‘Davos’ is actually the Swiss word for ‘irrelevant’
Credit to Author: BEN KRITZ, TMT| Date: Wed, 23 Jan 2019 16:20:23 +0000
HEY, do you know that the annual World Economic Forum (WEF) is being held this week in Davos, Switzerland? Do you even care?
Based on the paucity of mainstream business news headlines and data from social media analytics showing rather thin traffic for the topics #WEF19 and #Davos2019, the answer to either of those questions is apparently “no.” The world being what it is these days, there may be some justice in that.
The WEF has been meeting in the exclusive Swiss resort town since 1971, when the organization was founded by business professor Klaus Schwab. Known as the European Management Forum at first, the organization rebranded itself in 1987. In 2015, the WEF was given formal recognition under the Swiss Host-state Act, which gives it approximately the same status in terms of multinational courtesy as a UN agency.
The primary objectives of the WEF are to produce reports and hold meetings, tasks it pursues vigorously several times a year in different parts of the world. The highlight of the WEF calendar, however, is its annual meeting held in Davos, a small town in the mountains in the eastern part of Switzerland, the kind of place where a square meter of real estate costs more than you or I will make in a lifetime. The WEF prefers to hold its convo in January, when the climate at that elevation in that part of the world is approximately the same as that of central Antarctica; this is perhaps to prevent the attendees from being distracted from the scenery, which is actually quite stunning during the times of the year it is not buried under eight meters of snow.
Attendance at the WEF meeting is by invitation only and being invited to Davos is a sign that one has truly been recognized as one of the world’s “movers and shakers”; we know this, because all the WEF marketing material (which manages to fill the first three pages of any Google search for “World Economic Forum”) says so. Many heads of state make an appearance, as well as leaders of multinational corporations, non-governmental organizations, media executives, and celebrities representing unobjectionable social causes.
The theme for this year’s meeting is, “Shaping a New Architecture for the Next Wave of Globalization.” That optimistically ambiguous sentence fragment perfectly illustrates the biggest criticism against the WEF and the Davos meeting in particular, in that it is irredeemably out of step with the current global reality.
Consider the backdrop against which this year’s meeting is taking place: The entire US official delegation to the meeting is absent due to the government shutdown in that country. Likewise, the UK is in utter political turmoil due to that country’s laborious effort to amputate itself from the European Union. The EU itself is in a tenuous state due to growing nationalism on the one hand, and the instability of its contrived economic system on the other. China is steadily being revealed as a political and economic power whose reach exceeds its grasp. Among multilateral groupings, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries has been rendered virtually powerless by its members’ self-interests; the most recent APEC meeting ended in contention without a final group statement, the first time that has ever happened.
Even in the relatively stable Asean, one member state (Malaysia) is wrestling with resolving a corruption scandal of galactic proportions while enjoying a sideshow of having to choose a new royal figurehead because the previous one married a Russian Barbie doll; another (this one) after a brief flash of promise has descended again into banana republic politics. Another (Indonesia) is doing a fair job of managing itself, but has been suffering a major natural disaster approximately once a week. Another (Cambodia) is being sold to China by a dictator who for the last election supplied more ballots pre-marked with votes for him than there are actual living people in the country; and another (Myanmar) is being run by a minority elitist who dropped the “icon of democracy” pretense so fast when she assumed power that it made a ringing noise when it hit the ground.
Whatever is happening in the world, it isn’t the sort of globalism the folks visiting wintry Davos this week imagine it is, and it’s not hard to see why. For all its pretensions of representing the world view, the WEF annual meeting continues to reflect on and celebrate the perspective of the “Davos Man” (a term coined by Samuel P. Huntington), the rarified less than one percent of the human population who can actually afford to be the “stateless elite.” And who are they? According to the list of invitees provided by the WEF, two-thirds of them are from Western Europe or North America; four out of five of them are men.
These people will spend about four days milling about an isolated ski resort where the cheapest available hotel room (as of Tuesday night) measures 12 square meters and costs 10,000 Swiss francs a night, protected by a 55-mile defense perimeter, restricted airspace, and no fewer than 5,000 Swiss army troops, pontificating on the importance of women, marginalized populations, developing countries, small entrepreneurs, and being kind to the planet. Hundreds of business and political reporters will dutifully report every word that is said as though it were the minutes of a board meeting on Mt. Olympus, pausing only to wipe their hands so they don’t get grease from their $40 sushi plates on their laptop keyboards.
And then in a year’s time when it all happens again, everyone involved will be genuinely mystified as to why their “insightful” and “groundbreaking” discussions didn’t inspire the world to change.
Email: ben.kritz@manilatimes.net
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