The World Economic Forum

World class Anthropocene resource -- or the tail of Leviathan?

No doubt you’ve heard of it. The World Economic Forum is known for gathering the elites of the world together every year at the Davos ski resort in Switzerland to push a global “stakeholder” economic agenda. Along with the United Nations the Forum is one of the premier global organizations that tries to decide how the world should (and, often, does) work. Given its tremendous budget, it’s a prolific source of information and ideas about emerging technologies, sustainable development, and a range of global social concerns.

Besides the website, WEF’s YouTube channel publishes at least one video every day covering Davos speeches and events, research reports, and a wide range of explainers on issues like “The Future of Capital Markets” or “The Future of Energy.”

Here’s a neutral definition.

The World Economic Forum (WEF) is an international organization headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, that brings together individuals and political and business leaders each year to discuss significant issues that impact the global economy. These include but are not limited to political, economic, social, and environmental concerns.

The WEF is best known for its annual World Economic Forum Meeting at Davos, the Swiss ski resort. The event regularly draws business and political leaders from around the world for a series of discussions about global issues.

(Source: Investopedia)

You can also check out a long Wikipedia article for more backstory, organizational details, the annual Davos meeting, activities and initiatives, criticism and controversies.

Looking Deeper

I’m a believer in giant organizations with huge budgets (like the WEF or the UN) working to create and disseminate useful information, analysis, and policy perspectives. They work well as clearinghouses of ideas. I’m far more skeptical of them assuming any actual political or economic power, becoming in effect a form of world government.

Informational usefulness also doesn’t mean, of course, that anyone should absorb the content they produce without scrutiny and a critical eye. There’s always an agenda at play. Knowledge consumers should be constantly asking: who is sharing what information to whom, for what purpose?

In the case of the World Economic Forum, its constituencies (and critics) are broadly distributed, mixed in perspective, and persistently evolving.

Here are some thoughtful reviews.

Davos isn't dead — yet (axios.com) — from 2023 (Axios leans left)

• “The power of Davos is its guest list.”

• “The forum's celebration of globalization and core premise of bringing the international elite together to solve global problems can feel like a relic of the post-Cold War haze.”

The World Economic Forum deserves criticism, but we need it now more than ever | Brookings — from 2020 (Brookings’ political bias is liberal)

• “The defining characteristic of the meeting, which brought corporate titans, plutocrats, and political leaders (including President Trump) together in one of the world’s most beautiful mountain valleys, was that this was a gathering not of the 1%, but of the .000001%.”

• “It is appropriate to criticize the World Economic Forum as an elitist gathering of the super-rich.”

• “It is, however, in these precarious times that we need Davos more than ever. Economic and corporate leadership on global governance challenges is so urgently needed today for two reasons: First, political leadership around the world is stalled or gridlocked, preventing progress; and second, the global challenges we face — from climate emergency to the perils of populist nationalism, from the regulation of cyberspace and the ownership of data to the dangers and opportunities of mass human movements — cannot be solved without action by wealth-holders and decisionmakers of the corporate community.”

The World Economic Forum edges away from the left | Semafor — from 2024 (Semafor leans left)

• “Leaders of the World Economic Forum, increasingly alarmed at criticism from the right, edged the event away from “stakeholder capitalism,” political engagement, and a corporate focus on climate change and diversity in 2024.”

• “The Forum’s shift more or less reflects that of its paying members, big global — and particularly American — business.

  The Forum is fundamentally the great trade show of global capitalism, and its progressive veneer grew in response to demonization by the 1990s anti-globalist left. Schwab’s native Switzerland is a deeply politically conservative country, however. And many of the Forum’s other leaders come from straightforwardly conservative backgrounds — its president, Borge Brende, was a leader in Norway’s Conservative Party. Like many other institutions, however, its staff is younger and pulls to the left.”

The Day Milei Socked It To The Davos Crowd | Hoover Institution — from 2024 (Hoover Institution’s political bias is conservative)

• “Argentine leader strikes a very public blow for economic freedom.”

• “[Milei’s] whole 24-minute speech is worth listening to in translation or worth reading. Early in the speech, he focused on what economists often call, and economist Milei calls, the “hockey stick” of economic growth.”

• “He gave the WEF a message that it badly needed to hear. I would have loved to see a camera pan over the audience as he made his pitch. Unfortunately, the camera aimed at him the whole time.”

• “That shout out to businesspeople might have been one of the most important parts of his speech. People who run corporations are often targeted for not being good corporate citizens, which seems to mean, in practice, not doing what the targeters want. It’s possible that business people around the world who listened to Milei’s speech felt some moral support.”

• “Javier did a great job of presenting his pro-freedom message at a forum that often dishes out anti-freedom ones. As Milei says at the end of his talks, “Long live freedom, dammit.”

World Economic Forum - InfluenceWatch - InfluenceWatch

• “In 1971, Klaus Schwab described “stakeholder capitalism” to the World Economic Forum, a business theory that prioritizes “stakeholders” over “shareholders.” In standard modern economic theory, businesses exist for the sake of their owners (or shareholders for corporations) who invest their wealth on expectation of returns; stakeholder theory expands the understanding of business beneficiaries beyond shareholders to all individuals impacted by a particular business, including its employees, customers, suppliers, individuals impacted by environmental effects, and so forth.”

• “Due in part to the group’s ties to influential figures in international business and geopolitics, the WEF has been a subject of legitimate controversy and unfounded conspiracy theories. In 2020, the WEF’s annual meeting agenda advocated using the COVID-19 pandemic as an opportunity to restructure the global economy along collectivistic and interventionist means and went by the title “Great Reset.” The “Great Reset” proposals and discussions have been highly influential in Western nations including the United States under President Joe Biden; this influence has inspired unfounded conspiracy theories accusing a global elite of using the pandemic to expand their power.”

Coming Up

I’ve been reading John Gray’s The New Leviathans about the emergence of postliberal (and illiberal) states as non-governmental social movements. I’m also reading, from the other end of the political spectrum, Climate Leviathan by Joel Wainwright and Geoff Mann. The latter book gives the authors’ take on earth’s possible political futures, given the need to contend with the planetary climate change.

“Climate Leviathan,” one of four main options foreseen and analyzed by Wainwright and Mann, is perhaps our most likely political future. To my mind, organizations like the World Economic Forum, along with the United Nations, represent quite well what that Leviathan could look like.

Today I wanted to share the WEF as a resource. Next week I’ll pick back up with the Leviathan theme and share more from these two books.

My Pondercraft project, announced last week, is coming along, slowly. Stay tuned. =)

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