Profits? Productivity? Affordability? Talking Economics with Angella MacEwen

Perspectives: A Journal of Political Economy and Social Democracy

In today’s apparently well-performing capitalist economy, working-class ordinary Canadians aren’t feeling like they live in a "Good Society" and acutely feel these economic pressures.
Price inflation, lagging productivity, and record profits. These are the economic indicators that policymakers use to say that the economy is doing so well, and which ordinary Canadians feel as an “affordability crisis,” but what what does this all mean and what’s behind it?
To help break down some of these questions Perspectives Journal spoke with Broadbent Institute Policy Fellow and Economist for the Canadian Union of Public Employees, Angella MacEwen, at the 2024 Progress Summit.
---
The 2024 Ellen Meiksins Wood Prize is awarded to economist Dr. Isabella Weber for critical research on economic shocks and inflation that equip Canadian progressives with alternatives that push back against anti-democratic policy choices and help to empower workers.

Each year’s prize recipient also delivers the Ellen Meiksins Wood Lecture.

We are thrilled to recognize Isabella Weber as our recipient this year. Professor Isabella Weber is an economist and a leading voice against corporate profiteering, identifying economic shocks as the cover that the rich and powerful use to raise prices and put the working-class through an affordability crisis.
Her analysis has come to accurately illustrate the forces behind today’s price inflation, and why governments have not effectively addressed the affordability crisis.

Weber has advised policy makers in the United States and Germany on questions of price stabilization, and is now a regular feature in the business papers. For her work on “Sellers’ Inflation,” she has been profiled in the New Yorker, Jacobin Magazine, recognized as one of TIME100 Next, Bloomberg's 50 Ones to Watch, Germany's 100 women of 2022 and Capital 40 under 40

We invite you to join us on Thursday, May 30, 2024 for the Ellen Meiksins Wood Lecture at Toronto Metropolitan University, at the Sears Atrium (3rd Floor, George Vari Engineering and Computing Centre), starting at 7pm EDT, followed by a reception with light refreshments.
Get your tickets now: 2024-ellen-meiksins-wood-lecture.eventbrite.ca