Reflecting on the ONDP government led by Bob Rae from 1990 to 1995, it is clear that the success of today’s ONDP depends on its ability to deliver on substantive reforms that materially benefit Ontario’s diverse working-class.
Chris Hurl and Leah Werner reveal the consulting industry’s hand in hollowed-out public services and draw an escape plan for Western democracies hoping to emerge from consultants’ nebulous grasp.
In ‘Free and Equal: What Would a Fair Society Look Like?,’ Daniel Chandler sets out on a contemporary alternative to the social and economic policies of the right, drawn from the work of John Rawls.
Professor Nancy Fraser argues that the political arena is important because it is here that collective regulatory powers are exercised.
By decommodifying health services, pensions, the right to unions, and other social services, they showed that with political will in these aspects of life the power of the market could be and should be broken if real democracy is to be achieved.
The problem with this narrative that elections are won by appealing to the mushy centre is that it fails to come to grips with the electoral appeal of Donald Trump and other right-wing populist.
We must reimagine the civic sphere as a pluralist space with both online and offline states—which often blend and sometimes become indiscernible from one another.
What we urgently need is a recreation of the effective politics of post-War social democracy. But we can’t just return to the past.
“If a blind faith in unfettered markets continues to prevail, I believe the social foundation for our democracies will continue to be shaken.”
