A case for an economy that serves the many over the few
EDITORS NOTE: Please note the positions enclosed in this article do not necessarily represent the views of The Argosy’s staff members. Argosy Publications Inc., is an apolitical organization.
Since the 1980s, neoliberalism – a paradigm of privatization, deregulation, and tax cuts for the wealthy – has largely dictated every facet of our economic lives, from stagnating wages to soaring living costs. It was sold to us underscored by a simple promise: if we cut taxes for the rich, privatize our public services, and let corporations regulate themselves, everyone will prosper, and wealth will trickle down to the bottom of the economic ladder. However, that promise was a lie. Trickle-down economics is a sham, and the evidence is becoming undeniable. It is exemplified in our record use of food banks and the harsh reality finds recent generations being widely priced out of our future. It is time for Canada to acknowledge the failure of this model and finally have an honest conversation about the socialist principles offering us a way out of this crisis, unburdened by Red Scare propaganda.
The neoliberal shift, pushed by figures like Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, constituted a deliberate U-turn from the post-war consensus that valued shared prosperity, a period built on a commitment to full employment and social security, embodied by institutions like the International Labour Organization (ILO), founded on the principle of “universal and lasting peace can be established only if it is based upon social justice.” Socialism, the one responsible for giving us things like public healthcare, was shoved aside. To make this new, selfish system seem justifiable, government officials dusted off old Cold War scare tactics, insisting that any move toward sharing prosperity was a slippery slope to Soviet-style tyranny. They made us afraid of the word socialism, despite the fact we benefit from its best ideas, such as our Medicare program.
The results of this neoliberal experiment are in, and they are devastating. A landmark 2016 report from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the very institution that often championed these policies, gave us some wild conclusions. The report concluded the “benefits in terms of increased growth seem fairly difficult to establish when looking at a broad group of countries.” While the promised growth failed to materialize, the costs did not. The IMF found the “costs in terms of increased inequality are prominent,” and this “increased inequality in turn hurts the level and sustainability of growth.” So the “trickle-down” theory was not just a failure; it was backwards. The policies designed to boost the economy instead undermined it, all while making life more unequal and insecure for large swaths of people.
The consequences of this neoliberal shift are etched into the fabric of our daily lives. Why should corporate executives make millions while ordinary Canadians struggle to afford the basics? According to Statistics Canada, wage gains for many households have not kept up with rising costs, especially for lower-income groups. Meanwhile, a report from Food Banks Canada revealed that food bank usage in Canada reached record highs in 2023, signalling full-time work may no longer guarantee stability. Our housing market, financialized and treated as a vehicle for investment rather than a human right, has become a source of generational wealth for some and a life sentence of insecurity for others. Neoliberalism has reshaped our society into a marketplace, and most of us are finding the price of admission too high.
To see a different path, we need only look to nations that resisted the neoliberal blueprint. Before his assassination, Thomas Sankara’s government in Burkina Faso launched one of the most ambitious socialist campaigns in history. According to Encyclopædia Britannica, Sankara instituted sweeping reforms, including large-scale vaccination campaigns, literacy drives, land redistribution, promotion of women’s rights, and massive tree-planting efforts. Estimates from Encyclopædia Britannica note his regime planted over ten million trees and launched nationwide programmes for women’s participation in education, government, and the military. These gestures demonstrated that when national resources are directed by and for the people, progress is possible even under immense structural and economic constraints, such as being a landlocked and sub-saharan nation, making it prone to droughts, or financial isolation from its former colonial adversary, France. Sankara’s legacy stands as a direct rejection of the IMF’s neoliberal structural adjustment policies, showing that collective welfare can, in fact, be a true foundation of development. Similarly, despite a crippling, decades-long U.S. embargo, coupled with repeated condemnation by the United Nations General Assembly, Cuba’s socialism has built a healthcare system that achieves remarkable outcomes. According to the World Bank, Cuba’s infant mortality rate is about 6.6 deaths per 1,000 live births (2023), and even lower than that in the two years prior at 6.3 in 2022 and 6 in 2021, which compares quite favourably with larger, richer countries. These cases together prove that socialism can perform significantly well, despite all of the rhetoric.
The critics, still clinging to Cold War ghosts, will parrot socialism is a fantasy that only ends in destruction. But what could be more fantastical than believing the same neoliberal policies responsible for the 2008 financial crash, the opioid epidemic, and the climate crisis will suddenly save us? What could be more “un-Canadian” than accepting that in one of the wealthiest nations on Earth, an entire generation is being priced out of the future their parents were promised? Moving toward socialism is not about importing some foreign ideology; it is about moving past the propaganda to embrace something sitting at the core of this nation we love so much. It means letting go of the failed experiment of neoliberalism and returning to a sense of community and fairness, the same spirit that built Medicare, public schools, and workers’ rights. It is about applying those same values to housing, energy, and the workplace. If we could make healthcare a right for everyone, why can we not do the same for housing or fair work? The neoliberal race to the bottom has left many Canadians struggling. I believe a socialist Canada would mean something better, a country where our wealth is shared, not hoarded, where everyone can lead a dignified life, and most importantly, where no one gets left behind.