by the craftivist collective: this cross-stitch patch was made after reading research by Richard Wilkinson and Kate Picket on the damaging impact of income inequality
Culture Quiz (USA versus Canada)
Guess which Black Friday 2018 video below is from Winnipeg, the capital and largest city of the province of Manitoba, and which video is from Chattanooga, Tennessee (this is an easy quiz due to the imposed text).
Granted, this is not a fair representative sample, considering that hundreds of Black Friday openings across the U.S. may have been more along the lines of Winnipeg than Chattanooga. Furthermore, rather than simply taking a potshot at life in the States and what appears to be a zombie horde, we should check in on income inequality, the primary theme behind the ugly phenomenon known as Black Friday. Certainly, this capitalist holiday has been somewhat commandeered by paltry capitalist-consumers who purchase only to resell the sale items online, but many if not most consumers partaking of this day are folks who can’t readily afford the goods otherwise.
Income Inequality: Seriously, is Canada different?
Like so many other differences between Canada and the U.S., the effects of income inequality, although not salient to a tourist, can be discernible to permanent residents. And it’s not just your perception: data will back this up. The United States and the United Kingdom are two of the economies with the fastest rise in income inequality in recent decades. Nonetheless, inequality in Canada has also risen remarkably since the mid-1980s, whether you’re measuring wealth distribution with the Gini coefficient, or zooming in on particular segments like the proportion of income going to the 1%ers [data for Canada through 2011, below].
Top 1% national income share. Canada (red), United States (blue).
Make your own graphs at the World Wealth and Income Database
Keep Canada Better: Please, don’t mimic the USA
It’s reasonable to assume the sharp post-war drop in income inequality (see graph above) lasting until the 80s was enough to promote the apathetic class-unconsciousness still seen in the USA today. Almost bizarrely, the failing middle class seems to now embrace the funneling of wealth to the top while certain billionaires speak out against precisely this. If you are intrigued and want to understand why a billionaire would become an income inequality activist, listen to Warren Olney’s lengthy interview with billionaire Nick Hanauer, A Billionaire’s Warning: America’s Economic Inequality Means the Next Revolution. Due to socioeconomic and cultural differences, serious political unrest coming out of this issue will occur in the U.S. before it will occur in Canada; the ironic disease of Trumpism is only a preview of what’s to come.
Expat in Montreal partially exists to warn Canadians that what happened in the USA (not only Donald Trump, but other negatives from below the border) can happen here. Sure, it can also be avoided, but vigilance against creep is imperative. As just one example, Canadian labor law has been shifting slowly toward the American model (the “American model” being, of course, the decimation of unions). The Economist informs us—as if it were rocket science—that, “One unintended consequence of the slow demise of American unions could be worsening income inequality.” Knowing what you do not want to become is half the battle.
A radical response to radical right-wing populist leaders
Rutger Bregman argues that politicians like Geert Wilders and Donald Trump were able to slowly shift extreme ideas into the mainstream because establishment politicians have failed to come up with new, radical ideas (rather than continuing an outdated, technocratic form of politics). If you have about 15 minutes, this video offers insight into how we can move towards a Star Trek future where income inequality is not a pressing social plight: