Canada

The political establishment has consistently failed to name the problem, let alone combat it. This election was no exception. Neither Conservative nor Liberal platforms deigned to use the word “inequality”.

Global inequality has reached a level unseen since World War I, and the parallels are frightening. International free trade was at historic highs in the decades leading up to that war when the top 1 per cent in the major world economies had accumulated so much wealth that ordinary people within those countries could no longer afford to buy the goods they were producing. This created a demand crisis and unleashed a wave of nationalistic tariffs to protect what remained of domestic markets. What started as a trade war between nationalistic elites to preserve profit, spiraled into a world war which claimed the lives of millions.