Plenty of people are rightly wondering how the Saskatchewan Party could possibly have hyped up an announcement about what we’ll see as students return to fall, then unveiled what remains the least substantive excuse for a plan in the country. And while there’s no doubt that the lack of concern
Continue readingTag: strategy
Accidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Klaus Schwab comments on the importance of making decisions with far more of a long-term focus, rather paying attention only to short-term dollar calculations: (W)e should develop scorecards to track our performance on these long-term priorities. To that end, I have three
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: On legacies
For all the campaign talk about how this year’s election campaign could have proven a parallel of the 1972 result, we’ve instead ended up seeing Justin Trudeau repudiate his father’s response to another contentious result. When he won a majority government in 1980 which lacked representation from the western provinces,
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – In an excerpt from his new book, Martin Lukacs examines the disappointment Justin Trudeau has inflicted on anybody who thought his carefully-cultivated progressive image would be matched by action: Long before photographs of Trudeau partying in black-face and brown-face in his twenties
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Robert Borosage discusses why we shouldn’t let conveniently one-sided calls for civility silence debate over progressive possibilities. And Alex Ballingall reports on the affordability anxiety which demands an effective political response rather than a contemptuous dismissal: In a memo outlining the results,
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Isabel Sawhill and Christopher Pulliam discuss the gap between a U.S. populace which wants to see more progressive taxes to fund improved social programs, and a political class blocking any progress. And PressProgress offers a reminder that Canada too has relatively low
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Ajit Zacharias, Thomas Masterson and Fernando Rios-Avila study the economic well-being of U.S. households, and find a stagnant standard of living including a falling base income for the median family. Josh Bivens and Ben Zipperer confirm that in the past few decades, workers
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week. – J.W. Mason reviews Yanis Varoufakis’ Adults in the Room with a focus on how damaging austerity was forced on Greece by other governments. And Jan Rovny comments on the need for Europe’s left-wing parties to adapt to the precarious economy and evolving social
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: On relentless positivity
Following up on my candidate profiles for the Saskatchewan NDP’s leadership campaign, I’ll point out one obvious change in dynamics since 2013 – starting with this observation from the previous campaign (emphasis added): As long as there were four leadership candidates in the race, there were several ways to try
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Leadership 2017 Links
One final roundup post from the NDP’s federal leadership campaign – with a focus on Jagmeet Singh’s first steps as the party’s new leader. – The Ribbon offers a roundtable discussion of Singh’s victory. And Ryan Tumulty and Enzo DiMatteo each interview Singh about his campaign and his next steps.
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: On structural barriers
As the NDP’s federal leadership race approaches its conclusion, Tom Parkin has been doing some noteworthy writing on some of the issues which voters may want to keep in mind. And I’ll start with Parkin’s discussion as to how some of the systems which most deserve to be modeled may
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Leadership 2017: The Quebec Question
Don MacPherson has joined the many commentators whose main take on the federal NDP’s leadership race is to zero in on how Quebec voters might react to Jagmeet Singh’s Sikh background and head covering. And Adam Radwanski has rightly challenged the pundits’ consensus to some extent. But (as noted in
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – Nina Shapiro comments on the price of privatizing public goods. And George Monbiot weighs in on how the Grenfell Tower fire confirms that what corporatist politicians deride as “red tape” is in fact vital protection for people: For years successive governments have
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: On comparative advantages
In the federal NDP’s previous leadership campaign, Tom Mulcair managed to release numerous policy proposals without offering any hint of what he’d do as leader. Starting from the (correct) assumption that a frontrunner could likely find his way to victory simply by minimizing controversy, Mulcair released policy planks which were
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Annette Alstadsæter, Niels Johannesen and Gabriel Zucman examine (PDF) the size and distribution of tax evasion and (not surprisingly) find it clustered at the top – with the wealthiest .01% dodging 30% of its obligation to society at large. And Marco Chown
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Leadership 2017 Candidate Profile: Charlie Angus
If Peter Julian’s leadership campaign has been surprising in its relatively push toward controversy, Charlie Angus may be defying expectations in the opposite direction – as the punk rocker has been the most serene figure in the race so far. Strengths Rather than spending much of the first two debates
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Leadership 2017 Candidate Profile: Peter Julian
I’ll start my series of NDP leadership candidate profiles with the first to enter the leadership race – and the one who’s likely done the most to shape the campaign so far. I’ve noted before my surprise at the choices made so far by Peter Julian’s campaign: a candidate who
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Afternoon Links
This and that for your Sunday reading.
– Andrew Jackson discusses how the rise of right-wing, prejudiced populism can be traced to the failures of global corporate governance. And Dani Rodrik argues that it’s time to develop an international political system to facilitate – rather than overriding – democratic action:
Some simple principles would reorient us in the right direction. First, there is no single way to prosperity. Countries make their own choices about the institutions that suit them best. Some, like Britain, may tolerate, say, greater inequality and financial instability in return for higher growth and more financial innovation. They will opt for lower taxes on capital and more freewheeling financial systems. Others, like Continental European nations, will go for greater equity and financial conservatism. International firms will complain that differences in rules and regulations raise the costs of doing business across borders, but their claims must be traded off against the benefits of diversity.Second, countries have the right to protect their institutional arrangements and safeguard the integrity of their regulations. Financial regulations or labor protections can be circumvented and undermined by moving operations to foreign countries with considerably lower standards. Countries should be able to prevent such “regulatory arbitrage” by placing restrictions on cross-border transactions — just as they can keep out toys or agricultural products that do not meet domestic health standards.…Third, the purpose of international economic negotiations should be to increase domestic policy autonomy, while being mindful of the possible harm to trade partners. The world’s trade regime is driven by a mercantilist logic: You lower your barriers in return for my lowering mine. But lack of openness is no longer the binding constraint on the world economy; lack of democratic legitimacy is.It is time to embrace a different logic, emphasizing the value of policy autonomy. Poor and rich countries alike need greater space for pursuing their objectives. The former need to restructure their economies and promote new industries, and the latter must address domestic concerns over inequality and distributive justice.
– William Lazonick and Matt Hopkins note that already-appalling estimates of the gap between CEOs and other workers may be severely underestimating the problem. And Iglika Ivanova laments British Columbia’s woefully insufficient changes to its minimum wage which will keep large numbers of workers in poverty.
– In one positive development for corporate accountability, Telesur reports that the International Criminal Court is now willing to take jurisdiction over land grabbing, environmental destruction and other corporate crime.
– Harry Stein writes that there are significant economic and social gains to be achieved by better funding social infrastructure.
– Finally, Jeremy Nuttall interviews Robert Fox, the NDP’s new national director, on the plan to building a more activist party – both in the sense of better engaging with existing activists, and developing a culture of ongoing action. And Robin Sears offers a long-term path for the NDP to once again lead Canada toward progressive policies.
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: #YEG2016 Followup Links
While there’s been plenty of ill-informed commentary since the NDP’s convention last weekend, I’ll take a moment to highlight a few of the followup points which deserve a read.- Joshua Keep rightly recognizes the new leadership election as an opportuni…
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Spun out
Sadly, there are far too many half-baked outside arguments being made about the federal NDP’s leadership review and how it connects to provincial-level choices. (To be clear, I contrast those against some genuine concerns being raised by members.) But …
Continue reading