Tom Goldsmith

@tomgoldsmith.bsky.social

766 Followers 2404 Following

I write about building a fairer and more inclusive society and innovation's role in doing that on the Deep Dives newsletter: https://orbitpolicy.substack.com/. Founder & Principal, Orbit Policy. Toronto via the UK.

"While it’s easy to write off Carney’s unrequited policy concessions as a failed negotiating tactic, I suggest it’s more helpful to understand them as part of a broader corporate authoritarian consensus that Carney is willfully facilitating, acting less as a head of state and more as the CEO of Canada Inc., maximizing value for shareholders." Jeremy Appel Mark Carney, CEO of Canada Inc. www.readtheorchard.org
A screenshot of the cancellation page for Google Workspace Business Standard
Photo of Monitor article saying: But history offers a bolder model. In 1940, the federal government introduced a 75% excess profits tax. It was explicitly intended to limit war profiteering and strengthen public spending. If a similar approach was taken today, it could generate an extra $46 billion in public revenues over the next year - on top of regular royalties and taxes. In this scenario, the oil industry would still make $44 billion in profits. That’s hardly punitive.
"“Totalizing,” dehumanizing, and extractive technologies, that do not bring social returns to the masses, but bring huge financial returns to a small elite, can, and must be rejected. We must look hard at the kind of future that is being pushed on us and then say No." Tom Goldsmith Say No Orbitpolicy.substack.com
"A distributed model of technology development is one where innovation happens in communities, led by local people that are focused on solving local problems and embracing local opportunities. It is very different to today’s dominant model of innovation that is centred in an “imperial core” in Silicon Valley and that extracts wealth from the periphery." Tom Goldsmith Alternative Visions of Technology Development orbitpolicy.substack.com
First two paragraphs from a Toronto Star column by Althia Raj: “ Prime Minister Mark Carney plans to make it easier to kill off endangered species, pollute waterways and risk human health, all in the name of fast-tracking private-sector development projects. For a prime minister who dismissed progressive Liberal MPs’ concerns over spending on child care, health care and pharmacare during a caucus meeting this week, Friday’s announcement on streamlining infrastructure project approvals is a further indication the party is moving to the right, further than anything Liberals have seen, and a giant call to action to all Canadians who care about the environment.”
"big tech companies aren’t normal corporations – they’re corporate empires. These companies don’t need to demonstrate that they’re using their resources efficiently to maximise their profits over the short-term. They just need to show that their territory is growing – and the boundaries of their empire are protected." - Grace Blakely
"Many Canadians have struggled to keep a lid on expenses since the COVID-19 pandemic, when inflation soared amid a glut of federal supports and aid packages to ease the effects of job losses and sector-wide shutdowns. Since then, prices have refused to go down, leaving some in increasingly desperate circumstances."
"We live in a political economy where innovation is not being pursued for the general good of all, but for the financial gain of only a few." Tom Goldsmith, The Politics of Innovation Orbitpolicy.substack.com
"One thing that really struck me was how 20th century many of the economic arguments were. When the candidates spoke of unionized jobs and the working class, it was very much within a largely manufacturing and natural resources lens, even when couched in terms of a Green New Deal. Yet that isn’t what the economy looks like today." Tom Goldsmith, Friday Thoughts. Orbitpolicy.substack.com
"Ultimately, there is a real need to reshape the innovation discourse in Canada and its underlying power structures. We must move away from the constructed fictions that maintain a flawed status quo and towards a discourse and power structure that benefits real people across the country and beyond." Tom Goldsmith: Reflections on Said's "Orientalism" orbitpolicy.substack.com
An image of Mark Carney giving a speech at Davos. Above is the text: "The Performance of Ritual: The Hypocrisy of Carney's Davos Speech. Orbitpolicy.substack.com. Orbit Policy's Deep Dives"
We are taking back control over the immigration system and putting Canada on a trajectory to bring immigration back to sustainable levels—allowing us to fulfill the promise of Canada to those who call it home. At the same time, Canada will continue its long tradition of welcoming those fleeing violence, persecution and displacement.
Gross profit margins for Canada's three largest grocery chains
Chart showing operating margins reported by the supermarkets and the discounters in the period from FY 2003/04 to FY 2023/24.
No, it never does. I mean, these people somehow deluxe themselves into thinking it might but.... But it might work for us.
"These are major, even existential, challenges. How our governments respond to them, and whether innovation is pursued in ways that mitigate or exacerbate these challenges, will be crucial in shaping what life is like for Canadians in the coming years and decades. Reactive policy responses are insufficient to deal with this landscape." Tom Goldsmith. Understanding Canada's Challenges. Orbitpolicy.substack.com
Cover of the CSA Public Policy Centre Report: "Building an Innovative and Inclusive Canada, Part 1: Responsible Innovation for Shared Prosperity"
The Skydome field ahead of ALCS game 1. Let's fucking go Blue Jays!
"Ultimately, the highest goal of democratic governments is not, and should not be, innovation. Rather, it is about making sure that various trade-offs, between innovation and safety, digitization and nondiscrimination, are managed in line with the rule of law. The goal is to prevent companies from moving fast and breaking things." - The Tech Coup by Marietje Schaake
Image of train cargo on tracks going through woods and a town. Superimposed is the text: "Trade and Innovation (in Real Places): Quick thoughts on trade policy and Dan Breznitz's ideas about innovation-focused economic development"
"Amid everything happening in the world and all the intersecting levels of crisis we face, it can be hard to know where we can make a difference. It's become clearer to me, though, that we — I — just need to start somewhere and that somewhere should be acting with other people." Tom Goldsmith: On Bill 33, Protest, and Political Engagement
A whiteboard with "AI?" written on it. Superimposed is the text "The 'Inevitability' of AI and The Impact on Worker Power: Part 1 on AI and Power"
A sunny view of a river with Lilly pads and Reed's.
In Canada, 6.5 million people don’t have access to a family doctor. Affordable housing is out of reach for so many. Young Canadians are struggling with university and college tuition. And income inequality in Canada is at the highest level ever recorded. It takes one of Canada’s richest CEOs less than two hours to make what the average worker earns in an entire year. In the face of this crisis, Prime Minister Mark Carney has cancelled a modest capital gains tax increase, introduced "middle class" tax cuts that offer the greatest payments to higher income earners and capitulated to Donald Trump by cancelling a long-awaited digital services tax. This will result in almost $52 billion of lost public investment over the next five years. In making these choices, we are missing critical chances for nation building. Instead of addressing the shortage in access to primary and acute health care, expanding universal pharmacare, bolstering public education and supporting our youngest citizens with early learning, we are funding tax cuts.
An image of two red signs with white arrows pointing in opposite directions. The top arrow says "One Way." The bottom arrow says "Or Another." Superimposed above is the text "Friday Reading Roundup #12: The Enshittification of US Power & Canada's Dilemma"
An image of the book cover for Lenore Palladino's "Good Company: Economic Policy After Shareholder Primacy." Superimposed is the text: "Thinking about... Shareholder Primacy and Innovation: Exploring Lenore Palladino's work in the Canadian context"
"One of the major weaknesses of the GDPR is the lack of capacity to enforce the many cases that are brought before regulators. Take as an example the Irish Data Protection Commission, which is the most influential tech regulator in the EU because of the many tech giants headquartered in Ireland for favorable tax reasons. In 2019 the commission had a budget of 15.3 million euros ($17.1 million). On the other side, the major tech companies have multibillion-dollar budgets. The difference in legal firepower is overwhelming. Similarly, the Dutch Data Protection Authority (DDPA) has over ten thousand cases backlogged because it simply cannot handle the workload. The authority has also complained that it lacks the resources to assess the algorithmic processing of data. In 2023 the DDPA was appropriated one million euros to reduce its backlog, but that's only a drop in the bucket given the resources of the multi-billion-dollar companies they are up against. Laws are only as good as their enforcement capabilities, and the lack of enforcement resources for the GDPR may help explain why it has not achieved all of what lawmakers hoped it would." (Marietje Schaake, The Tech Coup)
"Artificial intelligence, if we’re being frank, is a con: a bill of goods you are being sold to line someone’s pockets. A few major well-placed players are poised to accumulate significant wealth by extracting value from other people’s creative work, personal data, or labor, and replacing quality services with artificial facsimiles. The language of p(doom) is a ruse to keep us focused on imaginary scenarios, filled with awe at modern robber barons’ allegedly potentially world-ending technology, and too distracted to see the daily harms being done in its name." (Emily M. Bender, Alex Hanna, The AI Con)
We believe a transformation of social structures and values is required, and we believe that such change is possible. We know from looking at social movements past that human beings have the agency and capacity to radically alter how we live. We can’t just sit back and hope that shifting demographics, evolving social attitudes, or technological breakthroughs will automatically set things right. We need to get organized if we want to see the world improve. From Solidarity by Leah Hunt-Hendrix and Astra Taylor
Stated simply, what it means to have a system of government that is bounded by law is that everyone is constrained by the law, no exceptions. And for that to actually happen, courts must have the power to order everyone (including the Executive) to follow the law—full stop. To conclude otherwise is to endorse the creation of a zone of lawlessness within which the Executive has the prerogative to take or leave the law as it wishes, and where individuals who would otherwise be entitled to the law’s protection become subject to the Executive’s whims instead. The majority cannot deny that our Constitution was designed to split the powers of a monarch between the governing branches to protect the People. Nor is it debatable that the role of the Judiciary in our constitutional scheme is to ensure fidelity to law. But these core values are strangely absent from today’s decision. Focusing on inapt comparisons to impotent English tribunals, the majority ignores the Judiciary’s foundational duty to uphold the Constitution and laws of the United States. The majority’s ruling thus not only diverges from first principles, it is also profoundly dangerous, since it gives the Executive the go-ahead to sometimes wield the kind of unchecked, arbitrary power the Founders crafted our Constitution to eradicate. The very institution our founding charter charges with the duty to ensure universal adherence to the law now requires judges to shrug and turn their backs to intermittent lawlessness. With deep disillusionment, I dissent.
An image of Mark Carney talking from behind a podium during the election campaign. Superimposed on the image is the text: “Corporate Carney” is following the wrong playbook We need a leader with creativity and deep convictions about what a better Canada would look like. But so far, we’ve seen more “Corporate Carney” than “Visionary Carney.”
How would you say your visit in June was different from your previous visits, if it was different? Yes, it was, even though I didn’t expect it to be. It was different for several reasons. One is the wounds I saw on children. There were burns on little girls and boys, fourth-degree burns I didn’t know existed. And shrapnel riddled through a body. Shrapnel is designed to go through cement, and what it does to a child’s body is horrific. On one previous trip, I saw a bus of children who spent two days trying to get from the north to the south after being held at Israeli checkpoints, and I walked in the bus, and all I could smell was children’s burning flesh. It doesn’t leave you. And one of the things that struck me this time was that I wasn’t just seeing these children—I was hearing them. There is such a horrendous lack of painkillers that when I’d be in a hospital—and hospitals are wall to wall with people with wounds of war—you’d hear the children and their screams. So I certainly noticed that as a person, parent, human.
Text from the Tech Coup: Ultimately, the highest goal of democratic governments is not, and should not be, innovation. Rather, it is about making sure that various trade-offs, between innovation and safety, digitization and nondiscrimination, are managed in line with the rule of law. The goal is to prevent companies from moving fast and breaking things.
Screenshot from Substance saying "Tom Goldsmith is now #58 Rising in Business"
Text from the Star article: "Coun. Gord Perks (Ward 4, Parkdale-High Park) said he has asked Magna if its AI was ever tested in the sort of complicated transportation environment like downtown Toronto, including any experience interacting with transit vehicles, bike lanes and construction zones or people wearing workers’ vests. “They said ‘no,’” Perks said. “Experience operating where there might be potholes or other interruptions on the road? They were unsure.” Perks also said he was told by Magna they were unsure if law enforcement agencies could get access to their video footage"
"In a [more recent study](https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.3982/ECTA18338), Salome Baslandze, Francesca Lotti, and I showed using Italian data that larger enterprises tend to innovate less and instead engage in activities that limit competition. One such activity is hiring local politicians. As businesses climb the ranks among the largest 20 players in their industry, they hire more politicians, while their patent production declines. This highlights what we call a leadership paradox, where leading companies plow resources into maintaining dominance rather than fostering innovation." (UFUK AKCIGIT, The Innovation Paradox)
"Projects of national renewal often involve sacrifices – this is why we do need a new patriotism to supplement, and on occasion overcome, our individualism – but the sacrifices the state asks of the public must be just, and be seen to be just." (Torsten Bell, Great Britain?)
"Monique and her female peers-like mine, like theirs - grew up with the heady rhetoric of gender equality. Girls can do anything boys can do. We got Title IX. We got grad school. But the rhetoric stopped with us, the obvious and necessary corollary never to be uttered. "Boys can do anything girls can do" doesnt exactly roll off the tongue." (Darcy Lockman, All the Rage)
The cost of child care has been identified as a potential barrier to women’s full participation in the labour market, whether it be their entry into the labour market, their ability to work full time or their capacity to take on more senior roles. Gu (2022) found evidence that the introduction of the low-cost universal child care program in Quebec resulted in an increase in the labour force participation rate of women and in the use of paid child care in that province. The introduction of low-cost child care across Canada therefore bodes well, as it reduces or removes an important barrier to women’s employment.
Screenshot of Box 1.5 from the OECD's economic survey of Canada detailing the estimated impact of structural reforms recommended in the Survey on potential GDP and the fiscal balance. It highlights how reducing the gender labour supply gap will lead to a 4.3% increase in GDP.
Cover of Lenore Palladino's "Good Company: Economic Policy After Shareholder Primacy"
Screengrap of the regisration page for the Inclusive Innovation Speakers' Series feating Tom Goldsmith.
"Instead of looking back nostalgically to the twentieth-century welfare state, which was predicated on assumptions of limitless economic growth and ecological extraction, and marred by racialized and gendered exclusions, we should aspire to a forward-looking vision of a state that provides security for all in a way that is sustainable, a state that is both decarbonized and democratic-what I like to call a solidarity state. Rooted in the collaborative ethos of the commons, a solidarity state aspires to both political and economic equality and a recognition of our fundamental interdependence, including our interdependence with the more-than-human world." (Astra Taylor, The Age of Insecurity)
Alone among his community of extreme-right “illiberal democrat” leaders who have corrupted institutions and overturned democratic norms in order to remain in power, Mr. Netanyahu has largely been treated by Western countries as a more or less legitimate representative of the Israeli people and as a credible regional partner. His military excesses, his rejection of the peace process and his support for illegal settlements have done immeasurable damage to the security and well-being of Israelis and have drawn criticism from countries such as Canada, but his governments have continued to receive aid, arms and recognition as an important regional partner.
In 2014, Ursula Le Guin accepted the National Book Foundation’s Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, saying: “We live in capitalism. Its power seems inescapable. So did the divine right of kings. Any human power can be resisted and changed by human beings. Resistance and change often begin in art, and very often in our art, the art of words.” Harfoush reflects on this quote often. It underscores the fact that “this world we’ve created is ultimately a choice”, she says. “It doesn’t have to be like this.” We have the research, technologies and wisdom to create better, more sustainable systems. “But meaningful change requires collective awakening and decisive action,” says Harfoush. “And we need to start now.”
Screengrab from X from More Perfect Union. Text says: Investors in UnitedHealth are suing the company - for providing too much care. They're upset that UnitedHealth got less aggressive in denying care after their CEO was murdered. And that as a result they're making less money from the health insurance giant.
Grace Blakeley speaking at the Broadbent Institute's Ellen Meiksins Wood Lecture
The header for CBC News's Mind Your Business newsletter for Monday, May 19 2025.
You can’t quietly rewrite a job description just because you’ve added a camera. Policy makers should consider this new reality: Tech-enabled surveillance is creating new roles without new rights. We’re normalizing unpaid, unacknowledged labour under the guise of innovation and safety. And instead of seriously addressing the root causes of petty crime such as cost-of-living pressures and underinvestment in mental health, we’re strapping body cams to cashiers. This isn’t a solution. It’s a preview.
The reason that they can get away with this kind of language is a fundamental shift and a turning of the tables. Whatever incentives elites may previously have had to empower and enfranchise wider parts of the citizenry, they are crumbling before our eyes as increasingly powerful AI and automation obviate the necessity for billionaires to engage in productive dialogues with workers. Better data and information processing capabilities weaken the reliance of elites on distributed and decentralized decision-making. Rising inequality, fueled by the various “digital divides” that have been decried, widens the rift between a coming generation of tech trillionaires and the rest while also increasing the perceived cost of enfranchisement.
A quote from the article: "Research isn't a quick fix or a gamble on commercial hits. It's the patient cultivation of national capabilities that allows a country to shape technological change, rather than merely react to it. The innovation dividend isn't just measured in patents or spinouts, but in our collective ability to navigate an uncertain future."
A quote from Laurent Carbonneau's "At the Trough" saying: "For all the nice things I've said about how we can do industrial policy better, funding the child care gap and providing genuinely universal access seems to me to be a smarter investment in the economy than just about any business subsidy you can think of."
Map of Midtown Toronto with Dollarama locations highlighted.
Today's high inequality gives some actors enormous political and economic power, making it that much harder to implement the policy agenda laid out in the preceding pages-and that much more urgent. As Raj Chetty and his colleagues show, in order to improve absolute upward mobility, we need to address inequality head-on. This means that policymakers must do more to ensure that economic incentives push the economy toward the most socially useful purposes, that competition is real, and that government has the resources and power to act on behalf of the many, not just elites. - Heather Boushey, Unbound
The text "Community-Driven Innovation & Provincial Innovation: some quick hit reading recommendations" over a picture of Winnipeg. Includes the url orbit Policy.substack.com
"If you think my answer is that we need better technology, you are looking at the cover of my book without reading it. It is not technology. It is caring about outcomes instead of intentions, it is seeing things through instead of declaring victory and then bludgeoning the public with reasons they should celebrate you. It is listening --- did it help? Is this working?" from Jennifer Pahlka's post Curiosity and Conflict.
Posts by Jonn Elledge claiming space got boring and by Daniel Munro saying space travel is really cool.