Buzz Hargrove is now retired from his role in life as President of the Canadian Auto Workers. Now his thinking is exposed in his book Laying it on the Line and in the National Post 3 part series of excerpts. In the last of that series January 21 he wonders "Whatever happened to using public ownership as a tool to achieve social goals?". He longs for the return of "creative, inspiring leadership to show that public ownership, in certain areas, can play a constructive and efficient role in rescuing the economy".
What happened, is that it emigrated to Venezuela where it now thrives under President Hugo Chavez who is demonstrating that very "creative, inspiring leadership to show that public ownership, in certain areas, can play a constructive and efficient role in rescuing the economy".
The creative use of the tool has just been applied by Chavez to supermarkets following previous inspirations relating to steel (2009), banks and cement (2008), oil and telecommunications and power (2007), and industrial farms (2005). Of such creativity there is no end.
That it plays a role in the economy is certainly true. I doubt that it is constructive and efficient. Rather than rescuing the economy it is more likely that it is creating an economy that will require rescuing. Time to put the World Bank on alert.
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