UN: Growing inequality a threat to democracy
Runaway inequality is eroding trust in democratic societies and paving the way for authoritarian and nativist regimes to take root, according to a dire new report from the United Nations.
The findings note that solutions — including robust social safety nets, an active redistribution of wealth and the protection of workers rights — “have been recommended for decades” and are well within the capacity of the world’s wealthy nations.
But in many countries, including the United States, such initiatives have been blocked by “economic elites” because they inevitably challenge the interests of certain individuals and groups, the report says, affecting the balance of power in nations that pursue greater economic redistribution.
Defenders of the economic status quo have argued, at times, that inequality is probably not rising all that much. But even if it is, it may well be the inevitable byproduct of a capitalist society and, in fact, it might actually be good. Economic inequality, in this view, is simply the price of paying a fair remuneration to the people who produce the iPhones and the cool apps and the free shipping that all of us — even the less fortunate — are now able to enjoy.
The UN report notes, however, that rampant inequality is harmful even to people at the top of income and wealth distributions. Unequal societies “grow more slowly and are less successful at sustaining economic growth”, as numerous studies have shown.
Corporations and their wealthy leaders have lobbied extensively, and successfully, to reduce their tax burdens, weaken the social safety net, undermine the power of their workers and increase their influence in the policymaking process, the UN has found. The net result has been a massive transfer of wealth and power from the poor and middle class to those at the top.
When the rich shape a country’s institutions in their own image and to their own benefit, it’s little wonder that trust in those institutions declines, as it has in the United States. That lack of trust creates a vacuum for authoritarian and nativist regimes to take root, according to the United Nations.
“The central message of populist movements has historically been that the common people are being exploited by a privileged elite, and that radical institutional change is required to avoid such exploitation,” according to the report.
But research shows the history of populist regimes since 1990 has primarily been one of corruption, selfdealing, worsening inequality and political violence.