"In 1978, Václav Havel, the Czech playwright, dissident, and future President, wrote an essay, distributed clandestinely, that tells of a greengrocer who hangs a sign in his shopwindow reading "Workers of the World, Unite!" He doesn't actually believe in this hollow slogan, nor do his customers-rather, they are all engaged in a performative ritual, a paean to a Communist system, which, through their act, they help perpetuate."
"On January 20th, the Canadian Prime Minister, Mark Carney, recalled Havel's essay at the World Economic Forum, in Davos, Switzerland, during a speech that, for one delivered by a head of state, offered a rare degree of intellectual, even emotional, candor. Carney applied the condition of Havel's greengrocer to the rules-based international order that came into being after the Second World War, much of it backstopped by the United States and wielded to its benefit."
""American hegemony, in particular, helped provide public goods: open sea-lanes, a stable financial system, collective security, and support for frameworks for resolving disputes," Carney said. And it undergirded NATO, an alliance that had allowed for an unprecedented near-century of peace. That order, however imperfect, had more benefit than downside. So, Carney said of Canada and its European allies, "we placed the sign in the window.""
A greengrocer's public display of 'Workers of the World, Unite!' exemplifies a hollow, performative allegiance that sustains an oppressive political system. A postwar, rules-based international order, largely supported by United States power, supplied global public goods—open sea-lanes, a stable financial system, collective security—and frameworks for dispute resolution, and sustained NATO's near-century of peace. That order delivered net benefits despite imperfect compliance. Recent U.S. policies, including large tariffs on E.U. members and an approach to the Ukraine war marked by sympathy for Russia and delegating responsibility to Europe, have revealed the order's vulnerabilities and strained allied trust.
#rules-based-international-order #american-hegemony #nato-and-european-security #us-eu-trade-tensions
Read at The New Yorker
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]