A bracing speech that all Canadians can be proud of. And what a contrast to the serial incoherence of Mr Trump, the Hobbesian cynicism of Stephen Miller, and the 'whatever you say boss' of JD Vance and Scott Bessent. Isn't it refreshing to find an intelligent adult at Davos?
A total farce. I didn't hear this from Carney whilst they were feasting on the rest of the world. Now Canada and Europe are on the menu and he calls for order. Hypocrite.
Exactly. "We went along with the lie because we were profiting from it and it was some poor black or brown people being exploited somewhere, now they're exploiting us? Inadmissible!" is not really the high moral ground some seem to believe it is. And not a word about Gaza is shameful.
"Jack the Ripper's amazing speech on how me cannot tolerate misogyny!"
Like FDR he’s a traitor to his class; the point of the speech is to expose decades of hypocrisy — that it comes from their golden boy Carney only makes the ironies all the more delicious.
Two kinds of INCOHERENCE: PREDATORY incoherence and
SYSTEMS ARCHITECTURE decay
Of note: Systems architecture/design was chosen or approved
by the Top Predatory Party of the day. Not a real consensus.
PREDATORY Incoherence, without order, makes no sense, confusion, chaotic, makes us put the brakes on. We feel like a deer caught in the headlights of a speeding vehicle coming at us. Stunning us. That is the kind of incoherence Trump’s networks purposefully intend to create. (And sometimes are successful.)
SYSTEMS ARCHITECTURE incoherence: The underlying incoherence, decaying legitimacy of a financial-fiscal-geopolitical rules based order.
Mark Carney has identified both. 👁️in 2019 Jackson Hole and 2026 Davos.
What carney said was that they were happy to ride along with the circus while they were getting scrapes from the kitchen, but want to hop off now he found out he is on the menu. It’s disgusting
The sentiment is totally disgusting, because it's true. It might be gross because it's a reflection of a gross reality, but compare this to the trite bromides coming from other western leaders who are operating in realms of total delusion.
…did you read the piece you’re commenting on? It traces Carney’s historical thoughts. And what’s your point? Should people never evolve their thinking? What cynicism.
I don't think he said people were happy. Look, when they stopped pretending, in 2003 with the invasion of Iraq that was not sanctioned by UN and is deemed a war of aggression, most of the west cleared its throat and went against the US. The consequence? As Ret-Col Larry Wilkerson disclosed it, the US has unleashed a phenomenal wave of actions and a huge wall of money to corrupt, by hook or by crook the western elites. And this is what we have nowadays. Carney fpr instance, is a technocrat, so he wasn't "vetted" from a political perspective and as such doesn't seem to have lack of personality as most figures in Europe have nowadays.
Agree to disagree. I am not a specialist on his biography, but had to follow him, being a financial professional. He has always been middle of the road consensus guy, i.e. very happy to tow the party line. So no, i have no idea he was "vetted", but there has been no difference in his behaviour to Kaja, Ursula or Annalena etc up to now.
As a professional, he was vetted in his sector and accepted because he esposes the consensus, something that folks lkie Dougal Lamont is excoriating him. However, other aspects vere not necessarily considered, like having a mediocre intelligence...
Carney’s speech contains all is needed for the much needed alternative to the current “age of the predators” Adam Tooze provides the necessary context. It could be a historic speech if the rallying cry is followed by action (not in Canada, rather in Europe). Otherwise it will be a fragment for the history books….
Current age of predators? The only ones that look like true predators that I can see are the US, Israel, and UAE. Russia, for all that was said about it, started the war because, as an acute event, Donbas was being bombed and tenderized as a preparation for attack by Ukraine, and asked for help (it is in the public record, check OECD), and chronicly was being threatened directly by the US (In Jan 2022, Blinken affirmed that the only point for discussion about US installing missiles in Ukrain will be how many, not if). So given the size of these threats, Russian RE-action is somewhat explainable. Look in comparison: Trump wants Greenland because it might be threatened by Russia or China in the future, as if it wasn't in NATO). The territories taken from Ukraine now were truly, historically Russian and populated in majority, sometimes absolute majority by ethnic Russians.
Mr. Putin, you don’t have to use a pseudonym here. We all know Russia illegally violated Ukraine’s borders in 2014, borders Russia had signed an agreement to respect.
No we don't. First, Ukraine, when became independent, signed a document and put it in its constitution to stay neutral and never be an enemy towards Russia or Belarus. And then rescinded that. Check all your facts before commiting to an argument.
Russia /USSR/Czarist Russia, like most of big powers, was a predator. But Russia, like China, were the least predatory. And in the current circumstances, with Ukraine, not predatory at all. Now, if you want to discuss about Russia's attitude about R of Moldova/Romania, that is a total different ballgame.
My response to a Canadian friend who posted a link to Carney's speech was not financial. It felt larger. Here it is:
“Nostalgia is not policy". His last 3 minutes states what every heart and nation should aspire to. And here I am, sitting in the US, feeling like the guy on the beach in "The Girl from Ipanema", where the great ideas are simply walking by us now, not paying attention any more. I cry for the US. It is not that we can't get beyond it if we scramble, but for generations hence we will carry the guilt for having allowed it in the first place. Some of us know we have missed the mark, that our hubris is poisoning us, and know we will not be forgiven and never be trusted. You can't blame the rats leaving a sinking ship when the integrity that the ship promised no longer holds. We Americans have trusted our system and the people we elected to run it. That trust no longer holds, inside or out. That almost epigenetic loss of world respect hurts every individual in this country, "and will unto the third generation" at least. During the Vietnam War I heard the phrase thrown around, "My country, right or wrong!". We were wrong then, and we are wrong now. And we will bear the cost, like it or not.
Have events since PM Carney's speech in 2019 proved him wrong? Hardly. Since trump 1.0, the US has practiced what the late, great American sociologist C. Wright Mills called "crackpot realism", and whether a "value-based realism" is just tosh, it surely beats the Mills formulation. At any rate, the mere fact that a national leader, at an international forum, has noted — albeit indirectly — that the Orange Emperor is in fact without clothes if one looks hard enough is a step forward.
If you think this is solely about “the Orange Emperor” you need to read the speech again — the point is that the whole rotten architecture of liberal internationalism as embodied in “the rules based order” was always a sham.
Carney is really indirectly, very indirectly speaking to the American electorate. True, right now, there is no means to seriously remove the dollar from that 70% share of core transactions and valuations. But the rest of the world could move together to make that number lower, to the long-term detriment of the US. The player to bite off a chunk of that utility will be China. If Europe could bolster the fundamentals of the euro, perhaps it would be part of that core. Perhaps, after years of development and stabilization, even the rupee could be a part. Will the likes of Scott Bessent have the courage to tell Trump that short-term pique is likely to ruin a century of financial benefit to the US? Will the electorate somehow learn that our American leaders are working to the financial detriment of our children and grandchildren?
"Carney is really indirectly, very indirectly speaking to the American electorate. " The portion of the electorate that would find Carney's speech informative and thought provoking don't even know what Davos / WEF really is, let alone that Carney gave a speech. Unfortunate, but that's the reality.
So what is new here, and what should we have suspected before.
Well economically China passed US on GDP at PPP back in 2015 (and in any real sense of the economy much earlier and is way ahead now).
Militarily Russia surpassed US in technology in 2019 with hypersonics which have since turned the massive Carrier and jet investments of US into white elephants.
And Soft power has completely reversed with a clamour to join BRICS and a revulsion towards USA.
So Thucydides moment has been happening for 5 or 10 years already.
What should that have implied?
1. The US is psychologically unable to accept 2nd place in a mult-polar world, so that option can be ignored.
2. Once US is no longer top dog then Israel is on its way soon. Thus Hamas (and Yemen) dared to challenge Israel and US! Israel has reacted as if the whole thing is existential to Israel (it is) and the corrolary is that if Israel falls no one can take US seriously again.
3. US will push hard towards a 2 trading block system - US block and China/BRICS block with a lot of competition between the two to capture and coerce and independent countries.
Coercement of trading partners for the great bifurcation is clearly what is happening now.
It happened under the Biden autopen too, but the style was different.
The surprise here is that US has chosen to bully Europe so much in the transition (rupture).
Team Trump must be very confident that Europe will stay aligned with US and not be tempted away by cheap Russian Gas and cheap Chinese products.
Of course Ukraine was always very much for that purpose - split Russia and Europe and stick a chasm at the end of the silk road to Europe.
Is Team Trump over confident about Europe remaining US bitches?
IMO he has got it right. Nasty lesson for us Europeans,
that would indeed be something if Europe could find a way to put injustices and damaged pride behind it and find a workable pragmatic solution with all the energy benefits so desperately needed. Without having any faith or respect for Mertz the recent comments about Russia being (culturally/historically ?) a European nation were interesting.
Thank you for the history; I was touring in EU Aug 2019 and EU press covered his speech somewhat, and I remember excerpts being qouted- nothing in N.A. press.
I am so grateful we elected him; the offerings were meagre to mortifying until he stepped in.
I suspect most Canadians and Europeans will focus on his remarks of what middle powers must do now that the US is no longer a reliable ally. This focus also corresponds generally with the view that democracy too requires governments in the west to build big again and spur productive activities that will benefit members of their middle classes, whose material prospects stagnated or grew more precarious in many countries.
But his comments about the asymmetries and inequalities of wealth and power in the liberal international order, and selective application of its norms and rules in many domains, has long been the refrain of the postcolonial South. The most recent example was the vaccine nationalism that marred the global response to the pandemic. Obligations to tackle an accelerating climate catastrophe and mounting debt distress are others.
Which raises an obvious question: will Canada help build a new international order that is more equal, sustainable and just? Or will it focus on reviving the fortunes of middle powers that enjoyed relative privilege under the Pax Americana?
Sounds like Carney is advocating for Keynes solution for creating a supranational currency (Bancor) to be used in international trade as a unit of account within a multilateral clearing system—the International Clearing Union. Or better, the "Terra", as proposed by Prof Steve Keen also using (a to be created) International Clearing Union. He recently wrote an interesting article arguing that accepting the US$ as international reserve currency is what led to Trump in the first place (thank you Harry Dexter White - the head of the US delegation to the Bretton Woods Conference, which crafted the Post-War international financial system.) Basic argument - reserve currencies overvalue, overvaluation destroys the manufacturing sector, blue collar workers no jobs, Dems morphed from the representatives of the working class into the representatives of the financier class. Disaffected blue collar workers now turn to populist who promises to bring their jobs back.
The Carney’s of the world ignored Iraq, Libya, Yemen, Gaza, Bolivia, Venezuela, Sudan and now we are here. Canadians have always played the puppet role very well and now are suddenly concerned about hegemony and sovereignty.
At the end of the day all this rhetoric is too late. If US goes down it is definitely taking Canada with it, one way or the other. And no one can say they don’t deserve it because on one chilly night in Davos their PM got an erection.
Carney is probably the smartest world leader of the moment. Of course, you expect central bankers to be smart, but it can be surprising in political leaders. His speech was all Prof. Toose said it was. I would, however, think that his willingness to disparage the post-World War II order was overdone and counterproductive: "the international rules-based order was partially false." Of course, it is true that it was sometimes distorted and abused (sometimes by the US, most egregiously by China). But now is the time to uphold the principles and to try to rebuild them, along with the institutions, not to give in to the moment and trash them.
"But now is the time to uphold the principles and to try to rebuild them"
Disagree. Now is the time to adopt better principles and build more resilient structures. The Bretton Woods system never functioned as ostensibly intended, not even for one decade. It was a political compromise made at a time of extreme power imbalance, and for that reason it has been prone to crisis every since.
The world was broken in 1945. Outside of the US, even the most affluent countries were struggling with subsistence. It doesn't have to be broken now. Many more opportunities are open to us.
The Keynes of today would not try to rebuild this system. The FDR of today would not either. That's now what Carney is going to try to do. He needs support, from all corners. That means us. He has a global vision that frankly the Greens and Democratic Socialists do not have, and will not be able to develop under their current modes of organizing.
Of course, it is true that it was sometimes distorted and abused (sometimes by the US, most egregiously by China). An australian debated that 10 years ago:
The Most Dangerous Nation in the World
Rethinking the United States – Australia Relationship
A bracing speech that all Canadians can be proud of. And what a contrast to the serial incoherence of Mr Trump, the Hobbesian cynicism of Stephen Miller, and the 'whatever you say boss' of JD Vance and Scott Bessent. Isn't it refreshing to find an intelligent adult at Davos?
A total farce. I didn't hear this from Carney whilst they were feasting on the rest of the world. Now Canada and Europe are on the menu and he calls for order. Hypocrite.
Exactly. "We went along with the lie because we were profiting from it and it was some poor black or brown people being exploited somewhere, now they're exploiting us? Inadmissible!" is not really the high moral ground some seem to believe it is. And not a word about Gaza is shameful.
"Jack the Ripper's amazing speech on how me cannot tolerate misogyny!"
Like FDR he’s a traitor to his class; the point of the speech is to expose decades of hypocrisy — that it comes from their golden boy Carney only makes the ironies all the more delicious.
Two kinds of INCOHERENCE: PREDATORY incoherence and
SYSTEMS ARCHITECTURE decay
Of note: Systems architecture/design was chosen or approved
by the Top Predatory Party of the day. Not a real consensus.
PREDATORY Incoherence, without order, makes no sense, confusion, chaotic, makes us put the brakes on. We feel like a deer caught in the headlights of a speeding vehicle coming at us. Stunning us. That is the kind of incoherence Trump’s networks purposefully intend to create. (And sometimes are successful.)
SYSTEMS ARCHITECTURE incoherence: The underlying incoherence, decaying legitimacy of a financial-fiscal-geopolitical rules based order.
Mark Carney has identified both. 👁️in 2019 Jackson Hole and 2026 Davos.
Great speech by Carney; and thanks Adam for laying out its history back to 2016. It makes the examples and thought s of Carney even more powerful.
We must rid ourselves of the evil lame duck felon and his hench-people ASAP.
The American people are waking up and will go the whole way.
American people must heed the message of the Bank of England and rise to do its bidding!!! Gordon, lead the way!
What carney said was that they were happy to ride along with the circus while they were getting scrapes from the kitchen, but want to hop off now he found out he is on the menu. It’s disgusting
The sentiment is totally disgusting, because it's true. It might be gross because it's a reflection of a gross reality, but compare this to the trite bromides coming from other western leaders who are operating in realms of total delusion.
Carney said we must be honest about reality. That is reality. Our economic culture has been disgusting. Let’s change it.
He used to be very happy with that reality
…did you read the piece you’re commenting on? It traces Carney’s historical thoughts. And what’s your point? Should people never evolve their thinking? What cynicism.
My point is clarifying the meaning of what they say by stripping away the rarefied bullshit.
I don't think he said people were happy. Look, when they stopped pretending, in 2003 with the invasion of Iraq that was not sanctioned by UN and is deemed a war of aggression, most of the west cleared its throat and went against the US. The consequence? As Ret-Col Larry Wilkerson disclosed it, the US has unleashed a phenomenal wave of actions and a huge wall of money to corrupt, by hook or by crook the western elites. And this is what we have nowadays. Carney fpr instance, is a technocrat, so he wasn't "vetted" from a political perspective and as such doesn't seem to have lack of personality as most figures in Europe have nowadays.
so he wasn't "vetted"
Head of boa? Oh, please
Not as "future politician", like Kaia Kallas or Ursula or Annalena or others like them.
Agree to disagree. I am not a specialist on his biography, but had to follow him, being a financial professional. He has always been middle of the road consensus guy, i.e. very happy to tow the party line. So no, i have no idea he was "vetted", but there has been no difference in his behaviour to Kaja, Ursula or Annalena etc up to now.
As a professional, he was vetted in his sector and accepted because he esposes the consensus, something that folks lkie Dougal Lamont is excoriating him. However, other aspects vere not necessarily considered, like having a mediocre intelligence...
Carney’s speech contains all is needed for the much needed alternative to the current “age of the predators” Adam Tooze provides the necessary context. It could be a historic speech if the rallying cry is followed by action (not in Canada, rather in Europe). Otherwise it will be a fragment for the history books….
Current age of predators? The only ones that look like true predators that I can see are the US, Israel, and UAE. Russia, for all that was said about it, started the war because, as an acute event, Donbas was being bombed and tenderized as a preparation for attack by Ukraine, and asked for help (it is in the public record, check OECD), and chronicly was being threatened directly by the US (In Jan 2022, Blinken affirmed that the only point for discussion about US installing missiles in Ukrain will be how many, not if). So given the size of these threats, Russian RE-action is somewhat explainable. Look in comparison: Trump wants Greenland because it might be threatened by Russia or China in the future, as if it wasn't in NATO). The territories taken from Ukraine now were truly, historically Russian and populated in majority, sometimes absolute majority by ethnic Russians.
https://substack.com/home/post/p-184066105
The Most Dangerous Nation in the World
Rethinking the United States – Australia Relationship
by Cameron Leckie
Mr. Putin, you don’t have to use a pseudonym here. We all know Russia illegally violated Ukraine’s borders in 2014, borders Russia had signed an agreement to respect.
No we don't. First, Ukraine, when became independent, signed a document and put it in its constitution to stay neutral and never be an enemy towards Russia or Belarus. And then rescinded that. Check all your facts before commiting to an argument.
His post doesn’t rise to the level of argument — don’t dignify it by implying otherwise.
Russia is the main predator. Trump’s attempted Greenland grab doesn’t change that.
Russia /USSR/Czarist Russia, like most of big powers, was a predator. But Russia, like China, were the least predatory. And in the current circumstances, with Ukraine, not predatory at all. Now, if you want to discuss about Russia's attitude about R of Moldova/Romania, that is a total different ballgame.
You are truly clueless. No country has killed more foreign nationals than the United States since WWII — and it’s not even close.
My response to a Canadian friend who posted a link to Carney's speech was not financial. It felt larger. Here it is:
“Nostalgia is not policy". His last 3 minutes states what every heart and nation should aspire to. And here I am, sitting in the US, feeling like the guy on the beach in "The Girl from Ipanema", where the great ideas are simply walking by us now, not paying attention any more. I cry for the US. It is not that we can't get beyond it if we scramble, but for generations hence we will carry the guilt for having allowed it in the first place. Some of us know we have missed the mark, that our hubris is poisoning us, and know we will not be forgiven and never be trusted. You can't blame the rats leaving a sinking ship when the integrity that the ship promised no longer holds. We Americans have trusted our system and the people we elected to run it. That trust no longer holds, inside or out. That almost epigenetic loss of world respect hurts every individual in this country, "and will unto the third generation" at least. During the Vietnam War I heard the phrase thrown around, "My country, right or wrong!". We were wrong then, and we are wrong now. And we will bear the cost, like it or not.
Have events since PM Carney's speech in 2019 proved him wrong? Hardly. Since trump 1.0, the US has practiced what the late, great American sociologist C. Wright Mills called "crackpot realism", and whether a "value-based realism" is just tosh, it surely beats the Mills formulation. At any rate, the mere fact that a national leader, at an international forum, has noted — albeit indirectly — that the Orange Emperor is in fact without clothes if one looks hard enough is a step forward.
If you think this is solely about “the Orange Emperor” you need to read the speech again — the point is that the whole rotten architecture of liberal internationalism as embodied in “the rules based order” was always a sham.
There is no going back.
Carney is really indirectly, very indirectly speaking to the American electorate. True, right now, there is no means to seriously remove the dollar from that 70% share of core transactions and valuations. But the rest of the world could move together to make that number lower, to the long-term detriment of the US. The player to bite off a chunk of that utility will be China. If Europe could bolster the fundamentals of the euro, perhaps it would be part of that core. Perhaps, after years of development and stabilization, even the rupee could be a part. Will the likes of Scott Bessent have the courage to tell Trump that short-term pique is likely to ruin a century of financial benefit to the US? Will the electorate somehow learn that our American leaders are working to the financial detriment of our children and grandchildren?
"Carney is really indirectly, very indirectly speaking to the American electorate. " The portion of the electorate that would find Carney's speech informative and thought provoking don't even know what Davos / WEF really is, let alone that Carney gave a speech. Unfortunate, but that's the reality.
So what is new here, and what should we have suspected before.
Well economically China passed US on GDP at PPP back in 2015 (and in any real sense of the economy much earlier and is way ahead now).
Militarily Russia surpassed US in technology in 2019 with hypersonics which have since turned the massive Carrier and jet investments of US into white elephants.
And Soft power has completely reversed with a clamour to join BRICS and a revulsion towards USA.
So Thucydides moment has been happening for 5 or 10 years already.
What should that have implied?
1. The US is psychologically unable to accept 2nd place in a mult-polar world, so that option can be ignored.
2. Once US is no longer top dog then Israel is on its way soon. Thus Hamas (and Yemen) dared to challenge Israel and US! Israel has reacted as if the whole thing is existential to Israel (it is) and the corrolary is that if Israel falls no one can take US seriously again.
3. US will push hard towards a 2 trading block system - US block and China/BRICS block with a lot of competition between the two to capture and coerce and independent countries.
Coercement of trading partners for the great bifurcation is clearly what is happening now.
It happened under the Biden autopen too, but the style was different.
The surprise here is that US has chosen to bully Europe so much in the transition (rupture).
Team Trump must be very confident that Europe will stay aligned with US and not be tempted away by cheap Russian Gas and cheap Chinese products.
Of course Ukraine was always very much for that purpose - split Russia and Europe and stick a chasm at the end of the silk road to Europe.
Is Team Trump over confident about Europe remaining US bitches?
IMO he has got it right. Nasty lesson for us Europeans,
that would indeed be something if Europe could find a way to put injustices and damaged pride behind it and find a workable pragmatic solution with all the energy benefits so desperately needed. Without having any faith or respect for Mertz the recent comments about Russia being (culturally/historically ?) a European nation were interesting.
would be something incredible. And quite out of character.
This is an EU with one change in policy in some 50 years. From live and let live with Russia to absolute hate.
Everything else has been maintain the status quo. 2026 and there isn't an immigration policy yet - let alone a sensible one.
i agree really. from Mertz to de Leyden to Rutter they seem to be in a parallel world of delusion.
value based realism is the oxymoron of the century
and “strength through values, values through strength” the corniest cliché
Adam “Our Man on the Inside” Tooze
Thank you for the history; I was touring in EU Aug 2019 and EU press covered his speech somewhat, and I remember excerpts being qouted- nothing in N.A. press.
I am so grateful we elected him; the offerings were meagre to mortifying until he stepped in.
I suspect most Canadians and Europeans will focus on his remarks of what middle powers must do now that the US is no longer a reliable ally. This focus also corresponds generally with the view that democracy too requires governments in the west to build big again and spur productive activities that will benefit members of their middle classes, whose material prospects stagnated or grew more precarious in many countries.
But his comments about the asymmetries and inequalities of wealth and power in the liberal international order, and selective application of its norms and rules in many domains, has long been the refrain of the postcolonial South. The most recent example was the vaccine nationalism that marred the global response to the pandemic. Obligations to tackle an accelerating climate catastrophe and mounting debt distress are others.
Which raises an obvious question: will Canada help build a new international order that is more equal, sustainable and just? Or will it focus on reviving the fortunes of middle powers that enjoyed relative privilege under the Pax Americana?
Sounds like Carney is advocating for Keynes solution for creating a supranational currency (Bancor) to be used in international trade as a unit of account within a multilateral clearing system—the International Clearing Union. Or better, the "Terra", as proposed by Prof Steve Keen also using (a to be created) International Clearing Union. He recently wrote an interesting article arguing that accepting the US$ as international reserve currency is what led to Trump in the first place (thank you Harry Dexter White - the head of the US delegation to the Bretton Woods Conference, which crafted the Post-War international financial system.) Basic argument - reserve currencies overvalue, overvaluation destroys the manufacturing sector, blue collar workers no jobs, Dems morphed from the representatives of the working class into the representatives of the financier class. Disaffected blue collar workers now turn to populist who promises to bring their jobs back.
The Carney’s of the world ignored Iraq, Libya, Yemen, Gaza, Bolivia, Venezuela, Sudan and now we are here. Canadians have always played the puppet role very well and now are suddenly concerned about hegemony and sovereignty.
At the end of the day all this rhetoric is too late. If US goes down it is definitely taking Canada with it, one way or the other. And no one can say they don’t deserve it because on one chilly night in Davos their PM got an erection.
Carney is probably the smartest world leader of the moment. Of course, you expect central bankers to be smart, but it can be surprising in political leaders. His speech was all Prof. Toose said it was. I would, however, think that his willingness to disparage the post-World War II order was overdone and counterproductive: "the international rules-based order was partially false." Of course, it is true that it was sometimes distorted and abused (sometimes by the US, most egregiously by China). But now is the time to uphold the principles and to try to rebuild them, along with the institutions, not to give in to the moment and trash them.
"But now is the time to uphold the principles and to try to rebuild them"
Disagree. Now is the time to adopt better principles and build more resilient structures. The Bretton Woods system never functioned as ostensibly intended, not even for one decade. It was a political compromise made at a time of extreme power imbalance, and for that reason it has been prone to crisis every since.
The world was broken in 1945. Outside of the US, even the most affluent countries were struggling with subsistence. It doesn't have to be broken now. Many more opportunities are open to us.
The Keynes of today would not try to rebuild this system. The FDR of today would not either. That's now what Carney is going to try to do. He needs support, from all corners. That means us. He has a global vision that frankly the Greens and Democratic Socialists do not have, and will not be able to develop under their current modes of organizing.
Of course, it is true that it was sometimes distorted and abused (sometimes by the US, most egregiously by China). An australian debated that 10 years ago:
The Most Dangerous Nation in the World
Rethinking the United States – Australia Relationship
Cameron Leckie
https://substack.com/home/post/p-184066105
So glad to read this speach