Category Archives: Global Issues
Is it the “Surge” that’s worked?
While many conservative supporters of the Iraq War have quietly disappeared – Dick Cheney notwithstanding – many have taken comfort in the apparent success of George Bush’s “troop surge” of 2007. Nevertheless, a great number of commentators have pointed to other factors in the decline of Iraqi violence. The New York Review of Books has […]
My Review of Neil Bissoondath’s Selling Illusions
Neil Bissoondath’s book, Selling Illusions, offers an unusual argument for a Canadian book, particularly since a non-white immigrant writes it. Selling Illusions opposes Canada’s official, sacred cow policy of multiculturalism. Generally speaking, Bissoondath’s book is a well-written treatise that discusses a potentially dry subject in clear, jargon-free prose. Nevertheless, his arguments suffer from some surprising […]
Michael Ignatieff`s The Rights Revolution: A Review
Here’s the first of a series of revamped book reviews that I’ve published in the past on Chapters.ca and Amazon. They’re not meant to be exhaustive, but they have helped me to focus my understanding of the books and my memory of their key ideas. Eventually I will publish most of my older reviews and […]
Inequality Makes Us Ill
Across all the Western democracies, there is a consistent pattern in which outcomes worsen as inequality increases BY WILL KYMLICKA A Review of The Spirit Level: Why More Equal Societies Almost Always Do Better, by Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett, Allen Lane, 331 pages http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20090515.wbkspirit16/BNStory/globebooks/home ……………………….. Will Kymlicka, a noted Canadian scholar on politics and […]
If you think government is bad, think of the alternative!
One of the first points I make to my political science classes is the necessity of government. I remind my students that the alternative – a society without rules, a legitimate government or the rule of law – would be much worse. I often point to Somalia, a country in name only. In reality, it’s […]
Wheat from the Chaff : World Economic Forum
In a world where economic discussion is still overwhelmed by neo-liberal cant, it’s refreshing to see a generally pro-business organization capable of seeing competitiveness and productivity in (somewhat) broader terms than Milton Friedman’s disciples. The World Economic Forum is a Swiss-based think tank that promotes international dialogue on a variety of key global issues. Perhaps […]
Resource financing keeps Bay Street flush
Here are some telling statistics that help describe the magnitude of the American economic tailspin: ………………… BOYD ERMAN From Monday’s Globe and Mail April 6, 2009 at 4:19 AM EDT Take that, Wall Street. Bay Street bankers are finding themselves in the unprecedented situation of being just as busy selling stock as New York financiers, […]