The Fall of 'Davos Man': Robert Reich

The Fall of Davos Man. Message to Davos Man (and Women): Either commit to pushing for broader prosperity and democracy, or watch as trade wars, capital controls, and isolationism erode global prosperity (including yours) and global peace. Robert Reich. Jan. 23, 2019.

The annual confab of the captains of global industry, finance, and wealth is underway in Davos, Switzerland at the World Economic Forum. Meanwhile, Oxfam reports that the wealth of the 2,200 billionaires across the globe increased by $900 billion last year – or $2.5 billion a day. Their 12 percent increase in wealth contrasts with a drop of 11 percent in the wealth of the bottom half of the people of the world. In fact, the world’s 26 richest billionaires now own as much as the 3.8 billion who comprise the bottom half of the planet’s population.

If Davos’s attendees ignore all this, and blame the rise of right-wing populism around the globe on racism fueled by immigrants from the Middle East and from Central America, they’re deluding themselves. The real source of the rise of repressive authoritarianism, nativism, and xenophobia in the United States as well as Italy, Spain, Austria, Poland, Hungary, Denmark, Bulgaria, Greece, France, and Britain is a pervasive sense that elites are rigging the world economy for themselves. And, guess what? They are.

Message to Davos Man (and Women): Either commit to pushing for broader prosperity and democracy, or watch as trade wars, capital controls, and isolationism erode global prosperity (including yours) and global peace.

https://www.commondreams.org/views/2019/01/23/fall-davos-man



- The wealth of the 2,200 billionaires across the globe increased by $900 billion last year- or $2.5 billion a day (Oxfam).
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- WIKI. Davos, World Economic Forum (WEF). "DAVOS MAN" is a neologism referring to the global elite of wealthy (predominantly) men, whose members view themselves as completely "international". Davos men supposedly see their identity as a matter of personal choice, not an accident of birth. Political scientist Samuel P. Huntington, credited with inventing the phrase "Davos Man" thinks they are people who "have little need for national loyalty, view national boundaries as obstacles that thankfully are vanishing, and see national governments as residues from the past whose only useful function is to facilitate the élite's global operations". Huntington has argued that this international perspective is a minority elitist position not shared by the nationalist majority of the people.

CRITICISM: The Transnational Institute describes the WEF's main purpose as being "to function as a socializing institution for the emerging global elite, globalization's "Mafiocracy" of bankers, industrialists, oligarchs, technocrats and politicians. They promote common ideas, and serve common interests: their own."
A study, published in the Journal of Consumer Research, investigated the sociological impact of the WEF. It concluded that the WEF do not solve issues such as poverty, global warming, chronic illness, or debt. They have simply shifted the burden for the solution of these problems from governments and business to "responsible consumers subjects: the green consumer, the health-conscious consumer, and the financially literate consumer." They merely reframe the issues, and by so doing perpetuate them...

History of criticism: During the late 1990s the foundation, along with the G7, World Bank, World Trade Organization, and International Monetary Fund, came under heavy criticism by anti-globalization activists who claimed that capitalism and globalization were increasing poverty and destroying the environment. Repeated demonstrations are held in Davos to protest against what have been called the meetings of "fat cats in the snow", a tongue-in-cheek term used by rock singer Bono. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Economic_Forum