Welcome back to Fraser Insight, the Fraser Institute’s U.S. newsletter. This summer issue of Insight showcases a number of new products from our Realities of Socialism initiative, including podcasts interviewing people who lived under socialist rule, and documentary videos on countries that escaped or reversed socialist governance. More details can be found in our In Focus section. Also featured in this section is a report on North American energy-sector competitiveness—Wyoming holds the top spot.

The In Print section, as always, features an interesting mix of op-eds and blogs. This issue includes pieces examining the market’s effective development and allocation of human capital, how language can be used to obscure socialist policies, the return of “industrial policy” in the U.S., and the predictable failure of costly government mandates aimed at forcing an “EV revolution.”

Finally, our In Context section takes a moment to remember long-time Fraser Institute Senior Fellow Stephen Easton, who passed away this spring.

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The Biden administration is relentlessly pursuing a “21st Century American Industrial Strategy” centered on “strategic public investments.” It has the support of most Democrats and quite a few Republicans. It is, in some ways, a logical extension of Donald Trump’s past support for favored industries through tariffs paid by American consumers. Perhaps those leaders would be more hesitant if “industrial policy” was called “socialism.” In many ways, the description fits.

The Canadian and United States governments are engaged in one of the most intense exercises in industrial policy since the Second World War. On both sides of the border, government is promoting domestic investment in government-favored industries, including clean energy, artificial intelligence and semiconductor chips.

Both Canada and the United States have set ambitious mandates to accelerate the transition from combustion vehicles to zero-emission vehicles. Yet despite massive taxpayer-funded subsidies for the electric vehicle (EV) sector, storm clouds are growing for the industry.

In our descriptions of socialism in Poland and Estonia, we often quoted firsthand accounts of Poles and Estonians who lived through the period. These were workers, consumers, victims of oppression and resistance fighters. One voice that we didn’t capture was that of the planner—the government official charged with trying to make the economy work. To better understand that perspective, we interviewed Gia Jandieri, an economist who worked for the State Supply Committee in Soviet Georgia.

A recent Fraser study asks whether economically free societies are more likely to be sexist by exploring the empirical relationship between economic freedom and gender norms.

For the second year in a row, Wyoming is the most attractive jurisdiction for oil and gas investment, followed by North Dakota (2nd), Saskatchewan (3rd), Oklahoma (4th) and Kansas (5th).

Many types of extreme weather show no signs of increasing and in some cases are decreasing. Drought has shown no clear increasing trend, nor has flooding. Hurricane intensity and number show no increasing trend. Globally, wildfires have shown no clear trend in increasing number or intensity.

The Wall Street Journal’s Mary O’Grady, along with Fraser Institute Senior Fellows Steven Globerman and Matthew Mitchell, explore the reality of socialism in Denmark in this documentary.

Professor James R. Otteson of the University of Notre Dame joins host Rosemarie Fike to discuss and contrast capitalism and socialism.

Matthew D. Mitchell, senior fellow in the Center for Economic Freedom at the Fraser Institute and co-author of The Road to Socialism and Back, joins host Rosemarie Fike to discuss Denmark’s economic model and the country’s approach to income support.

Steve Globerman, Addington Chair in Measurement at the Fraser Institute, discusses what we can learn about socialism and economic freedom from the “Scandinavian model.”

Despite international agreements, government spending and regulations, and technological advancements, global fossil fuel consumption surged by 55 percent between 1997 and 2023. Furthermore, the share of fossil fuels in global energy consumption has only decreased from nearly 86 percent in 1997 to approximately 82 percent in 2022.

Professor Stephen Easton passed away in March. He served for more than 40 years as a professor of economics at Simon Fraser University and as a senior fellow with the Fraser Institute.

“Steve’s tenure with the Fraser Institute dates back over 40 years, when he co-authored a study, Focus on Worldwide Inflation,” recalls Fraser Institute president Niels Veldhuis, who first met Easton while studying economics in college.

Veldhuis notes that after his study on inflation, Easton participated in “a series of conferences involving leading economists from around the world, led by Fraser Institute founder Michael Walker and Nobel Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman, attempting to establish an empirical framework for measuring economic freedom. Steve made an important contribution to that process by co-editing…selected papers (including two of Steve’s own) presented at two of those conferences.”

Easton also made major contributions to the institute’s work in crime research and study of education policy. In addition, he “was a mentor to many young Fraser Institute analysts and economists, myself included,” Veldhuis recalls.

Veldhuis shares more about Easton’s many contributions to the mission and people of the Fraser Institute in his touching eulogy, which is available here.