I am the founding Director and former head of Parkland Institute at the University of Alberta, a non-corporate research institute that researches public policy in the public interest. I am a socially-engaged, public intellectual, Political Economist and professor emeritus at the University of Alberta. I authored the award-winning "After the Sands. Energy and Ecological Security for Canadians" 2015 Douglas & McIntyre http://www.douglas-mcintyre.com/book/after-the-sands. I am also author or editor of five other books, including "Open for Business: The Roots of Foreign Ownership in Canada" (Oxford Univ Press 1989), which received the John Porter Award for best book written about Canada. I have published over 50 journal articles and refereed book chapters and reports. I was the Principal Investigator of a $1.9 million SSHRC-funded research project: "Neoliberal Globalism and its Challengers: Reclaiming the Commons in the Semi-periphery" 2000-2006. (SSHRC is the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada)
Don't cosy up to a dictatorial neighbour. Japan and Europe have learned this lesson, but not Cana... more Don't cosy up to a dictatorial neighbour. Japan and Europe have learned this lesson, but not Canada. This country is woefully unprepared for a Trump election victory in November. If elected, Trump said he will become dictator for a day. Is it his usual bluster or should we believe him? Many assume that Trump would be as chaotic, unfocused, lazy and incompetent as last time. But key players from the old Republican party disagree. In his first presidency, several Trump cabinet members held office in previous governments and believed in a U.S.-led international order. But, according to David Frum, former speech writer for Republican president George W. Bush, that wouldn't happen with Trump's second coming. He would arrive with a much better understanding of the system's vulnerabilities, surround himself with willing enablers, retaliate against adversaries, and grant himself impunity. Other Republicans share Frum's assessment. The U.S. is "sleepwalking into dictatorship in the United States," stated Liz Cheney, former prominent Republican congresswoman and daughter of former Republican vice-president Dick Cheney.
Since the days of John Diefenbaker controversy has swirled around the issue of foreign ownership ... more Since the days of John Diefenbaker controversy has swirled around the issue of foreign ownership of the Canadian economy; the most recent subjects of debate have been the National Energy Program, FIRA, and the Canada-US free trade deal. This book delves into these debates and examines the causes of Canada's uniquely high level of foreign ownership. Using a wide ranging comparative approach, Laxer subjects the standard explanations of Canada's economic dependence to careful and critical scrutiny. He challenges the theories of accepted orthodoxies from Conservative to Marxist, and argues that the assumptions about external control, the role of the Canadian elite and the effects of geography do not adequately explain Canada's failure to develop independently. This timely book develops a new way of thinking about Canada. Laxer shows that the country was well along the path of industrialization before American branch plants and management took control of the critical mass of its resources and manufacturing industries.
Political meddling by these firms is almost invisible to most people. Yet all big oil corporation... more Political meddling by these firms is almost invisible to most people. Yet all big oil corporations in Canada are either wholly or majority foreign-owned.
This article has sparked many readers in the past two years. It summarizes the main arguments in... more This article has sparked many readers in the past two years. It summarizes the main arguments in my award-winning book "Open for Business. The Roots of Foreign Ownership in Canada" (Oxford UP 1989). The article challenges the standard explanations for why Canada incurred so much foreign ownership and control over its economy at such an early point in its history and remained a resource-exporting economy with a truncated manufacturing sector. The standard explanations are that the high tariffs of the Canadian National Policy (1879-1930) induced US corporations to jump over them and set up branch plants in Canada, that proximity to the United States which was a pioneer in foreign direct investment abroad overwhelmed domestic industrialists, and that the unwillingness of Canadian capitalists to defend their own turn because of their weak nationalism, sealed Canada’s fate. This paper instead explores a provocative alternative explanation in the social origins of Canada’s dependent economy during the formative phase of Canadian manufacturing development (1867-1914). The latter occurred during heightened tensions between English and French Canada, intertwined with Catholics versus Protestants that weakened agrarian-based, popular democratic movements in a new settler country with a broad male franchise. The paper explores the consequences of the peculiar interaction between class and the binational character of Canada in entrenching a conservative banking system that would not invest in industry, the effects of the squandering of enormous amounts of foreign capital on superfluous railways, and the failure of Canada to develop independent armed forces and domestically-owned military strategic industries that formed the basis for more independent economies in contemporaneous, comparably developed countries.
This article explores the anti-globalism potential of left nationalisms. The latter involve attac... more This article explores the anti-globalism potential of left nationalisms. The latter involve attachments to and support for the (relative) sovereignty of the political community to which one belongs. Since nationalisms get most of their content through the political associations they keep, left nationalisms are those that seek deep democratic trans¬formation of global corporate capitalism through their conjunctions with anti-colonial, socialist, feminist, ecological, and antiracist movements. Primarily they work at the level of the nation, the state, and through international solidarity ties with similar movements abroad for national and popular sovereignty. I argue that the retrieval of left-wing nationalisms is essential in campaigns for popular sovereignty and against corporate globalism. I first look at how left globalism and left localism tend to crowd out left nationalisms. Then I explore the New Right's assaults against deep democracy and national sovereignty and probe why many in the Left fail to defend the need for strong citizen commitment to the national polity and its sovereignty. The heart of the article is a historical analysis and critique of civic and ethnocultural nationalisms and an evaluation of their positive and negative features. An historical section on English-speaking Canada examines how, contrary to much European experience, recent nationalisms and racism have been opposing tendencies. I argue that the relative immobility of labour provides a class basis for most wage earners and peasants to oppose neoliberal globalism and support positive nationalisms. Racist nationalisms are best resisted, I argue, not with detached cosmopolitanism, but with positive nationalisms that are committed to international, people-to-people solidarity. The article concludes with a discussion of the role of left-wing nationalism, especially in English-speaking Canada, in defeating the Multilateral Agreement on Investment. (MAI) at the OECD in 1998.
While the Battle of Seattle immortalized a certain image of anti-globalization resistance, proces... more While the Battle of Seattle immortalized a certain image of anti-globalization resistance, processes and agents of contestation remain sociologically underdeveloped. Even with the time-space compression afforded by new information technologies, how can a global civil society emerge among multi-cultured, multi-tongued peoples divided by miles of space and oceans of inequality? This article examines two cases that confronted the U.S. model of global corporate rule: the defeat of the Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI), and the Zapatista challenge to the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Evaluating cross-border solidarity in these cases encourages critical evaluation of claims about global civil society, the role of the Internet, and the eclipse of traditional politics in a supposedly post-national age. Contrary to orthodox globalization narratives, our analysis suggests that states, nations, and nationalisms remain key elements in contestation processes, at least in the kinds of cases examined. At the same time, transnational networks played an important role in bypassing unfavorable political opportunity structures at the domestic level, and nurtured incipient processes of framing resistance to neo-liberal globalism across national boundaries.
This peer-reviewed report explores how Big Foreign Oil intervenes in Canadian elections and polic... more This peer-reviewed report explores how Big Foreign Oil intervenes in Canadian elections and policy debates. It examines how the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP) influences Canadian climate and energy policy. CAPP is the apex oil and gas lobby group, representing the major oil and gas corporations in Canada. All big Oil corporations in Canada are foreign-owned and foreign-funded, yet CAPP waves Canada's Maple Leaf flag and denounces environmentalists who want to phase out Alberta's tar sands as traitors to Canada. The Report recommends that Canada close a loophole in its 2018 election modernization law that bans foreign corporations from election spending if their headquarters are placed abroad, but it allows foreign-owned corporations to meddle in Canadian elections if they set up their headquarters in Canada.
Growing concerns about the lack of real democracy, increasing inequalities, re-colonization and e... more Growing concerns about the lack of real democracy, increasing inequalities, re-colonization and ecological crises associated with what is called ‘globalization’ have focused attention on alternatives. Are forces of resistance to globalization emerging that are capable either of reversing it, or shaping it in less destructive ways?
Not for Sale. Decommodifying Public Life. Toronto: University of Toronto Press., Dec 31, 2006
Challenging the prevailing sense of political pessimism, this chapter introduces readers to the b... more Challenging the prevailing sense of political pessimism, this chapter introduces readers to the book titled: Not for Sale book. Decommodifying Public Life. It develops the twin notions of commodification and decommodification as means to understand many contemporary democratic struggles. It builds upon both previous academic discussions and “the promising critique of commodification that is developing within the anti-globalization movement” (McNally, 2002, p. 232). While the chapters take up a variety of specific issues—body parts, water, land, labour, public services, consumer culture, the knowledge economy, and beyond—from diverse perspectives, the book has two main goals. First, it examines central dimensions of the assault waged on “the commons” by the commodifying and privatizing thrust of global capitalism. Second, it engages with alternatives to neoliberal globalism from both the work of progressive intellectuals and a range of contemporary struggles to defend and democratically reinvent the commons by “decommodifying” much of collective life.
Book: Not for Sale. Decommodifying Public Life. Toronto: University of Toronto Press., Dec 31, 2021
This chapter looks at cycles of global economic integration and renationalization (or
deglobali... more This chapter looks at cycles of global economic integration and renationalization (or
deglobalization). I contend that hyper commodification has been strongest in phases of global integration and that, in contrast, the renationalization of economies has produced the most conducive conditions for decommodification. I outline a radical strategy for decommodification, which emphasizes its egalitarian and communitarian character, and contrast this with reactionary variations that support patriarchal and hierarchical versions of decommodification.
Before the ‘Battle in Seattle’ imprinted the image of young anti-globalization activists confront... more Before the ‘Battle in Seattle’ imprinted the image of young anti-globalization activists confronting riot police and shutting down international trade negotiations, the MAI died in October 1998 when France and then Canada pulled out of the talks. The MAI’s defeat was the first time citizens’ movements punctured the aura of corporate globalization as the inevitable direction of history. Fresh from unexpected victory, anti-MAI leaders helped organize Seattle, and subsequent ‘antiglobalization’ confrontations.
The writing of Canadian economic history has never been neutral. There have always been conflicti... more The writing of Canadian economic history has never been neutral. There have always been conflicting perspectives, emphasizing different factors and coming to different conclusions. This chapter discusses five main approaches to the writing of Canadian economic development until 1991, when this book was published. Some perspectives assumed that the main influences have been external to Canada and have examined the inflows of capital, labour, technology, and corporate control, while others have assumed that what happened in Canada mattered most. Ideological differences between those working from neo-classical economic, Marxist, elite, or feminist paradigms account for some of the different interpretations of Canadian economic history. Yet, to some extent the different perspectives on this country's economic development have evolved in relation to a home-grown school of thought known as the staples approach.
By making assumptions about which factors are important to investigate, every perspective must consequently ignore other factors, factors that may be crucial in competing perspectives. By understanding the assumptions of each perspective, scholars can gain insights about their own perspectives. What assumptions are they making? What factors are they ignoring? Equally important, what can they learn from competing perspectives? This chapter outlines the assumptions of each school of thought and notes their similarities and differences.
To the people of Alberta If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what... more To the people of Alberta If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear. George Orwell ... The TROJAN HORSE AlbERTA Ai\d ifiE FUTURE of Gordon Laxer and Trevor Harrison BLACK ROSE BOOKS Montreal/New York London
Constitutional crises and continentalism: Twin threats to Canada's continued existence* G... more Constitutional crises and continentalism: Twin threats to Canada's continued existence* Gordon Laxer We have only been in power for two months, but I can tell you this: give us 20 years, and it is coming, and you will not recognize this country. Moreover, the whole area of federal-provincial-relations will also be changed.
Canada Freezing in the Dark? GORDON LAXER AND JOHN DILLON Prime Minister Stephen Harper calls Can... more Canada Freezing in the Dark? GORDON LAXER AND JOHN DILLON Prime Minister Stephen Harper calls Canada an "energy superpower." He boasts of "an ocean of oil-soaked sand under the muskeg of northern Alberta" and celebrates how "policymakers in Washington [and] investors in Houston and New York talk about Canada and continental energy security in the same breath." Clearly, Mr. Harper has not consulted a dictionary. Superpowers influence events by projecting economic, military, political, and cultural power on a world scale. Canada is not a superpower. In fact, a little known article in NAFTA (605), known as "the proportionality clause," turns Canada into an energy colony. This obliges Canada, under normal circumstances, to go on exporting non-renewable hydrocarbons to the United States even if these exports cause domestic shortages. As the share of Canadian production exported to the United States (currently 64.8 percent for oil and 62.5 percent for natural gas) grows, so does the obligation to make more supplies available for sale to the United States.
Don't cosy up to a dictatorial neighbour. Japan and Europe have learned this lesson, but not Cana... more Don't cosy up to a dictatorial neighbour. Japan and Europe have learned this lesson, but not Canada. This country is woefully unprepared for a Trump election victory in November. If elected, Trump said he will become dictator for a day. Is it his usual bluster or should we believe him? Many assume that Trump would be as chaotic, unfocused, lazy and incompetent as last time. But key players from the old Republican party disagree. In his first presidency, several Trump cabinet members held office in previous governments and believed in a U.S.-led international order. But, according to David Frum, former speech writer for Republican president George W. Bush, that wouldn't happen with Trump's second coming. He would arrive with a much better understanding of the system's vulnerabilities, surround himself with willing enablers, retaliate against adversaries, and grant himself impunity. Other Republicans share Frum's assessment. The U.S. is "sleepwalking into dictatorship in the United States," stated Liz Cheney, former prominent Republican congresswoman and daughter of former Republican vice-president Dick Cheney.
Since the days of John Diefenbaker controversy has swirled around the issue of foreign ownership ... more Since the days of John Diefenbaker controversy has swirled around the issue of foreign ownership of the Canadian economy; the most recent subjects of debate have been the National Energy Program, FIRA, and the Canada-US free trade deal. This book delves into these debates and examines the causes of Canada's uniquely high level of foreign ownership. Using a wide ranging comparative approach, Laxer subjects the standard explanations of Canada's economic dependence to careful and critical scrutiny. He challenges the theories of accepted orthodoxies from Conservative to Marxist, and argues that the assumptions about external control, the role of the Canadian elite and the effects of geography do not adequately explain Canada's failure to develop independently. This timely book develops a new way of thinking about Canada. Laxer shows that the country was well along the path of industrialization before American branch plants and management took control of the critical mass of its resources and manufacturing industries.
Political meddling by these firms is almost invisible to most people. Yet all big oil corporation... more Political meddling by these firms is almost invisible to most people. Yet all big oil corporations in Canada are either wholly or majority foreign-owned.
This article has sparked many readers in the past two years. It summarizes the main arguments in... more This article has sparked many readers in the past two years. It summarizes the main arguments in my award-winning book "Open for Business. The Roots of Foreign Ownership in Canada" (Oxford UP 1989). The article challenges the standard explanations for why Canada incurred so much foreign ownership and control over its economy at such an early point in its history and remained a resource-exporting economy with a truncated manufacturing sector. The standard explanations are that the high tariffs of the Canadian National Policy (1879-1930) induced US corporations to jump over them and set up branch plants in Canada, that proximity to the United States which was a pioneer in foreign direct investment abroad overwhelmed domestic industrialists, and that the unwillingness of Canadian capitalists to defend their own turn because of their weak nationalism, sealed Canada’s fate. This paper instead explores a provocative alternative explanation in the social origins of Canada’s dependent economy during the formative phase of Canadian manufacturing development (1867-1914). The latter occurred during heightened tensions between English and French Canada, intertwined with Catholics versus Protestants that weakened agrarian-based, popular democratic movements in a new settler country with a broad male franchise. The paper explores the consequences of the peculiar interaction between class and the binational character of Canada in entrenching a conservative banking system that would not invest in industry, the effects of the squandering of enormous amounts of foreign capital on superfluous railways, and the failure of Canada to develop independent armed forces and domestically-owned military strategic industries that formed the basis for more independent economies in contemporaneous, comparably developed countries.
This article explores the anti-globalism potential of left nationalisms. The latter involve attac... more This article explores the anti-globalism potential of left nationalisms. The latter involve attachments to and support for the (relative) sovereignty of the political community to which one belongs. Since nationalisms get most of their content through the political associations they keep, left nationalisms are those that seek deep democratic trans¬formation of global corporate capitalism through their conjunctions with anti-colonial, socialist, feminist, ecological, and antiracist movements. Primarily they work at the level of the nation, the state, and through international solidarity ties with similar movements abroad for national and popular sovereignty. I argue that the retrieval of left-wing nationalisms is essential in campaigns for popular sovereignty and against corporate globalism. I first look at how left globalism and left localism tend to crowd out left nationalisms. Then I explore the New Right's assaults against deep democracy and national sovereignty and probe why many in the Left fail to defend the need for strong citizen commitment to the national polity and its sovereignty. The heart of the article is a historical analysis and critique of civic and ethnocultural nationalisms and an evaluation of their positive and negative features. An historical section on English-speaking Canada examines how, contrary to much European experience, recent nationalisms and racism have been opposing tendencies. I argue that the relative immobility of labour provides a class basis for most wage earners and peasants to oppose neoliberal globalism and support positive nationalisms. Racist nationalisms are best resisted, I argue, not with detached cosmopolitanism, but with positive nationalisms that are committed to international, people-to-people solidarity. The article concludes with a discussion of the role of left-wing nationalism, especially in English-speaking Canada, in defeating the Multilateral Agreement on Investment. (MAI) at the OECD in 1998.
While the Battle of Seattle immortalized a certain image of anti-globalization resistance, proces... more While the Battle of Seattle immortalized a certain image of anti-globalization resistance, processes and agents of contestation remain sociologically underdeveloped. Even with the time-space compression afforded by new information technologies, how can a global civil society emerge among multi-cultured, multi-tongued peoples divided by miles of space and oceans of inequality? This article examines two cases that confronted the U.S. model of global corporate rule: the defeat of the Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI), and the Zapatista challenge to the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Evaluating cross-border solidarity in these cases encourages critical evaluation of claims about global civil society, the role of the Internet, and the eclipse of traditional politics in a supposedly post-national age. Contrary to orthodox globalization narratives, our analysis suggests that states, nations, and nationalisms remain key elements in contestation processes, at least in the kinds of cases examined. At the same time, transnational networks played an important role in bypassing unfavorable political opportunity structures at the domestic level, and nurtured incipient processes of framing resistance to neo-liberal globalism across national boundaries.
This peer-reviewed report explores how Big Foreign Oil intervenes in Canadian elections and polic... more This peer-reviewed report explores how Big Foreign Oil intervenes in Canadian elections and policy debates. It examines how the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP) influences Canadian climate and energy policy. CAPP is the apex oil and gas lobby group, representing the major oil and gas corporations in Canada. All big Oil corporations in Canada are foreign-owned and foreign-funded, yet CAPP waves Canada's Maple Leaf flag and denounces environmentalists who want to phase out Alberta's tar sands as traitors to Canada. The Report recommends that Canada close a loophole in its 2018 election modernization law that bans foreign corporations from election spending if their headquarters are placed abroad, but it allows foreign-owned corporations to meddle in Canadian elections if they set up their headquarters in Canada.
Growing concerns about the lack of real democracy, increasing inequalities, re-colonization and e... more Growing concerns about the lack of real democracy, increasing inequalities, re-colonization and ecological crises associated with what is called ‘globalization’ have focused attention on alternatives. Are forces of resistance to globalization emerging that are capable either of reversing it, or shaping it in less destructive ways?
Not for Sale. Decommodifying Public Life. Toronto: University of Toronto Press., Dec 31, 2006
Challenging the prevailing sense of political pessimism, this chapter introduces readers to the b... more Challenging the prevailing sense of political pessimism, this chapter introduces readers to the book titled: Not for Sale book. Decommodifying Public Life. It develops the twin notions of commodification and decommodification as means to understand many contemporary democratic struggles. It builds upon both previous academic discussions and “the promising critique of commodification that is developing within the anti-globalization movement” (McNally, 2002, p. 232). While the chapters take up a variety of specific issues—body parts, water, land, labour, public services, consumer culture, the knowledge economy, and beyond—from diverse perspectives, the book has two main goals. First, it examines central dimensions of the assault waged on “the commons” by the commodifying and privatizing thrust of global capitalism. Second, it engages with alternatives to neoliberal globalism from both the work of progressive intellectuals and a range of contemporary struggles to defend and democratically reinvent the commons by “decommodifying” much of collective life.
Book: Not for Sale. Decommodifying Public Life. Toronto: University of Toronto Press., Dec 31, 2021
This chapter looks at cycles of global economic integration and renationalization (or
deglobali... more This chapter looks at cycles of global economic integration and renationalization (or
deglobalization). I contend that hyper commodification has been strongest in phases of global integration and that, in contrast, the renationalization of economies has produced the most conducive conditions for decommodification. I outline a radical strategy for decommodification, which emphasizes its egalitarian and communitarian character, and contrast this with reactionary variations that support patriarchal and hierarchical versions of decommodification.
Before the ‘Battle in Seattle’ imprinted the image of young anti-globalization activists confront... more Before the ‘Battle in Seattle’ imprinted the image of young anti-globalization activists confronting riot police and shutting down international trade negotiations, the MAI died in October 1998 when France and then Canada pulled out of the talks. The MAI’s defeat was the first time citizens’ movements punctured the aura of corporate globalization as the inevitable direction of history. Fresh from unexpected victory, anti-MAI leaders helped organize Seattle, and subsequent ‘antiglobalization’ confrontations.
The writing of Canadian economic history has never been neutral. There have always been conflicti... more The writing of Canadian economic history has never been neutral. There have always been conflicting perspectives, emphasizing different factors and coming to different conclusions. This chapter discusses five main approaches to the writing of Canadian economic development until 1991, when this book was published. Some perspectives assumed that the main influences have been external to Canada and have examined the inflows of capital, labour, technology, and corporate control, while others have assumed that what happened in Canada mattered most. Ideological differences between those working from neo-classical economic, Marxist, elite, or feminist paradigms account for some of the different interpretations of Canadian economic history. Yet, to some extent the different perspectives on this country's economic development have evolved in relation to a home-grown school of thought known as the staples approach.
By making assumptions about which factors are important to investigate, every perspective must consequently ignore other factors, factors that may be crucial in competing perspectives. By understanding the assumptions of each perspective, scholars can gain insights about their own perspectives. What assumptions are they making? What factors are they ignoring? Equally important, what can they learn from competing perspectives? This chapter outlines the assumptions of each school of thought and notes their similarities and differences.
To the people of Alberta If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what... more To the people of Alberta If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear. George Orwell ... The TROJAN HORSE AlbERTA Ai\d ifiE FUTURE of Gordon Laxer and Trevor Harrison BLACK ROSE BOOKS Montreal/New York London
Constitutional crises and continentalism: Twin threats to Canada's continued existence* G... more Constitutional crises and continentalism: Twin threats to Canada's continued existence* Gordon Laxer We have only been in power for two months, but I can tell you this: give us 20 years, and it is coming, and you will not recognize this country. Moreover, the whole area of federal-provincial-relations will also be changed.
Canada Freezing in the Dark? GORDON LAXER AND JOHN DILLON Prime Minister Stephen Harper calls Can... more Canada Freezing in the Dark? GORDON LAXER AND JOHN DILLON Prime Minister Stephen Harper calls Canada an "energy superpower." He boasts of "an ocean of oil-soaked sand under the muskeg of northern Alberta" and celebrates how "policymakers in Washington [and] investors in Houston and New York talk about Canada and continental energy security in the same breath." Clearly, Mr. Harper has not consulted a dictionary. Superpowers influence events by projecting economic, military, political, and cultural power on a world scale. Canada is not a superpower. In fact, a little known article in NAFTA (605), known as "the proportionality clause," turns Canada into an energy colony. This obliges Canada, under normal circumstances, to go on exporting non-renewable hydrocarbons to the United States even if these exports cause domestic shortages. As the share of Canadian production exported to the United States (currently 64.8 percent for oil and 62.5 percent for natural gas) grows, so does the obligation to make more supplies available for sale to the United States.
Perspectives on Canadian economic development : class, staples, gender, and elites, 1991
The writing of Canadian economic history has never been neutral. There have always been conflicti... more The writing of Canadian economic history has never been neutral. There have always been conflicting perspectives, emphasizing different factors and coming to different conclusions. This chapter discusses five main approaches to the writing of Canadian economic development until 1991, when this book was published. Some perspectives assumed that the main influences have been external to Canada and have examined the inflows of capital, labour, technology, and corporate control, while others have assumed that what happened in Canada mattered most. Ideological differences between those working from neo-classical economic, Marxist, elite, or feminist paradigms account for some of the different interpretations of Canadian economic history. Yet, to some extent the different perspectives on this country's economic development have evolved in relation to a home-grown school of thought known as the staples approach.
By making assumptions about which factors are important to investigate, every perspective must consequently ignore other factors, factors that may be crucial in competing perspectives. By understanding the assumptions of each perspective, scholars can gain insights about their own perspectives. What assumptions are they making? What factors are they ignoring? Equally important, what can they learn from competing perspectives? This chapter outlines the assumptions of each school of thought and notes their similarities and differences.
The Trojan Horse. Alberta and the future of Canada, 1995
In the mid-1990s, a second wave of the new right was sweeping across Canada, obliterating Canadia... more In the mid-1990s, a second wave of the new right was sweeping across Canada, obliterating Canadian traditions of using government as a positive force to correct the inequalities of the capitalist marketplace and providing public services for all. What happened to the caring/sharing - and peaceful - society that traditionally distinguished Canada from the United States? Having bypassed the full force of Margaret Thatcher's and Ronald Reagan's new right revolutions in the 1980s, this book explores why Canada was in the forefront of the second wave of the new right in the mid-1990s? It wasn't Ontario under Mike Harris that led Canada down the path to the market-based morality. It was Ralph Klein's Alberta. This book explores the politics, ideology, economics, sectors and people who made up what became known as the Klein revolution.
Against Orthodoxy: Studies in Nationalism. Book chapter in Trevor Harrison and Slobadan Drakulic eds., 2011
Since the mid-1970s, many writers on the political Left have essentialized nationalisms, much lik... more Since the mid-1970s, many writers on the political Left have essentialized nationalisms, much like many writers on the Right have essentialized socialism. In this chapter, I argue that not all nationalisms are alike and not all should be dismissed out of hand. On the contrary, in an era in which the United States has reasserted its claims to a new form of empire, progressive, internationalist versions of nationalism are being retrieved, in struggles for national and popular sovereignty. This is especially true in Latin America and Canada, the Western Hemisphere’s regional periphery to the American empire.
This book challenges the standard explanations for why Canada incurred so much foreign ownership ... more This book challenges the standard explanations for why Canada incurred so much foreign ownership and control over its economy at such an early point in its history and remained a resource-exporting economy with a truncated manufacturing sector. The standard explanations are that the high tariffs of the Canadian National Policy (1879-1930) induced US corporations to jump over them and set up branch plants in Canada, that proximity to the United States which was a pioneer in foreign direct investment abroad overwhelmed domestic industrialists, and that the unwillingness of Canadian capitalists to defend their own turn because of their weak nationalism, sealed Canada’s fate. This paper instead explores a provocative alternative explanation in the social origins of Canada’s dependent economy during the formative phase of Canadian manufacturing development (1867-1914). The latter occurred during heightened tensions between English and French Canada, intertwined with Catholics versus Protestants that weakened agrarian-based, popular democratic movements in a new settler country with a broad male franchise. The book explores the consequences of the peculiar interaction between class and the binational character of Canada in entrenching a conservative banking system that would not invest in industry, the effects of the squandering of enormous amounts of foreign capital on superfluous railways, and the failure of Canada to develop independent armed forces and domestically-owned military strategic industries that formed the basis for more independent economies in contemporaneous, comparably developed countries.
Looks critically at whether a global civil society is in the making. Authors of chapters examine ... more Looks critically at whether a global civil society is in the making. Authors of chapters examine issues around current social justice movements including those involving human rights, trade unions and anti-corporate globalization.They show that there is little evidence that a genuine civil society is emerging. Many argue that rather than promoting grassroots democracy, the dream of a global civil society may weaken the most power resistance to globalization from above. The most effective civic actions still largely take place where they have long been - at national and local levels.
John McCain's visit to Canada on Friday was a preview of just how important the issue of renegoti... more John McCain's visit to Canada on Friday was a preview of just how important the issue of renegotiating the North American free-trade agreement will be in this fall's U.S. presidential election. The prospect of a Barack Obama presidency has sparked a lot of "will he or won't he" worry in Canada. You can feel the fear of the business-as-usual crowd trying to reassure themselves that Mr. Obama won't really reopen NAFTA.
Alberta Institute of Agrologists 13th Annual Conference on Agriculture, Food and the Environment,... more Alberta Institute of Agrologists 13th Annual Conference on Agriculture, Food and the Environment, March 16, 2017 at Banff, Alberta. Green paper presentation by Gordon Laxer, Parkland Institute on Phasing Out Alberta Sands.
The Alberta Tar Sands released 68 Mt of carbon dioxide equivalent in 2014. Alberta’s climate plan... more The Alberta Tar Sands released 68 Mt of carbon dioxide equivalent in 2014. Alberta’s climate plan allows them to grow to 100 Mt by 2030. Growing emissions from the production of oil and will entirely cancel out Alberta’s reductions in electricity, vehicles, and methane by 2030. Allowing Sands GHGs to grow that much will almost certainly prevent Canada from reaching its 2030 Paris Agreement targets. This paper proposed three steps to meet the target of ending Sands production by 2040: 1) Place a permanent moratorium on new Sands production. 2) Give a closing time for Sands projects and units of projects that long ago paid off the capital costs, starting with the initial Suncor and Syncrude units, which are over 50 years old. 3) Require each Sands project to lower its emissions annually by 3–4% per year (2–3 Mt) starting in 2018. Projects that fail to meet GHG reduction targets must be fined at a level higher than the costs to comply. A just transition for Sands workers will require research, thought, and consultations with impacted, workers and communities.
Much deserved praise has been heaped on Brian Mulroney's legacy, but the universal lauding of NAF... more Much deserved praise has been heaped on Brian Mulroney's legacy, but the universal lauding of NAFTA misses the mark. Mulroney made major contributions
We need an independent, non-partisan public inquiry into foreign election meddling that goes beyo... more We need an independent, non-partisan public inquiry into foreign election meddling that goes beyond China. Powerful, non-government foreign entities, including foreign-influenced corporations, regularly intervene in our elections. Their meddling is more effective than China's because they hire Canadian managers, gaily wave the Maple Leaf and seem Canadian. They know how to sway voters better than China's operatives. After allegations of Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, Ottawa passed the Elections Modernization Act to ban foreign interference in federal elections. Yet it left a milewide loophole through which the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP) drove a gas-guzzling Hummer. Based in Calgary, CAPP is Big Foreign Oil's apex lobbyist.
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Papers by Gordon Laxer
deglobalization). I contend that hyper commodification has been strongest in phases of global integration and that, in contrast, the renationalization of economies has produced the most conducive conditions for decommodification. I outline a radical strategy for decommodification, which emphasizes its egalitarian and communitarian character, and contrast this with reactionary variations that support patriarchal and hierarchical versions of decommodification.
By making assumptions about which factors are important to investigate, every perspective must consequently ignore other factors, factors that may be crucial in competing perspectives. By understanding the assumptions of each perspective, scholars can gain insights about their own perspectives. What assumptions are they making? What factors are they ignoring? Equally important, what can they learn from competing perspectives? This chapter outlines the assumptions of each school of thought and notes their similarities and differences.
deglobalization). I contend that hyper commodification has been strongest in phases of global integration and that, in contrast, the renationalization of economies has produced the most conducive conditions for decommodification. I outline a radical strategy for decommodification, which emphasizes its egalitarian and communitarian character, and contrast this with reactionary variations that support patriarchal and hierarchical versions of decommodification.
By making assumptions about which factors are important to investigate, every perspective must consequently ignore other factors, factors that may be crucial in competing perspectives. By understanding the assumptions of each perspective, scholars can gain insights about their own perspectives. What assumptions are they making? What factors are they ignoring? Equally important, what can they learn from competing perspectives? This chapter outlines the assumptions of each school of thought and notes their similarities and differences.
By making assumptions about which factors are important to investigate, every perspective must consequently ignore other factors, factors that may be crucial in competing perspectives. By understanding the assumptions of each perspective, scholars can gain insights about their own perspectives. What assumptions are they making? What factors are they ignoring? Equally important, what can they learn from competing perspectives? This chapter outlines the assumptions of each school of thought and notes their similarities and differences.
1) Place a permanent moratorium on new Sands production.
2) Give a closing time for Sands projects and units of projects
that long ago paid off the capital costs, starting with the initial
Suncor and Syncrude units, which are over 50 years old.
3) Require each Sands project to lower its emissions annually by 3–4% per year (2–3 Mt) starting in 2018. Projects that fail to meet GHG reduction targets must be fined at a level higher than the costs to comply. A just transition for Sands workers will require research, thought, and consultations with impacted, workers and communities.