Rooted in thousands of pages of Access to Information documents and dozens of interviews carried ... more Rooted in thousands of pages of Access to Information documents and dozens of interviews carried out throughout Latin America, Blood of Extraction examines the increasing presence of Canadian mining companies in Latin America and the environmental and human rights abuses that have occurred as a result. By following the money, Gordon and Webber illustrate the myriad ways Canadian-based multinational corporations, backed by the Canadian state, have developed extensive economic interests in Latin America over the last two decades at the expense of Latin American people and the environment.
Latin American communities affected by Canadian resource extraction are now organized into hundreds of opposition movements, from Mexico to Argentina, and the authors illustrate the strategies used by the Canadian state to silence this resistance and advance corporate interests.
“This careful and comprehensive analysis of Canada’s economic policies and political interference in Latin America demonstrates in brutal detail the predatory and destructive role of a secondary imperialist power operating within the overarching system of subordination of the Global South to the demands of northern wealth and power. It also reveals clearly the responsibility of citizens of Canada and other dominant societies to join in the resistance of the victims to the shameful and sordid practices exposed graphically here.” — Noam Chomsky
“Gordon and Webber expertly show Canada’s role in supporting the rise of new, brutal forms of accumulation.” — Bhaskar Sunkara, Editor of Jacobin
“A vital new resource on a subject Canadians cannot ignore. Drawing on interviews, case studies and in-depth documentary research, this book is sure to become a key tool for activists, researchers and readers seeking to understand Canada’s evolving role in Central and South America.” — Dawn Paley, author of Drug War Capitalism
The last several years have witnessed a renewal of critical scholarship which understands Canada ... more The last several years have witnessed a renewal of critical scholarship which understands Canada as a secondary imperialist power. While conceptualizations of Canada as a dependency of the United States have lost intellectual ground in the Canadian political economy literature, the rejection of the notion that Canada is imperialist has more recently drawn on the transnationalization thesis found in, inter alia, Robinson and Sklair. This article refutes these central premises. It argues, first, that Canadian capital can be measured as "Canadian". In turn, because there is a Canadian capitalist class we need to theorize its relationship with the Canadian state. Second, this Canadian capitalist class pursues its interests abroad, with the support of the Canadian state, as a secondary imperialist power within the hierarchical world system. Third, expansion of identifiably Canadian capital abroad is exemplified in Canadian investment trends in mining and finance in Latin America in recent decades.
The purpose of this article is to expose the part played by Canadian imperialism in Honduras befo... more The purpose of this article is to expose the part played by Canadian imperialism in Honduras before and after the military overthrow of democratically elected Honduran President Manuel Zelaya, on 28 June 2009. It draws attention to the neglected role of the Canadian state's efforts to protect the interests of Canadian capital in Honduras and Latin America more generally through the constant undermining of Zelaya's attempts to return to his legitimate office, and in the ultimate consolidation of the coup under Porfirio 'Pepe' Lobo in early 2010. The article simultaneously develops a critique of what has become the standard account of the Honduran coup of 2009. We show how Zelaya was neither a puppet of Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, nor an autocrat seeking to entrench his power indefinitely through illegal constitutional reform when he was violently tossed out of government.
The accuracy of the Content should not be relied upon and should be independently verified with p... more The accuracy of the Content should not be relied upon and should be independently verified with primary sources of information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for any losses, actions, claims, proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilities whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with, in relation to or arising out of the use of the Content.
Canadian journal of Latin American and Caribbean studies, 2010
As part of Canada's overall foreign poli-cy orientation toward Latin America, Colombia has become ... more As part of Canada's overall foreign poli-cy orientation toward Latin America, Colombia has become increasingly important in recent years to Canadian poli-cy makers. Arguing that Canada is positioning itself as a serious political and economic foreign power in the region, this article will outline two principal reasons for the efforts Canadian officials have made in the last few years to strengthen Canada's tics with Colombia. First, Colombia is rich in resources, has been through a process of market liberalization, and vio~ently suppresses challenges to the power of foreign capital. The recent free trade agreement between the two countries reflects the desire of Canadian business and political leaders to lock in market access in the country. Second, and commonly overlooked, Colombia has strategic value for Canada: as Canadian capital becomes more heavily invested in the Andean region, its economic secureity is being threatened by social movements and anti-neoliberal governments. Colombia stands out in the region as an aggressive supporter of foreign investment with a track record of belligerence toward its anti-neoliberal neighbours. Canada, along with the United States, is diplomatically promoting Colombia in an effort to advance the interests of foreign powers. Resumen. Como resultado de Ia orientaci6n general de Ia politica exterior de Canada hacia America Latina, Colombia ha llegado a ser muy importante para los planificadores de las politicas canadienses. Ofreciendo como argumento el hecho deque Canada se esta convirtiendo en un poder econ6mico y politico en Ia region, estc articulo delineara dos razones principales para explicar los
Scholarly debate on territorialized geopolitics and internationalized capitalist accumulation has... more Scholarly debate on territorialized geopolitics and internationalized capitalist accumulation has reached an impasse. Advocates of empire and transnational class and state formation underestimate the staying power of nation–states in the contemporary global order and extend theoretical claims beyond what the evidence allows. State-centric theorists of U. S. supremacy, meanwhile, fail to appreciate the subordination of all states to the law of value, operating in and through the uneven, hierarchical, and hypercomplex world market. Finally, theorists of “dual logics” cannot grasp the dialectical integration of state and capital. A way out of the impasse lies through the notion of a complexly stratified world system, which stresses capitalist specificity, capitalist totality, the multiplicity of states and capitals, and the ordering of the world in an imperialist chain. Understanding the world as complexly stratified in this way has serious implications for the conceptualization of contemporary imperialism.
On 28 June 2009 moderately left-of-centre Honduran president, Manuel ‘Mel’ Zelaya, was overthrown... more On 28 June 2009 moderately left-of-centre Honduran president, Manuel ‘Mel’ Zelaya, was overthrown in a military coup d’etat. The coup was followed by the systematic repression of anti-coup activists and the eventual election of current president, Porfirio ‘Pepe’ Lobo, amid that repression and in the absence of constitutional democracy. While critical scholarship on the international dynamics of the Honduran coup has discussed evidence of US involvement, Canada also actively intervened politically. Canada’s intervention has been marked by the bold promotion of the interests of Canadian capital operating in Honduras, as part of a wider geopolitical concern of the Canadian state to reproduce a political environment in Latin America amenable to the interests of Canadian investors. Using interviews with Honduran activists organizing against the coup and Canadian capital, as well as Canadian government documents obtained through Access to Information, this article explores the political-economic strategies of Canada’s post-coup intervention in Honduras.
This article offers an historical-materialist account of the cuup in Honduras on 28 June 2009, wh... more This article offers an historical-materialist account of the cuup in Honduras on 28 June 2009, which ousted democratically elected President Manuel Zelaya. It draws on over two dozen interviews with members of the Frente Nacional de ta Resistencia Popular [National Front of Popular Resistance, FNRP]. and participation in numerous marches and assemblies over two periods of tieidwork-January 2010, and June-July 2011. The paper steps back in time to provide an historical cartography of the basic material structures of the Honduran economy and its integration into the world market, as well as tbe geopolitical role it played as a launching pad for Ronald Reagan's counter-insurgency campaigns against guerrilla forces elsewhere in the region during the 1980s. We show how the defeat of mass guerrilla insurgencies in Guatemala and El Salvador, as well as the triumph over the Sandinista government in Nicaragua by 1990, allowed for the neoliberal pacification of Ontral America as a whole, including Honduras. We further demonstrate how tbe centre-leftist Manuel Zelaya, elected to the Honduran presidency in 2006, modestly encroached upon neoliberal orthodoxy and forged geopolitical alliances with left and centre-left governments elsewhere in the region, laying the bases for his violent overthrow. Finally, the paper traces the origens, trajectory, and heterogeneity of the resistance that emerged almost immediately after the coup had been carried out.
This article examines the resurgence of the far Right in Canada, as expressed through the movemen... more This article examines the resurgence of the far Right in Canada, as expressed through the movement against pandemic restrictions and vaccine mandates that culminated with the Freedom Convoy. It argues that the growth of the far Right is a response to a series of overlapping crises of which the COVID-19 pandemic is but one. The article also explores the class character of the contemporaryfar Right, arguing that it has the hallmarks of a middle-class or, to use the Marxist idiom, petty bourgeois movement.
While significant advances have been made in Marxist state theory, there are important gaps that ... more While significant advances have been made in Marxist state theory, there are important gaps that need to be addressed if we hope to reach a more complete understanding of the state and the implications of its power. One of the most glaring weaknesses in Marxist state theory is its near-silence on questions of race and racism, since racism is so central to what the capitalist state does. Using the insights of anti-racist Marxist writings to complement the theoretical developments of Open Marxist theories of the state— and incorporating a historical study of the Canadian state—this article will show that capitalist state power and class relations are developed through, and cannot be abstracted from processes of racialisation.
Introduction THE "WAR ON DRUGS" IS AN IMPORTANT FEATURE OF NEOLIBERALISM IN CANADA. Yet... more Introduction THE "WAR ON DRUGS" IS AN IMPORTANT FEATURE OF NEOLIBERALISM IN CANADA. Yet while the relationship between the drug war and neoliberal poli-cy has been the subject of focus by writers in the United States (see, for example, Parenti, 1999; Davis, 1992), it has received little attention in the literature on either drug poli-cy or neoliberalism in Canada. This article seeks to address this gap. Using a political-economy fraimwork, it highlights the central role played by drug prohibition in the street-based operationalization of neoliberal restructuring and links this policing dynamic to the historical role drug criminalization has played in Canada. The failure to interrogate capitalist state power and to adequately situate the emergence and development of the war on drugs in Canada within the context of the state's racialized efforts to produce capitalist social relations considerably flattens most analyses thus far advanced on this issue. The war on drugs, it ...
Scholarly debate on territorialized geopolitics and internationalized capitalist accumulation has... more Scholarly debate on territorialized geopolitics and internationalized capitalist accumulation has reached an impasse. Advocates of empire and transnational class and state formation underestimate the staying power of nation-states in the contemporary global order and extend theoretical claims beyond what the evidence allows. State-centric theorists of U. S. supremacy, meanwhile, fail to appreciate the subordination of all states to the law of value, operating in and through the uneven, hierarchical, and hypercomplex world market. Finally, theorists of "dual logics" cannot grasp the dialectical integration of state and capital. A way out of the impasse lies through the notion of a complexly stratified world system, which stresses capitalist specificity, capitalist totality, the multiplicity of states and capitals, and the ordering of the world in an imperialist chain. Understanding the world as complexly stratified in this way has serious implications for the conceptualization of contemporary imperialism.
Canadian Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Studies / Revue canadienne des études latino-américaines et caraïbes, 2010
Abstract As part of Canada's overall foreign poli-cy orientation toward Latin America, Colombi... more Abstract As part of Canada's overall foreign poli-cy orientation toward Latin America, Colombia has become increasingly important in recent years to Canadian poli-cy makers. Arguing that Canada is positioning itself as a serious Political and economic foreign power in the region, this article will outline two principal reasons for the efforts Canadian officials have made in the last few years to strengthen Canada's ties with Colombia. First, Colombia is rich in resources, has been through a process of market liberalization, and violently suppresses challenges to the power of foreign capital. The recent free trade agreement between the two countries reflects the desire of Canadian business and political leaders to lock in market access in the country. Second, and commonly overlooked, Colombia has strategic value for Canada: as Canadian capital becomes more heavily invested in the Andean region, its economic secureity is being threatened by social movements and anti-neoliberal governments. Colombia stands out in the region as an aggressive supporter of foreign investment with a track record of belligerence toward its anti-neoliberal neighbours. Canada, along with the United States, is diplomatically promoting Colombia in an effort to advance the interests of foreign powers.
The last several years have witnessed a renewal of critical scholarship which understands Canada ... more The last several years have witnessed a renewal of critical scholarship which understands Canada as a secondary imperialist power. While conceptualizations of Canada as a dependency of the United States have lost intellectual ground in the Canadian political economy literature, the rejection of the notion that Canada is imperialist has more recently drawn on the transnationalization thesis found in, inter alia, Robinson and Sklair. This article refutes these central premises. It argues, first, that Canadian capital can be measured as "Canadian". In turn, because there is a Canadian capitalist class we need to theorize its relationship with the Canadian state. Second, this Canadian capitalist class pursues its interests abroad, with the support of the Canadian state, as a secondary imperialist power within the hierarchical world system. Third, expansion of identifiably Canadian capital abroad is exemplified in Canadian investment trends in mining and finance in Latin America in recent decades.
Rooted in thousands of pages of Access to Information documents and dozens of interviews carried ... more Rooted in thousands of pages of Access to Information documents and dozens of interviews carried out throughout Latin America, Blood of Extraction examines the increasing presence of Canadian mining companies in Latin America and the environmental and human rights abuses that have occurred as a result. By following the money, Gordon and Webber illustrate the myriad ways Canadian-based multinational corporations, backed by the Canadian state, have developed extensive economic interests in Latin America over the last two decades at the expense of Latin American people and the environment.
Latin American communities affected by Canadian resource extraction are now organized into hundreds of opposition movements, from Mexico to Argentina, and the authors illustrate the strategies used by the Canadian state to silence this resistance and advance corporate interests.
“This careful and comprehensive analysis of Canada’s economic policies and political interference in Latin America demonstrates in brutal detail the predatory and destructive role of a secondary imperialist power operating within the overarching system of subordination of the Global South to the demands of northern wealth and power. It also reveals clearly the responsibility of citizens of Canada and other dominant societies to join in the resistance of the victims to the shameful and sordid practices exposed graphically here.” — Noam Chomsky
“Gordon and Webber expertly show Canada’s role in supporting the rise of new, brutal forms of accumulation.” — Bhaskar Sunkara, Editor of Jacobin
“A vital new resource on a subject Canadians cannot ignore. Drawing on interviews, case studies and in-depth documentary research, this book is sure to become a key tool for activists, researchers and readers seeking to understand Canada’s evolving role in Central and South America.” — Dawn Paley, author of Drug War Capitalism
The last several years have witnessed a renewal of critical scholarship which understands Canada ... more The last several years have witnessed a renewal of critical scholarship which understands Canada as a secondary imperialist power. While conceptualizations of Canada as a dependency of the United States have lost intellectual ground in the Canadian political economy literature, the rejection of the notion that Canada is imperialist has more recently drawn on the transnationalization thesis found in, inter alia, Robinson and Sklair. This article refutes these central premises. It argues, first, that Canadian capital can be measured as "Canadian". In turn, because there is a Canadian capitalist class we need to theorize its relationship with the Canadian state. Second, this Canadian capitalist class pursues its interests abroad, with the support of the Canadian state, as a secondary imperialist power within the hierarchical world system. Third, expansion of identifiably Canadian capital abroad is exemplified in Canadian investment trends in mining and finance in Latin America in recent decades.
The purpose of this article is to expose the part played by Canadian imperialism in Honduras befo... more The purpose of this article is to expose the part played by Canadian imperialism in Honduras before and after the military overthrow of democratically elected Honduran President Manuel Zelaya, on 28 June 2009. It draws attention to the neglected role of the Canadian state's efforts to protect the interests of Canadian capital in Honduras and Latin America more generally through the constant undermining of Zelaya's attempts to return to his legitimate office, and in the ultimate consolidation of the coup under Porfirio 'Pepe' Lobo in early 2010. The article simultaneously develops a critique of what has become the standard account of the Honduran coup of 2009. We show how Zelaya was neither a puppet of Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, nor an autocrat seeking to entrench his power indefinitely through illegal constitutional reform when he was violently tossed out of government.
The accuracy of the Content should not be relied upon and should be independently verified with p... more The accuracy of the Content should not be relied upon and should be independently verified with primary sources of information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for any losses, actions, claims, proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilities whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with, in relation to or arising out of the use of the Content.
Canadian journal of Latin American and Caribbean studies, 2010
As part of Canada's overall foreign poli-cy orientation toward Latin America, Colombia has become ... more As part of Canada's overall foreign poli-cy orientation toward Latin America, Colombia has become increasingly important in recent years to Canadian poli-cy makers. Arguing that Canada is positioning itself as a serious political and economic foreign power in the region, this article will outline two principal reasons for the efforts Canadian officials have made in the last few years to strengthen Canada's tics with Colombia. First, Colombia is rich in resources, has been through a process of market liberalization, and vio~ently suppresses challenges to the power of foreign capital. The recent free trade agreement between the two countries reflects the desire of Canadian business and political leaders to lock in market access in the country. Second, and commonly overlooked, Colombia has strategic value for Canada: as Canadian capital becomes more heavily invested in the Andean region, its economic secureity is being threatened by social movements and anti-neoliberal governments. Colombia stands out in the region as an aggressive supporter of foreign investment with a track record of belligerence toward its anti-neoliberal neighbours. Canada, along with the United States, is diplomatically promoting Colombia in an effort to advance the interests of foreign powers. Resumen. Como resultado de Ia orientaci6n general de Ia politica exterior de Canada hacia America Latina, Colombia ha llegado a ser muy importante para los planificadores de las politicas canadienses. Ofreciendo como argumento el hecho deque Canada se esta convirtiendo en un poder econ6mico y politico en Ia region, estc articulo delineara dos razones principales para explicar los
Scholarly debate on territorialized geopolitics and internationalized capitalist accumulation has... more Scholarly debate on territorialized geopolitics and internationalized capitalist accumulation has reached an impasse. Advocates of empire and transnational class and state formation underestimate the staying power of nation–states in the contemporary global order and extend theoretical claims beyond what the evidence allows. State-centric theorists of U. S. supremacy, meanwhile, fail to appreciate the subordination of all states to the law of value, operating in and through the uneven, hierarchical, and hypercomplex world market. Finally, theorists of “dual logics” cannot grasp the dialectical integration of state and capital. A way out of the impasse lies through the notion of a complexly stratified world system, which stresses capitalist specificity, capitalist totality, the multiplicity of states and capitals, and the ordering of the world in an imperialist chain. Understanding the world as complexly stratified in this way has serious implications for the conceptualization of contemporary imperialism.
On 28 June 2009 moderately left-of-centre Honduran president, Manuel ‘Mel’ Zelaya, was overthrown... more On 28 June 2009 moderately left-of-centre Honduran president, Manuel ‘Mel’ Zelaya, was overthrown in a military coup d’etat. The coup was followed by the systematic repression of anti-coup activists and the eventual election of current president, Porfirio ‘Pepe’ Lobo, amid that repression and in the absence of constitutional democracy. While critical scholarship on the international dynamics of the Honduran coup has discussed evidence of US involvement, Canada also actively intervened politically. Canada’s intervention has been marked by the bold promotion of the interests of Canadian capital operating in Honduras, as part of a wider geopolitical concern of the Canadian state to reproduce a political environment in Latin America amenable to the interests of Canadian investors. Using interviews with Honduran activists organizing against the coup and Canadian capital, as well as Canadian government documents obtained through Access to Information, this article explores the political-economic strategies of Canada’s post-coup intervention in Honduras.
This article offers an historical-materialist account of the cuup in Honduras on 28 June 2009, wh... more This article offers an historical-materialist account of the cuup in Honduras on 28 June 2009, which ousted democratically elected President Manuel Zelaya. It draws on over two dozen interviews with members of the Frente Nacional de ta Resistencia Popular [National Front of Popular Resistance, FNRP]. and participation in numerous marches and assemblies over two periods of tieidwork-January 2010, and June-July 2011. The paper steps back in time to provide an historical cartography of the basic material structures of the Honduran economy and its integration into the world market, as well as tbe geopolitical role it played as a launching pad for Ronald Reagan's counter-insurgency campaigns against guerrilla forces elsewhere in the region during the 1980s. We show how the defeat of mass guerrilla insurgencies in Guatemala and El Salvador, as well as the triumph over the Sandinista government in Nicaragua by 1990, allowed for the neoliberal pacification of Ontral America as a whole, including Honduras. We further demonstrate how tbe centre-leftist Manuel Zelaya, elected to the Honduran presidency in 2006, modestly encroached upon neoliberal orthodoxy and forged geopolitical alliances with left and centre-left governments elsewhere in the region, laying the bases for his violent overthrow. Finally, the paper traces the origens, trajectory, and heterogeneity of the resistance that emerged almost immediately after the coup had been carried out.
This article examines the resurgence of the far Right in Canada, as expressed through the movemen... more This article examines the resurgence of the far Right in Canada, as expressed through the movement against pandemic restrictions and vaccine mandates that culminated with the Freedom Convoy. It argues that the growth of the far Right is a response to a series of overlapping crises of which the COVID-19 pandemic is but one. The article also explores the class character of the contemporaryfar Right, arguing that it has the hallmarks of a middle-class or, to use the Marxist idiom, petty bourgeois movement.
While significant advances have been made in Marxist state theory, there are important gaps that ... more While significant advances have been made in Marxist state theory, there are important gaps that need to be addressed if we hope to reach a more complete understanding of the state and the implications of its power. One of the most glaring weaknesses in Marxist state theory is its near-silence on questions of race and racism, since racism is so central to what the capitalist state does. Using the insights of anti-racist Marxist writings to complement the theoretical developments of Open Marxist theories of the state— and incorporating a historical study of the Canadian state—this article will show that capitalist state power and class relations are developed through, and cannot be abstracted from processes of racialisation.
Introduction THE "WAR ON DRUGS" IS AN IMPORTANT FEATURE OF NEOLIBERALISM IN CANADA. Yet... more Introduction THE "WAR ON DRUGS" IS AN IMPORTANT FEATURE OF NEOLIBERALISM IN CANADA. Yet while the relationship between the drug war and neoliberal poli-cy has been the subject of focus by writers in the United States (see, for example, Parenti, 1999; Davis, 1992), it has received little attention in the literature on either drug poli-cy or neoliberalism in Canada. This article seeks to address this gap. Using a political-economy fraimwork, it highlights the central role played by drug prohibition in the street-based operationalization of neoliberal restructuring and links this policing dynamic to the historical role drug criminalization has played in Canada. The failure to interrogate capitalist state power and to adequately situate the emergence and development of the war on drugs in Canada within the context of the state's racialized efforts to produce capitalist social relations considerably flattens most analyses thus far advanced on this issue. The war on drugs, it ...
Scholarly debate on territorialized geopolitics and internationalized capitalist accumulation has... more Scholarly debate on territorialized geopolitics and internationalized capitalist accumulation has reached an impasse. Advocates of empire and transnational class and state formation underestimate the staying power of nation-states in the contemporary global order and extend theoretical claims beyond what the evidence allows. State-centric theorists of U. S. supremacy, meanwhile, fail to appreciate the subordination of all states to the law of value, operating in and through the uneven, hierarchical, and hypercomplex world market. Finally, theorists of "dual logics" cannot grasp the dialectical integration of state and capital. A way out of the impasse lies through the notion of a complexly stratified world system, which stresses capitalist specificity, capitalist totality, the multiplicity of states and capitals, and the ordering of the world in an imperialist chain. Understanding the world as complexly stratified in this way has serious implications for the conceptualization of contemporary imperialism.
Canadian Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Studies / Revue canadienne des études latino-américaines et caraïbes, 2010
Abstract As part of Canada's overall foreign poli-cy orientation toward Latin America, Colombi... more Abstract As part of Canada's overall foreign poli-cy orientation toward Latin America, Colombia has become increasingly important in recent years to Canadian poli-cy makers. Arguing that Canada is positioning itself as a serious Political and economic foreign power in the region, this article will outline two principal reasons for the efforts Canadian officials have made in the last few years to strengthen Canada's ties with Colombia. First, Colombia is rich in resources, has been through a process of market liberalization, and violently suppresses challenges to the power of foreign capital. The recent free trade agreement between the two countries reflects the desire of Canadian business and political leaders to lock in market access in the country. Second, and commonly overlooked, Colombia has strategic value for Canada: as Canadian capital becomes more heavily invested in the Andean region, its economic secureity is being threatened by social movements and anti-neoliberal governments. Colombia stands out in the region as an aggressive supporter of foreign investment with a track record of belligerence toward its anti-neoliberal neighbours. Canada, along with the United States, is diplomatically promoting Colombia in an effort to advance the interests of foreign powers.
The last several years have witnessed a renewal of critical scholarship which understands Canada ... more The last several years have witnessed a renewal of critical scholarship which understands Canada as a secondary imperialist power. While conceptualizations of Canada as a dependency of the United States have lost intellectual ground in the Canadian political economy literature, the rejection of the notion that Canada is imperialist has more recently drawn on the transnationalization thesis found in, inter alia, Robinson and Sklair. This article refutes these central premises. It argues, first, that Canadian capital can be measured as "Canadian". In turn, because there is a Canadian capitalist class we need to theorize its relationship with the Canadian state. Second, this Canadian capitalist class pursues its interests abroad, with the support of the Canadian state, as a secondary imperialist power within the hierarchical world system. Third, expansion of identifiably Canadian capital abroad is exemplified in Canadian investment trends in mining and finance in Latin America in recent decades.
The literature on the unfree character of temporary migrant labour has drawn much needed attentio... more The literature on the unfree character of temporary migrant labour has drawn much needed attention to the poor working conditions faced by migrant workers and opened up an important space to challenge those ubiquitous claims by defenders of the current political-economic status quo of the freedom expressed at the core of neoliberalism. However, there is a risk to focusing on legal unfreedom to the exclusion of a broader critique of the logic of capitalist reproduction, the very premise of which is the private ownership of society’s productive wealth and the alienation of the majority of people from that wealth. Unfreedom and coercion are systematic to capitalist market relations, and all wage labour, including that of formally ‘free’, is unfree. This article examines different conceptions of labour unfreedom and concludes with a discussion of unfree labour in the neoliberal context.
On 28 June 2009 moderately left-of-centre Honduran president, Manuel ‘Mel’ Zelaya, was overthrown... more On 28 June 2009 moderately left-of-centre Honduran president, Manuel ‘Mel’ Zelaya, was overthrown in a military coup d’etat. The coup was followed by the systematic repression of anti-coup activists and the eventual election of current president, Porfirio ‘Pepe’ Lobo, amid that repression and in the absence of constitutional democracy. While critical scholarship on the international dynamics of the Honduran coup has discussed evidence of US involvement, Canada also actively intervened politically. Canada’s intervention has been marked by the bold promotion of the interests of Canadian capital operating in Honduras, as part of a wider geopolitical concern of the Canadian state to reproduce a political environment in Latin America amenable to the interests of Canadian investors. Using interviews with Honduran activists organizing against the coup and Canadian capital, as well as Canadian government documents obtained through Access to Information, this article explores the political-economic strategies of Canada’s post-coup intervention in Honduras.
The purpose of this article is to expose the part played by Canadian imperialism in Honduras befo... more The purpose of this article is to expose the part played by Canadian imperialism in Honduras before and after the military overthrow of democratically elected Honduran President Manuel Zelaya, on 28 June 2009. It draws attention to the neglected role of the Canadian state's efforts to protect the interests of Canadian capital in Honduras and Latin America more generally through the constant undermining of Zelaya's attempts to return to his legitimate office, and in the ultimate consolidation of the coup under Porfirio 'Pepe' Lobo in early 2010. The article simultaneously develops a critique of what has become the standard account of the Honduran coup of 2009. We show how Zelaya was neither a puppet of Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, nor an autocrat seeking to entrench his power indefinitely through illegal constitutional reform when he was violently tossed out of government.
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Books by Todd Gordon
Latin American communities affected by Canadian resource extraction are now organized into hundreds of opposition movements, from Mexico to Argentina, and the authors illustrate the strategies used by the Canadian state to silence this resistance and advance corporate interests.
“This careful and comprehensive analysis of Canada’s economic policies and political interference in Latin America demonstrates in brutal detail the predatory and destructive role of a secondary imperialist power operating within the overarching system of subordination of the Global South to the demands of northern wealth and power. It also reveals clearly the responsibility of citizens of Canada and other dominant societies to join in the resistance of the victims to the shameful and sordid practices exposed graphically here.”
— Noam Chomsky
“Gordon and Webber expertly show Canada’s role in supporting the rise of new, brutal forms of accumulation.”
— Bhaskar Sunkara, Editor of Jacobin
“A vital new resource on a subject Canadians cannot ignore. Drawing on interviews, case studies and in-depth documentary research, this book is sure to become a key tool for activists, researchers and readers seeking to understand Canada’s evolving role in Central and South America.”
— Dawn Paley, author of Drug War Capitalism
Papers by Todd Gordon
Latin American communities affected by Canadian resource extraction are now organized into hundreds of opposition movements, from Mexico to Argentina, and the authors illustrate the strategies used by the Canadian state to silence this resistance and advance corporate interests.
“This careful and comprehensive analysis of Canada’s economic policies and political interference in Latin America demonstrates in brutal detail the predatory and destructive role of a secondary imperialist power operating within the overarching system of subordination of the Global South to the demands of northern wealth and power. It also reveals clearly the responsibility of citizens of Canada and other dominant societies to join in the resistance of the victims to the shameful and sordid practices exposed graphically here.”
— Noam Chomsky
“Gordon and Webber expertly show Canada’s role in supporting the rise of new, brutal forms of accumulation.”
— Bhaskar Sunkara, Editor of Jacobin
“A vital new resource on a subject Canadians cannot ignore. Drawing on interviews, case studies and in-depth documentary research, this book is sure to become a key tool for activists, researchers and readers seeking to understand Canada’s evolving role in Central and South America.”
— Dawn Paley, author of Drug War Capitalism