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About John Clarke

John Clarke became an organiser with the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty when it was formed in 1990 and has been involved in mobilising poor communities under attack ever since.
  • President Donald Trump meets with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney. Photo: The White House / Flickr / Public Domain

    U.S. Canada trade war intensifies

    Originally published: Counterfire on August 31, 2026 (more by Counterfire)  |

    While Trump’s gangster imperialism exacerbates the trade war with Canada, workers must not simply rally to the side of their own national capitalists, argues John Clarke.

  • Poor air quality in Ontario’s Niagara Region as a result of wildfire smoke. Photo by Gogerr/Wikimedia Commons.

    Defying despair in the face of climate catastrophe

    Originally published: Canadian Dimension on July 29, 2026 (more by Canadian Dimension)  |

    We must push back against ideological containment that blocks the development of rebellious thinking and movements of resistance.

  • Scorched grass in Greenwich Park, London, England in August 2022. Source: Alisdare Hickson. -Wikicommons / cropped from original / CC BY-SA 2.0

    Climate crisis deepens

    Originally published: Counterfire on May 21, 2026 (more by Counterfire)  |

    Evidence of catastrophic shifts in the climate is mounting alarmingly, yet leaders show no signs of action, so anti-capitalism is the only route to solving the crisis, argues John Clarke.

  • Trumponomics

    Trumponomics in trouble

    Originally published: Counterfire on September 8, 2025 (more by Counterfire)  |

    Trump’s twin track of tariffs and deportations to restore American ‘greatness’ are in contradiction with each other, and are damaging the U.S. economy, argues John Clarke.

  • Flooded roads in downtown Houston, 2015. Photo by Elliot Blackburn/Flickr.

    When climate becomes class war

    Originally published: Canadian Dimension on July 23, 2025 (more by Canadian Dimension)  |

    As climate collapse accelerates, its unequal impacts reveal the class divisions at its core.

  • Visions of Canada Burning / Photo: Duncan Rawlinson / CC BY-NC 2.0

    Capitalism is burning the world: Canada’s wildfire season

    Originally published: Counterfire on June 5, 2025 (more by Counterfire)  |

    Canada’s new liberal prime minister has given the lie to the notion that a green capitalism is possible with fossil-fuel friendly policies as the climate crisis intensifies, explains John Clarke.

  • In 2023, peaceful activists involved in the pro-Palestine movement pasted posters and splashed red paint on the windows of an Indigo bookstore in downtown Toronto. Screenshot courtesy CP24/YouTube.

    Political policing in Canada

    Originally published: Canadian Dimension on April 16, 2025 (more by Canadian Dimension)  |

    The attack on the Indigo 11 is part of a systematic effort to disrupt and contain the growing Palestine solidarity movement.

  • Carbon Capture Technology. Photo: A Peabody Energy, Inc./ Wikimedia Commons / CC BY- 3.0

    Carbon capture: False hopes and harsh realities

    Originally published: Counterfire on December 6, 2024 (more by Counterfire)  |

    Do not buy the fossil-fuel industry’s hype about carbon-capture technology, even the schemes that work cannot be scaled up to the necessary levels, explains John Clarke.

  • London banks. Photo: Public Domain

    Debt-based speculation surges

    Originally published: Counterfire on November 29, 2024 (more by Counterfire)  |

    Reckless financial speculation almost broke the world economy in 2008, but it has returned in new forms, showing capitalism’s inherent tendency to create crisis, argues John Clarke.

  • Photo by Stephen Sizer

    Truth takes a side

    Originally published: Canadian Dimension on November 7, 2024 (more by Canadian Dimension)  |

    Understanding and truth are our best weapons against an exploitative society based on lies.

  • School students striking for climate justice, Westminster, February 2019. Photo: Facebook/Nottingham People’s Assembly

    Emissions increase as climate disaster intensifies

    Originally published: Counterfire on June 29, 2024 (more by Counterfire)  |

    CEOs state outright that profit must come first, even as this year’s deadly heat waves providing worrying evidence of the rising climate emergency, reports John Clarke.

  • "There is no Planet B" placard, Photo: Ivan Radic / CC BY 2.0

    On the edge of the ‘climate abyss’

    Originally published: Counterfire on May 15, 2024 (more by Counterfire)  |

    With scientists warning of imminent catastrophe, it is time to stop expecting our rulers to change course by persuasion; only militant anti-capitalism will work, argues John Clarke.

  • Canadian wildfire smoke hits Minneapolis, May 2023. Source: Chad Davis - Wikicommons / cropped from original / CC BY 2.0

    Canada faces another grim wildfire season

    Originally published: Counterfire on April 18, 2024 (more by Counterfire)  |

    The wildfires in Canada kept burning all winter, and a new season is set to be catastrophic, as climate feedback loops accelerate disaster, warns John Clarke.

  • Bank of England. Photo: Flickr/Alexander Johmann

    Central bank independence as class war strategy

    Originally published: Counterfire on March 27, 2024 (more by Counterfire)  |

    Insulated from popular discontent, independent central banks have free reign to undermine workers’ rights and further the neoliberal agenda, argues John Clarke.

  • A polling official confirms a voter's identity during the Pakistani general elections in July 2018. Photo: Commonwealth Secretariat on Flickr

    Social crisis underlies Pakistan’s election upset

    Originally published: Counterfire on February 14, 2024 (more by Counterfire)  |

    Pakistan’s stalemated election showed that its ruling class is unable to contain the cascading social crisis in the country, but a genuine alternative is lacking, argues John Clarke.

  • Selina Robinson. Photo: Province of British Columbia / Flickr / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

    Palestine ‘a crappy piece of land’ claim sparks outrage

    Originally published: Counterfire on February 7, 2024 (more by Counterfire)  |

    The resignation of a provincial minister in Canada over anti-Palestinian comments marks a victory for the Palestine solidarity movement, reports John Clarke.

  • Fort McMurray, Alberta. Photo: kris krüg / Flickr / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 DEED

    Canada’s oilsands are a toxic nightmare

    Originally published: Counterfire on January 31, 2024 (more by Counterfire)  |

    The poisonous waste, and deadly carbon emissions produced by oilsands production is even worse than had been thought, and production must stop, argues John Clarke.

  • Baku Oil Pumps. Source: Ceever - Wikicommons / cropped from original / shared under license CC BY-SA 4.0

    The climate charade continues

    Originally published: Counterfire on January 12, 2024 (more by Counterfire)  |

    With fossil-fuel interests now openly and repeatedly in charge of Cop summits, their failure of legitimacy must be confronted, argues John Clarke.

  • Nick Dearden, Pharmanomics: How Big Pharma Destroys Global Health (Verso 2023), 336pp.

    ‘Pharmanomics: How Big Pharma Destroys Global Health’ – book review

    Originally published: Counterfire on December 7, 2023 (more by Counterfire)  |

    Pharmanomics is an important book that shows how Big Pharma’s profit seeking damages health care globally, but the solution lies outside the current system, argues John Clarke

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Money on the Left Episodes

  • Democracy Needs Public Media w/ Victor Pickard
    John Clarke

    Victor Pickard returns to Money on the Left six years after his first appearance on the show to discuss the state of the U.S. media system under Trump 2.0. Pickard is C. Edwin Baker Professor of Media Policy and Political Economy at the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg School for Communication and Co-Director at the Media, […]

  • Public Employment & Training from the Great Society to the “End of Welfare as We Know It”
    John Clarke

    This month, Scott Ferguson speaks with Mario Rendina about the politics of public employment and training in the United States as they shifted over the course of the late 20th century. Rendina brings over thirty years of hands-on experience working within municipal government in Tampa Bay, Florida—specifically within Hillsborough County. Grounded in his extensive career […]

  • The Public Banking Institute
    John Clarke

    In this episode, we speak with Walt McRee (President) and Peter Winslow (Vice President) of the Public Banking Institute (PBI) about their past and ongoing advocacy for public banking. Founded in 2011 by author Ellen Brown and a core collective of advocates, PBI aims to break the monopoly of Wall Street’s private banking system by […]

See all Money on the Left Episodes

Monthly Review Essays

  • Parallel Universes
    Andy Merrifield

    Anybody who’s ever leafed through Finnegans Wake will quickly recognize that we’re not dealing here with a standard novel, just as anybody leafing through Marx’s Capital will know we’re not dealing with standard economics.

Lost & Found

  • The Rise and Fall of the United Farm Workers
    Michael D. Yates Cesar Chavez (center) marches with United Farm Workers members in Redondo Beach, California, July 9, 1975.

    Chavez could not abide the idea, much less the reality, that the farm workers themselves could and should run the union.

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