Leo Panitch

York University

Leo Panitch was a Distinguished Research Professor, renowned political economist, Marxist theorist and editor of the Socialist Register. He received a B.A. (Hons.) from the University of Manitoba in 1967 and a M.Sc.(Hons.) and PhD from the London School of Economics and Political Science in 1968 and 1974, respectively. He was a Lecturer, Assistant Professor, Associate Professor and Professor at Carleton University between 1972 and 1984. He was a Professor of Political Science at York University since 1984. He was the Chair of the Department of Political Science at York from 1988-1994. He was the General Co-editor of State and Economic Life series, U. of T. Press, from 1979 to 1995 and is the Co-founder and a Board Member of Studies in Political Economy. He was also the author of numerous articles and books dealing with political science including The End of Parliamentary Socialism (1997). He was a member of the Movement for an Independent and Socialist Canada, 1973-1975, the Ottawa Committee for Labour Action, 1975-1984, the Canadian Political Science Association, the Committee of Socialist Studies, the Marxist Institute and the Royal Society of Canada. He was an ardent supporter of the Socialist Project.

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  • The Socialist Register 2005

    The Empire Reloaded

    Edited by Colin Leys and Leo Panitch     January 2005

    In the Socialist Register 2005, the contributors examine, through a multitude of lenses, how the American Empire works. They take a comprehensive look at who holds the balance of power and how this affects stability. What is most interesting is the way these essays look at the impact that the new American Empire has had and is having throughout the world. The topics discussed include how the shift in global political relations has influenced gender relations, the media and popular culture.

  • The Socialist Register 2004

    The New Imperial Challenge

    Edited by Colin Leys and Leo Panitch     January 2004

    The essays in this fortieth volume of The Socialist Register analyze the unique nature of the new U.S. empire and challenge the left to develop a better theory of imperialism and its relation to globalized capitalism.

  • Global Capitalism & American Empire

    By Sam Gindin and Leo Panitch     December 2003

    The American Empire has usually come in through the back door rather than the front door: its own empire of business was made plausible and attractive by the American state’s insistence that it was not imperialistic.

  • The Socialist Register 2003

    Fighting Identities–Race, Religion and Ethno-Nationalism

    Edited by Colin Leys and Leo Panitch     January 2003

    What are the roots of “fundamentalism”? Why have ethnic and religious conflict become so prevalent? Are racism and national oppression inevitable parts of global capitalism? How should the Left address the issue of refugees and mass migration? What are the meanings and implications of “the war on terrorism”?

  • The Globalisation Decade

    A Critical Reader

    Edited by Colin Leys and Leo Panitch     January 2003

    Over the past decade the contributors to The Socialist Register have been widely recognised as providing the Left’s most distinctive investigations on the contradictions of globalisation, the internationalisation of the state, progressive competitiveness, the new imperialism and mobilisations against it.

    Providing political and economic analyses, this anthology looks at the cultural contradictions of globalisation. It includes a set of readings on the role of states–especially that of the United States–in making globalisation happen. It examines the problems these states now confront in trying to keep it going.

  • The Socialist Register 2002

    A World of Contradictions

    Edited by Colin Leys and Leo Panitch     January 2002

    The contributors, from many countries, discuss the contradictions that exist world wide and the resulting human suffering and misery that emerges. Contrary to the idyllic picture being painted by the promoters of globalization, we learn that workers are without work, that cultural, political, gender and racial conflicts abound, and that contradictions between countries and regions lead to an ever widening gap between the “haves” and the “have nots‘“as health care and social services erode.

  • The Socialist Register 2001

    Working Classes, Global Realities

    Edited by Colin Leys and Leo Panitch     January 2001

  • The Socialist Register 2000

    Necessary and Unnecessary Utopias

    Edited by Colin Leys and Leo Panitch     January 2000

    When mainstream commentators talk about the future, they tend to predict dire doomsday scenarios or spin wild techno-fantasies. In spite of their radically hi-tech edge, these futuristic scenarios usually assume that current social structures will persist. Necessary and Unnecessary Utopias points toward a very different way of thinking about the future. While rejecting schematic blueprints, this book reasserts the need for a bold and revolutionary social imagination, one aimed at saner ways of living and organizing society.

  • The Socialist Register 1999

    Global Capitalism versus Democracy

    Edited by Colin Leys and Leo Panitch     January 1999

  • The Socialist Register 1998

    The Communist Manifesto Now

    Edited by Colin Leys and Leo Panitch     January 1998

    The 150th anniversary of the Communist Manifesto provides the occasion for a powerful set of essays that draw on the Manifesto’s legacy to analyse working class responses today to the growing exhaustion of neo-liberalism and that contribute to setting a left agenda for the new millenium. The volume also features brilliant essays on the making of the Manifesto, plus a reprint of the Manifesto and a reproachful letter to Marx from a socialist-feminist.