What "The Great Reset" Is and Why It Should Scare You
But even if you're not an aficionado of right-wing conspiracy theories, you may have seen TIME Magazine's October issue on the topic of "The Great Reset". In which case you're likely confused as to why anyone would find it frightening.
Coronavirus: Trudeau tells UN conference that pandemic provided "opportunity for a reset" www.youtube.com
The vision for the future proposed by the World Economic Forum — and laid out in TIME — doesn't sound particularly scary. The coronavirus pandemic has stalled many aspects of the economy, and the WEF calls for reforms to be implemented as the economy gets back into gear.
Among their suggestions are a voluntary adoption of more corporate responsibility, acknowledging the social and ecological costs of doing business. They call for businesses to take proactive steps in auditing their operations and shifting toward long-term, sustainable models that value "stakeholders" rather than just investors.
But the vague gesturing toward a more virtuous form of capitalism is presented as a grand vision for revolutionizing every aspect of society and the global economy. And in that exaggerated language, it's easy for people like Glenn Beck to perceive a hostile takeover of their beloved America.
The Conspiracy Theory
According to Beck's YouTube channel, the plan is to "DESTROY American capitalism." With Joe Biden's help, the "elites" want to replace American enterprise with a planned economy, akin to the China's state capitalism.
Beck, along with guest Justin Haskins — of pro-tobacco, anti-climate science think tank The Heartland Institute — argue that the term "Stakeholder Capitalism" is coded language. According to them it's a euphemism for the total subversion of individual sovereignty to the imposed will of the sinister "collective."
Pictured: Glenn Beck about to explain his conspiracy theory.
This is the same tune Beck has been playing for years now. Calls for regulation and anything less than unfettered capitalism are really just covers for allowing totalitarian rule to take over.
In Beck's vision of the world, "elites" use excuses like a global health crisis and impending ecological collapse in order to seize power from the little guy. And there is an element of truth in that.
As Naomi Klein laid out in her 2007 book The Shock Doctrine, natural disasters and economic crises often provide openings for radical reforms that serve ulterior motives. Disguised as recovery and aid, these reforms often end up benefiting the powerful while doing little to serve the interests of those most affected by the crises.
But Klein's observations on this phenomenon differ in one important way from the conspiracy theories Glenn Beck peddles. The radical reforms that Klein points to in post-Katrina New Orleans and elsewhere tend more toward neoliberal privatization than toward increasing government control.
Rather than a shadowy, big government agenda, the disaster capitalism Klein writes about serves the simple purpose of making rich people richer. After all, since the 1970s, American politics have been solidly on the side of wealthy private interests against the expansion of government services or the protection of workers.
Shrinking the role of government has long been treated as a dogmatic good that will put more power in the hands of individuals. And that kind of thinking has resulted in situations like the end of public schools in New Orleans.
Naomi Klein: The Shock Doctrine www.youtube.com
But there is something that people like Glenn Beck consistently overlook. While entertaining nightmares about the government forcing "Stakeholder Capitalism Metrics" on small businesses, they forget that Governments aren't the only force capable of eroding our freedoms.
How Corporations Steal Your Freedom
If a corporation knowingly dumps poisons into your water supply — because those chemicals aren't regulated — doesn't that affect your freedom? And if wages are so low that you're forced to sink all of your waking hours into multiple dead-end jobs, what freedom do you have?
Beck always frames things from the perspective of the business owner losing freedom to government regulation. But what about exploited employees, defrauded customers, or neighbors made to deal with the health effects of industrial pollution?
Ask the residents of Louisiana's "cancer alley" if they are more concerned about "government overreach" than they are about the freedom to breathe air without being poisoned by private industry.
Those are the "stakeholders" who Klaus Schwab and the WEF are referring to. They're people who don't necessarily receive the benefits of short-term profits, but have to deal with the consequences of corporate malfeasance. And for decades their interests have been systematically stripped out of the equation of corporate success and neoliberal governance, leaving only the eternal pursuit of quarterly returns.
So when an organization like the World Economic Forum — with membership representing the wealthiest people and the largest corporations on Earth — starts promoting major reforms to the global economy, we should all be nervous.
Generally, when the wealthy and powerful align on an agenda, it's an agenda that serves the wealthy and powerful. And when they manage to get leaders from the US to the UK to Canada all promoting the same motto — "Build it Back Better" — we should wonder who stands to benefit.
This 'Build Back Better' nonsense must stop. The World Economic Forum is a corrupt racket and their 'Great Reset' a… https://t.co/TUqXMUXKP9— Mahyar Tousi (@Mahyar Tousi)1605608116.0
And yet, the rhetoric of "The Great Reset" and the "Build it Back Better" campaign seems to be a repudiation of exactly the kind of neoliberal reform it resembles. Instability and a disruption of normal order has made our system ripe for reform, so wealthy interests are stepping in to…decry tax evasion? What has changed?
A Societal Shift
The simple answer is laid out in WEF founder Klaus Schwab's introductory piece in TIME's "Great Reset" issue. The neoliberal policies that have dominated in recent decades "have proved wrong." Amid the insistence that our economy will function better without government intervention, workers, citizens, and the planet have suffered.
From declining wages, to the rising cost of basic necessities like housing, healthcare, and education, and the rapid approach of climate collapse, things have not been going well. So the WEF is pushing a new approach.
The more complicated answer is that we have changed. The attitude of the citizenry has adapted. No longer devoted to a Cold War battle between capitalism and communism, we have adjusted to a reality in which 42% of the workers earn less than $15 an hour.
We've adapted to the fact that the wealthiest family in the world makes its fortune on the backs of workers who rely on government assistance to make ends meet. We've adapted to the fact that most of us won't live as well as our parents. We've adapted to the fact that a basic standard of education requires taking on massive debt, and that a single medical event can be financially crippling.
We've adapted to the fact that the global temperature has been trending steadily upward — along with wildfires, droughts, hurricanes, and other effects of climate change. And we've adapted to the fact that the fossil fuel companies that knowingly caused this horrifying reality continue to operate with impunity.
It's only natural — in the context of rising inequality, environmental catastrophe, and the immiseration of generations of workers — that many of us would abandon allegiances to the system that brought us here.
For people like Glenn Beck, the thought of paying higher taxes may still conjure the specter of communism. But for those of us who don't make $20 million a year — with $250 million in the bank — the thought of things continuing on our current trajectory is quite a bit more frightening.
Protesters at the 2020 World Economic Forum in Davos
That's why Democratic Socialism has seen a sudden surge in popularity. It's why free, government-run healthcare is now a widely popular proposal, and why the slogan "eat the rich" has become a rallying cry in recent years.
People are hungry for real change. And if they don't get it soon, there will be consequences. Those consequences could look like economic collapse due to the erosion of the American middle-class. Or they could look like an armed revolution.
In either case, investors and executives who are paying attention know that it won't be good for the bottom line. That's where "The Big Reset" comes in.
If corporations and governments can make some bare-minimum changes to counteract the ravages of laissez-faire economic policy, maybe they can avoid the worst. And if they can make themselves look good in the process, all the better.
And that's why we should all be scared of "The Great Reset." It is not a high-level plot to install a global hegemony. It's a PR campaign to restore the reputation of the current global hegemony.
Whatever the plan's merits — the full details will be revealed in Davos in January of 2021 — the companies and the executives who are promoting it have their own self-interests at heart. They can express ideas about stakeholders and a collective good all they want, but if they can find a way to make themselves look benevolent without sacrificing profits, they will.
Ultimately, the idea underlying "The Great Reset" is that government and industry should work in tandem to determine the best policies. They want to prove that they can police themselves by implementing things like Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan's "Stakeholder Capitalism Metrics."
The Great Reset www.youtube.com
Whether they acknowledge it or not, they are asserting that we don't need stronger government protections to step in and force them to stop exploiting workers or ravaging the Earth. They are responsible. They can be trusted.
They can dress that idea up as something new, and tell us they're looking out for us this time, but it's the same old story. It's neoliberalism by another name.
In the best case scenario, "The Great Reset," does result in some incremental improvements in policy. As we move on from the coronavirus pandemic, the plan could borrow concepts from The Green New Deal to offer a slightly more tolerable system — until those gains begin to erode again.
In the worst case scenario, the execution of the "The Great Reset" will be co-opted by the familiar forces of neoliberalism, changing things for the worse while the PR campaign convinces the public that everything is okay. If they succeed in persuading us that we don't need to keep fighting for a more equitable distribution of power and wealth, we will continue to creep toward oligarchy, with wealth controlling every aspect of our society.
So, no, there is not a communist conspiracy to use COVID-19 and global warming as an excuse to establish the dreaded "New World Order." The capitalists behind "The Great Reset" are not interested in destroying capitalism, and most of them are probably well meaning.
But we should all be scared that this band-aid will be used to cover up the festering wound of our diseased system.
World Leaders — They're Just Like Us (Special Trudeau and Trump Edition)!
World leaders might seem larger than life, but even the most powerful people in society are actually just like us!
SPLASH
They Shop at the Supermarket!
German chancellor Angela Merkel digs through her bag at the supermarket checkout while flanked by security.
GEOFFROY VAN DER HASSELT/GETTY
They Go to Restaurants!
French president Emmanuel Macron enjoys a tasty beverage at La Rotonde.
Must See: Trudeau Caught on Camera Joking About Trump www.youtube.com
They Make Fun of Stupid People!
Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau laughs it up with other world leaders at the expense of the most stupid guy they all know. Even weak UK prime minister Boris Johnson joins in to avoid being on the bottom of the world leader totem pole!
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/world/donald-trump-justin-trudeau-twofaced-nato-a4304571.html
They Don't Respect Stupid People So Much That They Openly Admit to Trash Talking Them!
Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau gets covertly taped goofing on US president Donald Trump ("You just watched his team's jaws drop to the floor," he said in regards to Trump holding an impromptu press conference that derailed the NATO schedule). Then, after being asked about it by the media, Trudeau is pretty much just like, "Yeah, that guy's a f*cking moron." Okay, he's a little more eloquent than that: "I was happy to be part of it but it was certainly notable," Trudeau said.
President Donald Trump called Justin Trudeau ‘two-faced’ over comments that the Canadian prime minister appeared to… https://t.co/FwBwUbMfFQ— Reuters (@Reuters)1575469764.0
They Whine and Attempt to Call Their More Powerful Rivals Names When Their Feelings Get Hurt!
US president Donald Trump tries his best to insult Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau, calling him "two-faced" in response to the surfaced video of Trudeau roasting him.
https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2019-12-03/trump-blasts-macron-nato-unity-meeting
They Give Up and Run Back to Their Safe Spaces!
US president Donald Trump ultimately can't handle the big leagues, so after a pathetic attempt at calling Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau names, Trump quits NATO and runs back home to his safe space in America.
Reuters
They Ultimately Succumb to Their Stronger, More Handsome Rivals!
US President Donald Trump sulks as his wife Melania, who allegedly sleeps in a separate bedroom from him, gets extra friendly with his biggest rival, Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau. Trump loves to prove that his supporters who constantly shout about "cucks" are, as always, projecting.
At the end of the day, maybe we're not so different from world leaders after all!
Canada Legalizes Marijuana to Become World's Largest Pot-Friendly Country
Canada's legalization of recreational marijuana went into effect on Wednesday morning, making it the largest such legislation to date.
The move comes months after the Canadian House of Commons passed the Cannabis Act, a measure to curtail both underage marijuana use and the high profits earned through organized crime. The first retailers opened their doors at midnight in Newfoundland to long lines of eager customers who can now legally possess up to 30 grams in public and can cultivate up to four plants in their homes. Previously, possession of 30 grams was punishable by up to six months in prison.
Christopher Katsarov/AP
In addition to nationwide legalization, Canadian officials also announced plans to eliminate the waiting time and fees required to apply for criminal possession pardons. At a news conference in Ottawa, public safety minister Ralph Goodale called the decision "a matter of basic fairness."
Retailers and dispensaries must be federally licensed, but regulations will be implemented and enforced on a provincial level. Newfoundland and Montreal, for example, will allow operation of dispensaries. Toronto will not. Cannabis will be available for purchase online in all provinces, though the legal age varies from 18 to 19 in different locations.
The news is considered a big victory for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who campaigned on the promise of marijuana legalization three years ago and has been working on the legislation since 2016. It's the latest in the notoriously progressive politician's track record: he's championed the Paris environmental accord, welcomed 40,000 Syrian refugees, and has been outspoken about his pro-choice views. According to Trudeau, cannabis legalization is the next natural step to reflect the country's liberal-mindedness and evolving views on a substance already widely used by its populace.
It’s been too easy for our kids to get marijuana - and for criminals to reap the profits. Today, we change that. Ou… https://t.co/MKNLGgoX8r— Justin Trudeau (@Justin Trudeau)1529453515.0
Canadians celebrated the new legislation from coast to coast, cheering as early sales were made and throwing New Year's Eve-like parties to welcome the new laws. Not everyone was riding the high, however. An op-ed published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal warned against "the known and unknown health hazards" of cannabis use, and expressed concern about how large companies, now able to legally market their products, might target younger audiences.
The op-ed reflected a general suspicion of Big Bud similar to that of Big Pharma, Alcohol, and Tobacco. Legalization is also expected to have a strong impact on the Canadian economy, drawing money from tourists seeking a legal smoking experience on top of an industry already projected to reach an estimated $5 billion by 2020.
Rebecca Linde is a writer and cultural critic in NYC. She tweets about pop culture and television @rklinde.
