The slogan of the World Economic Forum is “Committed to Improving the State of the World,” which makes for some pretty awkward conversations when the State of the World is clearly not improving, and is in fact getting markedly worse Sweet it is not.
Davos is an annual event, and if last year was characterized by fear, this year has the feeling of the other shoe dropping: the things that people were worried about in 2015 have become reality in 2016.
U.K. and Japanese stocks, for instance, have officially moved into bear-market territory, down more than 20% from their highs, and they look positively rosy compared to what’s been happening in countries like Brazil and China.
There’s the European refugee crisis, which is in part a symptom of a broader crisis of radical hate coming from the likes of Daesh and Boko Haram.
Davos remains unsurpassable in its ability to bring together the most powerful people in the world . . .
But most of the public chatter about Davos concentrates on the high-minded stuff: the ritual incantations about having to improve working and living conditions for all the world’s 7.4 billion people in all manner of spheres, such as education, security, health, climate change, and the global economy as a whole. And that public chatter is important, since it gives the great and the good all the excuse they need to come up the mountain to rub shoulders in the Piano Bar and boondoggle away year after year.
And when it comes to the high-minded stuff, this is the year when it started becoming increasingly obvious that the emperor has very, very few clothes. The bankers and policymakers aren’t even faking it any more, and are increasingly willing to admit that they have no idea what’s happening and no idea what to do about it. This year, then, is proving itself to be the Davos of denial, the year that the disconnect between rhetoric and reality became more obvious than ever.
And when it comes to the high-minded stuff, this is the year when it started becoming increasingly obvious that the emperor has very, very few clothes. The bankers and policymakers aren’t even faking it any more, and are increasingly willing to admit that they have no idea what’s happening and no idea what to do about it. This year, then, is proving itself to be the Davos of denial, the year that the disconnect between rhetoric and reality became more obvious than ever.
The truth, however, is that with the exception of a few public-health initiatives, the Davos model of “multi-stakeholder initiatives” and “global redesign” has utterly failed in its stated aims. The grandiloquence is as lofty as ever, but the world has not come together; instead, it is fracturing, and the World Economic Forum’s manifold Leaders are reduced to the status of impotent spectators. Some men just want to watch the world burn; Davos Man wants nothing less. But, right now, that’s all he can realistically do.
Time for the world’s elite — heads of state, chief executives, academics, artists and celebrities — to take over a tiny Swiss town for the World Economic Forum’s annual gathering. From the parties to the panels and private dinners, more than 2,500 attendees from over 100 countries will convene in Davos. The attendees have some obvious connections — it’s no surprise that heads of states might be connected to major academics or chief executives. But then there are the connections that surprise. Kevin Spacey connected to a banking giant? Leonardo DiCaprio connected to Shimon Peres? The hidden links are everywhere.
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