The left can learn an important lesson from the financial upheavals that are becoming routine these days. As elites scramble to confront each successive crisis, they prove by example that which they consistently deny: there is an alternative to the dictates of the free market.

One of the most politically disempowering aspects of neoliberal capitalism is the mantra that we were powerless to resist economic forces. We are constantly told that there is no help for our economic complaints. The free market created the situation, and market forces reign supreme.

There was always skepticism about claims that, as the rich became richer, income would "trickle down" to others. What wasn't perhaps foreseen was that the trickling would actually be in the other direction, and that it would be more of a torrent than a trickle.

But the evidence is now clear. Over the last three decades, the tables of the rich have overflowed, with barely any scraps falling off. On the contrary, there's been a massive transfer of income and wealth from Canada's middle and lower class to the rich.

The result is that Canada has become a highly unequal society.

Governments are still reeling from recession-induced deficits, but now their attention is turning to another fiscal elephant marching into the room: the coming renegotiation of federal-provincial transfer payments. The Canada Health Transfer (CHT) expires in 2014, and must be extended soon. Finance Minister Jim Flaherty plans to clamp down on transfers to reduce his own deficit. But that just passes the buck to the provinces, whose fiscal position is even worse.

As this debate heats up, there's a new piece of knowledge that should be considered carefully as finance ministers arm-wrestle. Since the CHT was implemented in 2004, researchers around the world have established a whole new field of scientific knowledge regarding the social determinants of health.

Nobody ever accused Barack Obama of having too stiff a spine.

Even so, there is something crushingly disappointing about reports last week that the U.S. president is likely to retreat from his promise to cancel George W. Bush's tax cuts for the rich.

Such a capitulation to the Republicans would concede defeat before the battle to achieve greater equality and to "spread the wealth around" is even waged. The audacity of hope seems to have turned into a readiness to choke.

Obama's promise was a modest one -- to push the top marginal tax rate from 35 per cent back up to its Clinton-era level of 39 per cent.

Something is seriously wrong with the economy, here and abroad. By now, the Canadian mainstream media should have recognized it. Instead, we get reassurances from business sources about "recovery" being just around the corner.

In Canada, the U.K., and the U.S., experts offer the same failed analysis (government failed), and governments propose the same discredited solutions (reduce deficits).

Almost 40 years ago, Ottawa quietly cancelled Canada's estate tax.

Few Canadians even knew about the tax. Those who did mostly belonged to a small number of wealthy families who were rich enough to pay it. With its cancellation in 1972, this tiny crowd was suddenly a lot richer.

U of T economist John Bossons calculated that ending the tax amounted to a windfall of about $12 billion ($62 billion in today's dollars) for Canada's wealthiest families.

The removal of the estate tax, which remains an obscure event in Canadian history, had momentous implications, depriving Ottawa of revenue and putting Canada on a path toward greater inequality.