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Unherd (19 January 2024)

Once widely considered the gathering of the elite of a future world government, the World Economic Forum is leaving a legacy of increasing irrelevance. To be sure, the snow was good; the AI art installation and occasional forays into witchcraftmay have stirred some; but the whole thing has devolved into a cocktail party for the self-important, with diminishing bearing on world politics.

The interconnected world envisioned by the WEF is disintegrating. Indeed, it has fallen victim to the resurgence of history and the rise of powers determined to return us to the glories of the Middle Ages. Davos existed in a world that believed in Francis Fukuyama’s end of history, but ended up looking a lot more like Samuel Huntington’s bleak vision in The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order. Huntington was the first to describe “Davos man”, and appears to be accurate in having predicted his demise. 

The growing irrelevance of what Adrian Wooldridge has labelled “the progressive aristocracy” can even be seen in the less than enthusiastic press coverage. Politico describes the contemporary Davos crowd as a “smart set” which “sounds dumb.” In the Wall Street Journal, Walter Russell Mead, pronounces “the humiliation of Davos man”. Even the establishmentarian Financial Times has to admit that “the hubris among the Davos set is palpable.”

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