If we want much more public investment, we will have to give less priority to private consumption, especially the luxury consumption of the rich. If we want greater control of our economy, we must confront the power of private financial interests. MMT, based on the theoretical legacy of Keynesian economics, offers us a way forward, but it does not free us from the very real constraints of capitalism.

Up until now, famed geographer David Harvey has been considered a leading Marxist. In my opinion, Harvey’s contributions to Marxist thinking, with regard to both his theoretical formulations and efforts to make Marxism accessible to large numbers of people, are undeniable. All the more reason to be disappointed by his recent thesis.

Where is the independent voice for working people in this pandemic? Humanity is battered by both COVID-19 and a deep economic depression. We are not in this together. Canadian workers need a party that speaks for them. This is supposed to be the New Democratic Party. This article reviews the NDP’s actions in Canada and draws the conclusion that we need much better.

To better address inequality, we might first consider the comparatively unsexy, un-new idea of pursuing public housing and housing decommodification on a massive scale—call it a public housing revolution. Building tens of thousands of new social housing units every year, thus addressing backlogs and waitlists in the major megacities, is an obvious way forward.

If the Liberals choose to discontinue payments through the Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB) without a viable UBI alternative, there is the ideological space for the NDP to insert themselves more prominently into the Canadian political discussion. This will allow the NDP to enter the next election with a bold progressive vision that Canadians understand.

How have Western responses to the pandemic remained within the neoliberal paradigm, appearances to the contrary notwithstanding? What does the behaviour and activities of its major leaders tell us about the new phase of neoliberalism which they will attempt to establish? Why is it almost certain to fail?

The city as a way of dwelling in the world has not always existed—quite the contrary. In fact, most of the long history of our species has taken place outside of any urban setting. The global triumph of the city in our time, paradoxically, hides its disappearance as a common space of exchange and relationships inhabited by those who freely, and autonomously, appropriate it.

Why is the Government of Ontario trying to stall renewable energy development when renewables provide the cheapest and cleanest source of electricity? Specifically, why spend millions of dollars to cut clean energy projects, only to turn around and spend billions more to develop an economically floundering nuclear sector and prop up an environmentally disastrous oil industry?

Why do governments compensate for private capitalism’s failures in the military but compensate so much less in the medical industries? And when governments do compensate in the latter, why so differently, varying from much in some countries to little to almost nothing in others? Neoliberalism’s ideological power, varying from country to country, provides an answer.

The left faces an historic disparity between its own long-depleted abilities and the hopes it has begun nursing. Its abilities—levels of union organization and votes for left-of-centre parties, to take only two of the more obvious indicators—have taken a beating amid the neoliberal assault of the past four decades. If one takes a longer historical view, its debility appears even more serious.