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Have you read Nora Loreto's latest Canada in Decline: The Social Safety Net? It's the start of a larger series she's doing that basically tries to ask what's gone wrong and how did we get here.

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Thanks for this list. I'm just catching-up on a lot of reading. Personally, I follow about 7? economists to get a more thorough understanding of how theory sets a direction. There is little doubt applied economics is the strongest thread running through this tapestry we refer to as 'life'. It would seem, the woes of today - at least in the 'first' world - have everything to do with the current applied economic theories (neoliberalism/neoclasssical). The majority of citizens are suffering some level of economic distress yet it seems more politically expedient to 'blame' rather than analyze, draft policy and solve. Of course there is vested interest in continuing to support the current economics as wealth buys power and its typically the wealthy in power.

What will 2025 bring?

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Enjoying Himelfarb, that he has had a front row seat to the 'neo' impact on Canada over an extended period of time makes it essential reading

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David Harvey wrote that Deng in China was a neoliberal with Chinese characteristics. But I see it slightly different.

My interpretation is that neoliberalism was really neobolshevism. I think neoliberal globalization of the 1990s could be interpreted as communism with Anglo-American characteristics.

The neoliberals were a bolshevik party. The original bolsheviks in Russia were a minority that prevailed over a majority. That's exactly what the American neoliberals were, a minority of private property market fundamentalists that prevailed over the social democratic majority.

So I agree in principle with Harvey's interpretation of Deng as a neoliberal. But that's because the neoliberals were bolsheviks. The Sino-American convergence of the 1990s was a convergence of neoliberal bolshevik regimes in DC and Beijing. The Russian bolsheviks were excluded from this new unipolar order, and Putin ever since has presided over a Eurasian oligarchy whose defining characteristic has been their exclusion from Sino-American bolshevism of the 1990s.

And finally, I see the Sino-American split since 2008 as an event comparable to the Sino-Soviet split of the 1950s. The neoliberal regime in DC in 2024 is a bolshevik regime and that's what's driving the national security competition with China. There has been a bolshevik split between Beijing and DC and now there's a mutual scramble for a post-bolshevik globalist i.e. communist world order.

Trump is a wildcard. He now presides over this neoliberalism bolshevik regime but he's not a bolshevik, he's a national socialist. So...

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I’ve read the last 3 on your list. (I was surprised at the small size of Mr.Monbiot’s book.) Ramond Plant’s ‘The Neo-liberal State’, Jamie Peck’s ‘Construction of Neoliberal Reason’ also good books. Cheers!

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