Pubs, Pulpits and Prairie Fires

Elroy Deimert

History professor Paul Wessner hangs out at BJ’s Bar and Cue Club on Tuesday nights sharing his accounts of the On-to-Ottawa Trek and the Regina Riot in 1935. Due to local interest in his research, he invites Doc Savage and Matt Shaw, real-life leaders on the Trek, to deliver first-hand accounts of the Trek and the Riot. He encourages listeners to contribute when no guests are scheduled to tell their stories. The narratives broaden to the evolution of the Social Credit and CCF prairie fires… (more information)

Alternative Budgets

Budgeting as if People Mattered

John Loxley

Alternative budgets are becoming an increasingly popular form of political action both in Canada and internationally. They are a means of advancing an alternative social and economic perspective to the neo-conservative agenda of slashing social services, reducing the role of the government and cutting taxes for the rich, all in the name of “necessity.” Alternative budgets demonstrate that there really are more enlightened alternatives which are, at the same time, fiscally responsible… (more information)

Apostles of Greed

Capitalism and the Myth of the Individual in the Market

Allan Engler

”Provides a readable history of the eighteenth century origins of the ‘myth of the individual in the market,’ traces subsequent modifications of this idea, and details its contemporary revival...Like other religious relics, once removed from its ritual setting, the mythology of the individual in the market looks so tawdry and illogical one wonders how it became so potent.” - Libby Davis, Pacific Current (more information)

Bankruptcies and Bailouts

Edited by Wayne Antony, Julie Guard

Recession? Depression? Market adjustment? Billion-dollar bailouts? Just what is happening to the economy? Like the rest of the industrialized world, Canada is in the midst of an economic crisis that is cleary of global proportions. Yet, Nobel Prize winning economists failed to see it coming. This is unsurprising since, in the words of the newly humble Alan Greenspan, the crisis revealed “a flaw in the model ... that defines the way the world works.” Bankruptcies and Bailouts explains… (more information)

Big Death

Funeral Planning in the Age of Corporate Deathcare

Doug Smith

Over the last twenty years the corporate death “care” industry, has taken over Canada’s funerals and funeral planning, in preparation for the Golden Age of Death in North America, which will commence in 2016, when the first baby boomer turns seventy. In Big Death, Winnipeg writer Doug Smith shows how “Big Death” has bought up countless funeral homes, jacked up prices and maintained the facade of local ownership by not changing the name over the door. The book also… (more information)

Blowback

A Canadian History of Agent Orange and the War at Home

Chris Arsenault

The village of Enniskillen, a sleepy cluster of a few dozen houses in New Brunswick’s Queens County, has never been invaded by a foreign power. But during the 1950s to 1970s, the village was ground zero for a different kind of offensive, this one launched by the American and Canadian military against its own people with the deadly dioxin Agent Orange. Between 1956 and 1984 the Canadian military and its private subcontractors sprayed more than 1 million litres of rainbow herbicides around New… (more information)

Bringing the Food Economy Home

Local Alternatives to Global Agribusiness

Steven Gorelick, Todd Merrifield, Helena Norberg-Hodge

There has been much discussion about the quality of food being provided by global agribusiness and the serious environmental impact it produces. The benefits of fostering a local food production are often dismissed, but it would address a range of health, social and environmental problems. The authors argue if the trend of large agribusiness were thought about rather than accepted without question, then local food production would be seen as a viable means of supplementing this existing system.… (more information)

Canada’s Deadly Secret

Saskatchewan Uranium and the Global Nuclear System

Jim Harding

Canada’s Deadly Secret chronicles the struggle over Saskatchewan’s uranium mining, the front end of the global nuclear system. It digs into impacts on Aboriginal rights, environmental health and the effect of free trade, tracing Saskatchewan’s pivotal role in nuclear proliferation and the spread of contamination and cancer. Harding shows that nuclear energy cannot address global warming, nor is there a “peaceful atom.” The book goes inside biased public inquiries;… (more information)

Challenging Politics

COPE, Electoral Politics and Social Movements

Donna Vogel

Founded in 1968, the Coalition of Progressive Electors (COPE) claims to represent a coming together of “ordinary citizens” united around a program of people’s needs. As a municipal political party in Vancouver, COPE has attempted to voice the diverse issues and objectives of progressive movements in civic politics, and has placed itself in direct opposition to its chief opponent, the corporate-sponsored Non-Particisan Association (NPA). Challenging Politics is a history that… (more information)

Dismantling A Nation (Second Edition)

The Transition to Corporate Rule in Canada (second edition)

Stephen McBride, John Shields

This new edition is reorganized to make it a more usable text and updated to include the Liberal government’s pursuit of neo-liberal policies. William K. Carroll, Sociology, University of Victoria, said of the first edition: “All the aspects of the neo-conservative policy matrix–privatization, deregulation, NAFTA, the obsession with deficits, attacks on collective bargaining, the cutbacks to social programs, the weakening of federal powers–are carefully analyzed as elements… (more information)

Energy Security and Climate Change

A Canadian Primer

Cy Gonick

Peak oil and climate change were mere hypotheses only a few years ago. This book brings together some of Canada’s and the world’s leading authorities to explore the origins of twin crises of our times and to evaluate the various solutions being advanced. What emerges is an engrossing discussion that is critical, sophisticated and plain spoken, challenging and controversial. Energy Security and Climate Change will be of interest to those seeking an introduction to the issues, as well… (more information)

History in the Making

Raymond Williams, Edward Thompson and Radical Intellectuals, 1936-1956

Steven Woodhams

For a generation of political activists growing up in the 1930s opposing fascism was a priority. The policy of appeasing Hitler and the non-partisan stance of the Labour Party in the face of the Spanish Civil War made the Communist Party an attractive alternative. From this generation emerged key figures in academia and publishing: Eric Hobsbawm, Ralph Miliband, John Saville, Martin Eve, Dorothy and Edward Thompson and Raymond Williams. Woodhams studies the experiences of this generation, the motives… (more information)

Inventing Tax Rage

Misinformation in the National Post

Larry Patriquin

During the National Post’s first year of publication, it claimed that Canada’s supposedly exorbitant taxes were causing great damage to the economy and had produced a form of “tax rage” among the middle class. In contrast, Larry Patriquin suggests that the paper’s writers were engaged in a dubious form of “reasoning” in order to promote an ideology that mostly benefits the wealthy. This involved presenting the Post’s aspiration for tax cuts as the &… (more information)

John Saville

Memoirs from the Left

John Saville

John Saville has been one of the most influential writers of the second half of the twentieth century in the field of British Labour History. He was a Professor of Economic and Social History at the University of Hull. He has written or edited over twenty books including 1848, The Consolidation of the Capitalist State, and the Dictionary of Labour Biography. His political memoirs touch upon: • Early life; joining the Communist Party at the LSE, travels in France and Nazi Germany • Stories… (more information)

Liquid Gold

Energy Privatization in British Columbia

John Calvert

Secure, affordable, reliable energy has been one of British columbia’s most important competitive advantages and a key contributor to the province’s prosperity. BC’s energy costs have been based on the actual cost of production. Under new government policy, future energy will not be generated by BC hydro, but will be purchased from private energy producers. John Calvert shows how BC’s successful public energy system is being supplanted by a deregulated private electrical… (more information)

On the Move

The Caribbean Since 1989

Alejandra Bronfman

The Caribbean stands out in the popular imagination as a “place without history,” a place which has somehow eluded modernity. In On the Move, Alejandra Bronfman argues the opposite is true; the caribbean is, and has always been, deeply engaged with the wider world. From drugs and tourism to international political struggles, these islands form an integral part of world history and of the present, and are in a constant state of economic and social flux in the face of global transformations… (more information)

Our Board Our Business

Why Farmers Support the Canadian Wheat Board

Edited by Darrell McLaughlin, Terry Pugh

Our Board Our Business is based on presentations made to a symposium on the Canadian Wheat Board organized by the National Farmers union held in Regina, Saskatchewan, February 24 and 25, 2006. The central purpose of the book is to help farmers and non-farmers better understand the essential role of the CWB in the lives of western wheat producers and their communities, and the Canadian economy. The need for such an understanding has been made all the more urgent by Prime Minister Harper’s neo… (more information)

Parliamentary Socialism

A Study in the Politics of Labour

Ralph Miliband

Of political parties claiming socialism to be their aim, the Labour Party has always been one of the most dogmatic—not about socialism, but about the parliamentary system. This is not simply to say that the Labour Party has never been a party of revolution: such parties have normally been quite willing to use the opportu-nities the parliamentary system offered as one means of furthering their aims. It is rather that the leaders of the Labour Party have always rejected any kind of political… (more information)

Power and Contestation

India Since 1989

Nivedita Menon, Aditya Nigam

1989 marks the unraveling of India’s “Nehruvian Consensus” of a modern, secular nation with a selfreliant economy. Caste and religion play major roles in national politics. Global economic integration led to conflict between the state and dispossessed people, but processes of globalization have also enabled new spaces for political assertion. In a world of American Empire, India as a nuclear power has abandoned nonalignment, a shift contested by voices within. Power and Contestation… (more information)

Ralph Miliband and the Politics of the New Left

Michael Newman

Ralph Miliband (1924–94) was a key 20th-century political thinker. His books The State in Capitalist Society (Quartet) and Parliamentary Socialism (Merlin) influenced a generation of the left and provided a focus for academic debate. Miliband’s life and work were devoted to the attempt to define and apply an independent form of socialism. As a result of his published works, teaching and role in political movements, he became the most influential socialist political theorist writing… (more information)

Realizing Hope

Life Beyond Capitalism

Michael Albert

Something is profoundly wrong with capitalism. Vast inequalities of wealth and power won’t take the world to a better future. “What is the alternative?” is a question echoing all around the globe. Michael Albert has wrestled with this question for many years, and his answer regarding economics has captured the imagination of many. Participatory Economics—“Parecon” for short—Albert’s proposed economic system to replace capitalism, rejects competitive… (more information)

Risk and Trust

Including or Excluding Citizens?

Edited by Law Commission of Canada

In recent years politicians, academics and social commentators have discussed and debated aspects of the “risk society.” For some, embracing a risk frame fulfils a socially productive role in that it helps identify and manage a range of harms and fears. However, as this multidisciplinary collection illustrates, peeling back the veneer of this often highly technocratic discourse reveals a series of moral judgments about the constitution of risk and its role in organizingcontemporary society… (more information)

Shrinking the State

Globalization and Public Administration

Bryan Evans, John Shields

This book provides a political economy perspective on recent changes within Canadian public administrative practice and structure, revealing the theoretical and practical underpinnings of neo-liberal public administration. It also addresses itself to the search for more democratic alternatives. This work is intended to serve as a text for courses in public administration and Canadian government and politics. The role of globalization, state fiscal crisis, economic restructuring and the ideological… (more information)

Social Torment

Atlantic Canada in the New World Order

Thom Workman

For Atlantic Canadians the much vaunted “New World Order,” with its free-trade/privitazion mantra, has been anything but good. In fact by all accounts to date, it has brought nothing but social torment for all but the very rich and very powerful. In this revealing new book, Thom Workman traces the impact that the new order has had on working people, the working poor, people on social assistance and the elderly. The impact of the new order on health care, education, the environment and… (more information)

Taxing Illusions

Taxation, Democracy and Embedded Political Theory

Phil Hansen

For several years now, the business community, politicians, the media and many academics have been actively pro-moting tax cuts as the key to successful economic development. Governments everywhere, regardless of party label, have responded with policies of tax reduction. But taxation is about more than raising revenue or shaping economic activity. Taxation helps define the nature of a political community and the values of a political culture. Through examining two Saskatchewan tax reports, one… (more information)

The Anti-Capitalist Dictionary

Movements, Histories and Motivations

David E. Lowes

This dictionary is an alternative and a counter-balance to the many political dictionaries that ignore or marginalize the history and influence of anti-capitalist movements. It paints a rich picture of the ideas and issues that inform today’s anti-capitalist activity. Anti-capitalism has existed in many forms and with a variety of names since the advent of capitalism. But this kind of oppositional force has often been ignored, misrepresented or trivialized by many in the media and academia… (more information)

The Communist Manifesto

Friedrich Engels, Karl Marx

An English translation by Samuel Moore of the original maifesto of the Communist Party, published in London in 1848. (more information)

The Impasse of Modernity

Debating the Future of the Global Market Economy

Christian Comeliau

There is a deep unease is growing over the direction of modern society. Christian Comeliau, a well-known French economist, argues that understanding the historical logic of modernity must start with the economy, but that constructive discussion of the future must look at economics within the framework of society’s goals and the limits of Nature. Comeliau critiques the dominant position of market economics in our social system–whose core social value has become the maximization of profit… (more information)

The Socialist Register 2008

Global Flashpoints Reactions to Imperialism

Edited by Colin Leys, Leo Panitch

Socialist Register 2008 takes a look at the forces at work in opposition to the American Empire and analyzes their nature—are they reactionary or progressive? Further, what are the prospects for the Left, in the Islamic world, in Latin America and in the capitalist north? The contributors seek to identify the distinguishing features of neoliberalism today and point out its emerging contradictions. (more information)

The Tragedy of Progress

Marxism, Modernity and the Aboriginal Question

David Bedford, Danielle Irving-Stephens

The Left in Canada has had an uneasy relationship with the Aboriginal struggle for justice. There is a natural sympathy and alliance between the working class and its political representatives who are struggling against the exploitation of labour and Aboriginal peoples and nations who are resisting the dispossession of their lands and the loss of their culture. Yet the co-incidence of interests has very rarely led to any support by labour and the Left for Aboriginal resistance. In fact, rather than… (more information)

Turning the World Right Side Up

Science, Community and Democracy

John Kearney, Patrick Kerans

The focus of this book is on the un-sustainability of the system that economists, in the name of science, have foisted upon society. Corporations and the economists who act as their apologists, say the authors, are the cultural driving force in contemporary society. They are reductionists: they are locked into a single-minded pursuit of one narrow facet of human well-being. Framing their study within an analysis of contemporary neoliberalism, the authors explore new directions leading to a broad… (more information)