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Canada’s location in the world system : reworking the debate in Canadian political economy

Canada is more accurately described as an independent imperialist country than a relatively
dependent or foreign-dominated country. This conclusion is reached by examining recent
empirical evidence on the extent of inward and outward foreign investment, ownership links
between large financial corporations and large industrial corporations, and the size and
composition of manufacturing production and trade. In each of these areas, the differences
between Canada and other members of the G7 group of countries are not large enough to justify
placing Canada in a different political-economic status than these core imperialist countries. An
historical context for the debate over Canada's current status is provided by archival research on
how socialists in the 1920s addressed similar issues. Imperialist status means that social and
economic problems in Canada are more rooted in Canadian capitalism and less in foreign
capitalism than is generally assumed by left-nationalist Canadian political economy. Given
Canada's imperialist status, labour and social movements in Canada should not support Canadian
nationalism, e.g., oppose 'free' trade and globalization on this basis.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:BVAU.2429/12967
Date05 1900
CreatorsBurgess, William
Source SetsLibrary and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeElectronic Thesis or Dissertation
RelationUBC Retrospective Theses Digitization Project [http://www.library.ubc.ca/archives/retro_theses/]

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