Inequality across the world continues to increase
When ‘Anonymous’ Occupied Wall Street and demonstrated at Canary Wharf they were asked for their answers – what they were for, rather than what they’re against – a diagnosis and prescription – they had no answer. They knew they were, again, against what was happening and it continues to happen to us all, but without a prescription (let alone a diagnosis) it was inevitable that the protest would eventually fizzle out without getting to the root of the problem.
So, for the first time since the first industrial revolution, inequality across the world continues to increase – in a process that continues to accelerate, bringing increasing levels of poverty even in the world’s richest nations.
Extinction Rebellion have fought, and are fighting, perhaps the most successful campaign of protest ever seen – an existential battle to end an existential crisis. But it’s far from clear how the battle to avoid extinction – or massive climate change that wrecks the planet and kills more people than any pandemic ever has (according to Bill Gates) – can be won in time. Certainly not by incrementally chipping away at it. Running against the tide.
Meanwhile as a global debt mountain threatens to engulf entire nations, and us all, the global pandemic has stricken not just many nations health across the globe but economies too, exacerbating, and bringing to a new level, the mental health crisis created by insecurity and financial stress.
Stress and insecurity we are seeing poison politics and threatening the major democracies which we had grown to take for granted. Little wonder when the next generation cannot afford to buy a home and high and rising rents make saving all but impossible, claiming most – often all - available income beyond the basics.
