Donald Trump, the New Davos Man |
At the turn of this millennium, when political scientist Samuel Huntington coined the metaphor Davos Man, he could hardly have imagined a moment when an American President would arrive in Davos only to demolish the very idea he developed.
Addressing the annual gathering of the world’s most powerful executives at the World Economic Forum (WEF) in the Swiss ski resort on Tuesday, US President Donald Trump effectively wiped-out Huntington’s notion of Davos Man. In its place, he crowned himself the New Davos Man.
What Huntington meant
When Huntington introduced this metaphor in 2004, it carried a very different meaning. Davos Man represented a class of CEOs and global elites who assembled every year at Davos to debate development through a corporate lens. Those associated with the WEF believed that national borders were obstacles to growth and that the world needed to be unshackled from them.
With diminishing loyalty to their own nations, these elites argued that national governments were outdated and largely irrelevant in an increasingly globalised world. They claimed that private capital, corporate expertise, and philanthropy could build infrastructure, reduce inequality, and deliver progress more efficiently than governments.
Goodman and Davos Man
Two decades into the 21st century, the Covid pandemic put these claims to the test. In the post-Covid period, American business journalist Peter S. Goodman published a book titled Davos Man, offering a sharp critique of the borderless billionaire class.
Goodman questioned their assertion that they could solve global problems such as climate change. Their........