David Rothkopf writes: Davos bashing is easy. Saving the world is hard. The venerable gathering of global elites on that frosty Swiss mountaintop is regularly the target of criticism and speculation about its relevance. But if this past year’s event is any indication, there is also still a greater and higher sense of purpose to the gathering than one finds at many other similar events, and there is much to be learned for the visitor who ventures up the mountain to listen rather than to be heard or seen.
There is no doubt that most of the people who have never been to the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in the alpine ski resort are happy to accept the idea that the gathering lies somewhere on a spectrum between being an odious, self-congratulatory mogul-palooza and a shadowy gathering to plot a conspiracy to oppress the masses. Many of the people who actually attend are also put off by aspects of the meeting, ranging from the difficulty of getting into formal sessions to the lingering sense that it is at secret, informal ones that the really good stuff is happening.
The event has become much more corporatized and formal over the years, making real brainstorming tough to do. And of course, as it has in past years, this year’s Davos was dogged by the fact that the audience suffered from a numbing sameness of its participants. Once again, women, minorities, people from emerging markets, and the young were under-represented, as were artists, scientists, technologists, and religious leaders.
In other words, a meeting with the purported goal of changing the world was missing the people most essential to that discussion.
Some of the speeches are tired. Some of the speakers are the usual suspects. The sidewalks aren’t shoveled, and every year a handful of innocent global titans flop down on the ice and break something. Even the celebrity sightings are getting a bit boring. .
Davos is in its own extremely earnest, rather dry way, actually serious about its mission of making the world a better place. Davos, more than any other similar gathering, shifted the debate of world leaders toward taking climate issues more seriously. It has focused attention on regions in crisis, the need for better infrastructure, and on emerging issues that are worthy of debate — like this year’s discussion on the “fourth industrial revolution.” In my few days there, I sat with world leaders who took a break from their usual intellectual fare as they discussed issues of faith, archaeological evidence as to why civilizations fail, the big questions associated with intelligence in the cyber-age (I actually moderated that discussion), and the future of the Americas.
I was also fascinated to watch discussions about ongoing turmoil in the Middle East become seemingly overshadowed, in terms of generating foreboding among the delegates, by the prospect of a Donald Trump presidency. It was interesting to hear once again predictions of global downturn play in a kind of counterpoint to individual CEOs of very big companies saying, “It’s going to be a bad year for the world but not for us.” It was enlightening to hear why China does not worry so many despite its downturn; why Iran is so appealing to so many European companies; why Brazil is the universally acknowledged big emerging-market basket case to watch for the year ahead; and to see the mixed reactions to the consequences of low-priced oil and a downturn in the commodity supercycle.
But this meeting is the target of criticism for a reason.
It is the granddaddy of the world’s big high-level conferences, and it has an important role to play in the world.
It is the granddaddy of the world’s big high-level conferences, and it has an important role to play in the world. People watch it closely; it attracts the skeptical views it draws precisely because it actually makes a difference, whether it is regarding how a leader or policy initiative is viewed by markets or how a particular threat (from climate to regional unrest) might be assessed or addressed. What is more, if it were to change, it could actually make an even bigger difference. No other single event is in position to do as much were it to evolve to be more of a 21st-century global summit. And that is the Davos story you won’t be reading this year. Because you typically only get two extremes: ass-kissing paeans to the superrich or written Molotov cocktails.
But the reality of what transpires each year high on the mountain is actually not so simple. There’s life and value in this old meeting, if only its curators would take the time to give it one of those rejuvenating sheep-placenta injections that Swiss spas are so famous for.
