It is incumbent upon us as a species, especially us in the Global North, to seriously consider alternative futures from an anti-capitalist, dialectical, ecological point-of-view, writes CD columnist Owen Schalk. This will unavoidably entail challenging the ideology of growth that pervades the political institutions of Northern countries.

In contrast to the simplistic notion that capital unilaterally imposes consumption upon us, German scholars Ulrich Brand and Markus Wissen, authors of The Imperial Mode of Living, emphasize a dialectical analysis in which capitalist domination “draws on the wishes and desires of the populace … becomes a part of individual identity, shapes it, and thereby becomes all the more effective.”

The world of credit is tightening and bringing with it a downturn in financial asset prices, but also exposing the fault lines in ‘real economy’ production, writes Marxist economist and author Michael Roberts. As the Financial Times put it in an editorial published last week: “the choice is stagflation, or deflationary depression.”

The shift in international currency strength after the Ukraine war will not form into some West-East bloc, as most argue, but instead towards a fragmentation of currency reserves, argues economist Michael Roberts. To quote the IMF: “if dollar dominance comes to an end (a scenario, not a prediction), then the greenback could be felled not by the dollar’s main rivals but by a broad group of alternative currencies.”

Sport utility vehicles (SUVs), known best for their cultural significance among suburban families and upper middle class urban couples, are responsible for more carbon emissions than all but five nations globally. The world’s SUV fleet is growing rapidly and the segment alone accounts for more emissions growth since 2010 than aviation, shipping, or heavy industry.

Alexa McDonough began and ended her time as federal NDP leader presiding over the defeat of a left challenge. Her record with the Third Way was not one of resistance or subversion, but of alliance and collaboration with the steady rightward march of the party. Rather than mend ties with organized labour, she made an open turn to the business class.

How China and its peoples handle the challenges ahead demands close and critical attention, but it’s time to lose the attitude. As Noam Chomsky recently suggested, either the “United States and China will work together on the critical issues that we all face, or they will expire together, bringing the rest of the world down with them.” Isn’t that what friends are for?

China’s position in the world system is a crucial aspect of the friction between the nation and Western countries like Canada and the United States. It’s important, therefore, for people who want to alleviate these tensions—and keep them from devolving into a hot war—to understand China’s role in the global economic and political system, writes CD columnist Greg Shupak.

The hope lingers that the extensive leaks contained within the Pandora Papers will force reform of the tax regime and reverse, or at least impede, the exacerbation of what is already a staggering level of global inequality. But it seems naïve to imagine that those who made the rules in favour of capital accumulation will now turn around and say “Gosh we never intended it to go this far.”

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.