https://www.amazon.ca/Values-Building-Better-World-All/dp/0771051557
作者：马克·卡尼，2021年3月16日
内容概要
《价值观》是马克·卡尼的著作，探讨了价值观在塑造社会和经济体系中的作用。卡尼在书中指出，市场经济已经偏离了其道德基础，将短期经济利益置于公平、韧性和可持续性等社会价值观之上。他批评了过度依赖市场驱动型解决方案的做法，并呼吁经济体系优先考虑道德价值观。卡尼借鉴了他在2008年金融危机和新冠疫情期间的央行工作经验，解释了这些危机如何进一步凸显了价值观的重要性。
全国畅销书 • 2021年全国商业图书奖得主 • 2021年唐纳奖入围
加拿大总理兼前银行行长就构建一个基于人类价值观而非市场价值观的经济和社会所必须进行的彻底、基础性变革提出了大胆而紧迫的论点。
我们的世界充满断层——日益加剧的收入和机会不平等；系统性种族主义；全球疫情带来的健康和经济危机；对专家的不信任；气候变化的生存威胁；以及机器人技术兴起对数字经济中就业的严重威胁。马克·卡尼认为，这些根本性问题以及其他类似问题源于共同的价值观危机。马克·卡尼以过去十年的动荡为例，揭示了“市场经济”如何演变为价格决定一切价值的“市场社会”。
当我们思考个人最珍视的事物时，我们可能会列出公平、健康、权利的保障、免于贫困的经济保障、自然多样性、资源和美景的保护。悲剧的是，这些我们最珍视的事物往往在21世纪的世界中成为牺牲品，而它们本应是我们的基石。
在这本意义深远的新书中，马克·卡尼提出了一个更人道社会的愿景，并提出了实现这一愿景的切实宣言。每一章都以如何改革基础设施，使社会变得更美好、更公平为核心，并概述了能够重塑社会、将人类价值观置于我们为子孙后代建设的一切的核心的全新理念。
马克·卡尼的价值观：他2021年出版的新书揭示了他未来可能的领导者形象
2025年3月11日 作者：马克·李
马克·卡尼在演讲台上发言
可以说，马克·卡尼2021年出版的新书《价值观：为所有人建设更美好的世界》是他竞选首相的早期申请。《价值观》涵盖了广泛的经济史和哲学，并为我们了解这位新首相的成就提供了一些线索。
在长达531页的书中，卡尼为加拿大描绘了一个充满希望的愿景，尽管在细节上缺乏更清晰的阐述。我们只能得出这样的结论：他是一位非常称职的中间派人士，他对加拿大的规划不会偏离现状太多。面对特朗普的第二届政府，许多人会觉得这已经足够了，但人们不禁想要更多。
我第一次阅读《价值观》时，略感失望。我原本希望这本书更像是一本回忆录：从内部人士的角度，了解卡尼担任加拿大央行行长期间的2008-09年金融危机，或者从幕后视角，了解新冠疫情初期（当时卡尼执掌英格兰银行）。书中有一些回忆录的片段，但总的来说，《价值观》是一本关于经济学、历史和哲学的书，作者是一位曾在公共和私营部门高层任职的人士。
那么，《价值观》的核心理念是什么？这又能告诉我们他会成为怎样的领导者？卡尼坚信市场，但也承认市场需要受到监管才能产生良好的结果。与他的保守党对手皮埃尔·波利耶夫雷受米尔顿·弗里德曼启发的自由市场观点形成鲜明对比的是，卡尼评论道：“不受约束的市场原教旨主义正在吞噬资本主义自身长期活力所必需的社会资本。”
《价值观》一书涵盖三个不同的部分：对现代经济和货币体系演变的历史和哲学思考；对三次现代危机（金融危机、新冠疫情和气候变化）的回顾；以及涵盖领导力和成功现代经济方向的前瞻性议程。他列举了七项支撑成功现代经济的基本价值观和信念：活力、韧性、可持续性、公平、责任、团结和谦逊。我们将在下文中回顾这些价值观。
正如你可能已经猜到的那样，《价值观》是对“价值”一词不同社会和经济含义的巧妙运用。我们作为人类所拥有的价值观植根于我们的经济和政治制度，这些制度最终应该超越我们消费或购买的商品所体现的金钱价值。卡尼对早期经济学家如何将经济价值视为客观事物进行了精彩的探讨——这种客观事物主要与生产过程中投入的劳动相关——这与现代经济学的主观价值截然相反，现代经济学认为价值取决于旁观者的眼光，由市场冷酷的逻辑决定。
什么价值？
许多当代经济学家提出的一个关键区分是价值创造和价值提取。后者指的是从经济其他部分攫取的活动，这些活动是非劳动收入（也称为经济租金）。价值提取最初指的是地主获得的非劳动收入，或自然资源作为自然馈赠的价值。在现代经济中，非劳动收入更多地与国家认可的垄断有关，包括专利和版权，以及银行、票务公司和社交媒体平台扮演的守门人角色。
遗憾的是，卡尼在继续论述之前，只是略微探究了价值提取和非劳动收入的幕后。或许是因为深入探讨可能会触及痛处，包括卡尼早年在高盛担任银行家的经历。如果你想更深入地批判价值榨取和寻租，更好的切入点是阅读玛丽安娜·马祖卡托的《万物的价值》或约瑟夫·斯蒂格利茨的《不平等的代价》。
这是一个错失的机会，因为在几章之后，卡尼就对日益加剧的不平等的腐蚀性影响发表了看法。他引用了经合组织和国际货币基金组织的证据，以支持“相对平等有利于增长”以及“更平等的社会更具韧性，……更有可能为大多数人而不是少数人投资”的观点，但却未能将这些点与不平等的根源联系起来。尽管如此，我们仍然担心市场社会的贪婪价值观可能会损害其他核心价值观，例如利他主义、慷慨、团结和公民精神。
三次危机
《价值观》的中间部分探讨了过去二十五年的三次重大危机：2008-2009 年金融危机、2020-2021 年新冠疫情以及持续不断的气候变化。本书对历史和政府应对措施进行了不错的概述，但考虑到卡尼当时的近距离视角，分析显得有些单薄。
关于金融危机，卡尼更多地谈论的是 2007 年发生的一次事件，而不是席卷全球的金融危机本身。
一年后。卡尼仍在财政部任职时，加拿大资产支持商业票据 (ABCP) 市场即将陷入停滞。ABCP 是一种被称为证券化的金融创新形式，其含义是将公司债券（商业票据）的利息收入重新打包成可出售给养老基金和其他投资基金的资产。
卡尼协助促成了伦敦、纽约和加拿大银行之间关于 ABCP 的协议，从而渡过了难关，避免了金融市场爆发重大危机。这场危机我们不得不等待一年才能揭晓，但同样的金融创新痕迹——将美国抵押贷款与次级抵押贷款的有毒资产捆绑在一起进行证券化——在经济崩溃及其蔓延至世界各个角落的过程中无处不在。
卡尼于 2008 年 2 月出任加拿大央行行长，但我们对加拿大央行和卡尼在当年秋季市场崩溃时如何制定和实施加拿大货币政策一无所知。相反，叙述跳到了后来，通过二十国集团和金融稳定理事会（一个由精英央行行长和证券监管机构组成的俱乐部）的宏观审慎监管来提升金融体系稳定性的努力。由于这些努力，一切都很好，或者至少我们是这样认为的，但这很难让人放心，因为金融市场似乎正从一个泡沫跳到另一个泡沫。
卡尼对新冠疫情的报道同样缺乏关于前所未有的财政和货币政策应对措施的细节。经济停摆发生之际，卡尼正准备卸任英格兰银行行长一职。如果能看看卡尼和英格兰银行如何在如此巨大的不确定性中定位自己，那将是一件引人入胜的事情。然而，我们却转向了成本效益分析的缺陷，以及诸如将人转化为美元的统计寿命等指标的滥用。
卡尼谈到了在新冠疫情面前重新发现的韧性和团结等价值观，但对经济学家来说，最重要的是财政和货币政策的影响。新冠疫情使量化宽松政策（即央行购买特许银行和机构投资者持有的金融资产）常态化。这以增加加拿大央行和其他央行持有的基础货币储备的形式提供了短期流动性。
虽然这在《价值观》的讨论中从未被提及，但在即将到来的竞选活动中可能至关重要。保守党领袖皮埃尔·波利耶夫一直在兜售弗里德曼式的货币主义观点，认为联邦政府在新冠疫情期间不负责任地印钞，并认为这导致了2022-23年的通胀。与波利耶夫的指控相反，现在普遍认为此次通胀事件是新冠疫情引发的供应短缺以及俄罗斯入侵乌克兰导致的能源价格飙升的结果。所有这些都发生在卡尼的新书出版之后，因此，观察前央行行长卡尼如何令人信服地驳斥这些论点将会非常有趣。
最后一场危机，即气候变化，卡尼在担任英格兰银行行长期间以及之后的任期内一直积极倡导应对。本书的“价值观”部分强烈支持碳定价，并在后文中赞扬了加拿大的做法。然而，卡尼如今正准备取消加拿大碳定价的消费者层面，这令人尴尬地提醒我们，政治因素可能会破坏良好的政策。
2020年离开英格兰银行后，卡尼还大力支持建立自愿碳补偿市场，这是他个人关切与金融背景的巧妙结合。但由于碳补偿市场容易滋生大量欺诈活动，这项努力从未真正启动。卡尼最近创办的布鲁克菲尔德资产管理公司（Brookfield Asset Management）以收购碳密集型地区的公司而闻名，表面上是为了使其脱碳。
加拿大的下一步是什么？
在本书的最后一部分，卡尼更广泛地探讨了政府和企业基于价值观的领导力，并强调通过ESG报告等方式实现透明度和信息披露。同样，他鼓励高管薪酬过高，但并未呼吁提高最高边际税率或其他压缩分配的措施，例如加强工会。
最后，卡尼重提竞选总理的话题，并汇集了他积累的智慧，制定了“加拿大如何为所有人创造价值”的计划。到目前为止，加拿大并非卡尼叙事的主角，因为他的视角更加全球化。事实上，他的加拿大故事缺乏对我们更深层次的、以主要资源出口为导向的理解，也缺乏对加拿大目前面临的具体跨省或区域挑战的理解。
可惜的是，加拿大计划中并没有太多具体的政策细节，更多的是对这些政策的重申。
价值观，但方式却与普遍理解相悖。他的大部分政策建议似乎都围绕着加强市场监管以改善其运作，同时对技术抱有积极的看法，并承诺“第四次工业革命”。
例如，团结并非指工会在支持工人获得更好的工资和工作条件方面所扮演的角色。相反，它更像是一种模糊的呼吁，呼吁教育和培训，使工人掌握发展所需的技能。同样，公平和责任并非指累进税制和确保更公平的收入分配，而是呼吁市场通过审慎和信息披露更好地运作。
对于银行家卡尼来说，韧性更多地在于识别和预防金融系统的系统性风险，而不是确保我们的建筑和基础设施能够抵御火灾、干旱、洪水和高温。与此同时，可持续性则是指由政府通过碳定价、监管和财务披露设定的战略方向所塑造的绿色投资机会。讽刺的是，卡尼对碳定价的支持正是他最有力的政策建议之一。
目前尚不清楚卡尼将如何应对我们社会中巨大的不平等、迅速恶化的气候状况以及新技术的阴暗面及其取代大量工人的可能性。贸易因素也未纳入考量，因为特朗普第二届政府摧毁了加拿大与美国贸易的整个基础，而以美国为霸权的战后全球秩序也开始崩塌。
归根结底，马克·卡尼的价值观主张不足以“为所有人建设一个更美好的世界”。你可以把卡尼从高盛带走，但高盛的印记依然挥之不去。卡尼对我们是如何走到今天的，以及构建现代混合经济的复杂性提供了深刻的理解，但却回避了更根本的经济挑战。至于卡尼作为政治家，这一章仍未书写。
Values: Building a Better World for All
https://www.amazon.ca/Values-Building-Better-World-All/dp/0771051557
March 16 2021 by Mark Carney (Author)
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • Winner of the 2021 National Business Book Award • Shortlisted for the 2021 Donner Prize
A bold and urgent argument by the Prime Minister of Canada and former bank governor on the radical, foundational change that is required if we are to build an economy and society based not on market values but on human values.
Our world is full of fault lines—growing inequality in income and opportunity; systemic racism; health and economic crises from a global pandemic; mistrust of experts; the existential threat of climate change; deep threats to employment in a digital economy with robotics on the rise. These fundamental problems and others like them, argues Mark Carney, stem from a common crisis in values. Drawing on the turmoil of the past decade, Mark Carney shows how “market economies” have evolved into “market societies” where price determines the value of everything.
When we think about what we, as individuals, value most highly, we might list fairness, health, the protection of our rights, economic security from poverty, the preservation of natural diversity, resources, and beauty. The tragedy is, these things that we hold dearest are too often the casualties of our twenty-first century world, where they ought to be our bedrock.
In this profoundly important new book, Mark Carney offers a vision of a more humane society and a practical manifesto for getting there. How we reform our infrastructure to make things better and fairer is at the heart of every chapter, with outlines of wholly new ideas that can restructure society and enshrine our human values at the core of all that we build for our children and grandchildren.
Mark Carney's Values: What his 2021 book reveals about the leader he might be
It’s fair to say that Mark Carney’s 2021 book, Values: Building a Better World for All, was his early application to be prime minister. Values covers a wide swath of economic history and philosophy, and gives us some clues into what makes our new prime minister tick.
At the end of its 531 pages, Carney lays out a hopeful vision for Canada, albeit one lacking a sharper focus on details. We can only conclude he is a very competent centrist whose plans for Canada won’t depart much from the status quo. In the face of the second Trump administration, many will feel that’s enough, but one can’t help wanting more.
When I first read Values upon its release, I was a little disappointed. I was hoping for more of a memoir: an insider take on the 2008-09 financial crisis when Carney was governor of the Bank of Canada, or a behind-the-scenes look at the early days of COVID-19 pandemic, during which Carney was at the helm of the Bank of England. There are a few tidbits of memoir in the book, but for the most part, Values is a book about economics, history and philosophy from someone who’s been at the highest echelons of the public and private sectors.
So what are the big ideas in Values and what does this tell us about the type of leader he would be? Carney is a strong believer in markets but acknowledges they need to be regulated for there to be decent outcomes. In a contrast to the Milton Friedman-inspired free market views of his Conservative adversary, Pierre Poilievre, Carney comments, “unchecked market fundamentalism devours the social capital essential for the long-term dynamism of capitalism itself.“
Values comes in three distinct parts: a historical and philosophical contemplation of the evolution of modern economies and monetary systems; a review of three modern crises (financial crisis, COVID-19 and climate change); and, a proactive agenda spanning leadership and directions for a successful modern economy. Underpinning a successful modern economy, he cites seven essential values and beliefs: dynamism, resilience, sustainability, fairness, responsibility, solidarity and humility. We’ll circle back to these below.
As you might have guessed, Values is a play on the different social and economic meanings of the word value. The values we have as humans are embedded in our economic and political institutions, which should ultimately transcend the more pecuniary values of what we consume or purchase. Carney has an excellent discussion of how early economists perceived economic value as objective—largely linked to the labour that went into making something—as opposed to the subjective value of modern economics, where worth is in the eye of the beholder, as determined by the cold logic of the marketplace.
Unfortunately, Carney only peeks behind the curtain of value extraction and unearned income before moving on. Perhaps because a deeper dive might hit too close to home, including Carney’s early years as a banker with Goldman Sachs. If you want a more thorough critique of value extraction and rent seeking, a better starting point would be Marianna Mazzucato’s The Value of Everything or Joseph Stiglitz’s The Price of Inequality.
That’s a missed opportunity because a few chapters later, Carney opines on the corrosive impact of growing inequality. He cites evidence from the OECD and IMF to support a view that “relative equality is good for growth” and that “more equal societies are more resilient, … are more likely to invest for the many not the few” but fails to connect the dots back to the causes of inequality. Nonetheless, we are left with a lingering concern that the acquisitive values of a market society may undermine other core values like altruism, generosity, solidarity and civic spirit.
On the financial crisis, Carney has more to say about an episode in 2007 than the full financial crisis itself that hit a year later. Carney was still at the Department of Finance when the Canadian market for asset-backed commercial paper (ABCP) was about to seize up. ABCP is a form of financial innovation known as securitization, which in this case means taking the stream of interest payments from corporate bonds (commercial paper) and repackaging them into assets that can be sold to pension funds and other investment funds.
Carney helped broker a deal on ABCP between London, New York and Canadian banks to get through the tight spot and avert a major crisis cascading through the financial markets. For the crisis we would have to wait a year, but those same fingerprints of financial innovation—the securitization of U.S. mortgages that bundled in the toxic assets of subprime mortgages—were all over the collapse and its spread to all corners of the world.
Carney became Bank of Canada governor in February 2008, but we don’t get any insight of how the Bank of Canada and Carney developed and implemented Canadian monetary policy when things fell apart that Fall. Instead, the narrative jumps to later efforts to elevate financial system stability through macroprudential regulation via the G20 and the Financial Stability Board—a club of elite central bankers and securities regulators. Thanks to these efforts, all is good, or so we’re told, but this is hardly reassuring as financial markets seem to leap from one bubble to the next.
Carney’s coverage of COVID-19 similarly lacks details about the unprecedented fiscal and monetary responses to the pandemic. The onset of economic shutdowns happened just as Carney was on his way out the door as Bank of England governor. It would have been fascinating reading to see how Carney and the Bank of England positioned themselves in the midst of such massive uncertainty. Instead, we get a diversion into the flaws of cost-benefit analysis and the misuse of indicators like statistical years of life that convert humans into dollars.
Carney speaks to rediscovered values like resilience and solidarity in the face of COVID-19, but it’s the impact of fiscal and monetary policies that matter most for economists. COVID-19 normalized quantitative easing, the purchase by central banks of financial assets held by chartered banks and institutional investors. This provided short-term liquidity in the form of increased reserves of base money held at the Bank of Canada and other central banks.
While this never comes up in the discussion in Values, it could be important in the election campaign to come. Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre has been peddling a Friedman-esque monetarist argument that the federal government irresponsibly printed money during COVID-19, which he says caused the 2022-23 inflation experience. In contrast to Poilievre’s allegations, this inflation episode is now widely believed to have been the result of COVID-induced supply shortages and the spike in energy prices from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. All of which occurred after the publication of Carney’s book, so it will be interesting to watch former central banker Carney credibly destroy these arguments.
The final crisis, climate change, is one for which Carney was a vocal advocate as Bank of England governor, and in his time since then. Values takes a strong position in favour of carbon pricing and, later in the book, praises Canada’s approach. It’s an awkward reminder of how politics can undermine good policy, as Carney is now set to eliminate the consumer side of Canadian carbon pricing.
After leaving the Bank of England in 2020, Carney also strongly supported the creation of voluntary carbon offset markets, an interesting marriage of his personal concerns and his finance background. This effort never really got off the ground due to the tendency of offset markets to generate vast amounts of fraudulent activity. Carney’s recent firm, Brookfield Asset Management, was known for buying companies in carbon-intensive areas ostensibly to decarbonize them.
At the end, Carney returns to his bid for prime minister and compiles his accumulated wisdom towards a plan for “How Canada can Build Value for All.” Up to this point, Canada is not the main actor in Carney’s narrative, as he takes a more global perspective. Indeed, his Canadian story lacks an understanding of our deeper orientation towards staples resource exports or the specific interprovincial or regional challenges the country now faces.
Alas, there’s not too much tangible policy detail in the Canadian plan, more of a restatement of those seven values, but in ways that deviate from common understandings. Most of his policy prescriptions seem to be in the vein of better regulation of markets to improve their functioning, along with a positive outlook on technology and promises of a “fourth industrial revolution.”
For example, solidarity is not about the role of unions in supporting workers to get better wages and working conditions. Instead, it’s more of a vague appeal for education and training so that workers have the skills needed to thrive. Similarly, fairness and responsibility are not about progressive taxation and ensuring a more just distribution of income, but an appeal for markets to work better through prudence and disclosure.
For Carney, the banker, resilience has more to do with identifying and preventing systemic risks to the financial system rather than ensuring our buildings and infrastructure can survive fires, droughts, floods and heat domes. Meanwhile, sustainability is about green investment opportunities shaped by a strategic direction set by governments through carbon pricing, regulation and financial disclosure. Ironically, Carney’s support for carbon pricing is among his strongest policy recommendations.
It’s not clear how Carney would come to grips with the massive inequalities in our society, the rapidly declining state of the climate, and the dark side of new technologies and their potential to displace mass amounts of workers. Nor does trade factor in, as the second Trump administration collapses the whole basis for Canadian trade with the United States, and the post-war global order, with the United States as hegemonic power, starting to crumble.
At the end of the day, Mark Carney’s values proposition is not enough to “build a better world for all.” You can take the boy out of Goldman Sachs but the imprint of Goldman Sachs lingers. Carney offers up a solid understanding of how we got here, and the complexities of building a modern mixed economy, but skirts over more fundamental economic challenges. As for Carney the politician, that chapter remains unwritten.
At the end of its 531 pages, Carney lays out a hopeful vision for Canada, albeit one lacking a sharper focus on details. We can only conclude he is a very competent centrist whose plans for Canada won’t depart much from the status quo. In the face of the second Trump administration, many will feel that’s enough, but one can’t help wanting more.
When I first read Values upon its release, I was a little disappointed. I was hoping for more of a memoir: an insider take on the 2008-09 financial crisis when Carney was governor of the Bank of Canada, or a behind-the-scenes look at the early days of COVID-19 pandemic, during which Carney was at the helm of the Bank of England. There are a few tidbits of memoir in the book, but for the most part, Values is a book about economics, history and philosophy from someone who’s been at the highest echelons of the public and private sectors.
So what are the big ideas in Values and what does this tell us about the type of leader he would be? Carney is a strong believer in markets but acknowledges they need to be regulated for there to be decent outcomes. In a contrast to the Milton Friedman-inspired free market views of his Conservative adversary, Pierre Poilievre, Carney comments, “unchecked market fundamentalism devours the social capital essential for the long-term dynamism of capitalism itself.“
Values comes in three distinct parts: a historical and philosophical contemplation of the evolution of modern economies and monetary systems; a review of three modern crises (financial crisis, COVID-19 and climate change); and, a proactive agenda spanning leadership and directions for a successful modern economy. Underpinning a successful modern economy, he cites seven essential values and beliefs: dynamism, resilience, sustainability, fairness, responsibility, solidarity and humility. We’ll circle back to these below.
As you might have guessed, Values is a play on the different social and economic meanings of the word value. The values we have as humans are embedded in our economic and political institutions, which should ultimately transcend the more pecuniary values of what we consume or purchase. Carney has an excellent discussion of how early economists perceived economic value as objective—largely linked to the labour that went into making something—as opposed to the subjective value of modern economics, where worth is in the eye of the beholder, as determined by the cold logic of the marketplace.
What values?
A key distinction made by a number of contemporary economists is between value creation and value extraction. The latter represents activities that skim off the rest of the economy, as forms of unearned income (also called economic rents). Value extraction initially referred to the unearned income accruing to landlords or the value of natural resources as gifts of nature. In a modern economy, unearned income is more often related to state-sanctioned monopolies, including patents and copyrights, and the gatekeeper functions played by banks, ticketing companies and social media platforms.Unfortunately, Carney only peeks behind the curtain of value extraction and unearned income before moving on. Perhaps because a deeper dive might hit too close to home, including Carney’s early years as a banker with Goldman Sachs. If you want a more thorough critique of value extraction and rent seeking, a better starting point would be Marianna Mazzucato’s The Value of Everything or Joseph Stiglitz’s The Price of Inequality.
That’s a missed opportunity because a few chapters later, Carney opines on the corrosive impact of growing inequality. He cites evidence from the OECD and IMF to support a view that “relative equality is good for growth” and that “more equal societies are more resilient, … are more likely to invest for the many not the few” but fails to connect the dots back to the causes of inequality. Nonetheless, we are left with a lingering concern that the acquisitive values of a market society may undermine other core values like altruism, generosity, solidarity and civic spirit.
Three crises
The middle part of Values interrogates the three great crises of the past quarter-century: the 2008-09 financial crisis, the 2020-21 COVID-19 pandemic and the relentless slow burn of climate change. The book contains decent overviews of history and government responses but the analysis feels light when considering the ring-side seat Carney had.On the financial crisis, Carney has more to say about an episode in 2007 than the full financial crisis itself that hit a year later. Carney was still at the Department of Finance when the Canadian market for asset-backed commercial paper (ABCP) was about to seize up. ABCP is a form of financial innovation known as securitization, which in this case means taking the stream of interest payments from corporate bonds (commercial paper) and repackaging them into assets that can be sold to pension funds and other investment funds.
Carney helped broker a deal on ABCP between London, New York and Canadian banks to get through the tight spot and avert a major crisis cascading through the financial markets. For the crisis we would have to wait a year, but those same fingerprints of financial innovation—the securitization of U.S. mortgages that bundled in the toxic assets of subprime mortgages—were all over the collapse and its spread to all corners of the world.
Carney became Bank of Canada governor in February 2008, but we don’t get any insight of how the Bank of Canada and Carney developed and implemented Canadian monetary policy when things fell apart that Fall. Instead, the narrative jumps to later efforts to elevate financial system stability through macroprudential regulation via the G20 and the Financial Stability Board—a club of elite central bankers and securities regulators. Thanks to these efforts, all is good, or so we’re told, but this is hardly reassuring as financial markets seem to leap from one bubble to the next.
Carney’s coverage of COVID-19 similarly lacks details about the unprecedented fiscal and monetary responses to the pandemic. The onset of economic shutdowns happened just as Carney was on his way out the door as Bank of England governor. It would have been fascinating reading to see how Carney and the Bank of England positioned themselves in the midst of such massive uncertainty. Instead, we get a diversion into the flaws of cost-benefit analysis and the misuse of indicators like statistical years of life that convert humans into dollars.
Carney speaks to rediscovered values like resilience and solidarity in the face of COVID-19, but it’s the impact of fiscal and monetary policies that matter most for economists. COVID-19 normalized quantitative easing, the purchase by central banks of financial assets held by chartered banks and institutional investors. This provided short-term liquidity in the form of increased reserves of base money held at the Bank of Canada and other central banks.
While this never comes up in the discussion in Values, it could be important in the election campaign to come. Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre has been peddling a Friedman-esque monetarist argument that the federal government irresponsibly printed money during COVID-19, which he says caused the 2022-23 inflation experience. In contrast to Poilievre’s allegations, this inflation episode is now widely believed to have been the result of COVID-induced supply shortages and the spike in energy prices from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. All of which occurred after the publication of Carney’s book, so it will be interesting to watch former central banker Carney credibly destroy these arguments.
The final crisis, climate change, is one for which Carney was a vocal advocate as Bank of England governor, and in his time since then. Values takes a strong position in favour of carbon pricing and, later in the book, praises Canada’s approach. It’s an awkward reminder of how politics can undermine good policy, as Carney is now set to eliminate the consumer side of Canadian carbon pricing.
After leaving the Bank of England in 2020, Carney also strongly supported the creation of voluntary carbon offset markets, an interesting marriage of his personal concerns and his finance background. This effort never really got off the ground due to the tendency of offset markets to generate vast amounts of fraudulent activity. Carney’s recent firm, Brookfield Asset Management, was known for buying companies in carbon-intensive areas ostensibly to decarbonize them.
What’s next for Canada?
At the end, Carney returns to his bid for prime minister and compiles his accumulated wisdom towards a plan for “How Canada can Build Value for All.” Up to this point, Canada is not the main actor in Carney’s narrative, as he takes a more global perspective. Indeed, his Canadian story lacks an understanding of our deeper orientation towards staples resource exports or the specific interprovincial or regional challenges the country now faces.
Alas, there’s not too much tangible policy detail in the Canadian plan, more of a restatement of those seven values, but in ways that deviate from common understandings. Most of his policy prescriptions seem to be in the vein of better regulation of markets to improve their functioning, along with a positive outlook on technology and promises of a “fourth industrial revolution.”
For example, solidarity is not about the role of unions in supporting workers to get better wages and working conditions. Instead, it’s more of a vague appeal for education and training so that workers have the skills needed to thrive. Similarly, fairness and responsibility are not about progressive taxation and ensuring a more just distribution of income, but an appeal for markets to work better through prudence and disclosure.
For Carney, the banker, resilience has more to do with identifying and preventing systemic risks to the financial system rather than ensuring our buildings and infrastructure can survive fires, droughts, floods and heat domes. Meanwhile, sustainability is about green investment opportunities shaped by a strategic direction set by governments through carbon pricing, regulation and financial disclosure. Ironically, Carney’s support for carbon pricing is among his strongest policy recommendations.
It’s not clear how Carney would come to grips with the massive inequalities in our society, the rapidly declining state of the climate, and the dark side of new technologies and their potential to displace mass amounts of workers. Nor does trade factor in, as the second Trump administration collapses the whole basis for Canadian trade with the United States, and the post-war global order, with the United States as hegemonic power, starting to crumble.
At the end of the day, Mark Carney’s values proposition is not enough to “build a better world for all.” You can take the boy out of Goldman Sachs but the imprint of Goldman Sachs lingers. Carney offers up a solid understanding of how we got here, and the complexities of building a modern mixed economy, but skirts over more fundamental economic challenges. As for Carney the politician, that chapter remains unwritten.
