Davos Is So 1990s

The jamboree has lost shine, thanks to social media, Asia's rise & global elite's failure to solve problems

- TK Arun

We had joy, we had fun/ We had seasons in the sun. Although that seems an inappropriate elegy for Davos – the Swiss town that hosts the World Economic Forum is not exactly sun-drenched – the pathos of nostalgia that made those song lyrics famous is very appropriate. WEF at Davos is on now but it is no longer the premier gathering for the ‘great and the good’.

Three things contribute to Davos’s loss of uber-relevance. One, the forward march of the communications revolution beginning in the 1990s and early 2000s, just when Davos was the mecca of globalising capitalism, that saw the birth of social media. Two, the relative decline of Transatlantic economies in global heft and, in particular, the growing importance of Asian ones in driving global growth. Three, the hubris behind the assumption that global hotshots could together ward off Armageddon being shown up for what it is.

The power of the internet to transform the world was obvious to seers of Silicon Valley before the build-up of the dot-com bust, but it was WEF that took awareness of the potential of the connected world mainstream. It took a special place and a special gathering of movers and shakers of the world to catalyze dialogue and disagreement that threw out sparks of illumination and insight.