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There are many organizations in the world where business leaders and governments work closely together. But few are\u00a0said to be as polarizing as the World Economic Forum and its founder, Klaus Schwab.<\/p>\n
On the one hand, almost every January a few thousand leading\u00a0business executives, politicians, journalists and others\u00a0flock to the miniscule alpine village of Davos-Klosters, Switzerland, for WEF\u2019s exclusive invitation-only annual meeting. TV, radio and print reporters fawn over the so-called good and the great.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The likes of Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase, and Microsoft founder Bill Gates, were both there for the event that lasted from Jan. 15-19, and both were seen on TV. On the surface, things might seem benign. But scratch the surface, and you see something quite different.<\/p>\n
“What is interesting when you look at how the WEF was started,” says Alan Mendoza, executive director of the Henry Jackson Society, a policy think tank in London, England. “It wasn\u2019t random.”<\/p>\n
ARGENTINA’S MILEI WARNS WEF TO REJECT SOCIALISM, SAYS ‘WESTERN WORLD IS IN DANGER’<\/strong><\/p>\n\n
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World Economic Forum founder Klaus Schwab speaks at Davos on Jan. 16, 2024.<\/span> (Fabrice Coffrini\/AFP via Getty Images)<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\nIn 1971, with the help of the European Commission (EC), a governmental body, Klaus Schwab, then a business professor at the University of Geneva, founded the European Management Forum and invited 450 business executives to a conference in Davos. The idea was to get European leaders to learn something about how American business works.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“You had institutional backing,” Mendoza says. “That then attracts business leaders and then politicians.”\u00a0He also thinks one of the most shocking achievements by Schwab the “scale of what he has achieved.”<\/p>\n
However, there are worries about the WEF\u2019s future after Schwab, who is 86. So far he hasn\u2019t named a successor and that in turn has the organization\u2019s backers concerned about the future of WEF, according to a 2023 Politico report.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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The Alpine resort of Davos ahead of the 54th annual meeting of the World Economic Forum, on Dec. 30, 2023.<\/span> (Fabrice Coffrini\/AFP via Getty Images)<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\nThe Politico report cites insiders as saying he\u2019s like a monarch who will stay in the job until death. In a similar way, he also employs family members in high-ranking posts within the not-for-profit organization. The report also states that insiders wouldn\u2019t talk on the record as they feared reprisals such as being banned from WEF events or even being fired just\u00a0for talking.<\/p>\n
Other insiders, both current and former employees, anonymously compare Schwab to Russia\u2019s dictator, according to a Guardian newspaper report last year. “Klaus picks his leaders using the same criteria Putin uses to pick deputies for the state duma: loyalty, guile, sex appeal,” the paper quotes one of the sources as saying. Another\u00a0source in the report called Schwab\u2019s top team “nobodies.”<\/p>\n
‘DISEASE X’: WORLD ECONOMIC FORUM CREATING CONTINGENCY PLAN FOR INFECTIOUS VIRUS OUTBREAK<\/strong><\/p>\n\n
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World Economic Forum founder Klaus Schwab listens as German Chancellor Olaf Scholz addresses the delegates in Davos, Switzerland, May 26, 2022.<\/span> (Reuters\/Arnd Wiegmann)<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\nBy 1987, it had morphed into the WEF, and from then, seemingly nothing could stop it. And that\u2019s where\u00a0critics say the first problem with WEF arrives.<\/p>\n
As the WEF has grown in popularity,\u00a0they say it looks more and more like an exclusive networking club for the mega-rich and super-powerful. “It is nothing more than an official mechanism by which cronyism can flourish,”\u00a0says Ben Habib, co-deputy leader of British political party Reform UK. “The event legitimizes cronyism.”\u00a0<\/p>\n
Others who have attended Davos, as the annual event is known, see it as a competitive event where the guests play a game of high-stakes social climbing where the winners get cushy high-paid jobs at the top of massive multinational corporations.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Facebook and Blackrock are examples of where former U.K. government ministers have taken on senior roles.\u00a0Nick Clegg, former leader of Britain\u2019s center left Lib-Dems, is now the president of global affairs at Meta. Similarly, for a while, George Osbourne, former chancellor of the exchequer (finance chief) for the U.K. government, took a role as a senior adviser to the giant U.S.-based fund management company Black Rock.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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Private jets are lined up at Zurich Kloten Airport as participants arrive for the World Economic Forum in Davos, on Jan. 18, 2024.<\/span> (Piero Cruciatti\/Anadolu via Getty Images)<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\nHabib says it\u2019s no wonder big business and top politicians are deeply in bed with each other. And it\u00a0is viewed by many as\u00a0a powerful yet unaccountable organization that doesn\u2019t reflect the needs or wants of all society. Instead, it has an invitation-only policy to the annual event.<\/p>\n
WORLD ECONOMIC FORUM TO KICK OFF IN DAVOS, SWITZERLAND WITH GLOBAL ELITES LIKELY TO FACE FLAK FOR PRIVATE JETS<\/strong><\/p>\n\n
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A logo of the World Economic Forum at its headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, Jan. 9, 2024.<\/span> (Lian Yi\/Xinhua via Getty Images)<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\nIndeed,\u00a0<\/strong>WEF has the following statement on its website: “Our activities are shaped by a unique institutional culture founded on the stakeholder theory, which asserts that an organization is accountable to all parts of society.”\u00a0<\/p>\nThe WEF didn\u2019t immediately respond to a request for comment on the seeming discrepancy between its statement about serving everyone and having an invite-only policy.<\/p>\n
“The little guy is not represented anywhere in these major international forums,” Mendoza says. The issue with WEF is its huge scale, he says. “If we have problems with [the little guy being silent], it is not a WEF problem, it’s a broader capitalism issue.”<\/p>\n
Another issue that has irked its critics\u00a0revolves around\u00a0demands\u00a0at past WEF events calling for a greener global economy and the idea of reducing the world’s use of carbon-based energy. That contrasts with the\u00a01,000\u00a0private jets\u00a0that reportedly ferried\u00a0in the big shots\u00a0this\u00a0year\u00a0for\u00a0the annual meeting,\u00a0which ended Jan. 19.\u00a0Those\u00a0<\/strong>private jets emit 10 times more carbon than commercial jetliners and 50 times more than trains.\u00a0<\/p>\nZELENSKYY MAKES URGENT CALL FOR SUPPORT AT WORLD ECONOMIC FORUM AT DAVOS<\/strong><\/p>\n\n
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Volodymyr Zelenskiy, Ukraine’s president, second right, with, from left, Steve Schwarzman, Blackstone CEO, Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase, and Lakshmi Mittal, CEO of ArcelorMittal, during a meeting with business leaders in Davos, Switzerland, on Tuesday, Jan. 16, 2024.<\/span> (Chiara Albanese\/Bloomberg via Getty Images)<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\nMendoza\u00a0notes that while a couple of decades\u00a0ago the secretive Bilderberg Group had been the\u00a0<\/strong> focal point of conspiracy theorists,\u00a0now\u00a0WEF has become a lightning rod for similar ideas.\u00a0Habib concurs, stating,\u00a0“There are many people who think Schwab controls the world. I\u2019m not one of them.” But he doesn\u2019t like the people who Schwab hangs out with. “He has embedded himself with the \u2018great and good,\u2019 but they ain\u2019t so great and ain\u2019t so good.”<\/p>\nObservers say a turning point was in\u00a02021 after the previous year\u2019s COVID-19 pandemic. It was then that the idea of “the Great Reset” took off.\u00a0“The pandemic represents a rare but narrow window of opportunity to reflect, reimagine, and reset our world to create a healthier, more equitable, and more prosperous future,”\u00a0Schwab said. And he spoke about wealth taxes.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Instead of something new and better happening in the economy, something as old as the hills manifested; The richest people got even richer, and the poor got poorer. Earlier this month, Forbes magazine found that the top five wealthiest people in the world had collectively more than doubled their wealth. These include investing guru Warren Buffett and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, U.K.-based charity Oxfam says five billion people got poorer over the same period, primarily due to surging inflation and war.<\/p>\n
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Klaus Schwab gestures during a press conference in Cologny, near Geneva, Switzerland, Jan. 10, 2017.<\/span> (Laurent Gillieron\/Keystone via AP)<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\nCLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP<\/strong><\/p>\nThe WEF didn\u2019t respond immediately to Fox News Digital’s request for comment on the huge global wealth shift.<\/p>\n
Mendoza wonders why WEF doesn’t fight back on its poor public image. “You have to ask, is there any sense that it continues with this negative image?” he says. “I\u00a0am\u00a0not sure it is a sensible place for anyone to want to be.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n[ad_2]\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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