page_title: Leo Panitch
hierarchical_section_title: Leo Panitch
caption_attribution_description: English: Head shot of Leo Panitch, professor of political economy at York University in Toronto, Canada
context_page_description: Leo Victor Panitch FRSC is a Distinguished Research Professor of Political Science and Canada Research Chair in Comparative Political Economy at York University. Since 1985, he has served as co-editor of the Socialist Register, which describes itself as "an annual survey of movements and ideas from the standpoint of the independent new left". Panitch himself sees the Register as playing a major role in developing Marxism's conceptual framework for advancing a democratic, co-operative and egalitarian socialist alternative to capitalist competition, exploitation and insecurity.
  Since his appointment as a Canada Research Chair in 2002, Panitch has focused his academic research and writing on the spread of global capitalism. He argues that this process of globalization is being led by the American state through agencies such as the US Department of the Treasury and the Federal Reserve. Panitch sees globalization as a form of imperialism, but argues that the American Empire is an "informal" one in which the US sets rules for trade and investment in partnership with other sovereign, but less powerful capitalist states.
context_section_description: Leo Victor Panitch FRSC (born 1945) is a Distinguished Research Professor of Political Science and Canada Research Chair in Comparative Political Economy at York University. Since 1985, he has served as co-editor of the Socialist Register, which describes itself as "an annual survey of movements and ideas from the standpoint of the independent new left". Panitch himself sees the Register as playing a major role in developing Marxism's conceptual framework for advancing a democratic, co-operative and egalitarian socialist alternative to capitalist competition, exploitation and insecurity.
  Since his appointment as a Canada Research Chair in 2002, Panitch has focused his academic research and writing on the spread of global capitalism. He argues that this process of globalization is being led by the American state through agencies such as the US Department of the Treasury and the Federal Reserve. Panitch sees globalization as a form of imperialism, but argues that the American Empire is an "informal" one in which the US sets rules for trade and investment in partnership with other sovereign, but less powerful capitalist states. His book The Making of Global Capitalism: The Political Economy of American Empire (2012), written with his close friend and university colleague Sam Gindin, traces the development of American-led globalization over more than a century. In 2013, the book was awarded the Deutscher Memorial Prize in the United Kingdom for best and most creative work in or about the Marxist tradition and in 2014 it won the Rik Davidson/SPE Book Prize for the best book in political economy by a Canadian.
  Panitch is the author of more than 100 scholarly articles and nine books including Working-Class Politics in Crisis: Essays on Labour and the State (1986), The End of Parliamentary Socialism: From New Left to New Labour (2001) and Renewing Socialism: Transforming Democracy, Strategy and Imagination (2008) in which he argues that capitalism is inherently unjust and undemocratic.
caption: Panitch in 2012
exif: {"Image ImageDescription": "OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA", "Image Make": "OLYMPUS IMAGING CORP.", "Image Model": "E-P2", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "240", "Image YResolution": "240", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop CS5 Macintosh", "Image DateTime": "2012:06:24 15:05:49", "Image ExifOffset": "252", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "814", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "5634", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/40", "EXIF FNumber": "14/5", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Program Normal", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "125", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2012:06:24 13:03:32", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2012:06:24 13:03:32", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "665241/125000", "EXIF ApertureValue": "1485427/500000", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "3", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, auto mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "45", "EXIF ColorSpace": "Uncalibrated", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "3020", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "3073", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF CVAPattern": "[2, 0, 2, 0, 0, 1, 1, 2]", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "1", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF GainControl": "Low gain up", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Soft"}