Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Vincent Bevins interviews Branko Milanovic about the economic roots of the working-class revolt against neoliberalism, while pointing out that there’s nothing inevitable about globalization harming large numbers of people in the developed world: Let’s start with the obvious question. Does the elephant graph
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Accidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Jacob Levy highlights the importance of “identity politics” – or more specifically, the willingness to fight against systematic inequality of all kinds – as part of an effective progressive movement. And George Monbiot writes that we should be returning to first principles when
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Here, on the crisis of liberal democracy around the globe – and how we face our own obvious risks in Canada. For further reading…– Yascha Mounk’s research into the precarious state of democracy is discussed here by Amanda Taub. And Andrea Kendall-Taylor and Erica Frantz trace how a seemingly secure
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Afternoon Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week. – Miles Corak asks how we should see the growing concentration of income at the top of the spectrum, and concludes that we should be concerned mostly with the breakdown between personal merit and success among the extremely privileged: Connections matter. And for the
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This and that for your Sunday reading. – Stephen Dubner discusses the importance of social trust in supporting a functional economy and society: (S)ocial trust is … HALPERN: Social trust is an extraordinarily interesting variable and it doesn’t get anywhere near the attention it deserves. But the basic idea is
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Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – George Monbiot rightly makes the point that a general attitude of kindness is a must for a functioning society – while lamenting that anything of the sort is all too often lacking from public policy choices. – James Di Fiore discusses Justin Trudeau’s
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This and that for your Sunday reading. – Larry Beinhart argues that aside from the gross unfairness and economic harm from growing inequality, there’s a basic problem trusting the uber-rich to make reasonable decisions with massive amounts of wealth. And George Monbiot makes the case that even as he pretends
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Assorted content to end your week. – George Monbiot discusses the importance of recognizing our social connections in making our political choices, rather than treating the world as merely a collection of unconnected individuals: It is not hard to see what the evolutionary reasons for social pain might be. Survival
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Here, on how the Libs’ carbon price rollout managed to maximize the resulting sound and fury while signifying little actual progress. For further reading…– Marc Lee offered a reality check on the minimal effect of Justin Trudeau’s price announcement, with reference to Marc Jaccard’s study here (PDF). And Karri Munn-Venn
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Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Mariana Mazzucato makes the case for a progressive message of shared wealth creation: A progressive economic agenda must have at its heart an understanding of wealth creation as a collective process. Yes, businesses are wealth creators, but they do not create wealth alone.
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Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.- George Monbiot observes that while few people would want to drive animals to extinction directly, we’re all too often eager to settle for a consumerist culture which produces exactly that result. – Car…
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This and that for your Thursday reading.- Naomi Klein writes about the racism and dehumanization behind climate change denialism and inaction. And George Monbiot reminds us of the dangers of overheating oceans, while Michael Wines interviews Todd Halih…
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Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.- Alan Freeman is duly appalled by Apple’s attempt to throw itself a pity party with the money it’s hoarding rather than paying in fair corporate taxes. And James Mackintosh reports on Jeroen Dijsselbloe…
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Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.- Atrios offers a reminder as to how means-testing tends to make social programs more vulnerable to attack without making our overall tax system more progressive:We already means test through the tax cod…
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Assorted content to end your week.- George Monbiot discusses how neoliberal ideology has managed to take over as the default assumption in global governance – despite its disastrous and readily visible effects:(T)he past four decades have been characte…
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This and that for your Sunday reading.- Joseph Stiglitz writes that inequality is killing the American middle class. And Crawford Kilian examines the direct connection between inequality and midlife mortality:For some white Americans born between 1961 …
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This and that for your Thursday reading.- Paul Edwards discusses the availability of a gradual transition to clean energy while avoiding more than 2 degrees of climate change – but only if we start swapping out fossil fuels for renewable energy now. An…
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Assorted content to end your week.- Mariana Mazzucato discusses the futility of slashing government without paying attention to what it’s intended to accomplish. And Sheila Block and Kaylie Tiessen are particularly critical of Ontario’s short-term sell…
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This and that for your Thursday reading.- George Monbiot discusses the inherent conflict between consumption and conservation:We can persuade ourselves that we are living on thin air, floating through a weightless economy, as gullible futurologists pr…
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Miscellaneous material for your Remembrance Day reading. – Roderick Benns interviews Robin Boadway about the results of past basic income studies which have shown that economic security helps rather than hinders individual participation in the workforce: Benns: What about a basic income guarantee makes it a social justice issue? Boadway: To
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