Changing the world: Why Davos is Part of the Problem

The world is facing multiple challenges and needs to undergo a profound transformation. We believe that the key to initiating these transformations is for the world’s leaders, aware of the stakes and with the means to act, to come together and agree. A forum like Davos seems ideal for this. It’s a very naive belief, and it’s highly problematic. It’s time to rethink.

The ritual is unchangeable. At the end of January, the Important Man lands on his private jet in the small Swiss town of Davos to attend the World Economic Forum (WEF). He gives a speech about the need to make sacrifices in order to face the immense problems we face, gives the parables of virtue expected by a watchful audience, and regrets that people are not as aware of the issues at stake. When the speech is over, the Important Man attends a few workshops, holds a press conference, shakes a few hands, especially those of the Chinese representative (because that’s useful), and then gets back on his plane. Is this the way to solve problems? Not according to Kevin Roberts, president of the conservative Heritage Foundation. In his highly unconventional speech, he pulls no punches: “You are part of the problem,” he tells the participants. “The elite, of which you are a part, spends its time saying that reality is X when reality is Y.” This disconnect from reality is indeed problematic.

There is no doubt that there are big problems. The question is how to solve them. In The Scholar and the Politician, the sociologist Max Weber approached the question of action by distinguishing two ethics: the ethics of conviction, or idealism, and the ethics of responsibility. He wrote: “There is a profound contrast between the attitude of one who acts according to the maxims of the ethic of conviction-in religious language we would say: ‘The Christian does his duty and leaves the result of his action to God’-and the attitude of one who acts according to the ethic of responsibility, which says: ‘We must answer for the foreseeable consequences of our actions.

Idealism means doing everything to prohibit or impose something without considering the consequences, because only conviction counts and every end justifies the means; the ethic of responsibility means never deciding without considering the consequences; it even means working primarily on the basis of consequences; for example, prohibiting something only if we know what will replace it, or moving in a direction by compromising with all the parties concerned. The ethic of responsibility is at the heart of parliamentary democracy. Idealism, of course, is faster, purer, and easier to sell: ban or impose, and that’s it: victory! Never mind the consequences.

And these consequences are sometimes very important. Agriculture is a good example: for several years now, we’ve been multiplying regulations and standards, always for good and noble reasons: animal welfare, protection of the planet, human health, and so on. But for the farmer, the result is an accumulation of constraints that make life more difficult and, above all, less profitable. The ultimate consequence: the gradual disappearance of agriculture as a business. Is this really what we wanted? In the housing sector, the same mechanisms are at work: the proliferation of standards in the name of safety and the environment makes real estate considerably more expensive, if not unrentable or unsaleable. The result: a collapse in the supply of housing, with serious problems for the population. A ticking time bomb. We could go on and on about the disastrous effects of idealism.

Skin in the game

But there is a deeper problem, which the “Man from Davos” illustrates very well. The problem is that the idealist does not bear, or is not able to bear, the cost of what he imposes. In other words, he can adorn himself with his virtue – I’m saving the world – because he passes the cost of that virtue on to others, in this case hoi polloi, the people. The man from Davos doesn’t even notice that his tank of gas costs him ten euros more. He hardly looks at the price of his 49-euro log at his favorite patisserie. He can ride his bike from home to work because he lives and works in the center of Paris (the city of the fifteen minutes, that’s for him), and he rails against the beggar who drives fifteen kilometers to work in his old 1983 diesel. The man from Davos lives in a world of ideas and principles, ruled by virtue. To use Nassim Taleb’s phrase, he has no skin in the game on these issues; it’s always other people’s skin, those who have no say in the matter and whom he despises.

Except that they do have a say, and the sense of injustice is deeply rooted. Which brings us back to Kevin Roberts. In his speech, Roberts welcomes the imminent victory of a Republican candidate in the US presidential election, and very clearly hopes that Trump will be that candidate who will somehow set things right. And therein lies the tragedy. The Man from Davos, with his uncompromising idealism and aristocratic contempt for the people, is the objective ally of Donald Trump and all the populists of the world. You only have to listen to his voters to understand how desperate hoi polloi are with their moral teachers. Their backs are against the wall, and he’s the only way out. Only a return to the ethic of responsibility to lead the necessary transformations would make it possible to avoid this populist counterrevolution, but it may already be too late.

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🇫🇷 French version of this article here.