It’s time to reflect not just on what politics is doing to our democracy but what it’s doing to us
Let’s begin by wishing U.S. President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump a full and speedy recovery following their positive COVID-19 testing. The text below was drafted before this diagnosis was known and reflects on the toxicity of public discourse for which the president is partly culpable. Some of the social media response to…
Reuther had his finger in everything from labour negotiations to legislation to civil rights to election campaigns
Amity Shlaes’ Great Society is a chronicle of the United States in the mid-20th century. And reading it reminded me of Walter Reuther, a once famous name I’d almost forgotten. Reuther was a hugely influential player in organized labour and Democratic politics. With the United Auto Workers (UAW) as his power base, he had his…
Two troubling questions lurk behind the results of the Fraser Institute’s 2020 Economic Freedom of the World report, released Sept. 10. This year’s report is based on 2018 data (the most recent available). By 2018, global economic freedom had recovered from the 2008 financial crisis and was at its highest level ever, albeit by just…
When people believe it’s the government’s job to help someone, they stop doing it themselves
“God giveth and the government taketh away,” goes the old, wry saying. God aside, it’s people who won’t or can’t give when the government takes away. A recent survey of generosity in the United States and Canada gives proof. The more centralist and socialist a society becomes, the less voluntary giving occurs. Socialism doesn't help…
Its downfall as Latin America’s freest economy will be next if socialist activists have their way and rewrite the constitution
By Paz Gómez Research associate Frontier Centre for Public Policy When Hong Kong pro-democracy protests stalled a U..S-China deal last year, they showed how sensitive trade is to domestic political unrest. Few observers noticed, however, that Chilean demonstrations forced the cancellation of the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation summit. U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese Communist Party…
My opinion on American presidential politics and $3 will get you a cup of coffee at Starbucks. Then again, you can dispense with my opinion and just spend the $3 to get the coffee. But if you want my opinion. … The Iowa caucuses are upon us – the first major moment in the United…
History shows plenty of radicals who pushed too hard. We have plenty on today’s world stage
In the summer and autumn of 1789, the French National Assembly overturned 1,000 years of law and custom to produce a modern constitutional democracy. The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen spelled out all the new conditions of civil life: the abolition of feudalism and aristocratic titles, freedom from arbitrary arrest,…
In my youth, I was embarrassed by Canada’s (seemingly) anachronistic constitutional monarchy. Why must we have a Queen, I raged? She doesn’t even live in our country. Why can’t we be a republic, like the United States? It wasn’t until recently that I began to question this view. Looking south of the border, I’m reminded…
Total automation, capitalist or communist, removes the very purpose of human existence
Since the publication of Fully Automated Luxury Communism in 2018, a manifesto by Aaron Bastani, millennials across Canada and the United States have embraced a new Marxism for the 21st century. This new socialism is based on the concept of a post-scarcity economy that embraces automation, the reduction of working hours and a universal income.…
Modern monetary theory advocates argue the government should have a magic wand to conjure up money out of thin air.
Left to their own devices, politicos every now and then come up with a theory that allows them to promise free lunches. Modern monetary theory (MMT) is all the rage in the United States and Canada among starry-eyed social engineers who see no limits to their intervention. Rather than arising from academic inquiry, debates concerning…