Get App
Download App Scanner
Scan to Download
Advertisement
This Article is From Jan 20, 2020

Davos 2020: Five Things To Watch For At The World Economic Forum’s Annual Meeting

Read Time: 5 mins
Share
Davos 2020: Five Things To Watch For At The World Economic Forum’s Annual Meeting
A logo sits on display inside the Congress Center on day three of the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland. (Photographer: Jason Alden/Bloomberg)

WATCH | What to expect from WEF 2020

If it were a human being, ‘Davos' would be in the throes of a recovery from peak misery. The World Economic Forum's Annual Meeting, more commonly referred to by the name of the Swiss town it is hosted by, turns 50 this year. A new economic study affirms that middle age is miserable and pinpoints 47.2 years old as the moment of peak unhappiness in the developed world.

It's been an interesting come back for the ‘billionaire bubble' as one guest referred to it in the years after the global financial crisis. Or as Jamie Dimon recounted a description that said it best — “It is where billionaires tell millionaires what the middle class feels.”

That's still mild.

“It is family reunion for the people who, in my view, broke the modern world,” said author Anand Giridharadas to CNN's Christian Amanpour last year.

A HuffPost article headline dripped with sarcasm — Elites Gather In Davos To Rich-splain Poverty As The World Spirals.

The derision dates back to even before the financial crisis and the more recent alarm that globalisation and economic success, for a few, has come at the cost of income equality, ecology, workers rights... borne by many.

In a 2004 paper political scientist Samuel Huntington wrote about the ‘Davos Man'.

“The rewards of an increasingly integrated global economy have brought forth a new global elite. Labeled ‘Davos Men', ‘gold-collar workers' or . . . ‘cosmocrats', this emerging class is empowered by new notions of global connectedness. It includes academics, international civil servants and executives in global companies, as well as successful high-technology entrepreneurs.”

Huntington added that “these transnationalists 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 elite's global operations”.

Well, the cosmocrats are on the backfoot as in country after country anti-elite, right-wing populism has pushed back.

This year the marquee speaker in Davos is U.S. President Donald Trump. It is his second outing. And while Trump is hardly the WEF's penitence, he was after all a billionaire himself, there's no doubt that Davos is now trying to make amends.

Which should soothe this reader of the Economist who in 2011 said the “Davos Man needs his b@#$s chopping off”.

1. ‘Society' Scores Highest

Davos cares. About LGBTI rights. About how to cultivate resilience. About mental health. There are 89 sessions encompassing these and other society themes.

Of course income inequality, climate change, technology made it to the agenda years ago. And they've pushed economy to the lowest on the list.

Davos Sessions

  • Society: 89
  • Industry: 82
  • Technology: 65
  • Geopolitics: 50
  • Ecology: 51
  • Economy: 27

2. Teenage Attendees

Last year climate activist Greta Thunberg (then 16 years old) train-ed it to Davos, camped out in the bitter cold and told some rather posh people to panic.

“I want you to feel the fear I feel every day. And act as if your house is on fire. Because it is.”

Newsletters

Update Email
to get newsletters straight to your inbox
⚠️ Add your Email ID to receive Newsletters
Note: You will be signed up automatically after adding email
Newsletter Preview

Videos

Watch
LIVE

News for You

Dow Jones Industrial Average Exceeds 50,000 For First Time

Dow Jones Industrial Average Exceeds 50,000 For First Time

Live TV
Apps
Social
Hello Reader
Sign In / Register
Set as Trusted Source
on Google Search