Economic anthropologist Jason Hickel discusses his book "The Divide: A Brief Guide to Global Inequality and its Solutions". Jason proposes dramatic action is needed to combat global inequality rooted in real justice. Only then will we have a chance at a world where all begin on more equal footing.
More than four billion people-some 60% of humanity-live in poverty, on less than $5 per day. The standard narrative tells us this crisis is a natural phenomenon, having to do with things like climate and geography and culture. It tells us that all we have to do is give a bit of aid here and there to help poor countries up the development ladder. It insists that if poor countries would only adopt the right institutions and economic policies, they could overcome their disadvantages and join the ranks of the rich world. Hickel argues that global poverty-and the growing inequality between the rich countries of Europe and North America and the poor ones of Africa, Asia, and South America-has come about because the global economy has been designed over the course of five hundred years of conquest, colonialism, regime change, and globalization to favor the interests of the richest and most powerful nations. Global inequality is not natural or inevitable, and it is certainly not accidental.
Dr. Jason Hickel is an anthropologist, author, and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. He is a Visiting Senior Fellow at the International Inequalities Institute at the London School of Economics, and Senior Lecturer at Goldsmiths, University of London. He serves on the Statistical Advisory Panel for the UN Human Development Report 2020, the advisory board of the Green New Deal for Europe, and on the Harvard-Lancet Commission on Reparations and Redistributive Justice. Jason's research focuses on global inequality, political economy, post-development, and ecological economics.
Get the book here: goo.gle/3jIVjZ1.
Moderated by Lisa Takehana.
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