This article is taken from the February 2023 issue of The Critic. To get the full magazine why not subscribe? Right now we’re offering five issues for just £10.

So Davos is back. After three years of virtual boondoggling by the time you read this, the World Economic Forum will have returned to its traditional winter slot atop the Magic Mountain. And the unpalatable truth is that the world needs networking events for the Moncler gilet-wearing classes more than ever — but for none of the reasons trotted out by WEF’s pious cheerleaders.

A resilient system for converting cash into respectability

I will explain why in a moment. First, some context. If there is one thing worse than having to go to Davos, it is admitting that you’re not going to Davos — and all the FOMO that comes with that. Klaus Schwab continues to persist with his absurd Community of Chairmen, where he assembles the geriatric gnomes of European finance for long lectures on good governance. 

But Davos is really a younger chap’s game. The pavements are too treacherous for brittle bones, and the washrooms are too scattered for enlarged prostates. So, I am sitting this one out.

However, do not shed a tear. I can still enjoy my memories: throwing snowballs at Paul Polman outside the Schatzalp; frolicking with the money honeys on the dance floor of the Piano Bar; and the high-altitude hangovers that can only be eased by kaffee und kuchen at Schneider’s (back in the days before it got bought out for the week by the Indian IT consultants).

Every year the naysayers claim the days of Davos are numbered. But every year, old Klaus seems to prove them wrong, by hooking a Trump, a Xi or a Modi as a keynote speaker. There is always a hot young rapper or supermodel to freshen up the Bono and Richard Curtis-era roster of Davos celebrities. And every year more arriviste oligarchs from central Asia queue up to replace the blue-chip Western CEOs who have tired of the game. The World Economic Forum, like the English public schools, is a resilient system for converting cash into respectability.

That’s all precious time better spent figuring out how to sell more stuff

However, at a more profound level, Davos has failed — and it has been failing every year since it was founded in 1971. Decades before lazy sub-editors came up with the first “woke capitalism” headlines, WEF has been preaching the gospel that business is better when it spends more time talking to society. At a prosaic level, who could argue with this? Intrusive regulators, bureaucrats and reporters, of course, are all part of the price of doing business. But, in the world of WEF, “stakeholder engagement” has been elevated into a corporate cult, and this can lead to some rather perverse outcomes.

Take the cost of going to Davos itself. An entry-level package can easily climb well into eight figures, once you fully load it with the branded premises on the Promenade, the hydrogen-powered S-Classes, the flunkeys — and the flunkeys for the flunkeys.

Then there is the week it knocks out of the calendar of your executive committee — actually it’s more like three weeks. Such is the fretfulness caused by the anticipation of Davos, no real work gets done during most of the month of January. That’s all precious time better spent figuring out how to sell more stuff.

And there’s the pointless entanglements with all the spivs selling you services you don’t need, who pop up from behind every table on the cocktail circuit. One of the annual fixtures which kicks off the Davos week is the publication of the Edelman Trust Barometer. Every year Richard Edelman tells us that — quelle surprise! — people don’t trust CEOs very much. 

Capitalism can still be saved, but only if we capitalists believe in ourselves

“What shall we do?” cry the CEOs. “Don’t worry,” Richard might say. “I am the doyen of reputation management and I can help, but first you need to put me on a retainer.” Calm down, dears. The mainstream media have little cared for businessmen since the 1390s, when in The Pardoner’s Tale, Chaucer delivered his libellous take-down of a striving entrepreneur. (What is the Innocent Smoothie if not a secular version of the medieval indulgence?)

Cannier operators have always understood that there is more money to be made by betting against Davos. It is a rumour so often repeated it must be true that US hedge funds pay pretty researchers just to hang out in the bar of the Belvedere. 

Sooner or later some hapless chief of staff, tongue loosened by the expansive spirit of the age and tepid Taittinger, sits down and inadvertently spills the beans on his company’s strategic weaknesses. A quick message from the researcher back to New York and the short-selling begins as soon as the Asian markets open.

Still, there is a role for a forum which convenes us members of the Point One Per Cent Club. But this would be an event that keeps out the needy politicians, the virtue-signalling celebrities, and the frightful consultants. We would all gather in a place where the people really understand that business is business. I don’t know, maybe a bazaar in Casablanca or an opencast mine in Western Australia. 

One of us would read a little Milton Friedman, in particular that bit where he says: “There is one and only one social responsibility of business — to use its resources and engage in activities designed to increase its profits so long as it stays within the rules of the game.” 

Then maybe we would have some dinner, and … well I haven’t worked out the rest of the programme, but you get the gist. Capitalism can still be saved, but only if we capitalists believe in ourselves.