The “fractured world”: Plutocrats convene in Davos amid war and great-power conflict
27 January 2018
Thousands of business executives, central bankers and world leaders gathered at the World Economic Forum this week in Davos, Switzerland. The general mood was one of apprehension over every aspect of global politics and economics, from the possibility of a financial collapse on the scale of 2008 to the threat of a new world war and the growth of social anger around the world.
Even though a typical billionaire attendee will have been nearly 20 percent richer than he was last year, and will have acquired more than a few new houses, airplanes, paintings, boats and jewels, “Davos man” was nervous.
Perhaps never in the forum’s 47-year existence has its program reflected such unease. The vapidly resolute topics of recent years, such as “Resilient Dynamism” and “The Reshaping of the World,” have been replaced with a more sober theme: “A Fractured World.”
The event’s official summary contrasts the utopian vision promoted at the turn of the century, based on the belief that “greater economic interdependence among countries, buttressed by liberal democratic institutions, would ensure peace and stability well into the new century,” with the “changed” reality that “geostrategic fissures have re-emerged on multiple fronts with wide-ranging political, economic and social consequences.”
The most serious of these fissures is the imminent threat of a war between major world powers. As the summit ended, this reality was brought home by a cover story in the Economist, published online Thursday, “The next war: The growing danger of great-power conflict.”
The article’s introductory paragraphs paint a bleak picture: “In the past 25 years war has claimed…