Canada and the Global Economy: Alternatives to the Corporate Strategy for Globalization

Randall White is the author of Voice of Region: On the Long Journey to
Senate Reform in Canada and Too Good to Be True: Toronto in the 1920s.

This book, by the authors of the earlier volumes Selling Out and The
Unmaking of Canada, points to a few new depths in the continuing
Canadian debate on free trade.

According to the political philosopher Richard Rorty, in “the case of
capitalism ... the left has recently discovered that it doesn’t have
an alternative.” Chodos, Murphy, and Hamovitch are Canadian
journalists on the left. While still critical of many specifics in the
1988 Canada–U.S. Free Trade Agreement (and its North American
successor among Canada, Mexico, and the United States), they argue that
the principle of free trade and the new forms of economic
“globalization” that drive it ultimately have to be embraced by
“progressive critics.” At the same time, they believe that there are
at least some important alternatives to the particular strategies for
implementing the principle advocated by “the prevailing corporate
agenda.”

The book is focused largely on general concepts, illustrated by
examples from recent history. Chodos, Murphy, and Hamovitch argue that
though the role of the democratic nation-state needs to be rethought, it
still has a larger future than some pretend—even in countries like
Canada. They argue as well that we need to “broaden globalization”
by new strategies of international co-operation among “trade unions,
political parties of the centre and left, extraparliamentary coalitions,
religious groups and nongovernmental organizations of various kinds.”

It is easy to be sceptical about both the practical prospects of such
new broadening strategies, and the extent to which, even if they could
work, they would really be any more democratic than the strategies of
the prevailing corporate agenda. But the authors also advance other more
intriguing concepts, including a helpful piece of common sense that they
dub “The Law of Unintended Consequences.” Their book is trying to
break some useful new ground and it deserves attention, especially from
others on the left.