North Rhine-Westphalia: World Economic Forum: Why the rich and powerful meet in Davos
As of: 01/18/2023 6:10 p.m
Davos – the political and business elite meet in a small Swiss mountain town. On Wednesday also with Scholz and Selenskyj. Why is that? And what about the “enemy” World Economic Forum?
Business leaders, politicians and other rich and powerful people will meet in the Swiss winter sports resort of Davos until Friday for the World Economic Forum 2023. Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) and British President Volodymyr Zelenskyj will also speak there on Wednesday.
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Why this meeting? Why Davos of all places? And what is the truth behind the accusation that the economic elite there has a great influence on the fate of the world in backrooms beyond democratic processes? Questions and answers.
What actually happens at the World Economic Forum?
“The forum brings together the leaders of politics, business, culture and other sectors of society to shape global, regional and industrial agendas.” That’s exactly how the World Economic Forum describes itself. This time, 2,700 participants quickly registered – more than ever before.
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The World Economic Forum not only organizes the annual meeting of the same name in Davos. It is also a lobbying organization based in Cologny near Geneva with offices in Beijing, New York and Tokyo.
“The more than 1,000 member companies pay an annual fee of 60,000 francs,” writes the journalist Jürgen Dunsch in his 2016 book “Hosts of the Mighty”. There is also a fee for the company representatives traveling to Davos – at the time, according to Dunsch, it was 27,000 euros. Politicians and guests do not pay a fee.
The motto of the 2023 meeting is “Working together in a fragmented world”. Specifically, the topics covered include:
- Geopolitics – especially Russia’s war of aggression and possible tank deliveries to Ukraine
- Inflation and looming recession
- Energy and food crisis versus climate protection
- labor market and skills shortage
Why does the elite meet in Davos of all places?
This is mainly for organizational reasons, which go back to the initial phase. Klaus Schwab, founder of the World Economic Forum and still executive chairman at the age of 84, is German by birth. But he has partly Swiss ancestors. He knows Davos from his childhood. He learned to ski there when he was ten, Schwab said.
Klaus Schwab, founder of the World Economic Forum
Image: ap/Markus Schreiber
During the founding phase of the forum, Schwab was a professor of economics at the Center d’Etudes Industrielles in Geneva and was supposed to organize an event for its anniversary in 1971. His idea: an international manager meeting, the European Management Symposium, which was the name of the World Economic Forum until 1987.
The municipality of Davos, located at 1,560 meters in the middle of the Alps, was also the location for the event because the congress center had opened there shortly before and the location had sufficient hotel capacities.
What is also appreciated about Davos as the venue of the World Economic Forum is its remote location. In addition, the municipality, which has around 11,000 inhabitants, is located in the middle of Switzerland, which is considered a neutral country.
Bogeyman World Economic Forum: Is that justified?
In Davos, the world’s economic and political elite not only talk to each other in large panel discussions, but above all in the so-called back room, i.e. in small groups. Are democratic processes bypassed in this way? To put it bluntly, do “those up there” decide in Davos about the fate “of us down here”?
Jan Rathje, political scientist
Image: WDR
Criticism of the rulers and powerful is important for liberal democracies, said political scientist Jan Rathje from the Center for Monitoring, Analysis and Strategy, which examines radicalization tendencies and conspiracy narratives on the Internet. However, they cannot reduce the complexity of events to such an extent that it can only be a matter of a conspiracy of elites.
The influence of the World Economic Forum on concrete political decisions “may certainly be great,” Rathje said on Monday WDR. But it’s not “how conspiracy ideologues imagine the world to be”. “It’s not the case that there’s just gross manipulation going on there, but that there’s a competition between interests.” It’s “a very complex process”, which, however, “should definitely also be monitored critically”.
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Source: wdr.de