This internal INC email exchange from early February began with a posting of Max Haiven on his Substack: Is Canada’s premier Carney a warlord? Three fellow Canadians responded: Henry Warwick, Marc Tuters and David Gauthier.
Canada theory has been high on the INC agenda from day one—and well before. After all, INC stands on the shoulders of both German and Canadian media theory. A record number of Canadians and non-Canadian based there are involved in INC projects, either live and work here in NL and in Europe or work and study there, such as a few of our INC former interns. Canada as angle and method  has multiple personal, cultural and intellectual backgrounds (beyond the infamous Grant-Innes-McLuhan-Kroker-Chun lineage).
Please have a look at the Canadas Semiotexte reader from 1994, if you can find it. Michael Freeman classified the book as such: “This anthology redraws Canada as a complex terraincognita of desire and dismay. “Eco-feminism, censorship, and the ‘queerness’ of the True North. Richly eclectic in tone and material, unrelentingly controversial, and very difficult to ignore. It is likely the most novel take on our state of affairs in quite some time.”
A direct reason for this exchange is Trump’s plan to annex Canada as United States’ 51st state and Carney’s speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos on January 20, 2026. Let’s define Canada Theory. /Geert
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INC author Henry Warwick, who became a Canadian citizen himself recently, has been based in Toronto for a long time and is teaching there. His response to Max Haiven:

1. One year ago, there was an upcoming election. At the end of December 2024, going into January 2025, the Conservatives led by Pierre Poilievre were leading Trudeau and the Liberals 45% to 16%, nearly a 30% deficit. This would have led to a MASSIVE Conservative majority.
2. Trump took office in February and immediately started with his “Canada is the 51st state” and “Governor Trudeau” bullshit. This made Canadians pretty upset.
   3. while Trump is raging on about the 51st State, Poilievre went gushing over how he looks forward to dealing with Trump, and Trump recommends his election. This was “not a good idea”.
3. Carney comes into the picture – the Liberals decide they have to ditch Trudeau if they have any hope of winning. So they elect Carney as leader and he becomes PM in March 2025. The election happens about a month later and the Liberals win it, but not with a majority govt – they were 3 seats short.
4. Carney immediately tells Trump to, basically, shut the fuck up and act like an adult, and begins playing hardball, which he has all the skills and background to do.

Poilievre’s collapse was SPECTACULAR. I was convinced we were going to have our own Trump running the place, instead not only did Carney win the election, Poilievre lost his seat in suburban Ottawa. Poilievre went to Alberta (Canada’s version of Texas) and had a guy who had just won his seat that election to resign so he could have it and stay in government. The guy quit and Poilievre won the by election. Canada dodged a bullet.
Is Carney an optimal PM? Hell no. He’s what we call a “Red Tory” – a fiscal conservative, social liberal. I do not align with his ideas or designs.
HOWEVER: we didn’t have a choice of “optimal” candidates – we had the Red Tory/Liberal Carney, the junior league fascist Poilievre, and Jagmeet Singh, the hapless bland and not very popular leader of the NDP. What Happened? A huge portion of the NDP vote went to Carney. The other Red Tories that were looking to vote against Trudeau suddenly didn’t have Trudeau to hate, and recognised Carney as someone they could deal with. Bang: Carney got elected.
Canada is teetering – the American psyop campaign of Alberta separatism is up to 17% in Alberta. Stellantis, GM, and Ford just removed about 8,000 jobs from Ontario (mostly because of tariffs from the USA). Canada is on its own and is desperately looking for allies, as the USA is no longer trustworthy and in many ways is openly hostile to Canadian sovereignty. So, there’s that pressure to deal with as well. (also, the fucking separatists are even stupider than Poilievre. There are 3 major land treaties with first nations that will still apply whether they are separate or not. Ooops.) It’s a total shitshow.
“Carney presents himself as the liberal alternative to Trump’s fascism, but also as a straight-shooting realist from a “middle power” who can’t afford the illusions of the erstwhile “international rules-based order.”
Carney is in office because it was him or Poilievre, i.e. Canadian Trump, only stupider. THAT is why he is PM. Carney is no prize, but he’s light years better than Poilievre – a fool who won’t even get a security clearance. Seriously. He wants to be PM, but doesn’t want to submit to background checks for a security clearance.
The writer in his ideas about Warlordarchy, should read Chinese history and their theory of The Mandate From Heaven.
The mandate creates a predictable dynastic cycle – first there is chaos, and out of chaos come warlords. The warlords or “regional leaders” fight for control, effectively competing to see who would receive the new Mandate of Heaven. Someone does and establishes a new Dynasty. The Dynasty flourishes and then becomes decadent, falling back into chaos, creating new warlords – rinse repeat.
I learned about this in the early 2000s. https://www.files.ethz.ch/isn/104682/2000-01_China_Debates_Future.pdf
China has been anticipating a multipolar geopolitics since the mid 1980s. None of them anticipated Xi consolidating power and walling himself off from criticism. Also, at the time, the demographic bomb had yet to go off, so that didn’t play into their war gaming theory, either. In anycase, Haiven’s crude theory of “Warlordarchy” is simply a weak recapitulation of the Mandate of Heaven.
This doesn’t mean he’s wrong.
Carney is not the problem right now. Yes, Carney is suboptimal. But we’re dealing with actual fascism, and for all his faults he is antifascist, so when it came to choosing a PM in April 2025, Carney was the obvious choice. Right now he’s at 60% approval, and he won with 40%. So, he’s fairly popular with the average Canadian. Stopping Carney from being a neoliberal curse will be the product of the next election, on the one hand, and consistent opposition to his bad policies for the duration.
A number of people are discussing the new economic order as a kind of neofeudalism. I discussed that in my Dissertation esp. with my references to Drahos’s book Information Feudalism: Who Owns the Knowledge Economy? from 2003. Also, his book A Philosophy of Intellectual Property, which was really important to my Diss. Lately a number of people seem to be thinking “Oh, this internet bullshit is all driving to feudalism!” Duh. Drahos was on it over 20 years ago.
Doctorow and Scott and others singing that tune are, with Drahos, more accurate than Haiven – the feudalism we’re skipping into is not land based – it’s information based. The Enclosures ended centuries ago. Deleuze talked about Endocolonialism – that’s much more on point.
At the same time, I am very much in agreement with Haiven’s critical points – they are correct.  The Neoliberal order set us up for the fascism that is following on. I just think he misses important context about Carney. Carney’s not my preferred choice, but given what was happening, he’ll do for now.
Also: Churchill was out of office months after VE day.
best, Henry
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MoneyLab participant Max Haiven responded:
I don’t disagree about the immediate reason why Carney was elected, but I think there’s much more to say here about longer term trends and Canadian political economy and politics. Carney is Bay Street’s man through and through. I don’t think my argument suggests that he is the worst thing in the world. It was intended as a somewhat provocative antidote too the strange and very Canadian euphoria about him.
When faced with the lesser of two evils I refuse to choose, and at risk of being unpopular I’m always going to try and recall that we can and should have leaders and systems that serve the commons and the common good, rather than the rich and powerful. I think when faced with the kind of murderous “realism” that all politicians today cite (both Trump and Carney), it’s more important than ever to show them contempt and insist that we have the capacity to produce a world that meets everyone’s needs and allows us to live in peace and abundance. I refuse the blackmail of realism or pragmatism. Let us build grassroots power to refuse and rebel, and then negotiate, not capitulate to their false spectrum of options in advance! Regrettably the state of movements in Canada and many other places is very weak at the present moment but I don’t think that capacity will improve if we accept their terms.
Canada is indeed in a moment of profound and very dangerous crisis. But I think a crisis is the most important time to fundamentally rethink the purpose of society the economy and the state. The opportunity will not come again for a generation at least. I’m not optimistic that such a rethinking will happen but I feel if I have any responsibility in this mess, it is to try and help provoke it!
This is an interesting point on warlords although I don’t think my admittedly hastily sketched theory is only a warmed over rehashing of the Mandate from Heaven, other way I’m very interested in that. I actually think that the CPC right now looks at the world as precisely the Warlordarchy I am proposing, and in continuity with these older Chinese imperial philosophies. I’m working on something that tries to move us beyond both this Chinese framework and the typical liberal framework that would insist on an antinomy between the warlord and the emperor or  the warlord and the modern state. That theory isn’t exactly ready yet as it still baking in the oven!
All the best, MH
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Henry’s response:
I don’t think Trump will invade Taiwan, Greenland, or Canada. I think his next target is Cuba. Many Cubans in the USA are rather right wing (in a kind of knee jerk antipathy to the Cuban govt seen as communist/left wing).  So, a defeat of the Cuban regime would (in Trump et al’s blinkered reality) shore up support in Florida. So, there are possible benefits for the Regime to invading Cuba. Also, Cuba already has an American base on it (Guantanamo Bay) and the east end of Cuba is only 145km from Florida. So, an invasion of Cuba would be comparatively easy. My guess is that Trump is holding back on this, as it is a tall order of military effort, and he uses these adventures to distract / dilute news of the Epstein files.
This particular brand of fascism from the Trump Regime is as embedded in media theory of the attention economy as political economy and psychology, making belligerence a tool of message control and attentional focus.
Taiwan is, from what I’ve been able to gather, not under direct threat, however, it is under more threat in the short term than the long term. This is due to China’s demographic collapse. China is WAY below replacement (IIRC something like 0.9, replacement is 2.1) and its aging population is starting to strain healthcare, pensions, and social safety nets. It’s economic growth plans are kind of cooked by a shrinking workforce. Xi’s govt has made efforts to encourage higher birth rates through two- and three-child policies, but these have largely failed, and China is very much in a population death spiral, like Korea, Japan, Italy, and Germany. I attribute this to shortsighted urbanisation policies combined with an export centred economy. They have to keep wages low to be competitive, so the people of China aren’t as wealthy or well paid as say Norway or USA. The space in urban high rise buildings is limited and expensive, so children became an economic burden. So, if China was to take Taiwan, they would have to do it soon while they still have a surplus of young men.
However, I don’t see an invasion anytime soon for a variety of reasons.

1. It would take time and it’s too easy to see troop build ups.
2. Taiwan is 180km from China mainland. China has built some large landing craft/barges, but they are very slow. Let’s say 30kmph. Which is 6 hours from mainland to Taiwan. the moment said barges got half way, Taiwan would send fleets of drones and missiles after them. They would never arrive. And if they did, you’re going to have to deal with #3
3. China hasn’t been in a proper full scale war in DECADES (vs Vietnam, which ended in 1991). Their leadership has little more battle experience than the kids they’re going to have to draft into dying in this mess.
4. The core value of Taiwan is chip manufacture. Otherwise, it’s just a largish island full of people. The moment the invasion seems to be succeeding, they will simply evacuate the factories and blow them to smithereens (and probably fly the expensive core components out of the country.)
5. The moment the Chinese set off to invade Taiwan, ASEAN and similar orgs would get involved. The lifeline of China, oil from the middle east, would be cut off and blockaded. Their economy would collapse, and without the energy they need their war machine would fail, and the country would collapse.

So, I’m not really worried about Taiwan.
 Trump is not going to invade Greenland. He doesn’t have to. The present arrangements are that the USA can put as many bases there as it wants anyway, so security isn’t the issue. The minerals underground are also not an issue. Sure, they are undoubtedly there, but they are also under a couple km of ice. It’s going to take a few centuries for that to melt out. So, no. Trump will declare “a new page in the history of USA/Greenland/Denmark” and say that the USA will multiply the number of bases in a “New accord” with Denmark. Of course there’s no new accord – the USA can already do that under present treaties with Denmark. He comes off looking strong and gets to dodge the bullet of having NATO declare war on the USA.
Same with Canada. If he invades Canada, that will bring NATO against him, and the economy would completely collapse. Sure – M1 tanks would cover Toronto – he would easily win the battle – but he would lose the war.
Frankly, I think the Republicans will have Trump removed from office. Hopefully next month (ides of March) but certainly by Solstice – otherwise it will be an absolute bloodbath at the election in November.
If the Dems sweep House and Senate in November, which is entirely possible, Vance will get impeached and convicted, and then whoever is his VP will become president, and will be on a very short neoliberal leash from the worthless Dem Leadership (Schumer et al – useless bunch of dopes).
more later!
H
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Marc Tuters, a Canadian media theorist based in Amsterdam, writes:
Hi Geert,
what I find interesting is less a question of whether Carney is right or wrong, and more how global politics is now being articulated, and where. As an IR diagnosis, Carney’s Davos speech strikes me as quite compelling: weaponized interdependence, the end of comfortable assumptions about a US-led order, and the strategic predicament of middle powers. This was the speech that Europe needed to make and Canada made it.
From what I could see in the thread I don’t really read Max as disputing that analysis so much as reacting to what he fears follows from it — a narrowing of political imagination under the banner of realism.
Where my own ambivalence comes in is precisely Davos as a venue. It’s a space of elite coordination that is structurally anti-democratic, where business and politics collude under the language of “stakeholder capitalism,” a concept that remains dubious even when dressed up in green garments. That makes Carney’s speech important, but also symptomatic: global governance increasingly articulated outside democratic institutions.
I was also struck by Carney’s use of Havel. The point about hollow ideals functioning as rituals of compliance is sharp, but there’s a slippage worth noting. The slogan being mocked (“Workers of the world, unite”) names worker solidarity, not just elite hypocrisy — and Trumpism, in any case, doesn’t really operate through high ideals at all, but through coercion, resentment, and transactional loyalty. That makes the analogy illuminating, but also incomplete.
I’m less interested in judging the characters than in watching the stage shift. Politics is moving out of parliaments and into places like Davos, where it seems like ideas of solidarity and democratic agency are the first things left outside the door.
Best, Marc
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David Gauthier, also based in The Netherlands, teaches at the Media & Culture department of Utrecht University:
One small thing that is missing from Henry’s analysis of how Carney got elected is: Québec. The vote in la belle province is what got the guy elected and there are a bunch of people that usually vote Bloc Québécois that voted Liberal, which is really weird. The Parti Québécois (sovereignty  party) is on the rise now (also weird, because they were technically dead) and I wonder what kind of reaction the Québec electorate will have if a new election comes around.
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Henry Warwick adds:
Oh, my, for certain – the Bloc voting Liberal was instrumental, for sure – every vote mattered! However, from my research, while the shift in the Bloc toward Carney was crucial, it doesn’t compare with the nearly complete self-immolation of the NDP.
In 2021, the previous election, saw Trudeau’s re-election and the following results in seats:
2021
Liberal 160
Conservative 119
Bloc Québécois 32
New Democratic 25
Green 2
These are the results of the 2025 election that saw Carney win:
2025
Liberal 169
Conservative 144
Bloc Québécois 22
New Democratic 7
Green 1
Clearly, the Bloc lost 10 seats that went to the Liberals – about a 32% shrinkage, which was harsh. The Greens lost 50% (1 seat). The NDP? They lost 18 seats – 72%! Their leader, Jagmeet Singh, lost his seat. They even lost official party status! Yikes! Talk abou taking one for the team. The NDP is in a serious pickle right now. Singh resigned, obviously, and the party is rudderless. However – I think that might all change very soon. Avi Lewis (husband of Naomi Klein) tossed his hat into the ring, and the possibility of his winning NDP leadership has a number of people pretty jazzed – having Naomi Klein in orbit of the PM is a serious asset. That would make things… Very Interesting. We will know in 29 MAR 2026 after the NDP Convention in Winnepeg.
Re: Taiwan, the Dutch INC affiliated researcher  (born in Taiwan), Conny Tzu Lin writes:
China’s best strategy atm is to sabotage within the island. Namely disinformation war, cyber attacks and the manipulation of politicians. The best way is to make a 50+ % of Taiwanese population come to the term that it’s better to ‘keep peace’ and not resist an invasion. The whole effort of the civil movement is not to make this happen.
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Marc Tuters responds:
What interests me in this exchange is less a moral sorting of figures (Carney vs. Poilievre, realism vs. resistance) than a shift in where politics is being articulated and legitimized. Read as an IR diagnosis, Carney’s Davos speech is persuasive: weaponized interdependence, the erosion of trust in a US-led order, and the predicament of middle powers. In that sense, it felt like the speech Europe could not quite make for itself — and Canada did.
At the same time, Davos matters here not just as a backdrop but as a symptom. It is a space of elite coordination that is structurally anti-democratic, where politics is reframed as necessity, risk management, and “realism,” often under the language of stakeholder capitalism — a concept that remains dubious even when dressed up in green terms. This raises a different question than whether Carney is right or wrong: what happens to democratic contestation when global governance is increasingly articulated outside democratic institutions?
Carney’s invocation of Václav Havel is telling in this regard. The critique of hollow ideals functioning as rituals of compliance is sharp, but there is a slippage worth noting. The slogan being mocked — “Workers of the world, unite” — names worker solidarity, not merely elite hypocrisy. Moreover, Trumpism does not operate through high ideals at all, but through coercion, resentment, and transactional loyalty. The analogy is illuminating, but incomplete.
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David Gauthier responds:
I don’t see Havel’s problematising the shop owner’s putting the slogan “Workers of the world, unite” in front of his window dissing/mocking workers solidarity, but showing that it became an empty / automatic slogan that lost its meaning and that merely functions as a signal of compliance with the regime (which in a sense is exactly not what the slogan means). My reading of Carney’s reference to Havel’s shop owner is that liberal democracies running on financial infrastructures have their empty / automatic slogans (“liberal democracy” perhaps being one? — “we’re open for business” maybe? — how about “we love freetrade” ?!)] that are loosing their meaning and merely function as a (empty) signal of compliance with the USA regime and, perhaps more importantly, its historical ideology (the “beacon of light” of “liberal democracy”, the “we’re open for BIG business,” the “come spend you pension money: we are the number one financial and bond market”, etc.), not just Trump’s non-sense (he is only a small blimp in the USA’s historical ideology).
Easy to see that even here in Europe, people are still going through those rituals reciting these empty slogans, hoping it has the desired effects. Perhaps in Canada, the reaction to the tariffs was so strong that people are at least aware of the sign / slogan and how it became an empty signifier very fast? I can ask my mom, lol. For me, Carney is saying there is no way back when you take the sign off your window. Trump in power or not.]