Davos
(Picture: Evening Standard)High-altitude Davos in the dappled spring sunshine is an unusual week for the delegates jetting in from across the globe to the World Economic Forum intended to “improve the state of the world”. Cynics are quick to note that this form of free-market liberal aspiration mixes environmental commitments to save the Polar ice cap with helicoptered hedgefunders — and an entry form which asks politely if we arrived by commercial flights (plus a long train ride from Zurich to the Alps) or via private jet. The meeting, usually held in the ski season in January, has been twice postponed in the Covid era: hence the sandals instead of snow boots this week.
Something else has changed too. Even the official communiques of the “Forum” acknowledge that this meeting has taken place “against a backdrop of deepening global frictions and fractures as a starting point for a new era of global responsibility and cooperation”. Here’s hoping. But the Davos of liberal outlook and markets is under renewed strain as a new recession and inflationary spiral reminds us of the Seventies, when the early years of Davos were dealing with the oil price shock and a divided Cold War Europe.
War in Ukraine, post-Covid anxieties over how to rebuild economies more equitably and the spectre of a possible return of Donald Trump or an avatar of his inward-looking politics haunt the meeting. There’s a more fractured mood among the elites themselves: George Soros, the grand old figure of the liberal consensus, blamed Angela Merkel (a previous favourite here) for shoring up Germany’s economic strength during her reign on the basis of “special deals” with Russia for energy supplies, which now look at best short-sighted, at worst arrogant.
Henry Kissinger, who beats Soros for age seniority aged 98, and still commanding the main stage, highlighted a coming split among allies of Ukraine — between those who agreed with President Volodymyr Zelensky’s video message that “It is very simple — Ukraine has to win” and Kissinger’s view that an embarrassing defeat for Russia in Ukraine could worsen Europe’s long-term stability.
Overall though, this has been the “Ukrainian Davos” — with wealthy figures like Victor Pinchuk funding a takeover of the Russia House to mount a war-crimes exhibition from the killing fields in Ukraine — and Russia firmly disinvited. China, too, sends far fewer guests (around 10) — partly because its Covid control has gone awry but also in a retreat from engagement. India, by contrast, is marking 75 years of independence with a huge presence.
In Kissinger’s view an embarrassing defeat for Russia in Ukraine could worsen Europe’s long-term stability
As much as this elite gathering is derided as an echo chamber, it is starting to reflect the fissures of progressive liberalism under strain and with contradictory views of what the right thing is to do to improve the “state of the world” at a time when a food crisis threatens poorer countries and the global economy is suffering shocks from blocked supply chains and galloping energy prices.
Olaf Scholz, a first timer at the meeting as new German Chancellor, turned up on Thursday to defend a mixed message on Ukraine. Others on the international A-list of influence thought it safer to stay away from the company of billionaires during a cost-of-living crisis — President Biden sent climate envoy John Kerry (a man who has racked up a generous stack of air miles saving the planet).
The traditional British Chancellor’s lunch on Tuesday in the lofty Belvedere hotel was scrapped, which is a shame since Rishi Sunak is the kind of urban, finance-savvy figure Davos warms to. Perhaps because of that and the shadow of his own difficulties with his wife’s non-dom status and the travails of Sue Gray’s report, it was quietly dropped from the schedule.
The celeb count was thinner this year which meant (sadly for me) no more encounters with Priyanka Chopra backstage, confiding that she needed to find her hairdresser “urgently”, or cheery Matt Damon in the funicular on the way up the “magic mountain”, catching up with his old Harvard roommate, the economist Jason Furman: “Man, he was the wonk of all wonks”.
I once hitched lift in a black shiny people carrier with Bono along the icy roads. In the showers and sun, we walk. Still, it would not be Davos without some fun. The “YGLs” (Young Global Leaders), anointed here as our future bosses, bopped at the Cloudflare party to the electronic duo The Chainsmokers. The classical crowd hung out with cellist Yo-Yo Ma and pianist Emanuel Ax. YouTube influencers Nas Daily on Tech and Mark Vins, whose wildlife channel has 20 million subscribers, now draw crowds as much as the older tech gurus.
Finance titans like Bank of America are still around, but Davos 2022 is also bedazzled by Blockchain digital currencies, with figureheads like former White House communications boss and New York moneyboots Anthony Scaramucci hosting his annual “wine forum” (AKA late-night party with better vintages than the others), alongside Jeff Schumacher, a blockchain entrepreneur who looks like a surfer dude and has homes in London and LA. They hope to “catalyse adoption of algorand” (which I think means aiming to link up traditional currencies and the blockchain, though crypt-language is now a jargon so dense as to require an official interpreter).
Fintech events are full to the brim, as Davos Man (and yes, still many fewer women with full-participant white badges), figure out who to back. Adena Friedman, the glamorous head of Nasdaq, tells me that the stock markets are so volatile, it is getting harder for asset managers to find low-risk bets — but for those who make inspired bets, future gains will be huge. “In the markets, there’s always the day after tomorrow,” she says.
Not everyone loves the week of late nights and 6:30 breakfast starts to discuss the fourth industrial revolution, even if they attend it regularly. Even some of the regulars seem to have had enough of the trek up a mountain in a hard-to-reach corner of Europe and room costs which go fully crazy for this one week. An acquaintance paid over £10,000 for a two-bedroom flat for five days. Two-star hotels can command over €3,000 for the week because demand is huge.
The FT business columnist Rana Foroohar grumbled, “Why do we keep putting ourselves through this charade? The idea of the 0.1 per cent saving the world has been discredited.” But I will stick my neck out for Davos, for all its absurdities and clashes of good intention and self-consciousness. It’s a place where complacent liberalism sees challenges from new generations like 30-year-old Amanda Nguyen, who founded the Rise movement in the US to reform legal rights of rape survivors after her own experience in the aftermath of an assault, and the Sudanese-US rap-poet Emi Mahmoud did an impromptu late-night turn at the Politico party.
It’s also a place where you can hear central bankers swapping notes on interest-rate rises over coffee, listen to tech stars like Kai Fu Lee reflecting on the US-China trade war but also hear a
pitch on medical psychedelics (good for treating persistent depression), artificial food cultivation and how to measure global warming in the Arctic with new devices as portable as a household tape-measure. I’m a defender too of the “serious stuff” the Forum does in between its meetings, like the launch of a new “Education 4.0” drive to accelerate education reforms across the world at a time when Covid has damaged outcomes for millions of children, government budgets are falling and philanthropists find other causes more attractive.
And at a time when conversation can feel more tribal and narrower, it’s also a place, for all its goody-two-(expensive) -shoes aspirations, where there are enough folk with new and hopeful ideas to improve the state of the battered world, even when the hurdles look daunting. So yes, it is a small and often annoying bubble of privilege to be sure. But consider the alternatives to the liberalism and economic innovation Davos stands for — there are a lot worse belief systems haunting the world. The hard part is making it work when we all return to the real world, down the magic mountain.
