What is the significance of the way not only Keynes but even Marx has been brought back into fashion amidst the global economic crisis? This is a question well worth pondering on the day that is officially designated to celebrate the class that Marx saw as carrying the promise -- and the responsibility -- of creating a better world.

For more than 100 years, May Day has symbolized the common struggles of workers around the globe. Why is it largely ignored in North America? The answer lies in part in American labour’s long repression of its own radical past, out of which international May Day was actually born a century ago.

The political crisis that has suddenly erupted in Canada adds yet another dimension to the seemingly unending shockwaves set in motion by the global financial crisis. The sheer political escapism that led all the leaders (even the NDP's Jack Layton) to solemnly pledge during the recent federal election not to run a deficit -- when it was already clear that the severity of this crisis is such that no government can avoid a deficit even if it wants to -- has now rebounded on us with a vengeance.

For more than 100 years, May Day has symbolized the common struggles of workers around the globe. Why is it largely ignored in North America? The answer lies in part in American labour's long repression of its own radical past, out of which international May Day was actually born a century ago.

The seeds were sown in the campaign for the eight-hour work day. On May 1, 1886, hundreds of thousands of North American workers mobilized to strike.