Below is an excerpt from my forthcoming book…
© Mahabodhi Burton
10 minute read
This excerpt is from Chapter 4: ‘Postmodernism and the academic mindset’ and follows on from the history of Cultural Marxism.
The World Economic Forum
Today, one of the foremost organisations which promotes a globalist—and more recently a woke—agenda is the World Economic Forum (WEF.) Headquartered in Geneva, and holding its annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland, the WEF describes itself as ‘an international not-for-profit organization focused on promoting cooperation between the public and private sectors. Founded in 1971 by German economist Klaus Schwab, WEF seeks to foster a spirit of collaborative entrepreneurship to address global issues and shape governmental, industry, and social agendas.’[1] Since the adoption of its new manifesto in 2020,
‘ … [the] WEF is formally guided by stakeholder capitalism, which posits that a corporation should deliver value not only to shareholders but to all those who have a stake in the destiny of the company, including employees, society, and the planet. Its goals include a commitment to “improve the state of the world.”’[2]
According to the Transnational Institute (TNI) think tank, the WEF ‘began in 1971 as the European Management Forum, … [then] changed its name in 1987 to the World Economic Forum after growing into an annual get together of global elites who promoted and profited off of the expansion of “global markets.” It is the gathering place for the titans of corporate and financial power.’’[3]
The annual meetings at Davos ‘are a means to promote social connections between key global power players and national leaders along with the plutocratic class of corporate and financial oligarchs.’[4] The WEF has been ‘a consistent forum for advanced “networking” and deal-making between companies, occasional geopolitical announcements and agreements, and for the promotion of “global governance” in a world governed of global markets.’[5]
TNI calls it ‘a socializing institution for the emerging global elite, globalization’s “Mafiocracy” of bankers, industrialists, oligarchs, technocrats and politicians. They promote common ideas and serve common interests: their own.’[6]
Davos
McKinsey and Company website says: ‘Davos, Switzerland, is where the World Economic Forum holds its annual meeting. Delegates from many sectors converge for several days of talks and meetings to address urgent global issues.’[7]
‘A highly curated selection of delegates from global business, government, civil society, media, and academia converges on this Swiss town to attend sessions designed to spark fruitful discussions around the most pressing issues of the day—and ultimately drive impact. But Davos isn’t just about the keynotes. The meeting is also famous for the networking and socializing that goes on in the corridors, side rooms, hotel suites, and restaurants of the Alpine town.’[8]
‘Some 2,500 delegates and hundreds of others go to Davos during the five-day meeting, making it perhaps the largest gathering of global decision makers all year.’ [9] One McKinsey senior partner described the meeting as ‘business speed dating on steroids.’ In 2020, WEF issued a new Davos Manifesto to guide companies in the age of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. The manifesto states that:
‘a company should “pay its fair share of taxes,” show “zero tolerance for corruption,” uphold human rights throughout its global supply chain, and advocate for a competitive, level playing field.’[10]
However, Nick Buxton voices concerns about Davos and the dangers to democracy:
‘It’s an all-too-easy event to mock. It’s hard to keep a straight face when the world’s rich arrive annually in their private jets to the luxury ski-resort of Davos to express their deep concern about growing poverty, inequality and climate change. US comedian Jon Stewart has labelled the World Economic Forum (WEF) the ‘money oscars’ and lampooned the media’s giddy sycophantic coverage of the event; Bono, himself a regular at the summit, jokes that it is a summit of ‘fat cats in the snow’.
‘This year will be no different. 2500 corporate executives, politicians and a few Hollywood stars are expected to descend this week on Davos to discuss both the growing jitters about the faltering global economy as well as pontificate on the official theme of the conference, namely the “fourth industrial revolution” (Think robots, AI and self-driving cars.)’[11]
The Fourth Industrial Revolution
The Fourth Industrial Revolution is a term Klaus Schwab popularized in 2015; and wrote a book about in 2016.[12] This is the entry he wrote for the Encyclopedia Britannica in 2018:
‘The Fourth Industrial Revolution heralds a series of social, political, cultural, and economic upheavals that will unfold over the 21st century. Building on the widespread availability of digital technologies that were the result of the Third Industrial, or Digital, Revolution, the Fourth Industrial Revolution will be driven largely by the convergence of digital, biological, and physical innovations.
’Like the First Industrial Revolution’s steam-powered factories, the Second Industrial Revolution’s application of science to mass production and manufacturing, and the Third Industrial Revolution’s start into digitization, the Fourth Industrial Revolution’s technologies, such as artificial intelligence, genome editing, augmented reality, robotics, and 3-D printing, are rapidly changing the way humans create, exchange, and distribute value. As occurred in the previous revolutions, this will profoundly transform institutions, industries, and individuals. More importantly, this revolution will be guided by the choices that people make today: the world in 50 to 100 years from now will owe a lot of its character to how we think about, invest in, and deploy these powerful new technologies.
’It’s important to appreciate that the Fourth Industrial Revolution involves a systemic change across many sectors and aspects of human life: the crosscutting impacts of emerging technologies are even more important than the exciting capabilities they represent. Our ability to edit the building blocks of life has recently been massively expanded by low-cost gene sequencing and techniques such as CRISPR; artificial intelligence is augmenting processes and skill in every industry; neurotechnology is making unprecedented strides in how we can use and influence the brain as the last frontier of human biology; automation is disrupting century-old transport and manufacturing paradigms; and technologies such as blockchain, used in executing cryptocurrency transactions, and smart materials are redefining and blurring the boundary between the digital and physical worlds.’[13]
Transhumanism, writ large: with major implications for society:
‘The result of all this is societal transformation at a global scale. By affecting the incentives, rules, and norms of economic life, it transforms how we communicate, learn, entertain ourselves, and relate to one another and how we understand ourselves as human beings. Furthermore, the sense that new technologies are being developed and implemented at an increasingly rapid pace has an impact on human identities, communities, and political structures. As a result, our responsibilities to one another, our opportunities for self-realization, and our ability to positively impact the world are intricately tied to and shaped by how we engage with the technologies of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. This revolution is not just happening to us—we are not its victims—but rather we have the opportunity and even responsibility to give it structure and purpose.’[14]
With catastrophic consequences for some:
‘As economists Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee have pointed out, this revolution could yield greater inequality, particularly in its potential to disrupt labour markets. As automation substitutes for labour across the entire economy, the net displacement of workers by machines might exacerbate the gap between returns to capital and returns to labour. On the other hand, it is also possible that the displacement of workers by technology will, in aggregate, result in a net increase in safe and rewarding jobs.’[15]
Schwab admits to how societal inequality is often caused by technological innovation; we can only think of the suffering of the Lancashire mill workers and the Luddites: so oppressed by their working conditions, they were driven to ‘throw a spanner in the works:’
‘All previous industrial revolutions have had both positive and negative impacts on different stakeholders. Nations have become wealthier, and technologies have helped pull entire societies out of poverty, but the inability to fairly distribute the resulting benefits or anticipate externalities has resulted in global challenges.[16]
His next section is somewhat ironic, given everything revealed in the Twitter Files; Russiagate; the suppression of conservative voices on social media; the closure of the bank accounts of those supporting the Canadian truckers; vaccine mandates; and the concerted misinformation campaign by legacy media during the pandemic:
‘By recognizing the risks, whether cybersecurity threats, misinformation on a massive scale through digital media, potential unemployment, or increasing social and income inequality, we can take the steps to align common human values with our technological progress and ensure that the Fourth Industrial Revolution benefits human beings first and foremost.’[17]
Schwab continues:
‘We cannot foresee at this point which scenario is likely to emerge from this new revolution. However, I am convinced of one thing—that in the future, talent, more than capital, will represent the critical factor of production.[18]
Tell that to Elon Musk, currently under pressure from the US government to employ illegal immigrants at SpaceX.[19] Notice that Schwab doesn’t say ‘ethics’ but ‘talent:’ so flattering to the youthful world leaders attending the WEF, who see themselves as destined to ‘change the world;’ and who are not going to let the small matter of a convoy of Canadian truckers get in the way of progress. Schwab continues:
‘The Fourth Industrial Revolution is therefore not a prediction of the future but a call to action. It is a vision for developing, diffusing, and governing technologies in ways that foster a more empowering, collaborative, and sustainable foundation for social and economic development, built around shared values of the common good, human dignity, and intergenerational stewardship. Realizing this vision will be the core challenge and great responsibility of the next 50 years.’[20]
Nick Buxton continues:
‘The real concern about the WEF, however, is not the personal hypocrisy of its privileged delegates. It is rather that this unaccountable invitation-only gathering is increasingly where global decisions are being taken and moreover is becoming the default form of global governance. There is considerable evidence that past WEFs have stimulated free trade agreements such as NAFTA as well helped rein in regulation of Wall Street in the aftermath of the financial crisis.[21]
‘Less well known is the fact that WEF since 2009 has been working on an ambitious project called the Global Redesign Initiative (GRI,)[22] which effectively proposes a transition away from intergovernmental decision-making towards a system of multi-stakeholder governance. In other words, by stealth, they are marginalizing a recognized model where we vote in governments who then negotiate treaties which are then ratified by our elected representatives with a model where a self-selected group of “stakeholders” make decisions on our behalf.
‘Advocates of multi-stakeholder governance argue that governments and intergovernmental forums, such as the UN, are no longer efficient places for tackling increasingly complex global crises. The founder of WEF Klaus Schwab says “the sovereign state has become obsolete.”[23] WEF has created 40 Global Agenda Councils[24] and industry-sector bodies, with the belief these are the best groups of people to develop proposals and ultimately decisions related to a whole gamut of global issues from climate change to cybersecurity.
’Corporations are put at the heart of this model, because they provide in the view of Klaus Schwab and corporate elites, the possibilities of “agile” governance, drawing on the private sector’s experience of “adapting to a new, fast-changing environment.”[25] Governments are encouraged to tackle every issue by allying with private sector in public-private partnerships. And a few carefully selected civil society representatives are invited in to legitimize the process. Questions of how issues are framed, who is chosen, from what sectors, for whose benefit, and accountable to whom are brushed under the carpet.[26]’[27]
We saw such ‘corporation-centredness’ and ‘agile governance’ manifest clearly during the pandemic: the public was encouraged to blindly trust the pharmaceutical industry to take care of its interests; and the legacy media, government bodies and World Health Organisation all stepped into line behind ‘the (supposed!) science.’ All information that didn’t align with corporate interests was ‘swatted away:’ dissenting individuals easily outmanoeuvred by the agility and influence of the corporate response.
One example of how elected representatives fare, when they challenge the mainstream Covid-19 narrative, as backed by the WEF, is the case of British MP Andrew Bridgen: information as to the negative side-effects of vaccination was brought before Bridgen: and he consequently asked questions in the UK House of Parliament: but just like the Twitter Files journalists Matt Taibbi and Michael Shellenberger: who asked similar innocent questions, his character was questioned—we are talking about an MP with a 20,000 majority, and when he is purported to have compared vaccine implementation to the Holocaust, he was at first suspended; and then expelled from the Conservative Party. They weren’t even his words: what he actually tweeted was:
“As one consultant cardiologist said to me, this is the biggest crime against humanity since the Holocaust.”
Bridgen contended that he asked ‘reasonable questions’ about the side-effects of mRNA vaccines, and had ‘received huge support from ordinary people, medical workers [and] those who have experienced vaccine harms themselves;’[28] the Conservative chief whip, Simon Hart, followed the ‘conspiracy theory’ party-line:
“Andrew Bridgen has crossed a line, causing great offence in the process. Misinformation about the vaccine causes harm and costs lives.”
Bridgen continues to present evidence to the UK Parliament: he delivered a convincing speech on excess deaths, but only to a mere 20 MPs:[29] no doubt indicative of something: I will leave it to you to guess what.
The TNI article continues:
‘This elite-led model of governance is proliferating globally like a virulent rash. The World Water Forum, the Marine Stewardship Council and the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) are just three of thousands of multi-stakeholder groups. They are becoming the default option for global governance, and there is nothing in international law to stop this. What WEF is trying to do is to turn these models into a multi-stakeholder governance system. As Harris Gleckman points out, “What is ingenious and disturbing is that the WEF multi-stakeholder governance proposal does not require approval or disapproval by any intergovernmental body.[30] Absent any intergovernmental action the informal transition to multi-stakeholder governance as a , partial replacement of multilateralism can just happen.
‘This model is even having a growing impact on existing intergovernmental forums. The recent agreement at Paris COP21, so celebrated worldwide, is typical. Gone was any reference of binding agreements, such as the Kyoto Protocol agreed in 1997, or any attempt to tie actions to scientific advice let alone historic responsibility. Instead, we got voluntary ‘promises’ of action (known as Intended Nationally Determined Contributions), a call for greater private sector involvement, and a commitment to try and do better in five years’ time.[31]
‘The result is that we are increasingly entering a world where gatherings such as Davos are not laughable billionaire playgrounds, but rather the future of global governance. It is nothing less than a silent global coup d’etat.’[32]
The chapter goes on to explore The Great Reset.
[1] ‘Our Impact,’ World Economic Forum. Accessed 14 November 2022.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Andrew Marshall. ‘World Economic Forum: a history and analysis.‘ TNI. 20 January 2015.
https://www.tni.org/en/article/world-economic-forum-a-history-and-analysis
[4] Ibid.
[5] Ibid.
[6] Ibid.
[7] ‘What is Davos?’ McKinsey and Company. 9 January 2023. https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/mckinsey-explainers/what-is-davos#/
[8] Ibid.
[9] Ibid.
[10] Ibid.
[11] Nick Buxton. ‘Davos and its Danger to Democracy.’ TNI. 18 January 2016.
https://www.tni.org/en/article/davos-and-its-danger-to-democracy
[12] Klaus Schwab. The Fourth Industrial Revolution. Geneva: World Economic Forum (2016). ISBN 978-1944835002. Link to pdf from Klaus Schwab’s Wikipedia page, shared by the University of Melbourne:
[13] ‘The Fourth Industrial Revolution.’ Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/topic/The-Fourth-Industrial-Revolution-2119734
[14] Ibid.
[15] Ibid.
[16] Ibid.
[17] Ibid.
[18] Ibid.
[19] Daniel Wiessner. ‘SpaceX says US case alleging anti-immigrant bias is unconstitutional.’ Reuters. 20 September 2023. https://www.reuters.com/legal/spacex-says-us-case-alleging-anti-immigrant-bias-is-unconstitutional-2023-09-19/
[20] ‘The Fourth Industrial Revolution.’
[21] ‘World Economic Forum: a history and analysis.‘
[22] ‘Everybody’s Business: Strengthening International Cooperation in a More Interdependent World: Report of the Global Design Initiative.’ World Economic Forum.
http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_GRI_EverybodysBusiness_Report_2010.pdf
[23] ‘Power Broker.’ Forbes. 15 November 1999. https://www.forbes.com/global/1999/1115/0223108a.html
[24] ‘Global Future Councils.’ World Economic Forum. https://www.weforum.org/communities/global-future-councils/
[25] ‘The Fourth Industrial Revolution: what it means, how to respond.’ World Economic Forum. 14 January 2016. https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/01/the-fourth-industrial-revolution-what-it-means-and-how-to-respond
[26] Democracy: State of Power 2016. TNI. 18 January 2016. http://www.tni.org/stateofpower2016
[27] ‘Davos and its danger to democracy.’
[28] Andrew Bridgen. Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Bridgen
[29] ‘Parliamentary speech on excess deaths.’ Dr. John Campbell. YouTube. 20 October 2023.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=97qRUqYLNu0
[30] ‘Multi-stakeholderism: a corporate push for a new form of global governance.’ TNI. 19 January 2016.
https://www.tni.org/node/22749/
[31] Oscar Reyes. “Seven Wrinkles in the Paris Climate Deal.’ Foreign Policy in Focus. 14 December 2015.
https://fpif.org/seven-wrinkles-paris-climate-deal/
[32] ‘Davos and its danger to democracy.’
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