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| Let’s make attending Davos as shameful as running a sweatshop | Let’s make attending Davos as shameful as running a sweatshop |
| (3 days later) | |
| • This article is the subject of a legal complaint made on behalf of Klaus Schwab. | |
| Davos has just finished. You know, the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum. What, didn’t you get your invitation? Oh dear, looks like you don’t really matter. Sorry about that. | Davos has just finished. You know, the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum. What, didn’t you get your invitation? Oh dear, looks like you don’t really matter. Sorry about that. |
| It’s easy to mock Davos – so I will. It’s the annual schmooze fest where rich white men debate inequality and diversity. Where fleets of carbon-gushing private jets fly in philanthropists to pontificate about climate change. Where the world’s biggest corporations earnestly set out footling “strategies” and “action plans” to give the impression they’re addressing the social and environmental problems that they caused in the first place. | It’s easy to mock Davos – so I will. It’s the annual schmooze fest where rich white men debate inequality and diversity. Where fleets of carbon-gushing private jets fly in philanthropists to pontificate about climate change. Where the world’s biggest corporations earnestly set out footling “strategies” and “action plans” to give the impression they’re addressing the social and environmental problems that they caused in the first place. |
| You could go one step further than mockery and work up a decent amount of hostility towards Davos. For example: how can we take seriously its utterly vapid slogan – “committed to improving the state of the world” – when for years the organisers refused to countenance any discussion of gay rights or transgender issues in order to suck up to rich Arab countries that shoved fat fees into the pockets of Klaus Schwab (the rather dodgy impresario of the whole baleful enterprise, a kind of Sepp Blatter of corporatism) and his cronies? | You could go one step further than mockery and work up a decent amount of hostility towards Davos. For example: how can we take seriously its utterly vapid slogan – “committed to improving the state of the world” – when for years the organisers refused to countenance any discussion of gay rights or transgender issues in order to suck up to rich Arab countries that shoved fat fees into the pockets of Klaus Schwab (the rather dodgy impresario of the whole baleful enterprise, a kind of Sepp Blatter of corporatism) and his cronies? |
| But I think it’s time we went beyond mockery, further than hostility. I think we should be outraged by Davos. We should condemn it, oppose it, blow the whole thing up. I don’t mean literally, of course. After all, some of my oldest and dearest friends are regular attendees. Not to mention my wife. | But I think it’s time we went beyond mockery, further than hostility. I think we should be outraged by Davos. We should condemn it, oppose it, blow the whole thing up. I don’t mean literally, of course. After all, some of my oldest and dearest friends are regular attendees. Not to mention my wife. |
| It’s nothing personal. It’s not the fault of the people there (not the fault of most of them, anyway). It’s the system that’s to blame – and that’s what we should attack. Yes: we should be tough on Davos, but more importantly, tough on the causes of Davos. Tough on Davos means discouraging people from being there. It’s the worst kind of racket: everyone goes because everyone else goes. Well, we should break the spell by massively increasing the costs of attending. I don’t mean the financial costs – they’re already astronomical for gullible businesses that pay a fortune to share a fondue with Shimon Peres or George Clooney or whomever. I mean the social costs. There should be protests, boycotts, public shaming of brands that buy into Davos. If you’re a business, attending Davos should be as damaging to your reputation as running a sweatshop with child labour. | It’s nothing personal. It’s not the fault of the people there (not the fault of most of them, anyway). It’s the system that’s to blame – and that’s what we should attack. Yes: we should be tough on Davos, but more importantly, tough on the causes of Davos. Tough on Davos means discouraging people from being there. It’s the worst kind of racket: everyone goes because everyone else goes. Well, we should break the spell by massively increasing the costs of attending. I don’t mean the financial costs – they’re already astronomical for gullible businesses that pay a fortune to share a fondue with Shimon Peres or George Clooney or whomever. I mean the social costs. There should be protests, boycotts, public shaming of brands that buy into Davos. If you’re a business, attending Davos should be as damaging to your reputation as running a sweatshop with child labour. |
| At this point, I should probably acknowledge that I have been to Davos. And just to pre-empt some smart aleck bringing it up on Twitter, yes, it’s true that on the one occasion I went, I was manhandled and nearly arrested for walking on the road. But the authoritarianism of the Swiss police really isn’t the reason I hate Davos. I hate Davos because it represents almost – note I’m not being too sweeping here! – everything that is wrong with the world. The clue lies in what those who go actually say about it. They all give you some version of the same script: “Yes, I know it’s terrible… of course the whole thing is kind of embarrassing… everyone knows Klaus Schwab is a pompous sleazebag… but the thing is, Davos is so efficient. You can see so many useful people in one go.” | At this point, I should probably acknowledge that I have been to Davos. And just to pre-empt some smart aleck bringing it up on Twitter, yes, it’s true that on the one occasion I went, I was manhandled and nearly arrested for walking on the road. But the authoritarianism of the Swiss police really isn’t the reason I hate Davos. I hate Davos because it represents almost – note I’m not being too sweeping here! – everything that is wrong with the world. The clue lies in what those who go actually say about it. They all give you some version of the same script: “Yes, I know it’s terrible… of course the whole thing is kind of embarrassing… everyone knows Klaus Schwab is a pompous sleazebag… but the thing is, Davos is so efficient. You can see so many useful people in one go.” |
| There you have it: the reason Davos is so grotesque is not the event itself or the people who go there. It’s the underlying cause. Davos reveals, with devastating clarity, the concentration of economic and political power today. The fact that business and political leaders can, over the space of a couple of days, meet “everyone who matters” is exactly what’s wrong with it and with the world. | There you have it: the reason Davos is so grotesque is not the event itself or the people who go there. It’s the underlying cause. Davos reveals, with devastating clarity, the concentration of economic and political power today. The fact that business and political leaders can, over the space of a couple of days, meet “everyone who matters” is exactly what’s wrong with it and with the world. |
| It’s wrong that a handful of finance companies control so much of the global economy that they, their regulators and central bankers can hang out with each other so easily. It’s wrong that political power is so centralised that businesses can go to Davos and do deals with heads of government. It’s wrong that media giants (new or old) are courted for their massive global reach. | It’s wrong that a handful of finance companies control so much of the global economy that they, their regulators and central bankers can hang out with each other so easily. It’s wrong that political power is so centralised that businesses can go to Davos and do deals with heads of government. It’s wrong that media giants (new or old) are courted for their massive global reach. |
| Davos should be a call to arms to break up big companies that abuse their market power and political access to keep competitors down and out. We should champion real entrepreneurs, not grey corporate bureaucrats. | Davos should be a call to arms to break up big companies that abuse their market power and political access to keep competitors down and out. We should champion real entrepreneurs, not grey corporate bureaucrats. |
| In More Human, I described a world run by an “insular ruling elite”. Davos is its purest expression. It should be impossible for CEOs and presidents to meet “‘everyone that matters” because, well, everyone should matter. So let’s not only mock Davos when it comes around. Let’s use it as the impetus for radical democratisation: to put the levers of power in everyone’s hands, not just a few thousand in an Alpine resort. | In More Human, I described a world run by an “insular ruling elite”. Davos is its purest expression. It should be impossible for CEOs and presidents to meet “‘everyone that matters” because, well, everyone should matter. So let’s not only mock Davos when it comes around. Let’s use it as the impetus for radical democratisation: to put the levers of power in everyone’s hands, not just a few thousand in an Alpine resort. |
| Steve Hilton is CEO of Crowdpac, a political fundraising and ratings site, and David Cameron’s ex director of strategy | Steve Hilton is CEO of Crowdpac, a political fundraising and ratings site, and David Cameron’s ex director of strategy |