Invoking Vaclav Havel, he said it was time to stop pretending that what the western powers called a rules-based order was not a self-serving sham.
“Great powers can afford, for now, to go it alone. They have the market size, the military capacity and 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’s offered. We compete with each other to be the most accommodating,” he said
“Being a happy vassal is one thing, being a miserable slave is something else,” he said.
“If you back down now, you’re going to lose your dignity, and that’s probably the most precious thing you can have in a democracy, it’s your dignity.”
Its funny, when third world countries are slave states, thats just how the world works. When “white” countries taste the same, suddenly that becomes world news.
If this was not a “white” country, the leader would have been deposed by now.
It would be great if the middle powers could form some kind of “common” “wealth” but seems outlandish at the moment
A kind of Third World, independent of the dueling hegemony, as it were?
“Being a happy vassal is one thing, being a miserable slave is something else,” he said.
If this doesn’t sum up modern resignation I don’t know what does. Capitalism sure does create a bunch of cucks the wealthy get to manipulate. But hey, if you put your foot down you can be a happy vassal. WTF.
The only solution to fascism is to move towards socialism. Anyone who tells you otherwise is fucking lying to you.
This asshole finally admits what I have been flamed for saying on this website, but he only says it after a whole load of “fuck socialism” beforehand, because SOCIALISM IS THE SOLUTION. HE IS THE POISON. He does not want you to have the cure.
Rule of law is fucking FAKE. It always HAS been. Any semblance of comfort or security you get from the idea that you have rights and legal protections IS A PHANTOM.
YOU NEED TO JOIN A UNION, NOW.
YOU NEED TO ORGANIZE, NOW.
YOU NEED TO ARM YOURSELF, NOW.
Idk, sounds like Tankie Talk to me
Well, the USSR does have the high score when it comes to killing fascists, to be fair.
There’s a lot of unions that are literally white supremisist gangs and there’s literally no accountability for that fact. I know because I’m blackballed for standing up to union officers threatening to lynch black apprentices on the job in California so until that is fixed “join a union “ as a blanket statement is ignorant
Unions are just a vehicle for worker organization. Workers don’t have to be leftist, they can be fascist too. But either way, they are stronger together. The union was successful in strengthening white supremacy in your case.
The solution then would be to form a stronger union counter to the entrenched one aligned with your beliefs system (as daunting as that may sound) or switch careers I guess
White supremisists gatekeep a lot of the high paid construction unions
Not trying to contradict anything you said, I am interested in socialism as a model, generally speaking, but I don’t know much about its economic or social model.
As someone very close to socialist countries that have done rather poorly, I have a few questions about it.
What exactly is pushing people and producers from tending towards mediocrity in socialism? I hate capitalism and how it affects us culturally, but the one thing I think it can succeed at (when monopolies are properly combatted), is using competition to push for excellence. Of course, I know nowadays it’s not the case because anti-trusts have been gutted so we’re full of monopolies and duopolies everywhere. But generally speaking, why would anyone make any effort for excellence under systems that don’t reward it or punish mediocrity?
I’m not saying we should trend towards capitalism where mediocrity is punished by starvation or death by exposure to the elements, but isn’t mediocrity, lack of consistent maintenance of common goods, etc kind of a huge problem of public and social governments etc?
They seem to be very good at equalising the playing field and providing for the needy, but it seems like persistent deterioration of common goods, infrastructure, etc is a pervasive issue in most communist governments that have been tried. Which leads to a lot of losses, inefficiencies and oversight. How would a new socialist model address these common issues? They’re not minor things that should just be hand-waved away either.
People want good things - people like it more when things are better. Put people who live and work in a community in charge of that community and the incentive to make that community better is self-evident, no? Capitalism has so many disincentives for quality, it absolutely beggars belief in me that people think it encourages innovation, especially when it’s so obvious that most innovation happens from people who never see any profits from it. Look at tech, all the innovation and advancement happens in academia where people are underpaid and overworked, then industry comes in and milks the shit out of it.
Socialist countries are constantly undermined by capitalist nations, like the US and Europe. I think that is one of the main pain points in the past for socialist countries, so really the key is building a global movement, and ensuring that capitalist counter-revolutionaries are consistently crushed
I think you’ve got your adjectives pretty crazily backward about academia.
That’s probably a matter of ignorance on your part. LLMs for example were innovated in academia, the world wide web was invented at CERN, I could literally go on for paragraphs
I ran a research lab in a university for 15+ years. I guarantee there’s no money in it.
Companies pay pennies on the dollar to research groups to solve problems with undergrads, grad students, and a bit of project manager time and to stay afloat, you have to over-buy projects as favors and to get publications. It is not unusual to run 7 or 8 projects at a time all on shoestring budgets in the lab. With a PhD I never broke 100k.
Maybe there’s some money in the business school, but nobody is getting rich quick for no work in academia.
Edit: reducing the wall of text
Uhh… I think some wires got crossed here, because my point was that academics do the innovative work without financial incentive to do so, and that the industry profits off of that work.
edit: I am stupid, you’re right, my adjectives were backwards… sorry about that 🤦
Aha I will modify my last in that case. No harm no foul, but it’s got a little more background in it than necessary if you weren’t doubling down lol.
I’m sorry but that sounds almost naive and equally idealistic as what you’re criticising. Communities want quality, but people overwhelmingly also don’t want to work, because let’s be honest, work sucks. What incentive is there for someone to clean and maintain the sewers when they don’t have to do it? What incentive is there for someone to fill in inventories? There are a lot of tasks that are needed in any human society but that no one wants to do. The way feudal societies dealt with that was either with slavery or caste systems. Putting people down so they will have no choice but to do what no one else wants to do. Capitalism is no better, it creates castes as well but based on generational wealth. Of course we also have slavery under capitalism. I’m not advocating for these systems, but I think communist and socialist models need to account for this, and so far I have never seen it addressed in any way. How do you even fix that at first?
Who is going to be doing what nobody wants to do? And not just the most extreme examples, but also the most invisible ones. Is someone really going to be checking that the floors of the community centre restrooms will be clean and tidy? Is someone going to be calling in and supervising the workers who need to repaint the walls?
We’ve seen this even in the USSR but also Cuba and Venezuela. The first few years under socialist systems bring along a very big boom in well-being and social advancements for the country, but with the decades, infrastructure starts decaying, productivity goes down, wealth decreases and food shortages become more frequent. It happened to Allende, the chavistas, Fidel, Mao, the Kims etc. I don’t think this inherently means that socialism can’t work, but it needs to be less idealistic in some way. Everyone wants a pool at home, but almost no one wants to be the one digging for days under the sun too have it.
Yeah I don’t want to do the dishes but I do them because the alternative is that there are no clean plates. I really do not think this is the big problem you seem to feel that it is.
Then how come every single time a country has attempted to adopt a heavily socialist model it fails to maintain its infrastructure and starts to see constant decay in productivity and wealth after a couple of decades?
It never seems to be able to maintain its initial momentum of a boom in improving living conditions and wealth inequality reduction, and eventually major infrastructure projects and even entire industries start falling into disrepair or cutting down due to lack of maintenance.
You say it’s not a big issue, but ask anyone who lived in the USSR between 1970-1990 or in Venezuela or in Cuba, and they’ll all say the socialist revolution brought some very needed structural changes at first, but then started letting the infrastructure and services they themselves built decay quickly and by the end almost nothing seemed to work well, everything was poorly maintained and major industries had become small, inefficient and slow.
I’m not advocating for capitalism, I understand what our lives look like and where their shortcomings are, but it doesn’t feel like the push for socialism is ever able to address the problems that precisely have turned people away from socialist models in the past. At some point surely it makes sense to learn from the mistakes of others, so, what implementation of a socialist model prevents us from slowly letting everything decay?
I personally think the European and Northern European models of regulated capitalism are preferable over any example I’ve seen of a socialist model. And I also think it’s way better than the bullshit they have in the US. Arguably all those European countries still have far too much concentrated wealth, and it makes sense to redistribute that.
dude both cuba and venezuela got massive trade embargos. that’s what caused issues, not because cubans and venezuelans don’t give a shit about their communities, come on man you gotta do some more reading or something
Ehem… I’m from Venezuela but my family escaped and moved to Colombia when I was like 15-16
Trust me, I know exactly how the entire shit collapsed, my family saw it first hand.
Trade embargoes or not even ignoring the rampant corruption, the entire government was far too inefficient and bloated. Nothing was managed properly, there was a bunch of waste and eventually not enough administrative oversight. Oil production went to the gutter not just because of trade embargoes but also because PDVSA was just terribly mismanaged. People stopped trying to get into the business and studies on oil and management became less and less common, there were far fewer qualified workers than there were during the initial boom.
I know pro-Socialists from first world countries love to imagine Venezuela went to shit because of US imperialism, and the US absolutely didn’t help, but it was bound to happen either way.
I compare Venezuela to Colombia consistently. Colombia has a lot of the same social and cultural issues and structures as Venezuela, but in Colombia if you don’t bust your ass working, you’re royally fucked. It’s brutal, and arguably it means being really poor in Colombia is worse than Venezuela to this day, but also I know Colombians who have found a professional niche and grown into their professions because their work is equivalently rewarded. That is not possible with Venezuela, and it’s not because we can’t trade with this or that country, it’s because there is no infrastructure to push our local economy, there are no mechanisms to protect up and coming businesses, there is no legal recourse to sustain anything viable. The government never managed to redistribute resources or use them to create more wealth. Instead they slowly let our institutions and infrastructure erode, failed to reinvest in education or new infrastructure and let corruption take hold of most official positions. At some point they were just trying to save themselves and the military cúpula.
I really want to believe something like socialism is viable, but I have seen absolutely no proof of it ever managing to be sustainable in the long term. Humans need some degree of incentive to push themselves to improve and to improve their own communities. The belief that humans are inherently motivated to innovation and creativity when they have their basic needs met is just not something I fully believe. Some people are like that, but I don’t think it’s enough of them to sustain a functional society.
Y si quieres hasta lo podemos hablar en español para que veas que no estoy aquí para hacer propaganda barata ni soy ningún bot ruso ni gringo ni nada.
Right absolutely gathering all the heads of all the countries together and telling them “what we need now is unfettered socialism” is going to go over SO WELL. They’ll definitely listen to that. In that Canada isn’t socialist and neither are they.
But maybe if you post bigger it’ll happen, idk
The US was perfectly positioned to adopt socialism about 15-30 years ago. The boomers blew that right out of the water, though. “More for me and mine, and fuck everyone else” according to them.
The speech is here. It’s really good. It is perhaps the most incisive and important speech I’ve ever seen from a modern politician, and I think it may be considered something of a turning point in the future.
I have seen this speech many times. I think it is going to go down in history, as the speech that correctly identified the end of the american golden age. It is the first important speech in the western world, that was given not by an american for freedom and order, but against america for freedom and order.
America has literally never been a force for freedom nor peace and anyone who believes as much is a victim of propaganda.
Absolutely. It’s insane.
Wow, someone who pays attention. Cheers!
Indeed a great speech… hopefully it’s not just words
Here is a version with better quality audio
Carney has always spoken like this when dealing with chaotic situations. He did when he led the Bank of Canada during the '08 financial crisis and again during Brexit when he led the Bank of England.
He doesn’t lie or use platitudes when speaking on important issues … which is why Canadians are hopeful we can survive the current maelstrom.
We really need to be strong in this. When Trump starts to turn his attention to Canada again, I want all of Europe to back up Canada the same way Canada backed up Greenland. We can’t let this shit keep going.
I watched the speech. It’s one of the most profound, intelligent speeches I’ve ever heard a politician give.
Agreed, we should always expect such coherence and conciseness from our leaders. Up your game Starmer!
Nah here in the US we went a different way and it’s working out great!
/s
I’m glad you’re enjoying it 😁
I’d like to meet the person who wrote it.
Carney himself wrote it. He’s attended Davos 30+ times so is quite comfortable speaking to the rich rabble.
I guarantee you Carney was heavily involved in writing it. Nobody writes that speech alone, but he isn’t the kind of guy to leave it to others.
There were mentions that he wrote his own speech from others. From what I understand it’s probably true since that would be his regular type of conference as a head banker previously. I’ll be honest haven’t listened to it or know a lot about Carney but this is what I’ve gleened in comments about his speech. Guess I knew about his banker credentials before and he helped us through the 08 crisis which Canada went through decently. Though I had no idea who he was until the leader of the liberal party
From everything I’ve read about his speech, which I will listen to at some point, makes me feel better with him in charge if we aren’t going to be more progressive.
I hate that we have nukes, our government literally fired all the reasonable people and put in corrupt retards incharge. Remember when Trump asked about nuking the hurricane? There’s no asking next time he remembers about nukes, all these retarded loyalist will just yes man us to world end.
Isn’t this what the EU worked out in the 80s. A bunch of small countries have a bunch of small voices. Together they’re a world force.
Trade unions worked in out before them.
This would be rousing to me if Carney weren’t an international banker who’s a-okay with runaway capitalism taking over his country in the same way it’s decimated the US.
The Canadian banking system is different, by design, which left Canada relatively unscathed during the financial meltdown. Guess who Canada’s central banker was during all that? Mark Carney.
He fucked the UK up pretty well when he was at the Bank of England
No, he mitigated the damage you did to yourselves.
Nope, asleep at the wheel, rates way too low for way too long, and what damage? 0.29% of UK companies stopped exporting to the EU. Big fucking deal.
Also is either clueless about statistics or just a fucking liar
https://www.newstatesman.com/comment/2022/11/brexit-damage-uk-economy-mark-carney
Yeah Canada and the US are really the same. Sure buddy. Steaming hot pile of take right there.
You’re right.
I should give the international banker who is currently doing his best to run his country into the ground more credit because he stepped up to the podium and said nice things.
I’m sure you’ll forgive me, but I rather think that given what he has accomplished in his first year, his overall skillset and deep knowledge in relevant fields, and his preeminent experience at the highest levels of economic and strategic discourse, he is much more trustworthy on the topics of trade and economic diversification, defense and sovereignty and affordability - and far better suited to protect and progress our country away from US dependence - than you are, random internet stranger who has none of the equivalent skills, experience or access to critical information from expert advisors.
But that’s just me. I prefer to pragmatically consider my options with some humility and respect for expertise, rather than pooling together all the insight of a high school bong session.
Imagine someone throwing their trust at a capitalist unironically. Nevermind, you don’t have to because murderaxeman is here!
Who do you put your trust in when it comes to making economic and political decisions in the face of a generational existential threat to our sovereignty, as well as a massive, rapid and necessary restructuring of our economy?
To keep the status quo of ever widening income gaps and growing fascism a banker of course.
Revolution requires people not invested in keeping a system that serves wealthy and their favorite proxy, the corporation, exclusively.
Not even mentioning growing inequality and housing costs at world “economic” forum will always feel odd to me
Everything is fine, ignore the booms and busts. They are part of the design.
The cult of money is truly a circle jerk of epic proportions.
Welcome back Non-Aligned Movement
…what were the first and second paths?
First path is align with great power #1.
Second path is align with great power #2.
Third path is non alignment / continuing to pursue multilateralism amongst middle powers.
He wisely never refers to the US or China directly in the speech.
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