On the heights of Davos, a wealthy village in the canton of Graubünden, in the far east of Switzerland, a huge hotel dating from 1900 dominates the resort. It was in these alpine heights that Thomas Mann drew the landscape of his magic mountain. On the eve of the First World War, a young engineer from Hamburg discovers the lives of the “people from above”, these large, reclusive citizens who constantly oscillate between the dream of the Enlightenment and the awareness of an inevitable doom.
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Davos has lost none of the poisonous charm that Thomas Mann describes. Every year the people from above return to haunt the place, to sympathize with the misery of the world… and to do good business. Since its founding in 1971 by Klaus Schwab and its transformation into the World Economic Forum in 1987, it has brought together the elite from business and politics for a week.
This year, from Monday, January 15th to Friday, January 19th, almost 2,800 business people, intellectuals and politicians will meet to talk about the progress of the world. Since its founding in the 1990s and 2000s, the forum has symbolized the rise of a world without borders, pacified by soft trade, in which politicians and merchants worked in the same direction.
“Social divisions”
We believed that the principle of this forum was surpassed by the three events that have shaken global capitalism in five years: the Sino-American confrontation, the health crisis and the war in Ukraine. The fire has been smoldering for a long time, but is now spreading. “We face a fragmented world and increasing social divisions, leading to widespread uncertainty and pessimism. “We have to rebuild trust,” welcomes Klaus Schwab. Davos tries to hold together the bonds of a severely frayed fabric. And for those who doubt the interest and success of a demonstration at the end of the race, the 85-year-old professor lists the impressive list of bosses and politicians who have once again made their way to the Graubünden train station.
On Wednesday, January 17, we will meet a Chinese Prime Minister, his counterparts from South Korea, Vietnam, Spain, Ireland and the Netherlands, an American Secretary of State, a President of the European Commission, a newly elected Argentine President, a defeated Poland, among others Presidents and Emirs from the Gulf, Africa, Israel. A form of “Business United Nations”. With less protocol.
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The only notable absentee is Russia, which is ostracized by Europe and the United States. The Ukrainian enemy will be very present in the person of its President Volodymyr Zelensky. Emmanuel Macron will also make the trip, flanked, in the absence of ministers, by the presidents of four French regions (including Valérie Pécresse, President (Les Républicains) of Ile-de-France) and around twenty start-up bosses to praise the attractiveness of the country in this prestigious year marked by the Olympic Games in Paris.
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