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The myth of the ‘nanny state’
Those who promote right-wing solutions for societal ills have long argued for minimal state interference with the play of market forces. It has often been suggested that all attempts to constrain unbridled profit-making are just so many barriers to ambition, hard work and prosperity. The sexist term “nanny state” is often pressed into service to make the point.
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Has China really reached the end of its economic boom?
Western economists continue to argue that the Chinese economy is heading down the drain. As Michael Roberts argues, this critique is not factually correct, and it aims to distract attention from the reality that the Western capitalist economies (apart from the United States) are floundering in stagnation and near slump.
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While Canadian workers struggle, CEOs keep getting richer
While the bank accounts of Canada’s richest executives and CEOs bloat with money that should be equitably distributed to all, food prices, housing costs, and homelessness are spinning out of control, disproportionately impacting the marginalized and oppressed: Indigenous peoples, people of colour, women and LGBTQ+, and the working class in general.
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For one week, can Canadians please talk about land instead of housing?
Even if producing a record supply of housing units could guarantee solving the affordability issue, actually building that much housing with viable density comes with a steep price tag. Even advocates of mass housing admit as much. If we don’t go after the land value itself, we are essentially trying to deflate a balloon by blowing on it.
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Profits, paycheques and the financialization of Canada’s grocery chains
Canada’s growing food insecurity crisis requires solutions that go beyond asking grocery store CEOs to bring down prices. Policies from windfall profits taxes, to price controls, to city-owned grocery stores would do much more to help with food insecurity, while backing labour’s struggle for wages and working conditions.
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BRICS: Getting bigger, but is it any stronger?
The three-day summit of the BRICS leaders ends today. The BRICS are Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. Russian leader Vladimir Putin was not present in person. The five BRICS nations now have a combined GDP larger than that of the G7 in purchasing power parity terms (a measure of what GDP can buy domestically in goods and services).
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The Charlebois Shuffle
Like Jordan Peterson in his prime, Sylvain Charlebois will walk back his most outrageous suggestions by claiming he was just asking questions, accusing anyone who inferred otherwise of misinterpreting him. Making bold claims and then backing away from them by feigning neutrality as a dispassionate observer is what I call the “Charlebois Shuffle.”
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Wages did not cause Canada’s inflation crisis
Wages do not cause inflation but they do eat into profits. And profit, the unpaid labour of the working class, is the lifeblood upon which all the parasitic layers of society depend—from bosses to central bankers. The wage-price spiral is not a serious model; it’s a tale told to frighten workers out of threatening profit.
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The day the bubble burst: ‘Akira’ and Japan’s economic ‘miracle’
Katsuhiro Otomo’s legendary anime film Akira (1988) celebrated its 35th anniversary on July 15, 2023. As CD film critic Kalden Dhatsenpa writes, we should remember the movie as a towering achievement of cinema, a cultural landmark depicting the turbulent economic and social history of Japan at the peak of “the biggest asset bubble in history.”
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Confronting the unmitigated disaster of climate change through system change
“System change, not climate change.” It’s amazing how these few words so accurately sum up the challenges that face us when it comes to climate change–the single largest challenge humanity has ever faced. As far as slogans go, it’s not as succinct as “no war” or “freedom now,” but on the other hand it represents how far social movements have come in a few short decades.