From Vanity Fair, January 18, 2022:
“He Has an Incredible Knack to Smell the Next Fad”
The überrich flock annually to the World Economic Forum, where they can schmooze and strike deals under the guise of saving the world. A new book reveals how its founder benefits from this gathering of the global elite.
Klaus Schwab, the ringmaster of festivities at the World Economic Forum in Davos, has been known to tell underlings that he anticipates one day receiving a Nobel Peace Prize.
In a surprise to no one else, Oslo has yet to ring.
Schwab’s greatest accomplishment is decidedly entrepreneurial. He has developed the Forum from an earnest meeting of policy wonks into a glittering assembly of the world’s richest people. He has achieved this by ingratiating himself with those who wield power, and especially the billionaire class—a tribe known as Davos Man. Schwab has constructed a refuge for the outlandishly wealthy, an exclusive zone where they are free to pursue deals and sundry shenanigans while enjoying the cover of participating in a virtuous undertaking. Their mere presence in Davos at the Forum signals their empathy and sensitivity.
In the prevailing pantomime, Davos Man is intent on channeling his intellect and compassion toward solving the great crises of the age. He might have retreated to his mountaintop palace in Jackson Hole or his yacht moored off Mykonos, but he is too obsessed with rescuing the poor and sparing humanity from the ravages of climate change. So he is in Davos—paying fees reaching several hundred thousands of dollars a year for a Forum membership, plus tens of thousands more per head to attend the meeting—posing for photos with Bono, congratulating Bill Gates on his philanthropic exploits, tweeting out inspirational quotes from Deepak Chopra, and still finding time to buttonhole that sovereign wealth chieftain from Abu Dhabi in pursuit of investment for his luxury-goods mall in Singapore.
For the billionaires, participation in Schwab’s charade may be proffered as evidence that they adhere to the ubiquitous slogan of the Forum itself: Committed to Improving the State of the World.
In truth, Davos Man has pillaged the global economy, exploiting workers, plundering housing and health care, and dismantling government programs while transferring the bounty to his personal bank accounts tucked in jurisdictions beyond the reach of any pain-in-the-ass tax collector. The resulting inequality constitutes a potent threat to peace, a source of mass grievance that has helped propel anti-democratic populists to prominence around much of the globe.
Yet the fact that Schwab appears to believe in his credentials as a moral figure worthy of a Nobel speaks to his faith in the effectiveness of his creation. Like the people he gathers annually in the Alps—or at least virtually during the pandemic—Schwab is an exemplar of the force of pious words as prophylactic against the consequences of unsavory deeds.
A dour economist with ramrod-straight posture, Schwab speaks forcefully and slowly, in a thick German accent bordering on farcical, as if every word is among the most meaningful uttered in history.
Born in 1938, he came of age in Europe’s postwar reconstruction. He convened the first meeting in Davos—then known as the European Management Forum—in 1971, drawing 450 participants.
In recent years, 3,000 people have jammed the proceedings in Davos. The event has exhausted the meager supply of hotel rooms, forcing grown professionals to share glorified dorm spaces in barebones chalets for upward of $400 a night, or otherwise commute from neighboring villages while relying on Forum shuttle buses whose schedules appear as closely guarded as North Korean nuclear launch codes....
....MUCH MORE
The last time I tried to introduce the "underlings" konzept I got a lot of pushback.
