“We are in the midst of a rupture, not a transition,” Canadian prime minister Mark Carney told the world’s self-designated elite in a January 21 speech. “[G]reat powers have begun using economic integration as weapons. Tariffs as leverage. Financial infrastructure as coercion. Supply chains as vulnerabilities to be exploited. You cannot ‘live within the lie’ of mutual benefit through integration when integration becomes the source of your subordination.”

Carney delivered his musings to the World Economic Forum in Switzerland, days after visiting China and striking a major trade deal with its regime.  That deal represents both a “rupture” with Canada’s former first-line trade partner, the United States, and a “transition” to something else.

Why the rupture? Why the transition?

Under US president Donald Trump (and, to some degree, Joe Biden), we’ve seen all the things Carney complained about in his speech.

When your main buyer (or, rather, the lord and master of your main buyers) becomes reluctant to buy from you — even if it means he (or, rather, his serfs) have trouble selling to you — you eventually start looking for other buyers and sellers. That’s the transition.

And, eventually, you find those new buyers and sellers and, to at least some degree, swear off coddling the old ones. That’s the rupture.

Writ large, Canada’s move away from the US and toward China is just  the latter part of Mike’s answer, in Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises — “Two ways. Gradually, then suddenly” — to the question of how he went bankrupt.

Which, in turn, is just a waypoint in another transition. In Mike’s case, it was all downhill from the bankruptcy. In America’s case, who knows?

It’s easy to just blame Trump for all this craziness, but it’s also a little bit lazy.

Yes, Trump’s trade and economic policies seem purpose-built for the task of dismantling American prosperity at home and power (“soft” and “hard”) abroad.

In reality, though, the American empire and the supposed global “rules-based order” have been in continual decline pretty much since that happy accident 80 years ago, when World War 2 ended with most of the world’s industry wrecked, but America’s untouched.

It’s all been downhill from there … gradually.

We may have finally reached the “suddenly” point.

We were always going to.

It may be that with Trump, as William Lowndes Yancey said of Jefferson Davis upon his arrival in Montgomery, Alabama in 1861, “the man and the hour have met.” You may remember how that turned out. In both cases, the man’s identity was unimportant. There was going to be a man,  there was going to be an hour, there was going to be a rupture, and there was going to be a transition.

I consider myself lucky, in many ways, to have lived the bulk of my likely lifespan during the “gradually” phase. Americans, including myself, have had it fat and happy  for a very long time. That time is nearing its end.

I just hope America can find its way to a better transition than Mike managed.

Thomas L. Knapp (X: @thomaslknapp | Bluesky: @knappster.bsky.social | Mastodon: @knappster) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY

Nearly a decade ago, the phrase “you’ll own nothing and you’ll be happy” entered the public conversation via a World Economic Forum essay by Ida Auken (“Welcome to 2030. I own nothing, have no privacy, and life has never been better”).

Auken lauded “shared services” as an increasingly normal way of life. Why “own” a car, a refrigerator, or even your own clothes, when you could just pay a monthly subscription fee and let others worry about tire wear, blown compressors, jeans going out of fashion, etc.?

We’re already well into the era of “subscription” versus “ownership,” starting with digital media. Movie, TV shows, and books have largely moved off of VHS, DVD, Blu-Ray, and paper and into the cloud. Even if you “buy” them, even if you download them, they tend to be bound to particular devices and/or particular subscriptions, and to terms of service with fine print that lets them be taken away at will.

With physical hardware, the “subscription” era seems to have started with industrial and farm equipment (no “right of repair” — you pay John Deere for that, or your tractor sits there and does nothing), then moved on to cars. We’ve all heard the howls from e.g. Tesla “owners” over pretty much everything their cars can do depending on them continuing to pay Elon Musk a little something every month for life.

I’ve had my quibbles with all of the above for some time, but the unhappiness of owning nothing really got to me this morning as I watched a video from Fortnine (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uh4Ebv2HWyw) about the latest, greatest electric motorcycle.

I love two-wheeled vehicles. I love electric vehicles. I used to ride electric bicycles, but switched to internal combustion motorcycles for reasons of range and speed. I’ve kept my eye on electric motorcycles, waiting for falling prices and rising performance to meet at a point my budget allows. By the time it gets there, will I really want it anymore?

The  battery-powered Stark Varg boasts 80 horsepower and a 50-113 mile range (50 for wide open road, 113 under urban low-speed, stop-and-start conditions). Nice bike for its class.

BUT! If you want the bike to do everything the bike CAN do, you’ll pay Varg $15 a month, every month, for as long as you “own” it (unless they change their monthly rate) — and you’ll pay $12,500 (at the moment) to “own” it.

In my opinion, if I pay to own something, I’ve paid to own all the things it can do … assuming I can figure out how to make it do those things.

The manufacturers of “‘owned,’ but with subscription-only features” goods, though, frown on homebrew tinkerers jail-breaking those products instead of forking over cash in perpetuity. And they’ve got “intellectual property” law on their side. They don’t have to care about your happiness.

Until we dump the pernicious fiction of “intellectual property,” we’ll just have to hope the market undercuts these perpetual subscription rackets with “you bought it — it’s yours — enjoy!” alternatives.

And I suspect the market will do exactly that.

Thomas L. Knapp (X: @thomaslknapp | Bluesky: @knappster.bsky.social | Mastodon: @knappster) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY

I write three syndicated columns a week, and the vast majority of them could easily run with the title “Stupid and Evil US Government Action of the Day.”

There’s almost always a specific “news hook” — whatever story happens to be dominating headlines and the public conversation — and my take often focuses on the unconstitutionality of this or that action of the federal government’s legislative, executive, or judicial branch (sometimes all three).

I also often close with my favorite quote from 19th century anarchist Lysander Spooner:

“But whether the Constitution really be one thing, or another, this much is certain — that it has either authorized such a government as we have had, or has been powerless to prevent it. In either case, it is unfit to exist.”

Now that I’ve thoroughly buried the lede, which isn’t even a “news hook” (I’m breaking ALL the rules today, aren’t I?), let’s get to the big question raised by Spooner’s “authorized … or has been powerless to prevent” observation:

Does the US government, as described in the US Constitution, even exist?

I say it doesn’t, and as evidence for my claim, I’m going to talk about recipes.

That, you see, is what a constitution is: A recipe for government. It’s made of ingredients, instructions, and warnings.

Ingredients for sugar cookies: 1 cup of butter, 2/3 cup of granulated sugar, and 2 cups of flour.

Instructions: Mix the ingredients, form into individual cookies, bake at 325 degrees for 15 minutes. Cool/rest for 15 minutes.

Warnings: Don’t over-bake! Don’t skip the cooling time!

If I use vinegar instead of butter, salt instead of sugar, and garlic powder instead of flour, bake it as a whole mass for an hour at 450 degrees, then immediately serve it, I made something. But I think you’ll agree that what I made was NOT a batch of sugar cookies.

The Constitution says Congress “shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech.” If the organization that claims to be Congress makes such a law, is that organization actually Congress? Is it butter, or vinegar?

The Constitution says that “No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law.” If the person claiming to be president spends money on things that Congress didn’t appropriate the money for, is that person really the president? Is he or she sugar, or salt?

The Constitution vests the judicial power of the United States in the Supreme Court. If the organization claiming to be the Supreme Court ignores the constraints and requirements of the Constitution itself in its rulings, is that organization really that court? Is it flour, or garlic powder?

The dish we’ve been served for decades — perhaps even from the very beginning — is not “constitutional government.”

A recipe is powerless to prevent incompetent or mischievous cooks from ruining the dish. Those who  want “constitutional government” and think it’s  possible need to fire the entire kitchen staff and start fresh.

But personally, I doubt that the recipe would produce the results it claims even if followed.

Thomas L. Knapp (X: @thomaslknapp | Bluesky: @knappster.bsky.social | Mastodon: @knappster) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY