Collapse

And The Show Must Go On

istockphoto.com

What is the purpose of the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland? Author Anand Giridharadas called this meeting “a family reunion for the people who broke the world”.

With less than a week to go until Davos 2025, and with the launch of the WEF’s 2025 Global Risk Survey and Report, it is a good time to reflect on the purpose, or indeed the relevance, of such meetings, flocked to by the world’s wealthy and privileged.

Maybe the best insight into the true purpose is to review the last 15 years of Global Risk Surveys and Reports, and ask, have they led to the transformation we so desperately need? The answer is a resounding No. This is because the WEF Davos meeting, for all its hype, is nothing more than a giant trade fair. Somewhere to shake hands and make money.

The WEF says in its mission statement, “We recognise the need for a forum fostering rigorous and respectful dialogue between and among leaders with different beliefs and viewpoints, where diversity of thought is respected and all voices can be heard. Achieving this mission is made possible by all our stakeholders, who come together to find common ground and seize opportunities for positive change.

Between the Davos meetings (and others, such as the Sun Valley Conference), in the face of global risks, business-as-usual continues; no opportunities for change have been seized. The history of Global Risk Surveys and Reports shows nothing but the maintenance of the status quo, because the WEF Davos meeting it is just one big business opportunity. While the reports acknowledge the risks we are collectively facing, ranking the ‘likelihood’ of what will occur in the near future and the ‘severity’ of the ‘impact’ if/when it does eventuate. What is the point of continuing what seems nothing more than performative theatre?

Could it be that the global elite gathers in Davos to (supposedly) discuss ‘global risks’, so that the rest of us can be made to believe that they are taking these problems seriously? That’s the ‘show’ part that gets reported by the MSM, whilst the ‘real’ discussions and trade deals are done behind closed doors in the VIP areas.

If the global elites had any desire to ‘solve’ issues like climate change, poverty, biodiversity loss, pollution and involuntary migration they would have advocated for ending capitalism and unlimited growth long ago. As a very minimum, they would have accepted the need for more stringent regulation. Funnily enough, that’s never been the case.

The biggest conspiracy is the one hiding in plain sight, the one nearly all of us subscribe to wholeheartedly; that we can solve these problems within the constraints of free-market capitalism by virtue of economic/technological progress. That this is a nonsense has been known since 1972, when Limits to Growth was first published. Every time the study has been revisited since, its results have been reconfirmed by the data. Pursuing unlimited growth on a limited planet leads to overshoot and overshoot leads to collapse.

But that cannot be talked about. Instead, we watch as hundreds of private jets descend into Davos, yet again, and the mega-rich together with their ‘useful idiots’ pretend that they care about what is happening to us, while they try to make even more money despite already having more than they could ever spend.

In this year’s Global Risk Survey and Report, concerns about state-based armed conflict tops the list.

This is a valid concern; the number of wars and revolutions grow towards the end of a secular cycle. It would appear that we have entered the crisis stage of our current ‘secular cycle’ around 2019.

According to Turchin and Nefedov after the initial growth phase, which lasted around 100 years to the mid-1970s, we had 45 years of little or no real (per-capita) growth, the stagflation phase. For the last few years, we have seen clear signs of the crisis stage – a global pandemic, a major war, suppression of democratic rights, supply chain shocks, energy shortages and rolling blackouts, cyber-attacks, increased climate change related catastrophes paired with inept responses by governments to the rapidly changing circumstances.

All this is known, so back to the question, what is the point of continuing what seems nothing more than performative theatre? Going through the annual rituals and motions must have some purpose surely!

Yes, there are the big business opportunities and deals to be done. But more than that, this is an annual gathering to reassure the other members of the global elite that you are happy to maintain the virtue signalling while having no plans to change the status-quo. Elite solidarity is what matters when it comes to maintaining unsustainable extraction and pollution while the world burns, floods and people are displaced. As long as no one breaks rank, the status quo can remain. And, as long as no one shows any empathy to the world outside their gilded cage, the destruction can continue until there is nothing left.

Related Articles

Back to top button