Socialist Studies (E-Journal) / Études Socialistes
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Confronting Power, Money, and Most Economists: The Class Action of the Anti-Free Trade Movement
Full text linkThe Canadian anti-free trade movement was a genuine ‘movement’ that originated locally in many different places throughout the country and was soon consolidated in a loose coalition at the national level. It was extraordinary for several reasons. First, it brought together a large number of groups that had never worked with each other before and their coalitions were strong and effective. Second, it was a movement based on class issues and was understood that way by its leaders and most of those who participated in it. Third, it democratized thinking and knowledge about economic policy, and this, in turn, meant that many groups and issues that were normally absent from a discussion of macro-economic policy, became central to the debate. Fourth, the anti-free trade movement grew in relation to the specific issues of regions and groups but the critical arguments that developed over time focused on the problems of having market mechanisms dominate both the economic and social spheres. This scrutiny and discussion of the market system itself has not been replicated in debates on any subsequent major policy issue. 
Canada\u27s National Questions, Free Trade and the Left
Full text linkIt is now more than 30 years since the launch of the bilateral:anada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement (CUFTA), predecessor to the multilateral North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the (now abandoned) Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA). For a generation, these "free trade" initiatives provided an important part of the framework in which political movements developed in Canada, engendering debates and controversies which continue to this day. When a new moment of trade politics emerged with Donald Trump\u27s challenge to NAFTA, some veterans from those earlier anti-free trade battles were unable to see the new, white nationalist terrain upon which Trump was operating. This article - organized principally around the author\u27s own engagement with the anti-free trade movements of the 1980s - suggests that this inability to see clearly the new context of anti-free trade politics was rooted in the incomplete and contradictory left-nationalist theory which underpinned most anti-free trade politics of that earlier era. The article suggests that while there are national questions in Canada - in particular those associated with Indigenous peoples and with Quebec - the attempt to articulate a parallel "national question" in Canada as a whole has proven to be impossible
Free Trade: A Struggle in Constant Transformation
Full text linkReflections from the front lines of the free trade struggles
Interview with C.B. Macpherson on the COVID-19 Pandemic
Full text linkIn 1983 (on the Centenary of Karl Marx’s death) the Canadian Society for Socialist Studies enlisted me to interview C.B. Macpherson about the continuing significance of Marx’s theories, and it has occurred that I might interview him again now about the relevance of his own views to the social and political ramifications of the current epidemic. A problem is that Macpherson died a few years after the earlier interview. However, luckily and likely in virtue of a just published book by me on his political thought, Macpherson’s ghost has agreed to the interview that follows
Racism as a Workload and Bargaining Issue
Full text linkMy main contention is that racism should be read beyond the registers of discrimination, human rights, or harassment – rather, I approach racism as a workload issue that labour organizations and employers need to address at the level of collective bargaining. To illustrate this argument, I focus on racism and workload as it relates to Black faculty, faculty of colour, and Indigenous faculty in universities and colleges in Canada, although the argument can be applied to other job types and other places. While many unions have policies and statements in support of local, national and international anti-racist struggles, the idea of racism as a workload issue has not been seriously taken up by unions/associations, or for that matter by anti-racist activists on university/college campuses. I offer reasons why racism is a workload issue, and consider the potential role of unions in addressing racism
What is Democratic Socialism? What is Socialist Democracy? Review of \u27True Democracy\u27 as a Prelude to Communism: the Marx of Democracy by Alexandros Chrysis
No full textThis review of the new book by Alexandros Chrysis explores the meaning of democratic socialism and socialist democracy through a discussion of Marx\u27s early writings on politics (1837-43) in terms of their political and philosophical significance for today
A New “Era” in Socialist Studies Publications: Moving to a Rolling Publication Model
No full textSocialist Studies is moving to a rolling publication model
Challenges for Institutional Ethnographers: On the Paradox of Standpoint Epistemology and the Complexities of Difference
Full text linkFeminist standpoint epistemology (FSE) is an important form of writing from below; that is, writing from embodied experience. FSE and other forms of writing from below involve practices of representation that are mediated by ideology. In this article, I tease out some of the complexities and limitations of feminist efforts to use FSE to situate and embody thought. Some feminist standpoint theorists understand Cartesian dualism as a dualism or a division that can be collapsed or reversed, but I show that what is called “Cartesian dualism” is in fact a paradox and therefore cannot be overcome but must be grappled with on an ongoing basis in our efforts to write from below. The article begins with an exploration of the basic tenets and presumptions of two schools of FSE. While neither school can evade the politics of representation, I show that one is able to withstand an intersectional critique whilst the other is not. Having unpacked these schools of FSE, I reflect on Himani Bannerji’s ideology critique of intersectionality to lay bare the limitations of this concept that some writers from below deploy and to advance a reflexive materialist epistemology