Maybe because of the snow – or rather the lack thereof – the World Economic Forum (WEF) held in Davos, Switzerland, this week (January 16-20 2023) is strangely off-putting
The official list of attendees to the famed get-together in the Swiss Alps is a roll-call of distinguished representatives
On the list, compared to a large Western representation and dominated by international organizations (42 United Nations delegates and 15 European Union officials), China's 5 delegates are all business (trade, finance and banking)
Japan with a single Parliamentarian makes South-Korea stand out (10 attendees - headed by President Yoon Suk-yeol - covering a range of economic opportunities)
Conversely, the representation of India (10 attendees) and of South-East Asian countries (Philippines 11 - headed by President Marcos, Indonesia 3, Thailand 2 and Malaysia 1) is another study in geopolitics
One may be predisposed to read support, rejection or prudence regarding global trade in the imbalance
More matter-of-fact, Reuters reads like a WEF communiqué, vaunting record attendance
Fifty-two heads of state and government will show up next to 56 finance ministers, 19 central bank governors, 30 trade ministers and 35 foreign ministers. Heads of the United Nations, International Monetary Fund and World Trade Organisation will be among 39 leaders of international agencies.
The upmarket ski resort will host its biggest ever business participation, with 600-plus CEOs among 1,500 business leaders that include the highest ever number of female executives.
Ticking all the right boxes, one may wonder how those 52 heads of state will engage with 1500 executives
....and more precisely, what they will engage about....
Industrial collapse in the heartland of the developed world is a good place to start
“Cooperation in a Fragmented World”
The eye-catching title of the 2023 annual meeting hopes to sprinkle some pixie-dust on the mystic which has surrounded WEF conclaves over the years
Presumably to the delight of the organizers valuing media coverage above all else, the attendees, a heady mix of government officials and top business representatives, have been suspected time and time again by critics of the darkest motives to regiment the world to their liking
Maybe so
The Board of Trustees of WEF, loaded with the Good and the Great on Planet Earth, fits the argument just fine
As a matter of fact, sidestepping the critique, WEF Board member and renowned cellist Yo-Yo Ma does make the world good and great
These dark motives of the Davos Forum remain highly improbable…
Scheming and backroom deals are hard to engineer in a crowd and in the open
More worrying for the WEF is the lack of substance which led other critics to dismiss the meeting as a talking shop to little effect
To the credit of the Forum, the intent to favor ‘constructive, forward-looking dialogues’ is a worthy enterprise even if, “finding solutions through public-private cooperation” looks dubious…
Dialogue on real world challenges, such as the consequences of climate change on human wellbeing, or growing inequality in advanced economies, or cost-of-living crises, or recessionary risks in world economies, sets an impossibly high bar
As for cooperation, in a world “fragmented” by the attendees’ own making, it sounds very much like age-old business networking, to gain top level access to governmental officials
If the Forum is neither a dark plot nor a credible platform for global cooperation, one wonders why private jets and helicopters still shuttle 3 000 prominent persons deep into the Swiss Alps
The sun is setting on a global world
Playing its part to pitch-perfection, the Forum has been the voice and cheerleader of globalization
The WEF recognized early on how international trade was bringing hundreds of millions people above the poverty line in emerging markets
With open trade's contribution to increase the purchasing power of consumers the world over, there was no holding back
Riding the wave, attendees at Davos embraced the economics of open trade without restraint, finding common ground between public officials and private business at every turn
Coincidental or not, dialogue could be painted in pleasant hues of collaboration between national interests and business endeavor, year after year
Not anymore…
Anything but...
China may have been playing fast and loose with the rules of the World Trade Organization since becoming a member in 2001, alienating its trading partners with its ‘socialist market economy’
However, the world markets went along and trade has been mutually beneficial for a very long time
…as long in fact, as governments could discount Chinese technology-transfer and industrial build-up in promising sectors in the light of the Western consumer's benefit, and of business access to the Chinese market
Dilapidated steel towns in the American heartland and the hurt pride of businesses small and large, unable to compete, ultimately put the brakes on a “collaboration” too skewed to be resurrected any time soon
This is why this week’s Forum appears to be grappling for its well-worn choir book, hoping against the odds, to provide opportunity for constructive dialogue to all parties
Totems have been overthrown, peaceful coexistence makes way in Germany and in Japan for heavy military spending, and national security undermines carefully planned global supply chains
In such a world, cooperation buttressed by shared economic interests suddenly appears improbably quaint
Radical thinking on the Zauberberg
Davos meetings have been at the forefront of profound economic transformation during the past decades
Globalization was a textbook exercise of comparative trade advantage
And the Forum was not so much pioneering as clearing the path for shared interests in international trade
The world has moved on, reversing commitments to open trade with tentative protectionism
Prone to inward-thinking, domestic supply chains and national employment, politics have become distinctively local
In this new world, the WEF is at risk of fading into irrelevance
The challenge goes to the spirit of the Davos meetings, aloof from the rough and tumble of daily political horse-trading
Borrowing a whiff from Thomas Mann's Zauberberg - the Magic Mountain - inspired by a sanatorium at Davos after World War I's tragedy, the Forum might come around to evaluate the potential destructiveness of civilized society
....unless new venues of dialogue are kept alive
Held in an exclusive Swiss resort, in one of the world's most successful economies, WEF's location of choice was the symbol of economic progress through mutual enrichment
...a civilized drive, a fighting spirit and inextinguishable faith in the future
The unemployed in the American "rust belt' of what once was the flourishing US heavy industry, or the 'left-behind' communities on edge outside the large British cities, will be forgiven to have lost trust in all three
Understandably so
Put on the spot, the Forum might use its bully pulpit to turn globalization upside down
Rehash of recipes past their prime will not do....
But symbols still matter and it might become awkward to "take on the world" from the wealthy Western tip of Eurasia - from the heart of Europe
As 'fragmentation' gains momentum, regional integration becomes a powerful magnet, seen under a new light
Regional forums could be the potent symbol of the global economic realignment, underway around the world
- a trans-pacific encounter could rejoin the US and China - along with India and South-East Asia - and provide a forum for multilateral dialogue
- a trans-atlantic encounter could restate shared interests and constrain go-it-alone national impulses
- Latin America and Africa have been waiting in the wings for too long
In lieu of the somewhat staged Davos WEF, regional meetings might thrive precisely by regaining some of the informal and 'broad-tent' spirit of the original Forums
Disagreements will be put under the lens of mutual interests, side-stepping the posturing of formal international encounters
WEF will undoubtedly find a new voice mixing symbolism and a political statement
Not so different from global symbols of yesterday and more like an 'update', all things considered