THE world is a very unequal place – and America especially so.
Bernie Sanders wants to do something about it but is presently simply addressing it on a short speaking tour of the UK to promote his book. He admits: “It’s why I’m here, buy the book.”
Despite his Bugs Bunny accent, the senator for Vermont, one of America’s smallest states who was born in Brooklyn, New York, appears to have a pessimistic message.
In America wealth is concentrated in the hands of the top one tenth of the top one per cent.
“It’s not just America, globally the top one per cent own more wealth than the bottom 99%. The eight wealthiest people in the world own more wealth than the bottom half of the planet, 3.4 billion people.
“It’s an issue we can’t continue to ignore. It must be dealt with,” says Sanders who blames the Democrats ignoring millions left behind by the global economy for Donald Trump’s presidential victory.
But what can be done? Asks one teenage girl in the audience. A man yells: “Vote Corbyn.”
“I myself do not get involved in British politics,” says Sanders who’d earlier told host Michael Sheen he applauded Corbyn, who had like him, challenged wealth inequality.
“We’re in a struggle against a small number of millionaires, billionaires. I applaud Corbyn for starting to ask the fundamental questions, whether it is appropriate for so few to have so much wealth when millions work so hard just to keep their heads above water.”
Corbyn, said Sanders, has sought to rebuild the Labour Party, as he had the Democrats, from the grassroots in favour of individual members over corporate interests.
It’s a small steps approach and much of what Sanders said, from a US perspective, has been said by Corbyn. Perhaps that shows people are willing to address wealth inequality “an issue a lot of people in the UK and US feel uncomfortable talking about”.