Luigi Mangione: No Tears for Slain CEO But Assassinations Won’t Save Us

End For-Profit Healthcare Early in the morning of December 4, in downtown Manhattan, a masked gunman fatally shot 50-year-old Brian Thompson. Thompson was the CEO of UnitedHealthcare, America’s largest private health insurance company, and his killer was waiting for him as he left his hotel for a shareholders’ meeting. Five days later on December 9, […]

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The Dental Care and Pharmacare Cop-Out

It has been a long wait for public dental care and pharmacare. The Dental Benefit Act was passed in November 2022 and the Canada Pharmacare Act was introduced in February 2024. Unfortunately, both fall far short of what is needed “to facilitate reasonable access to health services without financial or other barriers,” the promise of […]

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Twice as Many Workers’ Protests in China Last Year

Crashing economy, vanishing jobs and unpaid wages are forcing workers onto the streets. Jinchuan & Dikang, chinaworker.info China’s economy is now in its deepest crisis since the restoration of capitalism. This is also part of an unprecedented crisis of the global capitalist system. Everywhere the crisis inevitably makes class antagonisms more acute as the capitalist […]

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Socialist Alternative Magazine #28

Solidarity with Gaza … and more from Canada and abroad! Subscribe to Socialist Alternative! You can now subscribe to Socialist Alternative’s magazine for a modest $2 a month or $24 a year and receive each printed issue delivered to your mailbox. With an additional donation, you can become a sustainer of our magazine and build […]

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NDP Fails in Alberta

Just over a year ago, the NDP was in front of the United Conservative Party (UCP) in every opinion poll, with an average lead of over 10 percent. Yet on May 29, the UCP won a majority of the votes (52.6 percent), and seats in the poll that matters: Alberta’s election.  In 2020 and 2021 […]

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Alienation and Capitalism

We are publishing a pair of articles from our current magazine on Solidarity and Alienation, that go together well. Alienation is a defining feature of our epoch that Marx wrote about near the beginning of the industrial era. We are social animals and alienation goes against the very nature of our being. Marx described how […]

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World of Disorder

Report of the discussion on World Perspectives at ISA’s 2023 World Congress Climate disasters, raging inflation and the threat of a world recession. A brutal war in Ukraine and rising global tensions. Three years of COVID with health systems teetering on the breaking points. Political polarization and unstable governments. The ruling class looks to the […]

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Big Pharma’s Profiteering Causes Medication Shortages

Manus Lenihan is a member of Socialist Alternative in the US. Drug shortages are being reported around the world. This article focuses on the US, but there are similar problems in Canada, both with over the counter medications and prescription drugs. Many pediatricians say they can’t remember seeing so many kids this sick at the […]

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China: From Zero to Max COVID

As the Chinese New Year approaches, China is again the epicentre of the global pandemic. Despite a total information blackout, it is clear the country is experiencing an explosive spread of the virus after suddenly abandoning its three-year Zero COVID policy of hardline controls. This has been replaced by a chaotic “laissez-faire” position of minimal state […]

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Ontario Health System Privatization

“‘It’s going to bankrupt health care’: Spending on temp agency nurses up more than 550% since pre-pandemic at one Toronto hospital network,” ran the headline in the Toronto Star. “Ontario isn’t ruling out privatization in health care,” was a headline on CBC News. Temp Agency Nursing is Privatization Given the shortage of 15,000 nurses since […]

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