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.
At this moment of deep political convulsion throughout the West, the fight against privatization is part of a broader struggle against the economic logic that has led to corrosive inequality and underpinned the bankrupt neoliberal economic paradigm.
Despite ultra loose monetary policy, business investment is very low due to inadequate overall demand.
It is to be hoped that political forces across Europe are up to the challenge of making the EU a force for economic and social progress as seemed to be the case in the 1980s.
Will the Trudeau Government have the courage to listen to concerned Canadians and acknowledge that “free” trade and investment deals have run their course?
