Davos: the globalist dystopia of the transnational capitalist class
The WEF's power is simply a manifestation of the power of the “superclass” it represents
Hi, I’ve got a new piece out about the WEF’s annual get-together, which begins today in Davos:
Thousands of the world’s global elite are convening in Davos this morning for their most important annual get-together: the meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF). Alongside heads of state from all over the world, the CEOs of Amazon, BlackRock, JPMorgan Chase, Pfizer and Moderna will gather, as will the President of the European Commission, the IMF’s Managing Director, the secretary general of Nato, the chiefs of the FBI and MI6, the publisher of The New York Times, and, of course, the event’s infamous host — founder and chairman of the WEF, Klaus Schwab. As many as 5,000 soldiers may be deployed for their protection.
Given the almost cartoonishly elitist nature of this jamboree, it seems only natural that the organisation has become the subject of all sorts of conspiracy theories regarding its supposed malicious intent and secret agendas connected to the notion of the “Great Reset”. In truth, there is nothing conspiratorial about the WEF, to the extent that conspiracies imply secrecy. On the contrary, the WEF — unlike, say, the Bilderberg — is very open about its agenda: you can even follow the live-streamed sessions online.
Founded in 1971 by Schwab himself, the WEF is “committed to improving the state of the world through public-private cooperation”, also known as multistakeholder governance. The idea is that global decision-making should not be left to governments and nation-states — as in the post-war multilateralist framework enshrined in the United Nations — but should involve a whole range of non-government stakeholders: civil society bodies, academic experts, media personalities and, most important, multinational corporations. In its own words, the WEF’s project is “to redefine the international system as constituting a wider, multifaceted system of global cooperation in which intergovernmental legal frameworks and institutions are embedded as a core, but not the sole and sometimes not the most crucial, component”.
While this may sound fairly benign, it neatly encapsulates the basic philosophy of globalism: insulating policy from democracy by transferring the decision-making process from the national and international level, where citizens theoretically are able to exercise some degree of influence over policy, to the supranational level, by placing a self-selected group of unelected, unaccountable “stakeholders” — mainly corporations — in charge of global decisions concerning everything from energy and food production to the media and public health.
You can read the rest of the article over at UnHerd.
Best regards,
Thomas Fazi
Website: thomasfazi.net
Twitter: @battleforeurope
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thomasfazi
Here in Holland there's a lot of conspiracy theorizing about the WEF precisely for the reasons you mention in your piece; apparently a very large contingent of our pols have flown to Davos, along with (yawn) Queen Máxima, for what it's worth. So naturally Dutch Twitter is lighting up. The biggest issue is that people seem to think Klaus Schwab is exerting direct control, that he literally has the entire Dutch Cabinet, the "Schawbinet", on speed-dial. I'm sure he gets off projecting that kinda power, with his boastful talk of "penetrating" governments and all, but in some ways I think it is actually worse. Direct control would be bad enough, but at least it can be identified; worse is the pernicious influence of all these dreadful ideas that permeate entire bureaucracies, generating a kind of herd response to everything. Onkel Klaus isn't calling Mark Rutte and telling him to go after the farmers; it is, as I see it, the result of plans hatched years ago that slowly percolate downward through the highly insular EU and national bureaucracies and are never subject to genuine free and open public scrutiny. They really do think they know better. To put it in slightly different terms, Putin could fire a Kinzal at Davos and take the whole crowd out, but it wouldn't change one bit the anti-democratic, technocratic, neoliberal mentality that permeates the Hague and other national governments. This isn't to diminish in any way the malign influence of the WEF and whatever creepy agendas that gang may be pursuing. Great article!