OPINIONISTA: Is Davos a panacea or a pretext for elitism? By Sizwe Mbele
Every year more than two thousand of the world’s most powerful business leaders, international political leaders, economists, celebrities and journalists gather at the tiny Swiss Alpine ski resort of Davos to discuss the most pressing issues facing the world.
By the late 1990s the Bretton Woods architecture of the “new world order” had left deep scars. The seclusion and predominance of the “winner takes all” principle, whether of a socioeconomic nature or eco-environmental kind, was everywhere to be seen — from rising global inequality to extreme concentrations of wealth.
To be fair, after years of warnings, most business leaders, politicians and economists seem to have got the message. Climate change and extreme weather events have rocketed to the top of the list of dangers facing the world economy, according to theAfter decades championing globalisation, the WEF now fears that rising inequality, protectionism and nationalist politics could send the world economy “sleepwalking” into another crisis.
Indeed, Oxfam’s 2018 global inequality report, released on the back of Davos in 2019, is a telling reminder that rather than pushing for systemic change, the Davos agenda only reinforces our lopsided economic reality.
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