Joan Llorach: Modern Populisms and Social Division

Catalan author Joan Llorach gives a lecture entitled “How Modern Populisms Promise to Solve Economic Grievances but End Up Delivering Social Division.”

The 2016 Donald Trump electoral campaign, the Leave campaign in the Brexit referendum, and Catalan, Scottish and Venetian secessionists have in common their economic argument to solve economic grievances —the “us first” economic model. The U.S. fiscal structure, however, helps prevent the kind of regional grievances that are typical in European countries. Joan Llorach analyzes the paradox of how an “us first” economic message ends up dividing the very same country as well as how modern populisms are a godsend to traditional nationalisms.

About Joan Llorach

Llorach is a Catalan author, political commentator, and business owner. In 2015 he co-authored Las cuentas y los cuentos de la independencia (The Finances and Myths of Independence) with Josep Borrell, current minister of foreign affairs of Spain and former president of the European Parliament. He has written widely on Catalan independence issues. In 2000, Llorach founded Interactora, a technology company that services media companies. Previously, he was a consultant at McKinsey&Co and a manager at AT&T. He studied Industrial Engineering at the Polytechnic University of Catalonia and earned an MBA from MIT.