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Prime Minister Mark Carney of Canada delivered a stark speech in Davos, Switzerland, on Tuesday, prompting global political and corporate leaders in the audience to rise from their seats for a rare standing ovation. He described the end of the era underpinned by United States hegemony, calling the current phase “a rupture.” He never mentioned President Trump by name, but his reference was clear. (New York Times)
Prime Minister Mark Carney, the former central banker, lifeline vanguard insider, good team player, and prominent child of the ancien regime's vision for a world order within which Canada could find itself a safe space of sorts; Prime Minister Carney, the "good son" who "existed at the nexus of global thinkers and multilateral institutions. The “rockstar banker” was a fixture at summits, where he spoke beside business leaders and the political elite, espousing the values of international cooperation and the need for open economies and shared rules" (Guardian); Prime Minister Carney gave a speech at the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum traditionally held at Davos, Switzerland. In their own words:
Since 1971, the World Economic Forum has stood at the intersection of geopolitics and cooperation, believing that the only viable path forward is to connect leaders across sectors, regions, ideologies and generations to make sense of global challenges and move the world forward together. . . .Our Annual Meeting in Davos brings together leaders from across sectors and regions to address the world’s most pressing challenges, while our year-round communities — spanning industries, regions, and generations — collaborate continuously through initiatives and dialogues that turn ideas into action. The Forum is an independent, not-for-profit organization, headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, with offices in New York and San Francisco, United States, Beijing, China, and Tokyo, Japan. (here)
The performances by these elements of the core of leadership of intersecting global vanguards (or at least the face of these vanguards) are not to be missed; nor their discourse ignored. Each n their own way reveals the public face of the cognitive cages, the rationalizing lenses, through which these political officials and their claques (quite important claques to be sure, important enough certainly to blank out alternative visions within their own world orderings). They speak in one language to the public and beneath it the more coded language for public signalling of private engagements.
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For 2026 it is somewhat appropriate to start with the remarks delivered by the Canadian Prime Minister. It is not clear how one ought to react to these remarks--quite elegant, beautiful, poignant, elegiac, nostalgic--of Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, delivered, as will so many others, at the Davos conclave for the performative expression of the global vanguard, gathered together in their inaccessible winter retreat in order to (safely) emote for each other for the benefit of the masses onto which their performances are projected to whatever ends these projections are made. The Prime Minister speaks to heresy, again in the fullness of that term in its older senses (both positive and negative from the perch of the 2nd quarter of the 21st century and its heterodoxies)--"c. 1200, from Old French heresie, eresie "heresy," and by extension "sodomy, immorality" (12c.), from Latin hæresis, "school of thought, philosophical sect." The Latin word is from Greek hairesis "a taking or choosing for oneself, a choice, a means of taking; a deliberate plan, purpose; philosophical sect, school," from haireisthai "take, seize," middle voice of hairein "to choose." The Prime Minister indeed, speaks to immorality, and choice, especially by those states with the power to make or break the context of the choosing.
It was a speech directed to the heresies of the United States (for some reason the heretical theology of Marxist Leninist States, particularly China, which resonate with those of the United States, have never been seen as worthy enough to engage with, other than for their consequential threat, but hardly ever as theoretical or normative ones; but that is a discussion for another day. . . .).
It was a speech about betrayal (in the old sense of giving up something of value to an enemy, normative or physical); betrayal of a lifetime's work; betrayal of the core catechism of the world order that perhaps became inseparable from who he was, is or constituted himself within the nexus of his self-constitution be reference to his community of believers. But worse, it is the confessional text of a self-betrayal, of an insider's arrogance brought face to face with the price of both; of a person who had spent so long not just disbelieving in the possibility that the lebenswelt through which everything he was in the world had been built was now sinking into something that he views with horror, but one who, like the other members of his faith community had done their level best to extirpate the heresies of those who had for years, for decades, warned of its coming; of the betrayal that is the price to be paid by the global magisterium of the orders of the ancien regime for their arrogant complacency that assumed the power of their own ordering premises one evident by its success so much so that they did not it it worth the effort to defend it when defending might have been possible (though there are those who had argued, me included) that the inherent contradictions of the system made such saving unlikely). It was a success that rotted the mind (the normative sphere) even as the critical support structs of its power were weakened or swept away in 2001, in 2006-08, in 2011, and in 2014 (at least as these events were reconstructed as indictments of the old order, the patching up of which consisted on piling more of the modalities of failures on the failures themselves. It was all genteel of course; this was a world order of the intellect, of the normative superstructure within which action could be tamed (except of course in its peripheries where more primitive and ruthlessly guarded ant-orthodoxies loomed, like bands in the forests, or those who inhabited lands beyond the horizons of the heartlands of belief).
The speech is worth a careful read--for its richness and its emotion--part funeral oration, part pep talk, part counsel from an older relative who has "been around the block", part bitter dialog of the spurned partner, and part memory of a time when everyone in the family thought that nothing was impossible. I will briefly focus on three aspects.
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Nonetheless it veils other pathways. Those pathways may, instead, in ways that do not suit the Peime Minister (intellectually and perhaps politically) that turn the gaze from the past in other directions (forward suggests value, and there may be no value other than the value of the reality of what comes after). The Prime Minister looks forward from out of the past and he sees nothing that does not remind him of loss: "Every day we are reminded that we live in an era of great power rivalry. That the rules-based order is fading. That the strong do what they can, and the weak suffer what they must." (Carney Remarks). And then he looks further back as the people of his generation were trained to do (Thucydides) and then closer to the current era of historical development through the lens that represents a collective learned rationalizing experiencing (the Prague Spring of 1968). That is not to suggest that either is bad or foolish--quite the reverse, both are powerful sources of cognitive rationalization and analytics. It is to suggest however, that how one approaches these tells us more about learning in action in contemporary content than the sum of the learning of the thing itself. Thucydides he understand (in the manner in which elites in the West were taught for generations) as a trap to be avoided. The Prague Spring and the end of the Sovoet Empire he sees through a post-1989 lens (one that ironically marked the beginning of the end and the starting point for the apogee of arrogance and complacency that marked the period of the "End of History and the Last [Wo]Man") as offering a collectively synthesized means of avoiding the trap.
Not through violence alone, but through the participation of ordinary people in rituals they privately know to be false. Havel called this “living within a lie.” The system’s power comes not from its truth but from everyone’s willingness to perform as if it were true. And its fragility comes from the same source: when even one person stops performing — when the greengrocer removes his sign — the illusion begins to crack. It is time for companies and countries to take their signs down.
Of course that is the other trap--the dependency trap that the Prime Minister acknowledges and then brushes away. It is as much the trap of the old Marxist-Leninist Soviet imperial project as it was that of the post 1945 multilateral rules based order. Cuba learned first hand both the glories of dependency before 1989 and the tragedy when the structures of dependency (and the flows of subsidy) vanish after 1991. And now that dependency--that transactional dialectic of "accommodation" in exchange for protection is both re-imagined (by the Americans) and becomes an object of recrimination among those the Americans would either abandon or choose to change the terms of exchange. That was succinctly stated in what is likely to serve as the most interesting and provocative (in its own re-imagining of the past--especially the value of the bargain of that past with respect that the Prime Minister both mourns and mocks):
For decades, countries like Canada prospered under what we called the rules-based international order. We joined its institutions, praised its principles, and benefited from its predictability. We could pursue values-based foreign policies under its protection. We knew the story of the international rules-based order was partially false. That the strongest would exempt themselves when convenient. That trade rules were enforced asymmetrically. And that international law applied with varying rigour depending on the identity of the accused or the victim. This fiction was useful, and American hegemony, in particular, helped provide public goods: open sea lanes, a stable financial system, collective security, and support for frameworks for resolving disputes. So, we placed the sign in the window. We participated in the rituals. And largely avoided calling out the gaps between rhetoric and reality. (Carney, Remarks)
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Nevertheless, the Prime Minister is not incorrect. There was a betrayal--at least a betrayal in the form of the refusal of the United States to continue relentlessly along the path of globalization to arrive at the establishment of a global society in which the State, like other institutions, would wither away. The original sin of the United States was to have failed to disappear and merge with, into, and as the global, that is to dissolve into and as the system it oversaw. It was a betrayal of their destiny to dissolve within the warm embrace of techno-bureaucratic international institutions that would provide the architecture of a new, and more permanent, global ordering within which its functionally differentiated components--states, large economic and civil society institutions, and other mass organizations (representing identity based mass organs, indigenous, religious and other communities)--would each do their part in the elaboration and perfection of a global society in which personal self-actualization was possible under the collective normative structures of social relations produced and protected within global expert techno-administrative organs and materialized through a deep interpenetration of (again) functionally differentiated officials, managers, etc. in a perfectible self-referencing dialectic between the top and its manifestations at the bottom.
In other (and fewer) words--the United States was to have disappeared (like other hegemons) within a system that would make national hegemony incomprehensible. (For my own description of the process along with the warning of the forces that would corrupt, transform or overturn what then appeared to the elites to be an unavoidable "forward" movement, see, “Economic Globalization Ascendant: Four Perspectives on the Emerging Ideology of the State in the New Global Order,” Berkeley La Raza Law Journal 17(1):141-168 (2006). Published as “Globalização Econômica e Crise do Estado: um estudo em quatro perspectives”, Sequencia No. 51: 255-276 (December 2005). DOWNLOAD ARTICLE HERE: 17BerkLaRazaLJ141(2006)EconGlobal). The Americans broke what in retrospect was viewed by the emerged global apparatus and its supporters as its fundamental obligation and duty to become immanent in the global. In that respect, and certainly with respect to generations of elite techno-managers and their apparatus, what the United States has done with increasing ferocity since 2001 amounts to the grand betrayal of the commitment to follow the "Globalization Path" toward the functional extinction of the State as a privileged entity before the sovereignty of the while within its techno-bureaucratic institutions. That also, perhaps was as much a fantasy as the one that the Prime Minister describes.
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The multilateral institutions on which middle powers relied— the WTO, the UN, the COP – the architecture of collective problem solving – are greatly diminished. As a result, many countries are drawing the same conclusions. They must develop greater strategic autonomy: in energy, food, critical minerals, in finance, and supply chains. This impulse is understandable. A country that cannot feed itself, fuel itself, or defend itself has few options. When the rules no longer protect you, you must protect yourself. But let us be clear-eyed about where this leads. A world of fortresses will be poorer, more fragile, and less sustainable. And there is another truth: if great powers abandon even the pretence of rules and values for the unhindered pursuit of their power and interests, the gains from “transactionalism” become harder to replicate. Hegemons cannot continually monetize their relationships. Allies will diversify to hedge against uncertainty. Buy insurance. Increase options. This rebuilds sovereignty – sovereignty that was once grounded in rules, but will be increasingly anchored in the ability to withstand pressure. (Carney, Remarks)
Leviathan, however, is a problematic semiotic trope in its Hobbsian imageries--"'Leviathan' (London: Andrew Cooke, 1651): an allegory of governance and the nature of civil and ecclesiastical authority. A crowned man whose body is made of numerous human bodies, emerges from a mountain at the foot of which is a city, holding a sword in his right hand and a crozier in in left hand; below is the title inscribed on a tapestry and surrounded by ten framed allegories: castle, crown, cannon, military trophies, battle on the left, church, bishop mitre, thunder, inscribed trident and forks, and assembly of magistrates;. 1651 (here). The problem is that the condition of Leviathan appears inescapable.
Great powers can afford to go it alone. They have the market size, the military capacity, the leverage to dictate terms. Middle powers do not. But when we only negotiate bilaterally with a hegemon, we negotiate from weakness. We accept what is offered. We compete with each other to be the most accommodating. This is not sovereignty. It is the performance of sovereignty while accepting subordination. In a world of great power rivalry, the countries in between have a choice: to compete with each other for favour or to combine to create a third path with impact. (Carney Remarks)
And there it is. Rupture cannot be undone. What is left is the world ordering of hegemons. And it is within that that the rest must find a way to serve or be served. And the foundation of that choice is to mimic empire--one way or another sovereignty and impact. That, perhaps is the new credo of the post-global. "We should not allow the rise of hard power to blind us to the fact that the power of legitimacy, integrity, and rules will remain strong — if we choose to wield it together." What cannot be undone, what cannot be challenged might still be resisted and resistance required imitation. But imitation in which the old rubble of a failed global vision might now be used as instruments for forging a livable place within the new world ordering. Rome has fallen; one must use the materials of its own magnificent structures toward new ends. "This is not naive multilateralism. Nor is it relying on diminished institutions. It is building the coalitions that work, issue by issue, with partners who share enough common ground to act together. In some cases, this will be the vast majority of nations. And it is creating a dense web of connections across trade, investment, culture on which we can draw for future challenges and opportunities." (Carney, Remarks). One uses the tools of the old master to build new structures to co-exist alongside the building of the new masters of global spaces.
The result is the announcement of a new Canada First foreign policy:
Since my government took office, we have cut taxes on incomes, capital gains and business investment, we have removed all federal barriers to interprovincial trade, and we are fast-tracking a trillion dollars of investment in energy, AI, critical minerals, new trade corridors, and beyond. We are doubling our defence spending by 2030 and are doing so in ways that builds our domestic industries.We are rapidly diversifying abroad. We have agreed a comprehensive strategic partnership with the European Union, including joining SAFE, Europe’s defence procurement arrangements. We have signed twelve other trade and security deals on four continents in the last six months. In the past few days, we have concluded new strategic partnerships with China and Qatar. We are negotiating free trade pacts with India, ASEAN, Thailand, Philippines, Mercosur. To help solve global problems, we are pursuing variable geometry— different coalitions for different issues, based on values and interests. On Ukraine, we are a core member of the Coalition of the Willing and one of the largest per-capita contributors to its defence and security. On Arctic sovereignty, we stand firmly with Greenland and Denmark and fully support their unique right to determine Greenland’s future. Our commitment to Article 5 is unwavering. We are working with our NATO allies (including the Nordic Baltic to further secure the alliance’s northern and western flanks, including through Canada’s unprecedented investments in over-the-horizon radar, submarines, aircraft, and boots on the ground. Canada strongly opposes tariffs over Greenland and calls for focused talks to achieve shared objectives of security and prosperity for the Arctic. On plurilateral trade, we are championing efforts to build a bridge between the Trans-Pacific Partnership and the European Union, creating a new trading block of 1.5 billion people. On critical minerals, we are forming buyer’s clubs anchored in the G7 so that the world can diversify away from concentrated supply. On AI, we are cooperating with like-minded democracies to ensure we will not ultimately be forced to choose between hegemons and hyperscalers.(Carney, Remarks)
It is hard to see in this something different than Secretary of State Rubio's America First policy--except of course its normative values and operational goals. The transactional lens, of course, is jettisoned in favor of an institutional one (as befits this progeny of the school of institutionalist cognitive framing). The structures, however, . . . well. . . (Reflections on the Normative-Institutional Architecture of America First: U.S. State Department "Agency Strategic Plan: Fiscal Years 2026-2030).
3. A Bandung Conference for the Post Global. It follows that even as the Prime Minister constructs his narrative of rupture, and of the horrors of the new transactional ordering of the world (transactional dialectics with which he had no problem as long as the vectors of value were favorable), the he offers "a new hope" in an ancient form. And it is one the irony of which is inescapable. He offers this: "But I also submit to you that other countries, particularly middle powers like Canada, are not powerless. They have the capacity to build a new order that embodies our values, like respect for human rights, sustainable development, solidarity, sovereignty, and territorial integrity of states." That is also extraordinary in a singular sense. If, indeed, the great betrayal of the multilateral order was the unwillingness to give up the hyper-privilege of the State, of political ordering, within the architecture of globalization, then one wonders at the solution which is itself grounded in the repositioning of the State at the center of multilateral regionalisms. The Prime Minister, in a sense, not merely declares the old vision dead, but then in mourning its corpse again, seeks to mimic precisely the great betrayers that killed the old vision.
Yet again, one cannot walk into the future looking back without looking back. And in this case the power of the Prime Minister's discourse, and its tropes, hearken back to another time--a time during the formative period of the old global empire as it sought to generate itself in definitive form; a time when those on the periphery of the global spaces within which Canada found a warm hearth and home--when those on the outside, post-colonial and post imperial spaces now (re) emerging into sovereign spaces from which their past could only be recalled but not recaptured, sought uncomfortably to accommodate the empires of the global in ways that would not extinguish themselves back into the abyss of sovereign subalternity. One speaks here of the Bandung Conference and the rise of the first great challenge to the global order (now mourned by Canada) and one notes the parallel discourse of those who were once on the inside, now on the outside again resorting to ancient discourse to challenge yet another generation's sovereign ordering (the Bandung Conference through US conceptualizing eyes here; through Chinese conceptualizing eyes here). Bandung had a nice run but did not end well for its participants, swallowed up as most were within the discursive universe of totalizing globalization as economics, politics, culture and values. Still the notion of leveraging capacity is as much with us in the post global as it was at Bandung and with the European Union before it stopped evolving. The "third path with impact" then becomes the Bandung path: "We should not allow the rise of hard power to blind us to the fact that the power of legitimacy, integrity, and rules will remain strong — if we choose to wield it together." This time it is not post colonial but rather post-global states now looking in and trying to find and leverage their place within an emerging order they had little hand in crafting and perhaps less in moving forward.
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And then the sovereign transactional bit begins, one that is also inescapable in the new world ordering but which sounds discursively far more heroic than the ordinariness of the bargaining will eventually reveal, one that sounds in some measure precisely like the elements of the system whose copmponents are the cause of the mourning with which the remarks started:
It means building what we claim to believe in. Rather than waiting for the old order to be restored, create institutions and agreements that function as described. And it means reducing the leverage that enables coercion. Building a strong domestic economy should always be every government’s priority. Diversification internationally is not just economic prudence; it is the material foundation for honest foreign policy. Countries earn the right to principled stands by reducing their vulnerability to retaliation.Canada has what the world wants. We are an energy superpower. We hold vast reserves of critical minerals. We have the most educated population in the world. Our pension funds are amongst the world’s largest and most sophisticated investors. We have capital, talent, and a government with the immense fiscal capacity to act decisively. And we have the values to which many others aspire. (Carney, Remarks).
The Prime Minister remarks: "The old order is not coming back. We should not mourn it. Nostalgia is not a strategy." That is true as far as it goes. And yet; and yet; it is the power of nostalgia (discursive) when combined with the power of the transactional, now driven through and perhaps for institutional structures, that the new order will be deepened as "middle powers" speak to the values of the past while refashioning themselves in the image of a future over which they have precious little control. A tragedy wrapped up in an idea, wrapped up in ideals, wrapped up in the cognitive framework within which ideals can be fashioned, wrapped up in the way we observe, recognize, name and give meaning to the things around us. There will be lots more of that at Davos.
Nostalgia may not be a strategy but it is certainly a powerful discursive trope, one well used in these remarks. One can choose to walk backwards into the future or one need not.
The full text of the Prime Minister's remarks follow.
