Inequality starts at the top of the u. N. Secretary general Antonio Gutierrez i says the world is at breaking point and calls for a new global deal is it possible does a pandemic offer a chance to change this is inside story. Hello and welcome to the show im sam is a band not everyone is in the same boat the 26 richest people in the world hold as much wealth as hall for its population life chances depend on gender race and whether or not a person has a disability these global inequalities are being made worse by the pandemic and the world is reaching breaking point a bleak reality laid bare by the u. N. Secretary general and tony a good show has delivered one of the most hard hitting messages he says the disparities start with the biggest institutions and they should be eradicated under a new model of Global Governance that guarantees a fair share of wealth opportunity and power. 19 has been likened to a nix ray revealing fractures in the fragile skeleton of the societies we have built is exposing fallacy is the fossils everywhere the lie that free markets can deliver else care for all the fiction that end paid care work is not work the illusion that we live in a post racist world the meat if we are all in the same boat is because while we are all floating on the same sea it is clear that some are in super yachts with others are clinging to the 15 degrees covered 1000 pandemic is approx home the tragic disconnect between selfinterest and the common interests and the huge gaps in governance structures and ethical frameworks to close those gaps and to make the new social context possible we need the new global deal to ensure that our wealth and opportunities are shared more broadly and fairly at International Level a new model for Global Governance must be based on full inclusive and equal participation in global easy to show. That we face even why they need qualities and gaps in solidarity like the the fragmented Global Response to the covered 1000 pandemic of those talk institutions good advice who are speaking about are essentially the world bank and International Monetary fund they were established under the Bretton Woods agreement reached in 1944 by 44. 00 allied nations the deal created the post world war 2 International Monetary system thats replaced the Gold Standard the u. S. Dollar became the only currency pegged to gold and the reserve to which other currencies are linked. The fixed Exchange Rate system collapsed in 1971 when the us ended the ability to convert dollars into gold. As bring in our panel into the show now we have joining us from nairobi max lawson hes the head of inequality policy at. In new delhi we have International Development economist and professor to go she and in london alexander dean hes the former chief of staff to David Cameron when he was the shadow secretary of state for education welcome to the show if i can start with j. I. T. How do you see the secretary generals call for a new global deal is it an overdue appeal for some commonsense or a idealistic vision that will never become reality well i absolutely think its open to you and i am very glad that it actually come out to it because the idea that its your job ian it could never get translated its really a reflection of our lack of political will in imagination. And he said were really at the brink cannot point to. The extremes of inequality just threatening our societies our economies yet im able to cope with the pandemic that we shouldnt been able to do. If we had the proper structures this year and it would cope with the existential threat of Climate Change and we have to basically. Protect and so i think its absolutely essential for us to do something immediately and i think the secretary general is absolutely right. That the necessity for a moment rearranging the deck chairs on the titanic i like bags fresh and let me take it to max and say do you agree with that analysis its not too idealistic its an overdue appeal for us to save ourselves from ourselves. I think it needs to be said its incredibly important i think before coronavirus it we already had an incredible on the whole world where 26 they have the same miles it was the bottom half of humanity extremes of wealth beyond what was beyond me imagination paul bunyan anyone can spend in the dark times and then a huge numbers of People Living very precarious lawyers david and miss being hit by the tsunami of the virus the economic tsunami the health of the nominee and i mean even in kenya hundreds of thousands of people out of work everyones talking about hunger. And yet even here in kenya the rich are doing so and the government even cut the top rate of income tax so its really missing any quality color if you can call it black thats exploding what was already a very on the overworld hard time people about the secretary general were talking about it and how some governments reacted to reduce the gap between rich and poor and build a more equal world discourse all right let me take that sentiment to alexander do you agree with all of that is this vision really possible to be put into reality. Well good news now i dont agree with that so were going to have a debate. The hearts of the casual. Figure out. Generous doing until. Hes one of the last president s a socialist international and i think that probably a place that. Would be i think its a mistake. That rises and falls depending on the level of commitment from its Member States here is the head of the organization implicitly or explicitly asked again. After a time when. Some of them are getting Foreign Policy multilateral organizations i think the. President from giving the orders of americas past financial contribution. Seems to me singularly foolish to be suggesting that everything is wrong when more we should be transforming our economic systems in the kind of way that the generals say but i go you will just i think this is going to be. Very positive. Its globalism and actually off Climate Change i mean basically this is a student agenda and the fact. We should try again in elected politics where youll see. What you do in 2008 we should try and get himself elected if you want to implement change in the way that he suggests we should have a democratic mandate rather than sailing palafox and then trying to deliver National Organizations all right i can say. Is angling to get in that i guess you might have something to say about this thing the appeal of the secretary general being nothing more than a set of tide leftwing quotes. Well actually i cant really believe what i just heard hes saying that the cherokee doesnt exist nor did it or didnt happen that inequality is not there is that what is being said that if you use these words that automatically some left wing student. Im actually a little surprised because i think even the Word Economic Forum in the us but no doubt its going to. Have all used these words and accepted that these things exist and that inequality is a very very serious problem but at a level joint it is quite unprecedented its data how unprecedented is it though for a u. N. Secretary general to speak so openly against the system which many would say he works with if not represents i mean the un Voting Rights that doesnt doesnt alexander have a point when he says you know youre taking a bit of a gamble when you speak out against the very institutions youre representing. Well i think its really just a question of recognizing i mean this is really the indication of how far could send our team and how her right and everything because secretary generals in the past have have used much stronger language if you go back to how much older you cant i mean they used much much stronger language actually so its really a question of the fact that we now have in power regimes in the United States and in that section which im willing to give any age and it didnt leave representing the interests of very small elite in their countries and willing to take all its National Institutions i actually do crush them. If they are not able to be right that it let me give alex a quick chance to come in and then i know max has something to say more go to max very quickly. Well i think there is a column and there is an answer problem isnt as its been outlined by my fellow campest who believe that we live in terrible inequality when it actually quality of life and length of life that people around the world has increased remarkably thanks to capitalism and free trade the problem we face and it is being corrected now i think is the point of the other panelist skin the sort of numbers that maxs is telling us is that yeah that may have been achieved but now it seems like the curve is going down with a handful of people having more or as much money is half the world its to give me the problem that we face economic nationalism and protectionism its not the suggestion that we should try to smuggle through the left wing policies of socalled equal isolation which you wouldnt be able to deliberately ballot box if you actually offered it which is actually a very for a winner if you cant deliver democracy dont worry crates or go to International Institute get a greater timber into im trying to liberate you read a Climate Change. Course its policy that if you gave people a chance they wouldnt brutal all right max go ahead. I didnt. Come was over grid a bit without i was up there saying the secretary general is big brother i think if we look at the quality of the worlds leaders just a position between the leaders of most countries and their scale of the problems humanity prices there could not be a huge gap weve got all right we demagogues who clearly dont know how to govern clearly dont know what to do next or carson is doing terrible terrible things it does Church Leadership i agree these are your sponsors but this definition of leadership is to speak up and say you want to happen i could just Say Something more on the popularity that we expand on and others organizations not universities in your having to power around the world before coronavirus and i hope the current virus and some of these policies for instance greater taxation the rich to help pay for the Comfort Recovery we saw millionaires coming in that last week and thats a massively popular policy and so if it was put to the ballot box it would be picked up Max Leslie Gelb in and presenting you all right alex one solid alex dish on the house so we look at all of you if you want to explicitly state a little bit tonight with. If you were to try to say its usually something not universal go scripts of no thats all right lets give an exceptions now let you come back in on that next go ahead onyx if you want to check the reach more heavily perhaps much more. Than run for office. And if youre going to do it yourself Political Party to do so and campaign for them well in just saying the Actual Community should somehow be disability well all right lets give max that chance. Oh i completely agree with you more than i expected here i think the real battleground for the policy of. The nation has to be democratic but where do you disagree lose the sense that this in some way not popular policy is because i think the public. And i think coronaviruses really contributed that people see that everyone is at risk they see the necessity poor things Like Universal Health coverage in the face of a pandemic they see that government can do to be really wants to help right. Facing unemployment they want to see more of the current of course they do not want to go back to the bad guys they want to new york and they want to use that spirit to confront Climate Change weve got to go weve got some questions coming up about what the new normal might be but i can see jack before we get into that i want you to speak to perhaps one come back to that sort of narrative which we heard from the secretary general the idea that you know the one that even weve heard now from max that there is a terrible wealth gap and its growing what do you say to those who say as alex pointed out well overall the indicators even further even if we say you know there are a few rich people who are getting richer and the gap is getting bigger between them and the rest of us the rest of us have seen their standard of living improve have seen their life longevity improve even if the the gap between the rest of us and the super rich is getting bigger you know lets forget about. What we know and what we do now i think that the argument is a. The point is exactly that that we have that india property juggling of the public property that we have hundreds of millions of people lost jobs and livelihood weve had a dramatic decline in the region thats an increase in hunger in the absence of my own country and im not even talking about many countries in africa and are you talking about just a pandemic or are we talking about a longer time scale im talking about the last 7 years where there was an absolute fall in employment according to officials and an increase in hunger before the pandemic and of the bad demick made a dramatic increase in hunger and poverty so yes things are not necessarily better in the last few for a very large number of people in our country and in. The top one percent absolutely double their income and different if you just put a 4 percent tax on 965 people in india thats all just 965 people a 4 percent tax on their record which they wouldnt even notice you actually get Double Health spending in this country and we are massively underfunded in excess right now during the pandemic we dont have beds we dont have nurses we dont have hospitals we dont have basic medical care i mean it its really appalling the level of good city so its very easy to and its huge Popular Support but i just want to make is that you know if you write the democratic moment but government should you know get elected its a very complicated process the electorate went as im sure a lot of that and it doesnt mean that you have got to plans to do everything you like in any which way. It really means that you must respond to democratic needs and to desperate crises when people are actually to them and definitely for things like this if you take a referendum for the rest im pretty sure you get overwhelming support in india probably certainly in the us we know the polls show that the overwhelming support alex do you think some world powers might now perceive the secretary generals be a bit of a nuisance not of a threat if not a threat. You know i do and i tend to think that the groups especially in times like this are better use us concini rule in which people ought to get up and ants shit in the direction Robert Scoble and. Doing things wrong to be clear i think one of the panelists think i think hes more like really that the americans disengaged from the us because of this kind of rather than less likely and i think when you start things like that we should be looking more who are leaning rather than a scolding did you think alex might see an effort to oust him after is you know 1st term. Was ousted after his 1st term after annoying while one was quite an ideologue i dont know the inside baseball of the no 118 crew circus well enough but i think im like was that we also run the risk of being seen as targeting him because of this kind of speech which is this conversation ricks clearly for some people d we call so. I think in some ways he may bolster his own position in terms of state but i think hes making a lot less useful and in the end you got to wonder what are these rules all do you actually want to achieve something or do you want to let chip people into your time in office than it is thats a good point to take it to max as a person you know you work with oxfam an organization that tries to help people in need when you hear the secretary general speak like that im sure one part of you is you know is is very happy with that does it worry you though the point which alex is making that it might prompt powerful countries like the u. S. Towards more disengagement that undermines the sort of policies you are working on. Again i think i think alex has a point i think you know youre what weve seen since the crisis. Is almost complete failure prone to naturalism and the president and situation where the u. S. A democrat or a president commit this turning his back on the world and turning his back on the World Health Organization if anything appropriate the secretary general whos speaking about race through desperation im absolutely sure he has worked incredibly hard to turn people but as we have seen were having a situation where the most powerful man on a is that like a playground so people have to speak up so i think it would be much much better and maybe we maybe we hope for a change of government here as much much better as we saw to the financial crisis and the leadership go to. To convene and then for the most confirmations to do the right thing and particularly for poor mention because things by. Crises or increase a huge increase in poverty theres an estimate i hope a 1000000000 people could be pushed into poverty by this crisis and i see that every day here you can never have hunger in the slums here in nairobi unprecedented so that workwise concerts a Global Action by the most powerful nations and we just havent seen that in the last few months so i think probably right the secretary general is exasperated that i mean without i would that mean that janet the discussion all skewed could we interpret the support which some rich countries now giving to people you know have been had lost their livelihoods due to the pandemic as a move toward some of the principles the secretary general was talking about you know the idea of universal basic income is that any sliver of optimism that i think i think the developed countries to respond very significant keep it steady not just good which is cleaning it up big time suppose. Decoding unemployment assistance including you know various measures like that i think that has not been equivalent in developing countries but because of various inequalities and much love this the space there are large debts that many of them bear their complete collapse tax revenues and such and so its been a very uneven response most developing countries have not provided that kind of support and assistance in india has been practically nothing provided to the hundreds of millions who must lead him and that i think its something youre going to another point that was being discussed earlier that has the secretary general and demand instead good his position be any worse than it already was isnt the un already basically treated as irrelevant and isnt the fact that the us practically has almost stopped all Financial Support does when its really become little more than attended desperate talking shop in which theres so keen to keep those powers happy that they will not see anything that goes against the point the large class so so i think you know i mean i dont know if hes telling it like it is its not isnt going to make the situation worse because it was already thought that or let anything it was actually in it many other people take the u. N. Because it made a good point they let me take it alex and say you know that its difficult alex to see a scenario in which world powers unilaterally give up the dominant positions in global institutions to further the notions of equality right and while alex you know you talk about how this sort of agenda needs to be put sorted out in the democratic space many would argue some of the institutions that push this kind of pursue this kind of policy around the globe while theyre not entirely democratic right they have positions which are appointed through politics in power. Isnt it necessary to have a bit of a wake up call or scream from the secretary general. To point to where it is right but in the end i suppose my answer is towards that democratic discussion that we were having and some we sort of had agreements on if in the end for example we think the Security Council should be restructured and 5 nations have changed somehow in me in the makeup of the way that the United Nations administered then surely the smart thing to do is to bolster honestly its movements in groups which africa needs a more democratic and open minded and and less control position at the United Nations which could then be proposed in the u. N. And potentially change the charter instead rehearsals are very good at this who. Is making these kinds of sweeping statements and dismissive statements that just mean hes less likely to be listened to i agree with whats been said about the fact that he went seems pretty irrelevant but i am surprised to see a return or so to confirm. Or rival some strong opinions some fray where out of time though lets thank our guests very sorry that we you know we could go on endlessly on this for now weve got really have to thank our guests thank you so much Matt Clawson Jr to go she and Alexander Deen thats will be back dont worry guys will be back to discuss this again so. You can watch the show again any time by visiting our website aljazeera dot com for further discussion however to our Facebook Page thats facebook dot com forward slash a. J. Inside story you can also join the conversation on twitter handle is at a. J. Inside story from a sam is a than a the whole thing here for now is go by. The health of humanity is at stake a Global Pandemic requires a Global Response. W. H. O. 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