There has been a persistent struggle between rich and poor within societies and nations over the course of human history. But, this September, the issue reached the international level. At a meeting of the United Nations General Assembly, four nations -- South Africa, Brazil, Norway, and Spain -- announced the beginning of a campaign to tackle the problem of worldwide economic inequality. With background work done by Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz and other specialists, endorsement by more than 1,500 economists and academics, and expressions of interest from numerous nations, the campaign to establish an International Panel on Inequality was launched. The panel's proponents argued that it should research inequality within and between countries and, then, develop policies to close the widening gap between the rich and the poor.
Published Articles by Lawrence Wittner
On June 6, 2025, Donald Trump's White House staff issued an upbeat statement proclaiming that what it called the "Trump Effect" was creating "higher pay for American workers." The reality, though, is that Trump, during his second term in office, deliberately reduced the wages of millions of workers and, in the context of substantial inflation, froze the wages of millions more. Consequently, even as Trump used his control of the federal government to make himself and his family richer, he employed it to make American workers poorer.
Shortly after Donald Trump's re-election in 2024, he began alienating Canadians by referring to their country as the 51st American state. This imperialist arrogance proved so obnoxious to Canadians that, responding to Trump's incendiary remarks, they gave Canada's feisty Liberal Party leader and his party -- initially trailing by huge margins in parliamentary election polls -- a stunning election victory. Not surprisingly, Canadians and their government also sharply resisted Trump's attempt to punish them by imposing heavy tariffs on their goods. The ease with which the friendly Canadian-American relationship was damaged illustrates the fragility of international relations and, more specifically, the fact that centuries of growing cooperation among nations can be upended by sudden tantrums or crackpot nostrums of individuals.
After the advent of the second Trump administration in January 2025, U.S. overseas food assistance was cut dramatically, leading to sharp cutbacks in the World Food Program. As a result, world hunger and starvation have soared. According to the World Food Program, "a staggering 266 million people are . . . facing crisis levels of hunger or worse" in 2026 and "lost lives . . . will be the price to pay."
The nine nuclear powers are currently engaged in an accelerating nuclear arms race -- so perilous to human survival that the editors of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists have set their famous "Doomsday Clock" at 85 seconds to midnight, the most dangerous setting in its history. Of course, since the annihilation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, there have been a great many warnings of disaster, buttressed by mass movements demanding nuclear disarmament. But, to judge from their reckless march toward nuclear catastrophe, the current rulers of the nuclear powers have failed to absorb the lesson. Unless there is an advent of new, less hawkish governments, a movement revival, or both, a nuclear war seems likely.
In March 1945, only six weeks before his death, U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt delivered an address to Congress in which he announced plans for the creation of "a universal organization," a "permanent structure of peace." That organization was the United Nations, whose Charter called for saving the world "from the scourge of war" and for promoting "justice," "social progress," and "better standards of life in larger freedom." In subsequent decades, the United Nations did an effective job of encouraging human rights and social progress, but -- thanks largely to the behavior of the "great powers" -- proved less effective in preventing military aggression and war. Even so, public pressure for a peaceful world has secured important victories in the past, and the books are not closed on the future.
As Americans and people of other former colonies recognize, there's a great deal to be said for national independence. But, at times, we might also wonder: is it sufficient? After all, many of today's problems -- including war and modern weaponry, environmental catastrophe, disease pandemics, and widespread poverty -- are global phenomena. To address these problems effectively, we need collective action. And to secure this action, we need a change in human consciousness and behavior -- a shift from a parochial national independence to the interdependence of nations.
Although the American labor movement is sometimes depicted as hawkish and xenophobic, this characterization ignores its repeated attempts to grapple with the global problem of war. For more than a century, prominent U.S. labor leaders have called for peace, as have many of their unions. In the past three months alone, the nation's major labor federation, the AFL-CIO, has rebuked the governments of the United States and Israel for initiating a war with Iran, demanded an immediate and permanent ceasefire in Gaza, and championed reliance upon international law and the United Nations in the quest for peace.
Recent public opinion polls in numerous countries, including the United States, indicate that support for international solidarity and cooperation is very substantial, and growing. Consequently, political activists and politicians shouldn't be reluctant to speak out for them. Indeed, given the popularity of this internationalist approach to global affairs, it might even prove a winning political issue.
Although Donald Trump has never been modest about his abilities or reluctant to exercise personal power, during his second term in office he has shown clear signs of megalomania. These signs include his blatant demands for the territory of other nations, his massive military buildup, his dispatch of U.S. military forces into combat, his disdain for the United Nations, and his establishment of a Trump-controlled "Board of Peace." This descent into megalomania is deeply disturbing, for the dangers to the world, and even to human survival, are sharply enhanced by one-man rule.