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I am not a fan of his but that was a good speech, and the main point of "it's time to stop competing with one another to pander to the USA and start working together on other arrangements" needs to be heeded. And yes, he did admit that the "rules-based order" was mainly marketing for something much less noble.
Edit: an overview of some of the criticisms people have made of his speech:
He's definitely good at some things and I appreciate it in this context. At the same time I'd like him to need the consent of a renewed leftist NDP that gets us more of the products of the labour we'd be doing in this new program because I don't think Carney's into that.
His speech indicates he understands the power of unions, while he's speaking about nations, if the idea is to be more self sufficient apart from the US, he might just be smart enough to not wear the neoliberal hat exclusively.
I keep hoping for that and I keep being disappointed. He quoted Marx in his book to talk about the falliability of markets. Yet he fucked workers during the Canada Post strike. If his actions change, I'd love it. Either way they're more likely to change with a strong worker's NDP competing for his votes. I'm not gonna frown upon a Marx Carney, should he materialize for Labour Day:
I couldn't agree more. He has a good head, and I do believe he has the best intentions for Canada, but yeah, remains to be seen. I want to see politicians kept in check with the best interests of their constituents, so I'd love to see them pick up the pieces and put the party back together
I wonder how people in the Mexico, Venezuela, Palestine, African states feel when they hear this?
Emboldened to overthrow their subservient ruling classes that put up the sign in order to get rich by letting the US exploit their people.
Every morning, this shopkeeper places a sign in his window: ‘Workers of the world unite’. He doesn't believe it, no-one does, but he places a sign anyway to avoid trouble, to signal compliance, to get along. And because every shopkeeper on every street does the same, the system persist – not through violence alone, but through the participation of ordinary people in rituals they privately know to be false.
The shopkeeper does this because there's a cost to calling out the lie. Canada, and other "middle powers" participated in American hegemony partially because it got them sea lanes, and partially because being on the wrong side of the US was expensive. Being a Cuba or Venezuela would cost trade opportunities, risk covert destabilization, and basically put the government at chance of revolt.
There have been attempts to strengthen the rules based order. The UN, the International Criminal Court, the attempts to mitigate the climate crisis, and (to a degree) the EU seem like attempts to strengthen the dream.
I don't want to wave our flag too much, but Canada participated in those, sometimes in good faith. Where we fell down was on the implementation.
The Gaza situation is basically all you need to know about how "rules based" the world order really was. If the rules cant even be applied to a piece of land the size of a city, then all hope is lost.
Palestine is much more than Gaza, but I think that's part of your larger point. Venezuela. Cuba. Mexico. Korea. Vietnam. Iraq. Multiple African states. Brazil. Argentina. Operation Paperclip.
So many I didn't mention. Iran.
I think that's the "lie" part of the parable.
Refreshing to hear from Western leaders that get it. Carney and Finland's Stubbe are the two to listen to for sure.
They both seem to understand that power will gradually drift towards the Global South over time since that region makes up 80% of humanity. The West can still punch above its weight (relative to population size) but anyone that truly believes in democracy, representation and oppurtunity on a global scale will welcome this inevitable transition.
No. The global south includes China which is one of the great powers who he spoke of weaponizing trade and abusing the rules based order.
He spoke of middle powers and their collective capacity to not be competetive beggars and supplicants.
Right, China is the first country in the Global South to get there but there will be others. Both seem to recognize a need for middle powers (ie the majority of Western countries) to change their geopolitical approach because of this shifting landscape. Middle powers need to be much more pragmatic by forming coalitions when they can or risk being swallowed whole.