Does Davos have a purpose?

The secluded meetings in Davos in Switzerland of the World Economic Forum have now been ongoing for a number of years. The initial conception of the meeting by the German economist Klaus Schwab was designed with good intentions. The ultimate aim to bring together governments, financial institutions and the rich of the world so that they could do something jointly to alleviate the many problems throughout the regions of the globe which are less fortunate than the elitist section of the west. Is this achieved today? The actual influence the meeting has on changing poverty, political destitution, geopolitical unrest, climate change, energy crisis and most importantly persecution of the common man and woman, appear to be very limited despite all the hype.

The NGO type groups from around the globe, the 2,700 leaders and representatives of lesser economic vibrant countries, the CEO’s of some of the world’s largest companies, who attended the January 2023 meeting, possibly have similar good intentions in line with the original beliefs. From the major economic countries predominantly in the west the attendees tend to be junior ministers or even those in opposition, this questions the true political support for the object of the meeting, which we again note as being for promoting true global citizenship.

Which of course makes it difficult if not impossible for the group to have any influence in changing World events. The lack of visible support from the driving economic policy changers, predominately in the west, possibly shows that remaining and dominating bourgeois attitude of ‘we know best’. The perpetrators of the G7 and G20 clearly have an attitude problem or is it fear of their diminishing power in the wider world?

The recent Oxfam report “Survival of the Richest” brings forward some damming statements on the balance of wealth such as: 

Billionaire fortunes are increasing by $2.7bn a day, while at least 1.7 billion workers now live in countries where inflation is outpacing wages, the report said. At the same time, half of the world’s billionaires live in countries with no inheritance tax for direct descendants, Oxfam said, putting them on track to pass on $5 trillion to their heirs, more than the gross domestic product (GDP) of Africa.

That is a shocking disparity.

A much-needed reform of multilateralism cannot and will not begin in Davos. The good intention may be there, but the WILL is not.