Carney's Davos speech: problems and opportunities for workers
Transcript of the full speech: “Principled and pragmatic: Canada’s path” Prime Minister Carney addresses the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting | Prime Minister of Canada
Mark Carney's speech delivered in Davos on January 20th, 2024 has been making everyone talk, and for good reason. In it, he didn't shy away from showing that rising and uniting against the bullying of the United States is not only an option, but an absolute necessity. He showed confidence and strength, which is what we, in Canada and around the world, need to see from a leader in these bleak times.
This speech sounds new, unprecedented, but is actually not that dissimilar from the many he gave during last year's electoral campaign. He was elected on the promise of standing up to Trump and his aggressive stance towards Canada. His "elbows up" rhetoric quickly melted down after the election. Capitulation and appeasing became the new mantra.
Seeing how he behaved in the past, how can we believe that this speech worth a standing ovation at the WEF will actually bring concrete consequences? Why are people expecting any kind of positive result for anyone other than the wealthy, after hearing him talk so proudly about reducing taxes on capital gains and investments? How can we believe that he really wants his government to stand up for our allies and other middle powers when he, his government, and his party have a history of doing just the opposite and continue to arm genocidal regimes and criminals like Israel and the United States? Why is Carney not stopping the sale of weapons used to kill children in Gaza, or standing up when the president of Venezuela is kidnapped in the middle of the night?
While praised by many, Mark Carney's speech also uncovers his hypocrisy and shows us how his main interests are disconnected from the real needs of the people. It is, if you pay close attention to it, at the same time a grave attack against and a valuable lesson for the working class.
The grave attack on the working class
Carney is selling Canadians, and the world, a story. A story that is a very entertaining and hopeful one, if you fall into the trap of believing it. That story is that his government is building a stronger Canada. He, of course, brings some examples of how they are doing that. I want to focus on this first part: "Since my government took office, we have cut taxes on incomes, capital gains [...]"
Cutting taxes on income doesn't help the lowest earners, or people barely surviving because they cannot work (for whatever reason). The most vulnerable are left behind, and left to die - this might sound like an exaggeration, but Canadian winter is deadly for those who can't afford a roof over their heads. Cutting taxes on capital gains only benefits the wealthy, those who already have enough (or too much). We can't be fooled: the monetary value that Carney's government is giving back to the wealthy by cutting their taxes is produced by the working class and these tax breaks result in a reduction of services for the population.
The story that Carney is trying to sell is that by extracting value from the proletariat (the working class, including the middle class) and giving it more and more to the bourgeoisie (the owners, the rich, the bankers), he is building a stronger Canada. What he is trying to hide is that he is doing the exact opposite. As a good capitalist, Mark Carney is a reverse Robin Hood.
His speech is a grave attack to the working class, to all of us, because by consciously choosing to use the phrase "Workers of the world, unite!" as a negative example, he said out loud that he and his government don't want the workers to be united and strong, to have power over their government and over the corporations that employ them. The working class, from his wealthy perspective, must be kept under control.
The valuable lesson for the working class
Reading between the lines, we could at least in part see a different message being delivered by Carney on the international stage.
In the opening, when he talks about how the system persists, without the need for violence, but simply "through the participation of ordinary people in rituals they privately know to be false", isn't he talking about the capitalist system that we live in? Surely this is not what he meant to say, but let's assume that he did.
"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." This is exactly how our system is currently kept alive. The working class keeps accepting the fact that we need to work for the benefit of the owners. We need to work so that the value we produce can be extracted and enjoyed by somebody else.
Carney appears to be inciting a rebellion. What he is explicitly talking about is middle powers on the world stage to take matters into their own hands, to unite against those who are bigger than them and that are enjoying the benefits of the system, while strangling others. What I heard, though, is that the working class must take matters into their own hands, to unite against those who are bigger than them and are enjoying the benefits of the system, while strangling others.
Workers of the world, unite!
Did Carney not understand his own speech? He started by criticizing the sign on the door, but then continued by calling for unity against a bigger threat. That is what we, the workers, must do and to achieve that we must recognize our true enemies. Capitalism, neoliberalism, the erosion of democracy, surveillance, militarization, these are all very real enemies that we need to fight together and that both the Liberal and Conservative parties depend on.
If we really want to build the strong Canada that Carney is fantasizing about, we must build a stronger working class, united within the country and outside of it. The struggle of workers in Canada in not different from that of any other part of the world. We must unite globally and we must unite no matter what we do or what we believe in. Strengthening each and every part of our communities is essential if we want to survive against internal and external threats. Cutting taxes and promising magical solutions through AI like Carney is doing won't do that.
Call to action
It is easy to feel powerless and normal to not know what to do. This is why I am collecting a list of petitions and campaigns that everyone can take part in to help make a difference. If you have more that you want to share, please contact me.
Other critics to and analysis of Carney's speech:
- Mark Carney’s speech in Davos was an exercise in hollow defiance ⋆ The Breach
- Mark Carney a Davos : si ça t’a fait vibrer, on a un problème - À GAUCHE MÉDIA
- What Mark Carney gets wrong about the end of the rules-based order – Canadian Dimension
- A Social Democratic Canadian Foreign Policy | Perspectives Journal
- Empire, ecology, and Canada’s foreign policy ‘reset’ – Canadian Dimension
- Carney’s realism is just neoliberal fan fiction - Spring