Timothy Sumer

Speakers - John Clarke, writer, lecturer at York University, and former organizer with the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty. - Sam Gindin, author of The Making of Global Capitalism and former Assistant to the President of the Canadian Auto Workers. Politicians, the media, central bankers and the average worker have all been talking up the recent acceleration in the cost of living. Just a short time ago price rises of just 2% might have been considered ‘inflationary’. In the current phase of the Covid pandemic, inflation in core capitalist states, including Canada, is now running at the 5-7%, far ahead of wage settlements and bumps in income supports for welfare. Inflation always carries important consequences for workers living standards, collective bargaining and meeting basic needs for the poor. Inflation always generates class conflict, most directly and immediately over distribution but indirectly eventually over questions of power over capital and the state. How much o