Jamboree of the elite

The annual meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF) in the Swiss alpine resort of Davos is supposedly a barometer of the condition of the planet and the big issues of our time. It is a prestige symbol and a weathervane with a legend for bold prognoses and innovative proposals.

This year’s high-powered, invitation-only jamboree, which concluded last weekend, boasted of an attendee list of the who’s who of the global business community and nearly 50 heads of state. Presumably, one just had to follow its articulate and well-heeled participants to fathom what 2013 has in store.
Yet, despite its tremendous agenda-setting aura and broad coverage of topics from the arts to the intricacies of world politics and economics, the forum is disconnected from realities owing to its privileged membership and unabashed dedication to capitalism. At a time when the global economic crisis, which hit in 2008, is far from over, and as middle and lower classes continue to reel from its devastating effects, the theme of this year’s Davos meeting was oddly titled as “resilient dynamism”. The underlying assumption made by the organisers was that the worst of the financial collapse and its aftermath was over and that the time had come for business leaders and politicians to arrive at a new
consensus on how to stabilise the system. The self-image of the Davos elites is that of survivors who weathered the storm of a systemic economic crisis and are now in a post-crisis phase of determined “resilience”.
The WEF’s motto of “improving the state of the world” is a status-quoist notion that discounts the possibility that the people of the world might want alternative ways of organising their economies and polities. Though Davos promises lively debates and cutting-edge solutions to international problems, its discourse shuts out opinions that veer towards or beyond the left of centre in the ideological spectrum. In such a sanitised zone, what passes for disagreements and disputes is more difference of opinion on technical minutiae of how, for instance, poverty reduction schemes or labour market challenges should be managed. The WEF does not dare to conduct a single session that permits radical thinkers to clash with conservative ones.
One noteworthy session of this year’s meeting was on financial regulation, which goes to the heart of the economic crisis and the failure of the world’s leaders to steer out of it. The keynote speakers were all prejudiced in favour of the big banks and a light touch in regulation. They ranged from Wall Street icons like JPMorgan Chase’s Jamie Dimon; the chairman of the Swiss bank, UBS; the chief executive of the insurance giant, Prudential; and the deputy managing director of the International Monetary Fund. What can one expect from such a cosy club — in terms of a meaningful discussion that generates a healthy critique of financial oligarchs and their crimes — which have destroyed societies in advanced economies?
How about having as panellists on the same theme specialists like the writer, Matt Taibbi (author of the book Griftopia that exposes the nexus of financial and political corruption in America), or the filmmaker, Charles Ferguson (auteur of Inside Job, the famed documentary on the deregulatory skulduggery which caused the financial collapse)?
For the WEF, which swears by liberal capitalist values of free speech and expression, such a slate of speakers would be disruptive to its agenda of advancing the interests of the transnational capitalist class. The American political scientist, Samuel Huntington, coined the phrase “Davos man” to describe the WEF’s quintessential big shot. This “‘man’ (Davos is predominantly male, suited and jacketed for effect) “sees national governments as residues from the past whose only useful function is to facilitate the elite’s global operations”. A master and defender of the corporate globalisation process, the Davos man delights in his economic power over elected politicians and uses the WEF as a pulpit to remind states that they must facilitate his accumulation of capital.
High-level government officials who attend Davos are in a mood to take this cue. They hobnob with titans of capital markets with the hope of selling their respective countries as attractive destinations of foreign investment. When this year’s meeting gave a stamp of approval to a new set of emerging countries like Mexico, Chile, Colombia, Peru and sub-Saharan African nations for economically outpacing the Brics (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) countries, it was simultaneously a signal to big investors on the next hot “engines” of global growth and a message to politicians running these countries that they better conform to the market’s expectations on keeping their economies business friendly.
The Indian delegation at Davos this year comprised four Central government ministers and no less than 150 CEOs and honchos. The schmoozing they did with their foreign counterparts in the Indian pavilion (christened as the “India adda”) was classic trade fair-style wooing meant to assure foreigners controlling large pools of investible capital that India will not disappoint them. The Chinese government has gone one up on ours by winning the exclusive prerogative of hosting the “Summer Davos” extravaganzas every year which focus on the business climate in “New Champions” or emerging economies.
Through their embrace of the Davos mechanisms, political leaders of new powers like China, India and Brazil are embedding themselves within the overall capitalist order. Arguably, their presence endows a fresh breath of air to Davos’ proceedings, which are largely European and American in hue. But again, the path which the politicians of developing countries are committing their nations to is not uncontested by their societies. The reason why there is an annual World Social Forum (WSF) of civil society movements to compete with its “great capitalist rival”, the WEF, is due to the absence of pluralistic thought and policy intent in the latter.
Although the WSF has deficiencies of its own and it lambasts governments too gratuitously, will Presidents, Prime Ministers or Cabinet ministers care to start attending its events? The economic crisis has opened contradictions between business elites and governments, while drawing states and citizens closer under a shared goal of regulating out-of-whack global markets. When the WSF annual meet opens in Tunisia this March, politicians who ignore it will miss a historic chance and risk incurring more popular wrath.

The author is a professor and dean of the Jindal School of International Affairs