Joseph Clark is a former Prime Minister of Canada. As PM from from June 1979 to March 1980, he was the youngest person ever to be elected to the office. Clark received a BA in history and an MA in political science from the University of Alberta, and taught political science there from 1965-1967. He was first elected to Parliament in 1972 and by 1976 was the leader of the Progressive Conservative party. After losing the 1980 election, Clark continued to serve as leader of the Progressive Conservatives until 1983. In Mulroney’s government, he served as Secretary of State for External Affairs and president of the Privy Council. As External Affairs minister, Clark took a strong anti-apartheid stance in relations with South Africa. In 1998, he returned to the leadership of the Progressive Conservatives and in 2000 was elected to Parliament. In 2004, he resigned from politics. In 2006, he became a professor at the Centre for Developing-Area Studies at McGill University. He is the author of How We Lead: Canada in a Century of Change (2013).
In his lecture, Clark discussed the legacy of the industrial revolution during the 1970s, as economic difficulties and energy crises prompted the deepest analysis of industrial civilization ever undertaken. In the 1970s, the very goals of industrialization were subject to question. Clark suggested that a number of pundits were trading on the contemporary fear of the unknown to suggest that economic prosperity was inherently amoral. Instead, Clark saw economic growth as an ethical imperative, since he believed that the goal of economic progress was the extension of human liberty. The mission of the industrial revolution was not yet complete and there was a moral imperative to continue growth by furthering industrialization in the Global South. Clark argued against contemporary schemes for the redistribution of wealth globally, suggesting that they were impractical. Clark also dismissed concerns about the limited nature of fossil fuels, and suggested that fossil fuel-generated energy was crucial to international development. In the end, Clark viewed the economic future with and optimism rather than despair.