0:00

Throughout the Nineteen eighties, A.

0:02

Strange phenomenon with sweeping North

0:04

America. They were in a

0:06

panic and like people in a panic. they

0:08

want solutions. Allegations of underground

0:11

say ten at cults torturing

0:13

and terrorizing children. The

0:16

thing is, there were no satanic

0:19

cult preying on children, and nearly

0:21

thirty years later, the people touched

0:23

by it all are still picking

0:25

up the pieces. To

0:28

work of fiction to do the

0:30

work of history say tannic panic

0:33

available now. This

0:37

is a Cbc podcast. Welcome.

0:46

To Ideas I'm Nala I

0:48

add. As you can well

0:51

imagine, it is a distinct

0:53

honor to be part of

0:55

the lineage. The Massey Lectures

0:57

A Canadian institution. Jennifer Welsh

1:00

delivered that twenty sixteen C

1:02

B C Massey Lectures. But

1:05

it's also very daunting to be that

1:07

lecture and given the brief that's given

1:09

to those of us who deliver the

1:11

Massey Lectures, were told that we can

1:13

talk about anything we want, and so

1:16

when you're first given that invitation, you

1:18

spend weeks and months thinking about what

1:20

it is that you want to talk

1:22

about. But. It didn't take

1:24

very long for Jennifer to know what she

1:27

wanted to talk about. What? I

1:29

really would like to do in

1:31

the lectures is bland. The personal

1:33

and professional to share with you

1:36

to let you see a little

1:38

bit of the evolution of my

1:40

own thinking about the development and

1:43

the trajectory of liberal democracy. The

1:46

trajectory of Liberal democracy has

1:48

been a focal point for

1:50

much of Jennifer Welch's illustrious

1:52

career. She. Was the professor

1:54

and chair of International Relations at European University

1:56

Institute in Florence, Italy for which she got

1:58

a lot of hardship. Aiming for me. That's

2:02

Ideas Executive producer Greg Kelly,

2:04

introducing Jennifer to the audience

2:06

at Massey College as part

2:09

of his sixtieth Anniversary Celebrations,

2:11

which featured past Massey speakers

2:13

like Jennifer Wealth. She was

2:16

educated at a summer college and with

2:18

a fellow Ups and college I should

2:20

say cofounder the Oxford Institute for Ethics,

2:22

Law and Armed Conflicts, has taught International

2:24

relations at the Nurses Toronto, the Central

2:26

European University in Prague, and for was

2:28

born and raised return scouts when it

2:31

is of makes you descendants she's now

2:33

at Mcgill, where's he's the kind of

2:35

One Fifty research chair and Global Governance

2:37

and Security. And it's

2:39

a delight to see you him for threats to be

2:41

here. Jennifer Well says

2:43

lectures were called the Return of

2:46

History. So

2:50

your box. The return of History

2:52

begins. In November

2:54

Nineteen Eighty Nine. New Quarterback to

2:56

yourself, you write that you quote

2:58

jumped aboard a flight to Berlin

3:00

to be there. That. Sounds

3:02

sudden. It sounds compulsive. So I want to know

3:05

what drove you to jump on that side in

3:07

the first place your since. I

3:09

was a second year. Phd.

3:12

Student. Studying. In

3:14

the Uk. At. St

3:16

Anthony's College Oxford, which.

3:19

At that time featured

3:21

a number of. Writers:

3:23

And thinkers with real connections to

3:26

Eastern Europe, various countries in Eastern

3:28

Europe and it was a very

3:30

dynamic place for discussions of what

3:33

was going on in the world.

3:35

And suddenly enough, I had been

3:37

to the Soviet Union in March

3:40

of Nineteen Eighty Nine. Ah, before

3:42

all of these tumultuous changes. and

3:44

I had also been to Prod

3:46

in Ah in Nineteen Eighty Nine

3:49

before the Fall of The Law,

3:51

and about. Six. Weeks

3:53

before the Berlin Wall cel

3:55

I remember those of us

3:57

studying international relations in my

3:59

kind of cult Phd cohort

4:01

sitting around and someone said

4:03

to we ever think the

4:05

Berlin Wall will be demolished

4:07

and I remember saying.in my

4:09

lifetime. And it'll

4:12

many of us thought the same

4:14

thing night that it was frozen

4:16

in place because especially when you're

4:18

learning and about international relations a

4:20

big gonna structural forces you think

4:23

change his heart and we began

4:25

to watch on the Bbc. Dot.

4:28

Weekend in November. The

4:31

beginnings of a huge huge global shift

4:33

that was really be getting with the

4:35

movement of individual people and their decisions.

4:38

The decisions of those who were wanting

4:40

to leave, but also the decisions of

4:42

of far East European border guards to

4:44

let them go. And so. Watching.

4:47

Tv I said to my friends the

4:50

time. Go. Let's

4:52

go and see what's happening. We've got the

4:54

time. We. Don't have the money

4:56

but is cheap flights and the source

4:58

and it's a short distance and one

5:01

of the three ah in my group

5:03

spoke German. And. So

5:05

we went down to what was

5:07

then called Sta Travel Student Travel.circuits

5:10

and when's the next day with

5:12

a very small bag. And

5:15

booked into some cheap accommodation, but

5:17

spent our entire time down by

5:19

the wall on the western. Or. Nine

5:21

on your on the flight. Now let's get you

5:23

on the cell case. You've made the jump. You

5:25

bought your tickets and your en route. What?

5:28

Is going through you when you're on that

5:30

site and dissipating. You're. right? I'm

5:34

anticipating that. It's going

5:37

to be difficult for

5:39

us. To. really understand the

5:41

monumental things that are happening i'm

5:43

worried about as we made a

5:45

mistake is this kind of a

5:47

large you know what is what

5:50

do we really going to find

5:52

when we get there so there's

5:54

a certain amount of trepidation for

5:56

sure but also a huge excitement

5:58

right just an inkling that this

6:00

is the kind of thing you can do when

6:03

you're in your 20s without a family without

6:05

a family of your

6:07

own without a full-time job right you

6:09

can you can do this kind of

6:11

thing right so there was a mixture

6:13

of this is a good idea are we really

6:15

gonna find anything when we get there but

6:18

also this is amazing that I can do this

6:20

well what did you find when you got

6:22

there paint the scene you write you finally get

6:24

arrived cab or whatever you arrive at the wall

6:26

and it's a

6:28

total party atmosphere amazing

6:31

right on the western side of

6:33

the wall huge

6:35

celebrations I remember there were these loop

6:37

tons of steward and

6:39

stewardesses with like trays of food

6:42

handing out to people and you had all

6:45

of the bleachers with all

6:47

of the anchor people you know

6:49

ABC CBS BBC and

6:51

little I mean the

6:53

wall was still largely intact

6:56

and there was a couple of places where

6:58

there were holes and

7:00

interestingly East Europeans came

7:02

through they were given money when they came

7:04

through I think

7:08

it was a thousand doishmark kind of

7:10

gift but also

7:13

many were coming through and we're

7:15

going straight to electronic stores in

7:18

West Berlin and in those

7:20

days the prized possession was the

7:22

ghetto blaster right you remember those

7:25

and they were buying ghetto blasters and they were

7:27

going back right they didn't

7:29

think at this time that this was permanent

7:32

it was some sort of maybe

7:36

maybe for a weekend we're gonna be allowed to

7:38

cross I mean of course some people did leave

7:40

and and flee but there

7:42

was a lot of trepidation that we saw in

7:45

those East Germans but on the western

7:47

side you know huge excitement party atmosphere

7:49

even at night big lights shining

7:52

on the Berlin wall and then

7:54

we went around we took the subway and we went

7:56

to East Berlin and one of the things I was

7:58

interested to do was

8:01

to talk to those that had been

8:03

involved in these regular meetings

8:05

in churches in East Berlin that

8:08

had been the foundation for the movement to

8:10

press for change and there was a group

8:13

called Nuvo Forum and they

8:16

were meeting in churches predominantly in Eastern

8:18

Berlin at the time and we

8:21

really wanted to talk to some of them to

8:23

learn about What do you think

8:25

about all of this? And the main

8:27

thing I remember through my friend who was

8:29

the interpreter was

8:32

and I always think about this because I Believe

8:37

fundamentally when we look back at

8:39

big historical events in retrospect

8:44

We have a tendency to think that

8:46

the changes that unfold are kind

8:48

of inevitable like they were destined

8:50

to happen, right? So Germany was

8:52

destined to be reunified to have

8:55

you know one currency all of

8:57

that those people in those Churches

8:59

were saying to us We

9:01

want East Germany to be free, but we

9:04

don't necessarily want it to be a capitalist

9:06

society. We have a different vision We're

9:09

not sure we want to be unified

9:11

right away. We're not sure But

9:13

what we do know is we want to be out

9:16

from under the oppression of

9:18

a communist system But we really want

9:20

to decide for ourselves. What's what's

9:22

the future we want? the

9:24

steamroller of the

9:27

Deutschmark and Unification soon

9:29

took over but I always remember

9:31

that because I think that's the

9:33

bit of history I

9:35

wish we paid more attention to is what

9:38

people were thinking at the time and you

9:40

have a physical reminder of all of this

9:42

in your possession Yes, so

9:46

It got lost for a little while, but I found it recently we

9:51

Chipped off our own pieces of the wall So

9:53

I have a lovely piece that I didn't buy

9:55

years later that many many people did I Have

9:58

my own. That I haven't

10:00

Recently I was telling greg when you

10:03

have teenagers, they really aren't that interested

10:05

in you. But recently we

10:07

were having a conversation about the Cold

10:09

War in my house and I said

10:11

my fourteen and sixteen realize that something

10:13

you might want to see and for

10:15

about ten minutes I was cool. You

10:17

know because I had a i had

10:19

a piece of the Berlin wall and

10:22

I to tell them the I could

10:24

tell them the story and I pulled

10:26

out the magazines that I bought from

10:28

that time and the newspaper said I

10:30

had the German newspapers. If

10:42

you fucking seat of almost

10:45

every generation to think they're

10:47

living in extraordinary times. and

10:49

for my parents' generation that

10:51

was the time of the

10:54

Second World War, the miracle

10:56

of post for reconstruction and

10:58

for my generation it was

11:00

the end of the Cold

11:03

War. And

11:05

astute observer. How's the fall of

11:07

the Wall? Ah, the British journalist

11:09

Timothy Darkness referred to it is

11:11

the biggest street party in the

11:13

world. Are that weekends in

11:15

Berlin? And that's how it felt

11:18

to those of us who were

11:20

there who were watching and at

11:22

the time with not the. Certainty.

11:24

We have ends in hindsight that

11:26

Germany would be were unify, the

11:29

communism would fall but certainly a

11:31

sense that you were at the

11:33

center. Ah, Us. History. And

11:36

of course, it was hard for all

11:38

of us to keep up with what

11:41

came after these rolling revolutions. One more.

11:43

Dictator falling until ultimately the

11:46

Soviet Union, as we all

11:48

know itself, collapsed. And

11:51

in the midst of those

11:53

two miles who was advance

11:56

the American political commentator Francis

11:58

Fukuyama wrote his now. Famous

12:00

essay ah the end.

12:02

Of History and it's his

12:05

article and his predictions. That

12:08

are my dancing partner

12:11

throughout. These size

12:13

nexus. Sugiyama

12:15

Central claimed at many of you

12:17

will remember was it? It just

12:19

wasn't The end of the cold.

12:21

War. It was the end

12:24

of our social, cultural and

12:26

political evolution, the end of

12:28

the class of ideas, the

12:31

end of history as see

12:33

defined it. And.

12:35

As a consequence, Of liberal

12:38

democracies victory and it's diffusion

12:40

that he. Predicted. We

12:43

would see the waning of power politics.

12:46

And a more peaceful world.

12:49

And certainly for the initial Cold

12:51

War, the post Cold War period,

12:53

he looked as though he was

12:56

right. Ah, the number of democracies

12:58

did increase and there was a

13:00

decline in the number and intensity

13:02

of wars that we saw. An

13:05

to decline in mass migration

13:07

and during the nineteen Nineties,

13:10

the United States and Russia

13:12

began to collaborate. On.

13:15

The. World's Problems To Manage the

13:17

World's Problems. The United

13:19

States withdrew many of it's. Military

13:21

forces from Europe. The

13:24

North Atlantic Treaty Alliance expanded

13:26

to take in the countries

13:28

of central and. Eastern Europe.

13:31

Be orbit of the European Union

13:33

expanded as well and it took

13:35

on deepening. Forms of cooperation.

13:38

That's the plan for

13:40

the Euro and developed

13:42

it's institutions. And

13:44

of course, the United Nations itself.

13:47

Came out of that cold War

13:49

saddle. The. Grid lock that

13:51

has gripped it ah through

13:54

the superpower. vetoes in the

13:56

Security Council. And in the

13:58

nineteen nineties and important institutions. But we

14:00

now take. For granted, were created

14:03

within the Un, Un Office

14:05

of The High Commissioner for

14:07

Human Rights only created in

14:09

Nineteen Ninety Three in those

14:11

heady days and Un Office

14:13

For The Coordination Of Humanitarian

14:15

Affairs. And why was

14:17

Fukuyama as. Ceases. So

14:20

appealing. It was so appealing because.

14:22

It contained within it

14:24

this audacious notion of

14:26

progress. And it was

14:28

based on his reading of the

14:30

nineteenth century German philosopher Hegel, who

14:33

believed. In the progress of

14:35

history in terms of the reconciliation

14:37

of class in ideas. Also. Propelled

14:40

by technological change, And

14:43

of course he claims city yeah,

14:45

I'm a following haidl that history

14:47

would effectively and and liberal democracy

14:50

would be the dieting etiology for

14:52

the modern state and less. Remember

14:55

then what the components of that?

14:57

that victory and that model worth

14:59

It wasn't just freely elected governments

15:02

as one pillow. But

15:04

also the promotion of individual

15:06

rights am the creation of

15:09

a capitalist economic system. Will

15:12

relatively modest. State.

15:14

Oversight. So. The

15:17

ideal model Fukuyama used to

15:19

say was liberal democracy in

15:21

the political sphere combined with

15:23

easy access to Vcrs. And

15:25

stereos. In the economic sphere.

15:27

we also need to remember.

15:30

That the triumph. Of Liberal Democracy

15:32

was by no means a

15:34

foregone conclusion. It was

15:37

a product of unpredictable political

15:39

forces. Particular. Historical

15:41

moments. Democracy of course, is

15:43

a very old principal. One

15:46

that's based on this

15:49

deceptively simple idea. Of

15:51

rule by the people, Rule by the

15:54

demos. It's. Central claim

15:56

that individuals shouldn't be powerless

15:58

subjects. Check the

16:00

whim of tyrants but should have a

16:03

say. In creating the rules

16:05

by which they are governed.

16:09

In. Preparation for this. Eyes took a

16:11

look again at the table of Contents

16:13

and when at the chapter headings. My

16:15

I seized on the quote return to

16:17

Barbarism and I couldn't help but think

16:20

of what's going on or does it

16:22

Israel, ah, Russia's war in Ukraine and

16:24

a toxic rhetoric we're hearing all over

16:26

the place. Whether it's getting rid of

16:28

vermin, this is President Trump in the

16:31

lead up to the Twenty Twenty Four

16:33

looking ahead and so on. And

16:36

the rise and the entrenchment of

16:38

authoritarian leaders. All. Over the

16:41

place is trump is prudent. It's aired

16:43

one in Turkey or been in Hungary,

16:45

lay in Argentina and see and China.

16:47

So I'm wondering when you look around

16:50

Now is and if you were to

16:52

add another chapter to the Return of

16:54

History would one of those chapters be?

16:56

Would one of those lectures be the

16:59

return of the Test Bought The return

17:01

of Authoritarianism. Yes,

17:04

I think it would make a great.

17:07

Addition. As a chapter it

17:09

because one of the seems I

17:12

tried to drown in the return

17:14

of History when I was writing

17:16

it in late twenties. sixteen And

17:18

early twenties. sixteen was that. Democracy

17:21

is not preordained. As

17:23

a form of government. That. It's

17:25

not something that. Human

17:28

beings naturally fall into it's not

17:30

a natural resting place. it's not

17:33

a system of government about which

17:35

we can be at all complacent.

17:37

And the argument I was making

17:40

the book was that our political

17:42

leaders and are populations in Western

17:45

liberal democracies had become very complacent,

17:47

and they were beginning to behave

17:49

as though they could push their

17:52

democratic systems to the limit. And

17:54

that they wouldn't fall off a cliff because the

17:57

older so resilience, They. Can withstand

17:59

anything. And. I wanted

18:01

to show that when you actually look back in

18:03

history. Autocracy and authoritarianism is

18:05

still the most common form of

18:07

government. And even after

18:10

we had periods of democracy.

18:12

In. The early twentieth century. We.

18:15

Went backwards. And and

18:17

when I wrote the book, been

18:19

of Freedom House was beginning to

18:21

describe. The. Democratic recession that we

18:23

were starting to see what. Worldwide.

18:25

Freedom has being Freedom. House Being

18:27

that the organization that tracks the

18:30

data collection, the reversals in civil

18:32

and political liberties and other markers

18:34

of political freedom that does it

18:36

every year. And. It was

18:38

beginning to show that the number

18:41

of countries. That were freer

18:43

than the year before. Was.

18:45

Beginning to decline and had been

18:47

declining. and I think that's that's

18:49

only continued. And so I think

18:51

this idea of the return of

18:53

the autocrat. The. Return

18:55

of. And. Sorry

18:57

to say they are mostly all

19:00

men. Let's return of the strong

19:02

man leader. I think

19:04

is definitely ah, a phenomenon that

19:06

is widespread today. It's not to

19:08

slam your pooch and we can

19:10

also think those are the President

19:12

of Turkey. We can think of

19:14

the new newly elected leader of

19:16

Argentina we can think of also

19:18

narrow we can think of many

19:20

others and just a style of

19:22

politics that it's that. It's not

19:24

just you know sovereignty, his authority.

19:27

I am the authoritarians. I

19:29

am the source of authority in my

19:32

state, but it's sovereignty of domination, right?

19:34

What I'm seeking to do through my

19:36

rule is to dominate. And

19:39

I think that is a really.

19:42

Powerful, Shift. That.

19:44

is returning and it's unapologetic and

19:46

i am not surprised to know

19:48

that a preponderance of men particular

19:50

old men want way too much

19:52

power that's always been around for

19:55

what i find grimly fascinating is

19:57

to support from the ground up

19:59

for the kinds of figures that

20:01

it is out there. Support for democracy

20:03

worldwide is going down and going

20:06

down among younger demographics because it's democracy

20:08

that's a mask for the

20:11

status quo which doesn't benefit me. I

20:13

don't believe in it. This kind of

20:15

skepticism is not necessarily that people are

20:17

gravitating in these younger demographics towards what

20:20

they're kind of checking out on the

20:22

ideal of democracy. But we've

20:24

noticed this. What do you think accounts

20:26

for this ground up ordinary people out

20:29

there who want the strong men, who

20:31

want that kind of authoritarian, that kind

20:33

of despotic presence to be their political

20:35

voice? What do you think accounts for

20:37

that? Yeah, it's

20:39

a good question. It's a complex question.

20:41

But I think fundamentally

20:44

it's about two things, right? One

20:46

is the capacity

20:50

of those strong men to

20:53

identify and verbalize

20:56

the sense of grievance that those

20:58

people have and to say

21:00

that they have an answer to it. The

21:02

answer is whatever scapegoat they

21:04

want to point to. To

21:07

definitively say this is the reason for

21:09

the way, why you feel aggrieved about

21:11

X or Y. But

21:14

I think the other reason is

21:16

a little bit more deep-seated about

21:18

democracy itself. So you're right, Greg,

21:20

that we are seeing data

21:23

about democratic values. When

21:25

you poke at this, and I think

21:27

it does differ among youth across

21:30

the world, you see

21:32

that there's still huge levels

21:34

of support for the basic

21:36

values at the heart of democracy.

21:39

They're attractive. But there

21:41

is discontent with what democracy

21:43

is delivering. And those are

21:45

two different things. And I think

21:47

the reason for that is

21:50

that democracy is fundamentally about two

21:52

kinds of equality. The

21:54

first is equality of participation. Everyone

21:57

needs to vote. We need to have freedom

21:59

of association. We need to have freedom of

22:02

speech. But the

22:04

other is a quality of

22:06

consideration, right? That everyone's views

22:09

are considered and taken

22:11

into account, and interests are taken

22:13

into account in democratic systems. And

22:16

we can't say that that's any longer the case

22:19

in contemporary mature democracies.

22:23

That there are certain sets of interest that

22:26

are getting prioritized over others. So

22:43

I want to shift tonight from the

22:45

big and sometimes intractable issues

22:47

like migration and war, and

22:49

talk much more about what's going on

22:52

in our own cities and our own communities,

22:54

and the way that history is

22:56

returning in the form of extreme

22:59

inequality. I want to talk

23:01

about its corrosive effects. As

23:04

prominent economists have recently argued,

23:07

economic inequality is also bad

23:09

for the economy in

23:11

ways that neoliberals didn't want to

23:13

admit. But what

23:15

I also want to focus on is

23:18

the way that it affects social

23:20

cohesion, and even individual

23:22

behavior, it affects our sympathies,

23:24

it affects our moral sentiments.

23:27

I want to challenge the myths

23:29

that continue to circulate, that

23:31

inequality somehow helps our economies

23:34

grow, and that it is the

23:36

just result of hard work. And

23:39

I want to talk instead about how I think

23:42

it is undermining contemporary

23:44

liberal democracy. Some

23:47

narratives like the end of history, like Fuquiama's

23:49

book, can make us very

23:52

resigned and overconfident about

23:55

the stability of our own system. And

23:57

I think it's time to shake that up. So

24:01

let me start by talking about

24:03

the contours of today's inequality, because

24:05

one of the most often cited

24:07

benefits of globalization is its

24:10

fostering of economic growth, and

24:12

by implication its contribution

24:14

to reducing poverty levels

24:16

worldwide. So

24:19

Branko Milanovic, who for a decade

24:21

was the World Bank's chief economist,

24:24

has showed us how the mean incomes

24:26

of countries across the globe have

24:29

started to converge since the end of the

24:31

Cold War. So according

24:33

to his data, the two decades between 1988

24:35

and 2008 marked the first decline in

24:41

economic inequality between world citizens

24:43

since the dawn of the

24:45

Industrial Revolution. And we've

24:48

seen a decrease in the number of people

24:50

living on $1.25, it now is, per day, which

24:54

is the World Bank measure of

24:56

extreme poverty. These

24:59

figures undoubtedly signify progress,

25:02

but globalization has winners and losers.

25:05

Those at the top of the economic pyramid,

25:08

those in the so-called global 1%, have done spectacularly

25:12

well. They've increased their incomes

25:15

by 60% during this 20-year period. In

25:20

2015, the wealthiest 1% of Americans held 35% of the

25:22

country's wealth, and that concentration actually

25:30

increased when you took

25:32

housing assets out of the mix. And

25:35

of course, even within that 1%, you

25:38

have the super, super rich, the 0.1%, who take

25:40

home just

25:43

over 11% of America's total income. And

25:48

increasingly, that super rich is

25:50

constituting a nation unto

25:53

themselves. But their affluence

25:55

is occurring against a backdrop

25:57

of significant underemployment, stagnating

26:00

incomes and declining living standards

26:02

among ordinary Americans, the hollowing

26:05

out of the middle class.

26:08

Now these trends, among other things,

26:11

deal a mortal blow to

26:13

the theory of trickle-down economics,

26:15

which was made so popular

26:18

during the Reagan era, which

26:20

theorizes that when the rich do well, the

26:22

rest of the population also benefits. But

26:25

this pattern of inequality repeats

26:28

itself to varying degrees in

26:30

other liberal democracies. So

26:32

we should be wary of falling prey to this

26:35

idea of American exceptionalism, that

26:37

they're the outlier. Yes, they're

26:39

the most extreme example, but

26:41

it's happening in many liberal

26:43

democracies. In Canada,

26:46

over the past three decades, the top 1% of

26:50

Canada's income earners captured 37%

26:53

of income growth in this country. But

26:56

even more alarming for me is

26:58

the source and the nature of

27:01

today's inequality, and in particular how

27:03

it's undermining the meritocratic values

27:06

that are so crucial for liberal

27:08

democracy to thrive. So

27:11

Thomas Piketty in his book posits

27:13

that when countries have a high

27:16

capital income ratio, as they did in

27:18

the late 19th century, accumulated

27:21

and inherited wealth becomes

27:23

the most determining factor of

27:26

an individual's well-being. And

27:28

so this is why so many 19th

27:32

century novels are about marrying

27:34

into wealth or the

27:36

struggle of the poor to reach affluence,

27:38

as in Mark Twain's book, The Gilded

27:40

Age. And so ever

27:42

since the whole idea of a Gilded

27:45

Age has become a metaphor for

27:47

a historical period in the

27:49

late 19th century, when the United States as

27:51

well as Great Britain and France and Russia

27:54

saw a combination of materialist

27:56

excess and poverty.

28:00

So on the one hand, this period gave rise

28:02

to old couture, Victorian architecture,

28:04

but of course on the other

28:06

hand, it gave rise to

28:08

the Dickensian slums and the passage

28:10

of poor laws that tried

28:12

to limit who could gain economic relief.

28:16

So in shifting our gaze back

28:19

to that era, today's

28:22

economists of inequality, and

28:24

there's a growing number of them, have

28:26

reminded us of its dark underbelly. Contemporary

28:30

economic disparity is primarily

28:32

driven by the ownership of assets, much

28:35

in the same way as it was

28:37

in the run up to the First World

28:39

War, when wealth was

28:41

concentrated in the hands of

28:43

a few rich families. And

28:45

in this era, capitalism was

28:47

automatically generating arbitrary

28:50

and what proved to be unsustainable

28:52

inequalities. But remember,

28:55

history never repeats itself

28:57

fully. It returns with

28:59

a modern twist. So

29:01

one of the things that's interesting about our

29:04

period today is that more and

29:06

more people within the 1%, the

29:08

top 1% are wealthy both

29:10

in terms of their salaries, their

29:13

income, and their ownership of

29:15

assets. So labor and

29:17

capital isn't separated in the same way

29:20

as it was, say, in

29:22

the era of Downton Abbey. But

29:25

the implication remains the same. Individuals

29:27

will become better off, not

29:30

primarily through a lifetime of

29:32

hard work, as suggested

29:34

by the American dream, but

29:36

through how much capital they inherit. All

29:49

ideas, you're listening to Jennifer Welsh,

29:52

reflecting on her 2016 CBC

29:54

Massie lectures, The Return of

29:56

History. Ideas

29:59

is a podcast. which you can find

30:01

on the CBC Listen app or wherever you

30:03

get your podcasts. And

30:05

we're also a broadcast heard on CBC

30:07

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30:10

North America on US Public Radio

30:12

and on Sirius XM, in

30:15

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30:17

National and around the

30:19

world at cbc.ca/ideas. I'm

30:22

Nala Aied. The

30:24

past is shrouded in mystery. To

30:27

understand it, you have to get

30:29

up close. Something

30:31

happened to our collective psyche. How

30:33

did we handle it? At

30:38

NPR's Throughline, we reopened stories from

30:40

the past to find clues to

30:42

the present. Find Throughline

30:44

wherever you get your podcasts. In

30:49

your 2016 Massey Lecturers, you

30:53

have one of them dedicated to

30:56

the... I'm going

30:58

to start that over because I didn't put on my glasses. That's

31:01

Ideas executive producer Greg Kelly

31:04

talking with Jennifer Welsh. Their

31:06

conversation was part of a series of

31:08

events marking the 60th anniversary

31:11

of Massey College, a partner in

31:13

the Massey Lecturers. In

31:15

your 2016 Massey's, you talk about the

31:18

return of inequality, and you tie that

31:20

to this principle of fairness, which

31:23

is perhaps an umbrella term for the two points that

31:25

you just raised. Fairness

31:27

being a kind of a bedrock, perhaps

31:30

with soft contours, but nevertheless a bedrock

31:32

of democracy and support for it. In

31:34

that chapter, in that lecture on the

31:37

return of inequality, you discuss

31:39

wealth disparities and draw on research from

31:41

a psychologist at UC Berkeley, and

31:44

how the richer one gets, the

31:47

more entitlement one gets, and the more

31:49

one feels almost ontologically to be at

31:51

a different, more elevated level of existence

31:53

than anyone else. I

31:55

was just thinking of the burgeoning billionaire class. Now,

31:57

for me, when I hear a billionaire, It just

31:59

sounds like a million only more because they rhyme.

32:01

It's you just take the M out and put

32:03

a B in it. It's

32:05

not the case. So for one

32:07

of these factoids, how much is a billion? If I

32:10

get it right, if you wanted to have

32:12

a billion dollars and you saved or earned $100 a day,

32:16

how much time do you think it would take to get a billion? It's

32:18

over 27,000 years to get a billion. And

32:22

Forbes Magazine for 2023 has listed 195 billionaires who

32:28

have $10 billion or more. And

32:31

I'm wondering what this chasm, this

32:34

almost inconceivable disparity in wealth has

32:37

done to this sense of fairness

32:39

that you identified in your 2016

32:41

lectures. Yeah,

32:43

I think it's a really important question.

32:45

You're right. I didn't intend to

32:47

write that chapter when I started. And

32:50

it was the one that I learned the

32:53

most writing because I'm

32:56

a scholar of international relations. I haven't spent

32:59

my time studying that

33:01

much inside democracies. But

33:04

it became really clear to me that

33:07

when we were looking at the malaise

33:09

and democracies, we were overlooking the fact

33:12

that fairness is a

33:14

value that is a precondition, a sense of

33:16

fairness for a well-functioning

33:18

democracy. We often

33:20

point to other values, right? Again,

33:23

equality, respect, fairness,

33:25

and a sense of fairness is

33:28

a deep psychological need

33:32

that humans have. Anyone who has children,

33:34

more than one child, knows this to

33:36

be the case. Or even the

33:38

primatologist, Franz. Absolutely. So I looked

33:41

at these experiments with chimpanzees,

33:44

which were exposed to situations of unfairness

33:47

and how they responded. And one of

33:49

those was what? One gets us the candy. One

33:52

continually gets a grape for

33:54

doing a good job at an activity.

33:57

And the other one gets a rock for doing the same

33:59

activity. and gets more and

34:01

more outraged over time that it's getting a

34:04

rock and not a grape. And

34:07

I reflected on this a lot because I

34:09

think the fairness issue

34:12

is, there's many ways in which it's manifest,

34:14

but let's just think about two for the

34:17

moment. One is that, as I try

34:19

to show in the book, but I think has become even

34:21

more clear as we think about

34:23

the role of property and real

34:25

estate in our societies, is

34:28

that while income inequality is

34:30

a problem in advanced

34:33

liberal democracies, the

34:35

much bigger problem is wealth inequality.

34:39

That you can work and work

34:41

and work and earn

34:43

an income in a good job,

34:47

but not have the same level

34:49

of capital, level of wealth that

34:51

others have. And that wealth

34:53

inequality, which is I think your point

34:55

about the billionaire, then the

34:58

question is, what does that translate into?

35:01

And I remember very well when Tony

35:04

Blair was elected in

35:06

the UK as part of New Labour. He

35:09

and his cabinet ministers said

35:11

very loudly, Labour

35:14

doesn't care anymore if people get

35:16

stinking rich in the UK. That's

35:19

okay. But what we don't want to see

35:21

is that unequal

35:23

wealth translates into unequal

35:26

power, unequal

35:28

political access. Right.

35:31

And so I think part of the problem with

35:34

the billionaire class, but also just

35:36

the way that contemporary democracies

35:39

are responding unequally to sets of

35:41

interests, is that the

35:43

interests of the wealthy are

35:45

being acted upon much more consistently, or

35:48

it's perceived to be the case by

35:51

our political systems. And that's where the

35:53

sense of fairness comes in. I also

35:55

think, just as a last point, that

35:58

fairness plays out in terms of our crisis. in

36:01

representation, right? So our

36:03

traditional liberal democratic electoral

36:06

systems are delivering

36:08

political results in terms

36:10

of in our system seats and where they're from

36:13

and who forms government that are

36:15

increasingly not perceived, and I

36:17

use that word to

36:19

be fair, and that's all

36:22

part of this piece. And so a lack

36:25

of a sense of fairness erodes

36:28

liberal democracy from within, and I

36:30

really believe that's a big part of

36:32

what we're witnessing now. And

36:35

this crisis, that was your word, this crisis that

36:37

we're facing now, you know, I know

36:40

that in your

36:42

lectures, the return of history, Francis

36:44

Fukuyama is referenced a fair bet,

36:46

you know, the end of history. I

36:49

think originally an article with a question mark at the end

36:51

of it, did I get that right? But then it became

36:53

the mantra that we're at the end of history liberal democracy

36:55

is triumph, there's no other option. And so for a while,

36:57

it looked like 1989 was maybe like 1789, only without

37:03

the blood and the guillotine and so on. In

37:06

retrospect, is it more like 1848, which

37:08

is often nicknamed the year in which history failed to turn?

37:11

It's a great question. One of

37:14

the people I talk about in the beginning of the book

37:17

is Timothy Garton Ash, who

37:20

was one of the chroniclers of the

37:22

changes in Eastern Europe

37:25

at the time. And he said a few years

37:27

ago, you know, there's a segment

37:29

of the population who are the 1989ers,

37:31

right? Who are

37:33

the people who came of age in this

37:37

period of optimism. And

37:39

you know, I have to admit, I'm a

37:41

1989er, right? When he said it,

37:43

I thought, that's me, I'm, I'm, I

37:46

very much was caught up in

37:48

that period of euphoria,

37:51

believing that this was

37:53

a change That was

37:55

going to be progressive, and

37:57

that it was a sustainable change.

38:00

And I wouldn't go as far as to

38:02

say it's eighteen forty eight. I

38:04

think. Many democracies are

38:06

proving to be resilient. But

38:09

you know one of the messages is

38:11

you can't count on them to be

38:13

resilient on their own. Ah, there needs

38:16

to be Not just the stewardship of

38:18

great leaders, there needs to be the

38:20

activism of ordinary people. And I. Are engaged

38:22

with that he were and. To realize that

38:24

traditional politics. Traditional.

38:27

Democratic politics is incredibly

38:29

important, and we have,

38:31

I think. Vast

38:33

segments of our population and are

38:35

younger population who no longer believed

38:37

that they are much more attracted

38:39

to another kind of politics which

38:42

is also important but I don't

38:44

think and com at the expense

38:46

of. Ah traditional taught.

38:48

At What Is that? Politics? It's more

38:51

politics around specific issues. It's a

38:53

also politics of identity, which is

38:55

incredibly important in terms of what

38:58

it's achieved. and examples mean of

39:00

politics around particular segments of society,

39:02

right? But my wishes that we

39:04

don't pursue those at the expense

39:07

of. Traditional. Politics

39:09

as well where we have to

39:11

come together. To talk

39:13

about. How we're going to

39:15

reach consensus on big society challenges and I

39:17

don't think they need to be mutually exclusive.

39:20

All I think they can be pursued. He

39:44

talked at just a little while ago about

39:47

the return of the desk bought the return

39:49

of authoritarianism. I wonder if this another kind

39:51

of return of and that is when I

39:53

look around and see the rolling back of

39:55

abortion rights at Trump's in. From his comment

39:57

that still. Kings. around the internet of

39:59

right having women and by extension

40:02

an entire country by the private parts

40:04

or millets, in Argentina swinging around his

40:07

chainsaw, or Putin with his bare

40:09

chest on the horse, or playing hockey at which

40:11

he's excreble and being allowed to score a whole

40:13

bunch of goals. There's a lot

40:16

of machismo or fake

40:18

machismo, and it's ridiculous,

40:20

but it's also quite dangerous. We

40:22

see it in the rhetoric. And I'm wondering if

40:24

in some sense that we may

40:26

be heading back into a kind of

40:29

return of unapologetic patriarchy,

40:31

this kind of chest-beating politics

40:34

that has mileage. Yeah,

40:37

I think it has mileage

40:39

in some contexts, right? And

40:42

particularly it's part of

40:45

a package

40:47

of things that some of these

40:49

leaders appeal to. When

40:52

you mentioned it, I thought of the

40:54

picture of Vladimir Putin bare-chested, was it

40:57

a tiger? I can't remember, or a horse,

40:59

or whatever he was riding, right? Well,

41:01

it's been named a billion times. Yeah,

41:03

and so this image of

41:06

strength, again, of domination, right?

41:10

And so I definitely believe

41:12

that that, and particularly when

41:14

you consider the degree to

41:16

which social media

41:19

as a platform today, if you

41:22

talk to female journalists or you talk to

41:24

politicians, is proving to be an absolutely

41:27

lethal environment, right? Where it's

41:29

fair game for

41:32

women in particular to be

41:34

harassed and attacked on

41:36

that medium, right? So I

41:38

think what you describe in some

41:40

contexts is absolutely a form of

41:42

return. Again, when

41:45

I write in the book about democracy's

41:47

progress, one of the things that

41:49

is part of that progress Is the

41:51

extension of political rights to the

41:53

identity groups? I talked about a

41:55

moment ago, right? That is incredibly

41:57

important. We Can't see the reverse.

42:00

Merciless. I again, I'm not

42:02

be complacent about them because

42:04

they can be reversed through

42:06

legislation as we're seeing in

42:08

the United States. right? I'm.

42:11

I see this committed. To present

42:13

machismo with the privilege classes. We.

42:16

Just talking about where you see yourself

42:18

so very differently when you have a

42:20

lot more than other people's I think

42:22

that U C. Berkeley psychologists. Did

42:25

some research where when it was the

42:27

honor system to give the right of

42:29

way to pedestrians and it was said

42:31

that the lines crosswalks and overwhelmingly. Statistically,

42:35

The number of cars that violated

42:37

that ah that rules were high

42:40

status cars. Or. Monopoly

42:42

or that kind of a game

42:44

was fixed and certain players got

42:46

a lot more than others and

42:48

they became more bellicose, more aggressive

42:50

and then I think in a

42:52

in a sort of parallel universe

42:54

to the geo political sphere were

42:56

at the this this kind of

42:58

our to pubescent wanna be macho

43:00

man ethos that ridiculous cage match.

43:02

That. Was proposed in and called Dance

43:04

between Ilan Mosques and Mark Zuckerberg and

43:07

I'm just the it's the unapologetic, the

43:09

kind of nakedness of this that you

43:11

can score points up with your crowd

43:14

or with enough people out there. And

43:16

it's like a twelve year old marking.

43:19

But it's also the scale of

43:21

the adventures right that I think

43:23

are so ah, in which the.

43:26

Was it's a Titan. That exploded

43:28

on the bottom near the Titanic.

43:31

And. I just remember the juxtaposition.

43:34

As. Dot. Adventure

43:36

Yes, someone was seeking out. You

43:38

know, the thrill of a lifetime.

43:41

It's huge expense that at the

43:43

same time. That. You

43:45

know, Public. Money I

43:47

believe was being invested

43:50

in rescuing that crew.

43:52

We. Had hundreds of people dying.

43:55

Refugees. On the Mediterranean.

43:57

And what A or he got told time and.

44:00

What story got called. And

44:02

it just it just shows you

44:04

have the attention, the attention and

44:07

mine share of that we give

44:09

to these. Suge. Displays

44:11

of of adventure and status.

44:14

And for me, that was the message I

44:16

took away from that whole episode. Not that

44:18

I felt bad for the families of those

44:21

who are on the floor of the seas

44:23

x to the Titanic that I just remember

44:25

thinking six hundred people decide. On

44:27

the Mediterranean at the same time

44:29

who were not rescued. Know

44:31

in retrospect we learned they could has

44:34

been. You know there were coast guards

44:36

that knew where they were. That.

44:38

There was no investment in rescue are have

44:41

any a lab It was the split screen

44:43

between those two things that made me sit

44:45

back and ask, you know where our priorities?

44:47

Where are we allocating. Ah, Or

44:50

mindshare. Or. Even individualized

44:52

the six hundred, I don't believe

44:54

much or any of that actually

44:56

happened. We don't profiles of the

44:58

people in the sub. Limited.

45:00

Some turns out we were brought up to

45:03

use immediately shut Up close and Personal and

45:05

some of these profiles, but there is. It.

45:07

Was a number. When. It came to

45:10

the refugees now, and so if

45:12

we're looking at that kind of

45:14

rich return of the privileged class,

45:16

I wonder to introduce another potential

45:18

addition to the return of history

45:20

If. We. Might be

45:22

on the cusp of the return

45:24

to empire I'm thinking of look,

45:26

look at a Chinese posturing and

45:28

in Asia and South Asia? Ah,

45:31

A. Perennial. Member. On

45:33

that list of empires, always the United States,

45:36

and of course Russia, it's worn, Ukraine. You.

45:39

Sense that we're on a kind of

45:41

trajectory. Or we are we on the

45:43

cusp of the return to empire. I

45:47

don't think we're going to see a return to

45:49

empire. As a general rule, Might.

45:51

i don't think it's i'm going

45:54

to be a widespread practice but

45:56

i think we are seeing particularly

45:58

in the case of rush and

46:01

to a certain extent China a Conception

46:04

that I mentioned earlier of sovereignty

46:07

as domination right that other

46:09

entities on your periphery Are

46:12

not really sovereign right are

46:14

not really independent And it's

46:16

interesting because you know when I look back

46:18

at this book, and I

46:20

have the chapter on Russia's invasion

46:23

of Crimea and I

46:25

tell the story of the beginning of that

46:27

war and the Challenge that

46:29

it posed to international order at the

46:32

time, but yet as we know the

46:34

response was

46:37

all told fairly muted and

46:39

I remember citing a phone

46:41

conversation between Angela Merkel and

46:45

Barack Obama where she is reported to

46:47

have said after Russia's invasion of Crimea

46:51

That she spoke to Vladimir Putin and that he's

46:53

living in a different world right

46:55

well. He's not living in a different world This

46:58

is the world that we're living in

47:01

that he's living in she had

47:03

a perception that somehow

47:05

through economic interdependence you could

47:08

actually change Russian behavior and

47:12

You know I recently took another trip the beginning

47:14

of November. I was in Ukraine

47:16

just a few weeks ago and what

47:21

Profound message I took away from

47:23

that visit which Was

47:26

really designed to examine

47:28

how Internally displaced

47:30

peoples are faring as a

47:32

result of the of the war was

47:35

that this is not just a

47:37

war for territory Although it is

47:39

that It's

47:41

a in in the spirit of

47:43

Empire it is designed to change

47:46

borders To bring back

47:48

into the Russian state not just into

47:50

the Russian sphere of influence, but into

47:52

the Russian state Ukrainian

47:54

territory It's

47:56

a war to degrade the

48:00

Ukrainian people to but

48:02

it fundamentally views them as not

48:04

worthy of their own sovereign state

48:06

and I emerge

48:09

with the sense that they are in a

48:11

fight for their survival as a people, right?

48:14

So many people have left they

48:16

have a human capital shortage They

48:19

lack the resources they need to

48:21

continue to develop their population. They're

48:23

a highly educated highly skilled population

48:26

But they're in a fight for their survival

48:28

not just of this wonderful land that they

48:31

have which by the way Contrary

48:33

to some American lawmakers who

48:35

I've listened to is

48:37

not a small land mass Ukraine

48:40

is a huge country and in the

48:42

American discourse, you might think it's just

48:44

some small, you know far away But

48:47

it's really aimed at the Ukrainian

48:50

people and I find this,

48:52

you know What's fascinating about that is that

48:54

this is a war of the 21st century and the 20th century

48:59

Russia is fighting a 20th

49:01

century war That

49:03

believes that if you fight to

49:06

destroy civil society of your

49:09

opponent that that is going

49:11

to weaken their resolve and That

49:13

they will eventually give up now funnily

49:15

enough. We learned in World

49:17

War two that that doesn't fully work But nonetheless,

49:19

that's the war they're fighting and Ukraine

49:22

by proxy is

49:24

fighting much more the 21st century

49:27

war of Western armies professionalized

49:30

highly strategic But

49:33

they are bogged down in

49:36

a very 20th century battle

49:39

along a front where the

49:42

Russians are deeply entrenched and Where

49:45

there's very close combat even in

49:47

a world of drones and missiles

49:50

I mean that just a different without the trench.

49:52

Absolutely. And so it just Demonstrates

49:55

to us that those kinds

49:57

of battles are are not over and I think

49:59

it was difficult in 2014

50:02

for Western leaders

50:05

to realize what

50:07

the end game really was. And

50:10

it was in part the nature of

50:12

that response and also the nature of

50:14

the West withdrawal from Afghanistan that

50:16

I think sent signals, the

50:18

wrong signals to Putin, but

50:21

signals nonetheless that this might be an act that

50:23

would go relatively

50:25

unpunished. I

50:28

began this conversation by quoting you back to yourself

50:30

from the start of the return of history. So

50:32

I'm going to end by quoting you

50:34

back to yourself from the end of the

50:37

return of history. In

50:39

a liberal democracy, if we want that

50:42

deeper transformation, we have to initiate it

50:44

ourselves. That is what the

50:46

history of the 20th century revealed. Individuals

50:48

stepping up to draw attention to

50:50

injustice, to demand greater equality of

50:52

participation and to stand up for

50:54

fairness. And they did so knowing

50:57

that the demands would likely involve some personal sacrifice.

51:00

The crises facing today's liberal democracies suggest

51:02

that we need to reread our history,

51:05

to learn more about how our

51:07

societies coped with both global and

51:09

domestic challenges and about the

51:11

particular battles fought in the name of creating

51:14

the world's best political system. And

51:16

then we need to take that history into the

51:18

present and give it our own modern twist. Well,

51:21

given everything that's occurring now and

51:24

in the intervening years since your 2016 masses, what

51:27

would that modern twist look like to you

51:29

now? Oh,

51:32

it's a great question you end with. I

51:35

think that modern

51:37

twist has to be a

51:40

renewed capacity

51:42

for democracy to deliver

51:47

fairness and justice. But

51:49

it has to do it in a much more modern way. So

51:53

in the past, fairness and justice

51:56

was about extending the

51:58

franchise. extending

52:00

political rights to the entire

52:02

population. We

52:04

have that almost complete,

52:07

I wouldn't say fully complete because I

52:09

think we have all kinds

52:11

of populations in our Western

52:13

liberal democracies living in the margins that

52:15

do not have full rights. But

52:18

I think now we have to think

52:20

about our systems of representation and how

52:23

they can deliver a new sense of fairness

52:26

but also respond to

52:28

those wider calls for justice

52:30

and particularly at least in

52:32

the Canadian context. It involves

52:34

our ongoing reckoning with our

52:37

history, with our history of

52:39

colonialism, with

52:41

our history with First Nations and Métis

52:43

people. But I think that's

52:45

the modern twist and it's

52:48

a modern twist that has to

52:50

be led by those who

52:52

were the age I was when I went to

52:54

the Berlin Wall. They have to

52:56

be engaged in this game

53:00

much more than I see them

53:02

as being. I'd like to see them feel

53:04

that there's more at stake in

53:07

their own democracies to feel like they have to

53:09

fight for it every day and really

53:12

contribute to shaping the institutions

53:15

that are going to carry us into the future. Jennifer

53:18

Welsh it's always a pleasure and a privilege

53:20

to jump on to any conversation with you.

53:22

Thank you. You

53:42

were listening to Jennifer Welsh

53:44

speaking with IDEA's executive producer

53:47

Greg Kelly. She was the 2016 Massey

53:50

Lecturer. In our

53:52

next episode we'll have an encore

53:54

presentation of her fifth and final

53:56

lecture, The Return of Inequality. This

54:00

episode is part of a series

54:02

of conversations with and about former

54:04

Massey lecturers to mark the 60th

54:07

anniversary of Massey College, a partner

54:09

in the Masseys. This

54:11

episode was produced by Greg Kelly

54:13

with additional help from Sean Foley.

54:17

Thanks to Massey College and former

54:19

Principal Natalie de Rosier. Technical

54:22

production, Danielle Duval with help

54:24

from Joe Costa and Philip

54:26

Coulter. Our web producer

54:28

is Lisa Ayoosa. The

54:30

acting senior producer is Lisa Gautry.

54:33

The executive producer of ideas is

54:36

Greg Kelly and I'm Lola

54:38

Ayeid. For

54:57

more CBC podcasts, go

55:00

to cbc.ca/ podcasts.