Final Word from Wednesday, January 21, 2026

At the World Economic Forum yesterday, Canadian PM Mark Carney used the greengrocer story from Václav Havel's essay "The Power of the Powerless" to explain why companies and countries should rise up against the abuse of the rules-based international order by the U.S. and other great powers. For decades, he said, countries like Canada prospered under that order, even though they knew that it was partially false given that the strongest would exempt themselves from it when it was convenient for them. The task now of the middle powers, he said, is to build something "bigger, better, stronger, more just." On the surface, Carney seemed to be calling for a Velvet Revolution against the U.S. Yet Carney was a key player in keeping the American hegemony going. In this sense he was like a high-level Communist official in one of the Soviet satellites, and his speech was similar to calling on colleagues from the other satellites to help hasten the reforms of Mikhail Gorbachev that led to the end of the USSR. [ Czech Republic Soviet Union Davos Switzerland Donald Trump United States ]