Andrew Gavin Marshall Transnational Institute
Bill Clinton, a regular participant, next to Klaus Schwab, the US-influenced Swiss worm that founded the organization and accelerated the American infection of Europe.
[dropcap]T[/dropcap]he annual gathering in Davos has certainly cemented the power of a tiny global elite, but its real power has been as a spawning ground for neoliberalism’s major advances – the rise of the financial sector, the spread of corporate trade agreements and the integration of emerging economic powers into the global economy.
CLICK ON IMAGES TO EXPAND TO MAX. RESOLUTION
Some figures, like Pres. Putin, are forced to attend, in their quality of heads of state in the current world, but it’s clear he looks uncomfortable, if not miserable.
Madame Lagarde is without a doubt one of the slimiest technocrats in the service of the global plutocracy, starting with her tenure at the IMF. Many misguided burgo feminists see in her, as they see in Condi Rice and Hillary Clinton, a triumph for their gender.
.
WEF’s beginnings
Indeed, the World Economic Forum’s main purpose is to function as a socializing institution for the emerging global elite, globalization’s “Mafiocracy” of bankers, industrialists, oligarchs, technocrats, [courtiers, celebrities], and politicians. They promote common ideas, and serve common interests: their own.
Geopolitics and Global Governance
.
.
Of great significance also was the attendance of Nelson Mandela, the new president of South Africa. When Mandela was released from prison in 1990, he declared the policy of the African National Congress (ANC) was to implement “the nationalization of the mines, banks and monopoly industries.” When Mandela attended the January 1992 meeting of the WEF just after becoming president, he changed his views and embraced “capitalism and globalization.”
The arrival of the Davos Class
[The Davos Class] “have little need for national loyalty, view national boundaries as obstacles that are thankfully vanishing, and see national governments as residues from the past whose only useful function is to facilitate the elite’s global operations.” (Samuel Huntington)
In 1997, the highly influential U.S. political scientist Samuel Huntington coined the term “Davos Man,” which he described as a group of elite individuals who “have little need for national loyalty, view national boundaries as obstacles that are thankfully vanishing, and see national governments as residues from the past whose only useful function is to facilitate the elite’s global operations.”
.
An article that year in The Economist came to the defense of the “Davos Man,” declaring that he was replacing traditional diplomacy which was “more likely to bring peoples together than to force them apart,” noting that the WEF was “paid for by companies and run in their interests.”
.
Russian Oligarchs and the Rise of China
Hillary Clinton warmly welcomed by WEF’s host, Klaus Schwab. She certainly belongs in this exclusive club.
Davos and the Financial Oligarchy
Goldman Sachs.. was “renowned for hosting one of the hottest parties at the World Economic Forum’s glittering annual meeting in Davos”
.
.
A home for a global elite
Davos and “Trade”
The World Economic Forum in a World of Unrest
Protesters assembled outside held signs reading, “You are the Crisis.”
In the wake of the financial crisis, the WEF meeting in 2009 drew hundreds of protesters to Davos and Geneva where they were met by riot police using tear gas and water cannons. Inside the Forum meeting, French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde warned the assembled leaders, “We’re facing two major risks: one is social unrest and the second is protectionism.” She noted that the task before the Davos Class was “to restore confidence in the systems and confidence at large.” Protesters assembled outside held signs reading, “You are the Crisis.”
.
.
[box] Andrew Gavin Marshall is an independent researcher and writer based in Montreal, Canada. He is Project Manager of The People’s Book Project, head of the Geopolitics Division of the Hampton Institute, Research Director for Occupy.com’s Global Power Project and hosts a weekly podcast show at BoilingFrogsPost. [/box]