January 19, 2024 - 6:15pm
Once widely considered the gathering of the elite of a future world government, the World Economic Forum is leaving a legacy of increasing irrelevance. To be sure, the snow was good; the AI art installation and occasional forays into witchcraft may have stirred some; but the whole thing has devolved into a cocktail party for the self-important, with diminishing bearing on world politics.
The interconnected world envisioned by the WEF is disintegrating. Indeed, it has fallen victim to the resurgence of history and the rise of powers determined to return us to the glories of the Middle Ages. Davos existed in a world that believed in Francis Fukuyama’s end of history, but ended up looking a lot more like Samuel Huntington’s bleak vision in The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order. Huntington was the first to describe “Davos man”, and appears to be accurate in having predicted his demise.
The growing irrelevance of what Adrian Wooldridge has labelled “the progressive aristocracy” can even be seen in the less than enthusiastic press coverage. Politico describes the contemporary Davos crowd as a “smart set” which “sounds dumb.” In the Wall Street Journal, Walter Russell Mead, pronounces “the humiliation of Davos man”. Even the establishmentarian Financial Times has to admit that “the hubris among the Davos set is palpable.”
The Forum maintains some cheerleaders for policies which have weakened liberal democracies around the world while serving the interests of the rising illiberal powers. The grandees don’t have to travel far to see the results of their “reset” as nearby Germany’s industrial machine collapses, with even its last solar panel plant about to go belly-up.
Green jobs increasingly seem to be reduced to the low-wage service type. The forced march towards renewables has only rewarded China, even as the country embarks on a coal-plant building spree and emits more greenhouse gases than all developed countries put together. The much-ballyhooed “energy transition” has favoured a China that already produces more than four times as many batteries as second-placed United States, and which controls critical raw materials including large concentrations of rare earths, lithium, copper and cobalt. China can thank the gnomes of Davos when it reaches its stated aim of becoming the leading global superpower by 2050.
Other “Great Reset” notions, like the arrogant assumption that large corporations and investment banks could mandate a better world, lie in ruins. The whole ESG movement, which sought to reward “right-thinking” executives, is falling apart, in large part because it makes no economic sense. Even millennials and Gen Z have adopted negative attitudes towards such elaborate virtue-signalling. An estimated $5 trillion in ESG assets has dissolved in just two years. What’s more, enlightened capitalist funds around the world are in free fall, notably renewable energy stocks, while traditional energy firms enjoy record profits.
From the beginning, the idea that corporate elites’ primary responsibility involved imposing positive values on their own societies was fatally flawed, in large part because economic powers such as China and Russia have no such scruples. More important still, the oligarchs are finding out that the peasants are becoming increasingly sceptical about an agenda — including the notion of climate reparations — that promises to further bring down their standard of living.
Today it’s not globalist smoothies like Emmanuel Macron but rough and ready anti-globalists who are elbowing their way to prominence. The rebellion that started with the French gilets jaunes in 2018 has metastasised and spread to other countries. In the US even educated voters, as well as minorities, are discovering a greater affinity for Donald Trump, who for all his significant flaws is broadly attuned to the popular mood.
Trump’s followers are not stupid. They realise that Davos man preaches austerity for the masses, all while investment banks achieve higher profits and use private jets. Opposing oppressive elites is exactly what democracy is about. The eclipse of the top-down dream at Davos marks a return to the norms of political life, where the opinions and interests of citizens take preference over the preening of the powerful.
Joel Kotkin is the Hobbs Presidential Fellow in Urban Futures at Chapman University and author, most recently, of The Coming of Neo-Feudalism: A Warning to the Global Middle Class (Encounter)
joelkotkin
Join the discussion
Join like minded readers that support our journalism by becoming a paid subscriber
To join the discussion in the comments, become a paid subscriber.
Join like minded readers that support our journalism, read unlimited articles and enjoy other subscriber-only benefits.
SubscribeMaybe it’s time for cosplayer Klaus Schwab to don his fabulous final act costume and prepare to mount the funeral pyre (renewable briquettes obvs) to the strains of Bellini’s Norma?
You think we can convince him to throw himself aflame from the tallest tower of Minas Tirith?
Can I book a ticket online?
Indeed, it has fallen victim to the resurgence of history and the rise of powers determined to return us to the glories of the Middle Ages.
Actually, the Middle Ages were typified, not by nationalism, but by transnational institutions such as the Holy Roman Empire and the Catholic Church; medieval elites likewise belonged to a transnational brotherhood (at least until the 14th century), wherein, as property holders, they often had interests in multiple countries, and they shared a common culture that was distinct from that of the people over which they ruled (Henry IV [1367 – 1413] was the first king of England since Harold Godwinson to speak English as his mother tongue). Indeed, the decline of nationalism in the first decades of this century was a sign of increasing, not decreasing, medievalization. Nationalism is a modern phenomenon.
Yes. It’s as if there’s a great big epistemic black hole where the (long) 19th century ought to be!
Way to hit the nail on the head Joel. The smart people know it’s over. When even the poster boy for bland centrism and establish power, Joe Biden, embraces an agenda that pivots, however belatedly and insufficiently, towards economic nationalism, it’s a signal of a change in the political perspective that goes beyond political parties and notions of right and left. The perspective, the perception of what’s even possible has changed across the entire political spectrum, because the politicians have finally recognized that there are boundaries they will have to at least pretend to respect if they want to remain in power. If they don’t, they will only get more competent and more dangerous versions of Trump, Wilders, Le Pen, and Meloni with more radical solutions. The will of the people is finally starting to impact the people making the decisions. The battle is not over, but the tide has definitely turned.
Agree, but it still means we’re in for a rough ride. In military history, the most bloody phases of a war, for both sides, have been after one side’s defeat was inevitable.
Trump, Wilders, Le Pen and Meloni are all a lot less ‘dangerous’ than their predecessors and the current incumbents. That’s the point.
I hope you’re right, maybe a little early to declare victory.
Indeed, these people do not have the mindset to give up their privileges voluntarily. Even a ruin needs to be ruled, so destruction is no problem at all. But I do think that Mike’s suggestion sounds very attractive. Make it a Eurovision broadcast with pyres in Brussels, Berlin, Franfurt and Paris. We all have our candidates for a splendid swan song.
Yes. We’re still in early stages and already seeing counter reactions from the globalist authoritarians. We need to keep pressing forward and really bring the hammer down on these insufferable bastards. Not through violence but through a transcontinental campaign of civil disobedience. They can arrest one or some of us, they can’t arrest millions of us.
Get real. This isn’t even the end of the beginning.
They could take us down with them – especially as countries like the UK and US whose leftish politicians (including many Tories and Republicans) dislike their own voters fail to stand up for liberal democracy and sign away powers to third parties. Watch Labour sign up to the WHO taking control of healthcare.
When an MSN journalist working for CNBC feels the need to write a Davos blog post apologizing for attending you know its over.
Apparently tickets cost $40k. Who would want to spend that sort of money when it is a fast ticket to personal brand image damage once back home.
And one an see the ‘personal brand damage’ happening in real time as we see pundits, ‘journalists’ and that ilk explaining as fast as they can that they were only there to provide visibility and enlightenment to the rest of us with their ‘skepticism’ of the whole Davos project…
“Trump’s followers are not stupid.”
Yes they are. Comically so.
…but then your sense of humour is one of a kind Comsoc.
Oh no they’re not. Two can play at pantomime.
Schwab is a Poundland Lenin, of whom he has a bust – he actually uses some of his words in his monologue this year. Why do elected politicians like Macron shill for these plutocrats?
The forced march towards renewables has only rewarded China, even as the country embarks on a coal-plant building spree and emits more greenhouse gases than all developed countries put together…
There are many political forces at play. Cash, look at the money Gore and Kerry have made out of climate change and the subsidized renewable companies. Equity – make the north poorer and the south richer, the UN and academia push this concept. UK school kids have climate as a religion. Climate change is given as a reason for migration – also pushed by NGOs and leftists wishing to transform the West.
When this all started, I don’t think anyone understood how insane the business elite were as long as they were keeping to their bubbles and enjoying their wealth.
Really enjoyed Javier Milei addressing the WEF.
Yep, and he didn’t hang around to have some creepy witch doctor cough in his face.
Yeah, what the hell was that about? Super rich people are straight up freaks.
I missed that reference, can you explain? I forgot to watch the ceremony.
Yes same here! Milei was totally worth the ‘price of admission’, as they say. It totally seemed to leave the whole room sitting there thinking ‘What the f**k! It reminded me of Trumps inaugural address.
He was a breath of fresh air!
It seems that Lord Acton in 1887 got it right “Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority; still more when you superadd the tendency of the certainty of corruption by authority.”
There is also more than a few bad women Von der Leyan and Lagarde for starters
They’re worrying about the wrong thing;
https://x.com/gocotwo/status/1712209845804319078?s=46
Does anyone other than the elites believe that mankind can control the temperature of the earth?
I have an idea: Stay in Your Lane, Noble Rulers.
Politicians: stick to world wars.
Businessmen: stick to the bottom line.
Experts and scientists: stop agreeing.
They throw the term Democracy around to circumvent America is a Constitutional Republic and the majority of American plan to keep it that way. I didn’t raise my right hand, twice, “to uphold the constitution and defend MY country against all enemies foreign and domestic” for sh*ts and grins. By importing foreign fighters into our broken southern border it’s soon to be game on. Dems brought it, can they finish it? I think they lack the backbone.
Tyranny is rearing it’s ugly head around the globe and history has taught some of us it’s a ticking time piece! They will back down, or hang.
Business elites protecting and enhancing their own reward structure at expense of others not new.
Mixing up the Climate change debate with this though is manipulative – ‘let’s create a scapegoat’ mantra yet again.
The biggest opponents, secretly manipulating discord all the time, are the Autocrats and Theocrats who rely on the leverage fossil fuels give them. That should be telling folks something. Fine to critique the western Business elites, it’s needed, but don’t play the patsy to the Totalitarians.
The danger comes not from business elites alone but from their collaboration with bureaucrats who confuse their class interest with the common good.
I really so believe as you look down the lens into this technocratic society, it looks so bleak! The world was rocking far better when people were working together and had trust, believed in nature, and had a strong moral compass! Even if i was a pyscho, i would look at what they are peddling and think this looks boring and bleak, and will eventually have such a detrimental impact on people that it will also bring my family down.
Its just so grey, there is so much fun and joy in watching a world succeed! So bizarre.
I am waiting for the dismantling of the EU and NATO. Only then will there be a change.
I have no love for the EU, but I think we still need NATO as a bulwark against Russia.