Escape from the Staple Trap

From fur and fish to oil and minerals, Canadian development has often been understood through its relationship to export staples. This understanding, argues Paul Kellogg, has led many political economists to assume that Canadian economic development has followed a path similar to those of staple-exporting economies in the Global South, ignoring a more fundamental fact: as an advanced capitalist economy, Canada sits in the core of the world system, not on the periphery or semi-periphery. In Escape from the Staple Trap, Kellogg challenges statistical and historical analyses that present Canada as weak and disempowered, lacking sovereignty and economic independence. A powerful critique of the dominant trend in Canadian political economy since the 1970s, Escape from the Staple Trap offers an important new framework for understanding the distinctive features of Canadian political economy.

'Kellogg's book has done a great service in illuminating a great, yet largely unremarked upon, trend of post-war Canadian history: the emergence of two distinct and competing groups of (English speaking) Canadian nationalists.' -- Dimitry Anastakis LRC May 2016

Paul Kellogg is an associate professor in the Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies at Athabasca University.