The original Davos Man returns to the shadows
Klaus Schwab, the 86-year-old founder of the World Economic Forum (WEF), was arrested when the US military swooped on his home in Switzerland. Following a deadly firefight, Schwab (pictured) was found dead in bed connected to an adrenochrome infusion machine to reverse ageing. This is not true. But the story went viral earlier this year when it was reported by satirical websites and taken to be fact by credulous doomscrollers. Schwab is actually in good health and in post. But the story is of a piece with Schwab’s organisation, which has become the subject of many conspiracy theories. More true, if less exciting, is that he is to resign as executive chair of the WEF, says Sam Jones in the Financial Times. He has been at the helm since 1971, transforming it from its modest beginnings as a conference for European businessmen in the Swiss resort of Davos into a highly profitable enterprise, worth £345m in 2022-2023. The WEF is now a networking event that attracts heads of state and senior policymakers from around the world, a think tank and a network of ersatz NGOs. Schwab will step back in January to make way for Børge Brende, a former foreign minister of Norway.
A German-born mechanical engineer, Schwab came up with the idea for Davos while working as a business professor at the University of Geneva. He has used it as a forum to propagate his thinking – basically that the end of the Cold War settled all the great questions about human life and the future will be one of ever greater technological progress and commerce, guided by all-seeing, wise technocrats. For a time, it seemed this was indeed the direction of travel. But the kind of “stakeholder capitalism” envisaged is now a victim of its own contradictions, says Andrew Orlowski on Unherd. “Hard up and impoverished NGOs no longer press their noses against the glass, hoping to be included at the boardroom table. The tail now wags the dog.” And the rise of the populist right in revolt against the WEF worldview horrifies Schwab. Out now is all talk of eating insects and a “Great Reset”; in come papers on rebuilding trust in a fragmented world. But despite the WEF’s best efforts, Davos Man looks to have had his day. “It’s the perfect time for the original Davos Man to return to the shadows too.”