![]() ![]() In Haiti, protests over corruption, lack of employment and extreme poverty have paralysed the functioning of the state for months. In Bolivia, the long-serving populist president, Evo Morales, was forced out of office and the country by days of urban unrest. In Chile, where economic grievances boiled over into days of mass protests, an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum summit was abandoned because of security concerns. In these circumstances, it is no accident that Latin America, with the world’s slowest economic growth and most glaring inequality, has exploded in the longest-lasting violent protests. ![]() From Quito to Beirut, extreme marginalisation of so many people living in big dysfunctional and dangerous places has boiled over into deadly unrest. Ignored by the municipal government, usually lack sanitation, clean drinking water, electricity, health care facilities and schools The injustices of this daily life underlie the anger of many of today’s protesters. In other words, poverty, gang crime, drug trafficking and all the other ills associated with an impoverished urban environment will become less manageable as overcrowding gets worse in cities, parts of which have become urban slums. Trump decision to withdraw troops from Syria opens way for dangerous Middle East power play Another 2.5 billion will move into cities in poor countries by 2050, according to the United Nations. Of a world population of 7.7 billion people, 4.2 billion, or 55%, live in cities and other urban settlements. In 1950, there were only two mega-cities with populations of 10 million or more – the New York metropolitan area and Tokyo. He writes:Įach protest in this worldwide wave has its own local dynamic and cause.īut they also share certain characteristics: fed up with rising inequality, corruption and slow economic growth, angry citizens worldwide are demanding an end to corruption and the restoration of the democratic rule of law.Ĭarey makes the useful point that, as the world becomes more urbanised, overcrowded cities are staging points in a global wave of unrest. Professor Henry Carey of Georgia State University acknowledges differences in causes of localised unrest now sweeping the world, but he also identifies shared characteristics. In January, Oxfam reported that the world’s 26 richest individuals owned as much wealth as the poorest half of the global population.īillionaires grew their combined fortunes by US$2.5 billion (A$3.66 billion) a day in 2018, while the relative wealth of the world’s poorest 3.8 billion people declined by US$500 million a day.Ī rich-poor gap is widening across the world to the point where it is no longer possible to argue that an economic growth model that advantages the few is lifting all boats. If there is a defining issue that is driving popular unrest more or less across the board, it is that people do not feel they are sharing the benefits of an extended period of global economic expansion. Local grievances are fuelling protests against an established order in places as far apart as La Paz in Bolivia and Beirut in Lebanon. Mass protests over the skewed benefits of globalisation accompanied by faltering confidence in a democratic model are challenging the assumptions on which a Western liberal capitalist system has rested. In 2019, the story has shifted dramatically. ![]() The GFC did not fuel widespread global unrest as a shell-shocked financial world came to terms with the reality of a regulatory framework that had failed. But, for the most part, that distress was confined to governments, boardrooms and the offices of international lending institutions. The Global Financial Crisis of 2007-08 was a period of intense uncertainty as a global financial system buckled. The world is in worse shape than during the GFC Washington’s defenestration of the JCPOA and its reimposition of tough sanctions on Iran has further destabilised the world’s most volatile region.Īll this and more, including an unresolved trade conflict between the US and China, virtually guarantees 2020 will stretch the sinews of a fragile global order.Īn evolving US-China technology war and risks of a technological decoupling add to the gloom. Trade war tensions sky high as Trump and Xi prepare to meet at the G20 The US has also withdrawn from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) that froze Iran’s nuclear ambitions. These include: the Paris Agreement on climate change and the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans Pacific Partnership, previously the Trans Pacific Partnership, aimed at liberalising Asia-Pacific trade. If anything, Washington is a disruptor in its abandonment of international agreements. President Donald Trump has moved the US away from its traditional role of global stabilising force. ![]()
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