Like so many aspects of this pandemic, the vaccine shortage is a clear example of how the private sector has failed to protect us during a crisis. Rather than setting its own priorities and running its own program, the Canadian government continues to chase companies such as Pfizer—which no democratic government controls. We see the results now, as health authorities cancel vaccine appointments and new cases surge across the country.

The unassailable power of Big Tech is the subject of economist and professor Rob Larson’s latest book, Bit Tyrants. In this wide-ranging interview, Canadian Dimension spoke with Larson to discuss the anticompetitive practices of the world’s biggest tech corporations, renewed pressure to rein them in, and his vision for a transparent, publicly-controlled and socialized internet.

Why is the Trudeau government not supporting sensible policy to help vaccinate millions of people living in the poorest continent in the Global South? This is likely because Ottawa is in thrall to big business and the interests of the already wealthy. Surely, ending the COVID-19 pandemic must be a top priority. The faster the entire world’s population is vaccinated, the better off we all will be.

Most commentary on international relations proceeds as if the global order floated above the patchwork quilt of the world map, an ethereal stage on which disembodied states play leading or bit parts in consequential but ultimately inexplicable plots. Inadequate at the best of times, such commentary will not serve when the fate of capitalism itself hangs in the balance of international power.

Without sufficient protections for Canadian data through the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement, we should be demanding accountability from the federal government around domestic privacy protections, and looking critically at the profit-driven AI-based programs that are increasingly supplanting human judgement in every sphere of life.

Lost in the palace intrigue of the WE scandal is the pernicious racial politics of the WE Charity and aspects of the wider charitable industry. Although the controversy comes at a pivotal moment in public discourse, accusations of racism within WE have been marginalized, as have discussion of the way WE gained such influence within Canadian schools, media, and politics as models of white saviourism.

The most concerning element of the WE Charity scandal is not that Justin Trudeau aided an organization with ties to his family, but rather the backing of an organization that is a caricature of white saviourism. The real scandal is that all of the corporations, media organizations, schools, and celebrities that enabled WE have also done so at the service of Canadian imperialism.

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.

Our team at Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research has developed a ten-point agenda for a post-COVID-19 world. Last week, I presented this agenda at the High-Level Conference on the Post-Pandemic Economy, organized by the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA). We are certainly in need of a New International Economic Order.

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?