Milanovic, writing in Global Inequality, says globalized trade has been good for the vast majority of people and led to greater equality between societies. However, he describes increased inequality within societies as a dangerous force.
He identifies one group as the biggest loser of globalization: the lower middle class. He writes that it’s happening for a variety of reasons — trade, new technology and sociological factors like people increasingly intermarrying within their own economic class.
And he draws from economic history to argue that these are perilous times.
Milanovic says we’re living through what he calls the Second Kuznets curve — named after the American economist Simon Kuznets. The first was the turn of the 20th century, as labour shifted from farming to manufacturing. Now it’s a shift from manufacturing to services.
He warns of a historical cycle: growing inequality, political instability — then war, followed by greater equality. He points to the growth of far-right parties in Greece, Finland and France as an alarming signal.
“Rising inequality indeed sets in motion forces, often of a destructive nature, that ultimately lead to its decrease but in the process destroy much else, including millions of human lives,” Milanovic says.