‘Davos Man’ exists — but is he still in charge?
There’s an interesting distinction to be made between Davos and the G-20. The Davos agenda is much more coherent. That’s largely a matter of self-selection — the people who come to Davos are largely folk that accept/support a Western-led globalization model and the values that accompany it. So, you get lots of talk about support for ...
There's an interesting distinction to be made between Davos and the G-20. The Davos agenda is much more coherent. That's largely a matter of self-selection -- the people who come to Davos are largely folk that accept/support a Western-led globalization model and the values that accompany it. So, you get lots of talk about support for open borders and concern about immigration policy, lots of support for free trade, much worry about the threat of protectionism.
There’s an interesting distinction to be made between Davos and the G-20. The Davos agenda is much more coherent. That’s largely a matter of self-selection — the people who come to Davos are largely folk that accept/support a Western-led globalization model and the values that accompany it. So, you get lots of talk about support for open borders and concern about immigration policy, lots of support for free trade, much worry about the threat of protectionism.
There are guests who don’t share the agenda, some of whom are a seriously big deal, largely to be assessed/engaged by the WEF community. And there are some appointed gadflies here to stimulate debate. But it’s a very coherent/cohesive group; there’s really something to the whole "Davos man" (and yes, largely still men, different debate) thing.
But the world increasingly doesn’t reflect that. Which provides a backdrop of very serious uncertainty to the pervasive economic optimism that’s infusing the place. How long is the U.S. dollar able to remain the world’s reserve currency? How long can the West attract the world’s top talent? What happens as the leverage continues to decrease and the players making the key decisions affecting the world (even while not leading it) no longer share the same values in the halls of Davos?
For this year, at least so far, there are no answers to those questions. But they’re not going to go away.
* * *
I bumped into my colleague David Rubenstein, the Carlyle founder, this morning. The biggest surprise for him is that nobody was interested in blaming the business community for anything this year. True enough.
I asked whether he was surprised about the underlying optimism from the business community, given how much of the global economic burden in the West has just been shifted to the shoulders of the public sector. He said he was amazed anybody’s still buying U.S. Treasuries. A stronger response than I expected. But directionally what I was wondering about.
Ian Bremmer is the president of Eurasia Group and GZERO Media. He is also the host of the television show GZERO World With Ian Bremmer. Twitter: @ianbremmer
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