"I'm optimistic about the explosion that's happened in Wisconsin," says Leo Panitch, a political science professor at 91亚色 [Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies]. "For the first time in a long time, the Canadian left is looking south, rather than the other way."

But he's loath to make too many claims for a new dawn rising: "The craziness and mindlessness of so much of what is going on in the American right may 鈥� and I'm very cautious about this 鈥� it may lead to the same kind of sensibilities that produced a radical new left in the sixties."

Says Panitch, "It's much more complicated now. It's not easy to organize these days when you don't have masses of workers brought together in a big factory and they aren't living in the same part of the city. A lot of people now who are exploited and poorly paid are working in funky areas like producing software or advertising."

Two years ago, he wrote a piece for Foreign Policy magazine titled 鈥淭horoughly Modern Marx鈥� about how the post-crash world might possibly (though by no means inevitably) see a rebirth in radical thinking. That, of course, has not happened 鈥� in fact, the political left has suffered setbacks and since 2008, centre-right parties have gained power in Europe.

Panitch is the Canada Research Chair in Comparative Political Economy and a Distinguished Research Professor of Political Science.

Posted by Elizabeth Monier-Williams, research communications officer, with files courtesy of YFile鈥� 91亚色鈥檚 daily e-bulletin

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At the very least, it would be good to have been reassured that the bad old days when the business of garbage was so commonly associated with organized crime in many North American cities 鈥� not for nothing was Tony Soprano鈥檚 calling card that of a 鈥渨aste management consultant鈥� 鈥� is truly a thing of the past.

But even assuming that is so, just as there are questions properly being raised today, everywhere from Washington to Cairo, about the cozy relationships between businessmen and politicians, I am sure your readers would be grateful for a careful, balanced and objective analysis of just who owns the companies that are already profiting from the taxes people pay to have their garbage collected, and whether they have any personal, financial and political relationships with politicians, here or elsewhere.

We could use some investigation of the ecological implications too. As Heather Rodgers showed in her widely acclaimed important book Gone Tomorrow: The Hidden Life of Garbage (New Press) an alignment of manufacturing and marketing forces have used environmental laws to help the US mega-鈥渨aste management鈥� corporations make mega-profits, while often using Third World countries, or poorer regions of our own society, as our garbage dump. Will privatizing Toronto鈥檚 garbage collection further contribute to this?

Finally, dare I suggest that some interviews with the workers of these companies would be worth doing to see what they have to say about their conditions and whether they consider themselves exploited or fairly treated?

Posted by Elizabeth Monier-Williams, research communications officer, with files courtesy of YFile鈥� 91亚色鈥檚 daily e-bulletin

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