Monday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material to start your week.

- Branko Milanovic points out how the commodification of our interactions may create an incentive for short-term exploitation:

Commodification of what was hitherto a non-commercial resource makes each of us do many jobs and even, as in the renting of apartments, capitalists. But saying that I work many jobs is the same thing as saying that workers do not hold durably individual jobs and that the labor market is fully “flexible” with people getting in and out of jobs at a very high rate. Thus workers indeed become, from the point of view of the employer, fully interchangeable “agents”. Each of then stays in a job a few weeks or months: everyone is equally good or bad as everyone else. We are indeed coming close to the dream world of neoclassical economics where individuals, with their true characteristics, no longer exists because they have been replaced by “agents”.

The problem with this kind of commodification and flexibilization is that it undermines human relations and trust that are needed for the smooth functioning of an economy. When there are repeated games we try to establish relationships of trust with people with whom we interact. But if we move from one place to another with high frequency, change jobs every couple of weeks, and everybody else does the same, then there are no repeated games because we do not interact with the same people. If there are no repeated games, our behavior adjusts to expecting to play just a single game, a single interaction. And this new behavior is very different.
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Increasing commodification of many activities, the gig economy and flexibilization of labor market are just a part of the same change; they should be seen as a movement toward a more rational, but ultimately more depersonalized, economy where most of interactions will be one-shot contacts. Holding of many jobs and the shortness of interactions make investing in cooperative behavior prohibitively expensive. This Is the key reason why I am less optimistic than others that we are moving toward a society with a more collective, or “nicer” ethos. Actually, I think we are moving in the opposite direction.

- Sandro Contenta and Jim Rankin report on new research showing how poverty, race and other factors influence the removal of children from their families by Ontario's Child Services. And Jake Johnson discusses the place of race in the U.S.' ongoing class war.

- Tom Parkin examines how Justin Trudeau is falling far short of his promises of reconciliation with First Nations. And Jason Warick highlights the racist assumptions behind much of the institutional response to Colten Boushie's shooting, while John Baglow exposes the virtual lynch mob that has formed to try to justify the killing. 

- Finally, Ian Millhiser examines how fines and fees imposed by the criminal justice system can trap an already-poor family in a further cycle of debt. And Michael Powell writes about the Rio Olympics as a painful example of billions being spent on an elite vanity project while people living in poverty are forced to do without necessities.

Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Armine Yalnizyan writes that reliance on temporary and disposable labour is utterly incompatible with long-term economic development. And Joey Hartman and Adrienne Montani comment on Vancouver's efforts to support a living wage rather than grinding down employment standards.

- Andy Skuce points out that our already-worrisome best estimates as to the effects of climate change may underestimate the damage done as land-based carbon sinks turn into carbon producers. And Charles Mandel reports that this summer's spate of wildfires across Western Canada may become the new normal as droughts become more common.

- Meanwhile, Bill Tieleman highlights the utter foolishness involved in B.C.'s handing over millions of litres of water to private bottlers for next to nothing while trying to impose conservation measures on the public.

- Aaron Wherry asks what purpose the Senate is supposed to serve in light of its failure to do anything to improve two grossly abusive bills in C-51 and C-377. And John Baglow notes that the Senate did find itself entirely willing to trample on the decisions of elected representatives when it came to denying transgender rights.

- Finally, George Monbiot comments on the battle between the financial elite and democracy in Greece and elsewhere:

The IMF is controlled by the rich, and governs the poor on their behalf. It’s now doing to Greece what it has done to one poor nation after another, from Argentina to Zambia. Its structural adjustment programmes have forced scores of elected governments to dismantle public spending, destroying health, education and all the means by which the wretched of the earth might improve their lives.

The same programme is imposed regardless of circumstance: every country the IMF colonises must place the control of inflation ahead of other economic objectives; immediately remove barriers to trade and the flow of capital; liberalise its banking system; reduce government spending on everything bar debt repayments; and privatise assets that can be sold to foreign investors.
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The crushing of political choice is not a side-effect of this utopian belief system but a necessary component. Neoliberalism is inherently incompatible with democracy, as people will always rebel against the austerity and fiscal tyranny it prescribes. Something has to give, and it must be the people. This is the true road to serfdom: disinventing democracy on behalf of the elite.

Thursday Evening Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Daniel Marans reports on Bernie Sanders' push for international action against austerity in Greece and elsewhere. And Binoy Kampmark documents the anti-democratic and antisocial ideology on the other side of the austerity debate.

- Noah Smith writes that while there's no discernible connection between massive pay for CEOs and actual corporate performance, there's a strong link between who an executive knows and how much the executive can extract.

- The CP reports on UNESCO's push to study the impact of the tar sands on Wood Buffalo National Park. And Tavia Grant breaks the news that Health Canada is just getting around the acknowledging the long-recognized dangers of asbestos.

- Stephen Maher comments on the Cons' manipulations of the Canada Elections Act to limit voting among poor Canadians. And Michelle Ghoussoub reports on the Council of Canadians' fight to reverse the restrictions.

-Finally, John Baglow notes that the Cons' especially villainous run of recent actions looks to reflect the death throes of Stephen Harper's government. Steve Sullivan calls out the Cons for seeking to terrorize Canada's electorate. And Michael Harris argues that Harper is a tyrant in the true sense of the word, while Andrew Coyne writes that Harper is truly alone as the federal election campaign approaches.

Sunday Morning Links

This and that for your Sunday reading.

- Jeff Spross argues that in addition to ensuring that employees are fairly paid for the overtime hours they work, we should also be pushing to ensure people aren't required to work as much to begin with. And Angella MacEwen points out that any spin about increasing wages is based almost entirely on a proportional increase in hours worked, rather than workers receiving any benefit from improved productivity.

- Meanwhile, Cory Doctorow highlights new research showing that the CEOs who manage to squeeze the most money out of businesses actually perform worse than the ones who aren't so focused on enriching themselves.

- Thomas Walkom writes that the Cons' much-trumpeted trade agreements are accomplishing nothing even on their own terms.

- Andrew Mitrovica duly slams anybody willing to take the uncorroborated word of the security state as a basis for reporting. John Baglow reminds us that the Libs aren't any better than the Cons when it comes to that tendency - as evidenced both by the star candidacy of Bill Blair, and their inexcusable cowardice in response to the Cons' terror bill. And PressProgress shows what happens when the Cons try to pretend C-51 is anything but a direct and unmitigated attack on Canadians' rights.

- Finally, Susan Delacourt comments on the connection between a first-past-the-post electoral system and the view that voters should be microtargeted for advertising rather than included meaningful policy discussions:

We still like to pretend that political parties are looking for a big, pan-Canadian victory, but the reality is that political success in this country has been built in recent years by finding the tools and tactics to do microtargeting effectively. Technology and big data have turned this strategy into a much more precise science for all parties.

In short, we all know now that rewards don’t go to the political players with the big picture; they go to the ones who think small. An election that required a 50-per-cent-plus victory in the popular vote, on the other hand, would force parties to seek broad, pan-Canadian appeal.
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(I)f politics is about thinking small, government should be about thinking big. This is where Harper was on the right track on May 2, 2011 — promising to take an approach to government that he did not take to political campaigning, mindful of the needs and concerns of people who didn’t vote for the Conservatives.

It proved to be an over-ambitious promise, though. The past four years have been littered with examples of the politicized opposite: selective audits of charities seen as unfriendly to Conservatives, PMO press releases that sound an awful lot like party fundraising letters, cabinet ministers trotted out to slam court rulings or scientific findings that rile up the Conservative “base.” Pages and pages of tax provisions have been created to give “boutique” favours to microtargeted segments of the population — budgets for Dougies. Measures for Zoes? Not so much.

On hostile audiences

Congrats to John Baglow (aka Dr. Dawg) on his new place on the National Post's Full Comment page. But it figures to be a somewhat worrisome sign when a new recruit is announced with the following introduction:

Before everyone starts sending me nasty emails, think about this: There's nothing wrong with listening to other opinions; it's when you start agreeing with them that you need to worry.

Which raises the question: does it strike nobody else as odd that a media outlet would even consider highlighting opinions which (in its own view) weren't at least capable of being agreed with?

Mind you, the best possible result would be if more people come to agree with John's posts than anybody at the National Post would think possible. And I'll certainly be rooting for that outcome. But it seems rather counterproductive for everybody concerned for the editors to instruct their readers otherwise, rather than letting the public decide for itself based on the high quality of John's posts.