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The article reviews the book, "Labor and the Class Idea in the United States and Canada," by Barry Eidlin.

Unemployment is once again a pernicious and growing fact of life in Canada. Stephen McBride rejects economic interpretations of the return of high unemployment after decades in which Canada enjoyed almost full employment. He argues that the phenomenon can best be understood as the product of a political choice by policy makers - a choice which can plausibly be linked to the preferences and growing power of Canadian business in the post-1975 period. This argument is based on an evaluation of the implications of the monetarist economic paradigm whose influence in the late 1970s, a comparative survey of the policy strategies followed in other countries and the employment outcomes associated with them, and a systematic examination of Canadian public policy in the macroeconomic, labour market, unemployment insurance, and industrial relations areas. McBride's analysis reveals the state's increasing emphasis on addressing the accumulation demands of capital and decreasing emphasis on the provision of concrete benefits (such as full employment and social services) to citizens. Much state activity can be understood as an attempt to legitimate by ideological change the means the change in the state's priorities and the shifting balance of benefits conferred by public policy. Thus the Canadian state has played an important role in managing the return to a high unemployment regime. --Publisher's description

This thesis deals with the working class of two advanced capitalist countries and focuses upon ideological conflict within working class organizations such as trade unions and political parties. The outcome of such conflicts within working class organizations is considered to be an expression of the state of working class consciousness at a given time. Within this broad context particular attention is paid to the ideology of social democracy which has been dominant in working class organizations in both countries during the modern period albeit to different degrees. The thesis uses a comparative approach and pays considerable attention to the interaction between the working class and its societal environment- the political economies of the two countries, the activities of the capitalist class and the impact of its ideology upon the working class. Using this approach the thesis deals with the emergence of social democracy as the hegemonic working class ideology, its main features particularly as they were developed in the post-war period, the emergence of possible contradictions between social democratic parties and ideology, and their working class supporters, and, utilizing an historical analysis of previous ideological shifts in working class organisations, the possibility of social democracy being superceded in its hegemonic role is considered. In dealing with such matters the issues of nationalization and incomes policies were judged to be especially salient and are discussed in some detail. In the course of this study theories which posited an end to ideological conflict in the advanced capitalist societies are considered and rejected. The past, present and future of social democracy, of ideological conflict, and of the working class itself, was found to be considerably more dynamic, complex and open to change than such theories had imagined.

Bryan M. Evans, Stephen McBride, and their contributors delve further into the more practical, ground-level side of the austerity equation in Austerity: The Lived Experience. Economically, austerity policies cannot be seen to work in the way elite interests claim that they do. Rather than soften the blow of the economic and financial crisis of 2008 for ordinary citizens, policies of austerity slow growth and lead to increased inequality. While political consent for such policies may have been achieved, it was reached amidst significant levels of disaffection and strong opposition to the extremes of austerity. The authors build their analysis in three sections, looking alternatively at theoretical and ideological dimensions of the lived experience of austerity; how austerity plays out in various public sector occupations and policy domains; and the class dimensions of austerity. The result is a ground-breaking contribution to the study of austerity politics and policies. Contents: Austerity as lived experience: An introduction / Bryan Evans and Stephen McBride. Pt. 1. Theory and ideology. Introduction: Manufacturing the common sense of austerity / Bryan Evans and McBride -- Articulating austerity and authoritarianism: Re-imagining moral economies? / John Clarke -- Speaking austerity: Policy rhetoric and design beyond fiscal consolidation / Sorin Mitrea -- No deal capitalism: Austerity and the unmaking of the North American middle class / Eric Pineault -- Framing the economic case for Austerity: The “expansionary fiscal contraction hypothesis” / Ellen Russell. Pt. 2. Impact and consequences. Introduction: Austerity on the ground / Evans and McBride -- Care and control in long term care work / Donna Baines -- ‘Negotiate your way back to zero’: Teacher bargaining and austerity in Ontario, Canada / Brendan A. Sweeny and Robert S. Hickey -- Austerity and the low wage economy: Living and other wages / Bryan Evans, Stephen McBride, and Jacob Muirhead -- Immigration in an age of austerity: Morality, the welfare state and the shaping of the ideal migrant / Susan Barrass and John Shields -- Pension reforms in the context of the global financial crisis: A reincarnation of pension privatization through austerity / Yanqiu Rachel Zhou and Shih-Jiun Shi. Pt. 3. Class, resistance, alternative. Introduction: The old strategies don’t work. So what’s possible? / Bryan Evans and Stephen McBride -- From austerity to structural reform: The erosion of the European social model(s) / Christophe Hermann -- Austerity of imagination: Quebec’s struggles in translating resistance into alternatives / Peter Graefe and Hubert Rioux -- Social democracy and social pacts: Austerity alliances and their consequences / Bryan Evans -- Austerity and political crisis: The radical left, the far right and Europe’s new authoritarian order / Neil Burron -- Conclusion.

In the past two decades, the complex of forces known as neo-liberal globalisation has transformed the environment for work, labour regulation and trade unionism in both Australia and Canada. The development of labour regimes in Australia and Canada is discussed. The influence of free trade agreements with the United States in which both countries participate is also discussed.

Global warming is perhaps the greatest challenge facing the twenty-first century. Environmental polices on the one hand, and economic and labour market polices on the other, often exist in separate silos creating a dilemma that Work in a Warming World confronts. The world of work - goods, services, and resources - produces most of the greenhouse gases created by human activity. In engaging essays, contributors demonstrate how the world of work and the labour movement need to become involved in the struggle to slow global warming, and the ways in which environmental and economic policies need to be linked dynamically in order to effect positive change. Addressing the dichotomy of competing public policies in a Canadian context, Work in a Warming World presents ways of creating an effective response to global warming and key building blocks toward a national climate strategy. --Publisher's description, Contents: Introduction / Stephen McBride and Carla Lipsig-Mummé -- International constraints on green strategies : Ontario's WTO defeat and public sector remedies / Scott Sinclair and Stuart Trew -- Unions and climate change in Europe : the contrasting experience of Germany and the UK / John Calvert -- Gendered emissions : counting greenhouse gas emissions by gender and why it matters / Marjorie Griffin Cohen -- Canadian labour's climate dilemma / Geoffrey Bickerton and Carla Lipsig-Mummé -- Renewable energy development as industrial strategy / Mark Winfield -- (Re)building sustainable infrastructure : implications for engineers / Kean Birch and Dalton Wudrich -- Construction and climate change : overcoming roadblocks to achieving green workplace competencies / John Calvert -- Labour and the greening of hospitality : raising standards or union greenwashing? / Steven Tufts and Simon Milne -- Cities, climate change, and the green economy / Stephen McBride, John Shields, and Stephanie Tombari -- Renewable energy, sustainable jobs : the case of the Kingston, Ontario Region / Andrea Megan MacCallum, Lindsay Napier, John Holmes, and Warren Edward Mabee.

Have Mulroney, Reagan and Thatcher beaten labour into the ground? Are unions a spent force? Do ordinary people in Canada, the United States and Great Britain truly believe in the so-called free market? How are the Swedish social democrats handling challenges to their consensus society? Is there indeed a neo-conservative hegemony for the nineteen-nineties? These are some of the questions which the authors of this sixth Socialist Studies Annual try to answer. They present case studies from various countries, using the social and political insights of Gramsci and other progressive thinkers. --Publisher's description

[Examines] the trade challenges to Ontario's Green Energy Act, exploring both the obstacles that international agreements pose to building an integrated economic strategy around the transition to cleaner energy and the opportunities. --Editor's introduction