Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec : Je me souviens …

The Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec was created during the Quiet Revolution (la Révolution tranquille), which began on 22 June 1960 following the election of the Liberal Party whose leader, Jean Lesage, called for francophone Quebeckers to reclaim control of their destiny. Thus, promoting the economic development of Quebec was not only the Caisse's raison d'être, but also its primary mandate. This noble mission was defended by successive governments until the early 2000s. In 2008, when seemingly invincible financial institutions such as the American Lehman Brothers investment bank went bankrupt, the Caisse recorded losses of $40 billion. We argue that the collapse of the Caisse was precipitated by revolutionary actions, in the sense described by Kahn (2006), taken by the executive directors of the Caisse and the Charest government during the years prior to its downfall. In 2008, the Caisse had become, first and foremost, an investment fund manager designed to yield profits for its depositors. The downfall of the Caisse eloquently illustrates a drawback of market logic when shamelessly applied to the administration of public funds.     

Book Reviews: South East Asia

The best Lapis lazuli in the world comes from Afghanistan, from Badakhshan, where it has been mined for over 6,000 years.

Merchants carried lapis to cities all over Mesopotamia and ancient Egypt, where distinctive ornaments have subsequently been excavated. More recently emerged a quite different use of lapis-the grinding of the stone to produce pigment for painting (ultramarine) This technique travelled as much as the stone itself from caves in Asia through wall paintings of the early Middle Ages to the Italian Renaissance and, finally to Titian     

The League of Polish Families between East and West,past and present

Historical legacies play an important role in the rise of radical right parties in Central and Eastern Europe. This article conducts an in-depth study of the trajectory of a particular radical right party, the League of Polish Families, in a particular Central and East European country, Poland. The central objective of the article is to highlight that, although there are important similarities between the League of Polish Families and other radical right parties in both Central and Eastern Europe and Western Europe, the League of Polish Families differs in some respects, such as the composition of electorate and ideology from these parties. The article shows that the observed differences have their roots in the Polish historical legacy, that on some accounts deviates from the historical legacies present in other Central and East European countries.     

Childhood bads,parenting goods,and the right to procreate

Abstract

Harry Brighouse and Adam Swift, together with many other philosophers, think that adults’ interests in raising a child can give them a moral right to parent when they will be adequate parents. We consider whether the same interest could give such adults a moral right to procreate, as a means of acquiring a child to raise. We argue that the interest in parenting cannot support a right to procreate, because the features of childhood that make parenting uniquely valuable for adults are bad for children. Adults may have a right to procreate, but they do not have that right due to their interest in a parent–child relationship.