Progress vs. 2023: A Guide to the Fight Ahead – 2023 Ellen Meiksins Wood Lecture
The 2023 Ellen Meiksins Wood Lecture was delivered by economist Armine Yalnizyan—a leading voice on Canada’s economic scene.
The 2023 Ellen Meiksins Wood Lecture was delivered by economist Armine Yalnizyan—a leading voice on Canada’s economic scene.
Since the mid-2000s, the hegemonic neoliberal order has itself entered crisis, driven above all as a political reaction.
Mark Carney does not deny the need for government supervision and regulation to balance corporate capitalism with broader social goals. But his faith in socially responsible capitalism is excessive.
Analysis suggests that capital has become far too strong to sustain a robust economy and that an increase in labour bargaining power should be welcomed rather than resisted.
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.
Aivalis’ argument that Pierre Trudeau was a “Constant Liberal” is subtle, and acknowledges that organized labour and the NDP were not always consistently advocating policies well to the left of the Liberals.
Development of a new trade agenda should certainly be on the agenda of labour and the left.
A necessary prerequisite for restoring Western democratic capitalism, and even more so social democracy or democratic socialism, is to force the genie of finance back into its bottle.