The Davos Crowd Sees Republicans as the Enemy
The elites at the World Economic Forum have a German, not an American, view of capitalism.
It is that time of year again. The skies over Davos are thick with private jets flying in billionaires to bemoan the problems of climate change and, as U.S. climate envoy John Kerry put it this week, save the planet. Traffic jams clogging the streets, security checks at every hotel, nonstop parties and receptions all over town—the World Economic Forum is back.
The locals seem unimpressed. As one harried resident told me, Davos natives treat forum week the way many New Orleans locals treat Mardi Gras. It’s a great time to get out of town and, with accommodations going for thousands of dollars a night, an enterprising resident can cover a year’s mortgage payments by renting out the old homestead to frenzied forum goers.
The antics of the Davoisie are easy to mock. It isn’t only the discordant but relentless mix of green virtue-signaling and conspicuous consumption. You will hear more talk about the evils of inequality here than anywhere except an American university’s diversity office, yet everyone wears a badge that delineates his exact place in an elaborate and inflexible pecking order.
But something serious is happening at Davos. The divide between the consensus of the business and political leaders who gather here and the values and perceptions that shape American conservatives and the Republican Party is growing into a chasm. Both sides will have to think and act carefully, or the upheavals in European-American relations that marked the Trump years will fade into insignificance when the GOP is back in power—with or without Donald Trump.
Criticism of Davos used to come mostly from the left. These days, its most bitter critics come from the populist right. And a Davos elite that once saw doctrinaire leftism as the greatest obstacle to global prosperity and progress now increasingly sees right-wing populism as the enemy of everything good.
The WEF grows out of a German understanding of capitalism. After World War II, German conservatives believed that to stave off both communism and right-wing populism, German private enterprise would have to adopt a more social posture. Business needed to demonstrate that capitalism could beat the socialists at their own game. Big business would work with the government to achieve important social-welfare goals. That necessarily implied coordination between private sector and political leaders. Forums where business and government leaders could meet privately and hash out plans for harmonious social development were a necessary feature of this model.
That ethos of coordinating public and private efforts to achieve social goals powered the WEF from its earliest years, and the vision of public/private partnerships in service to the forum’s vision of the common good remains the animating principle of Davos to this day. While the old West German conservatives focused their efforts on German society, Davos has gone global on the theory that since problems such as inequality are global, coordination between business and government must be as well.
These ideas are a problem from the traditional standpoint of American pro-market conservatism. The genius of capitalism, American conservatives have generally felt, is in its capacity for disruption and invention. Grand national economic plans, to say nothing of international plans, generally fail, and the concentration of power such planning gives to the state leads to corruption and, ultimately, authoritarian rule.
The second point of conflict between the Davos consensus and what might be called the center of gravity of the American Republican Party involves climate change. From the Davos point of view, climate change is an immediate danger that threatens to plunge the world into an era of misery and war, conceivably bringing an end to human civilization. There is no time to lose. Those who don’t see the situation as urgent, or who oppose the global coordination that, in the Davos view, is necessary for an adequate response, aren’t just conventional political opponents. They must be defeated if humanity is to thrive.
Most American conservatives reject this narrative on two levels. At one level they simply do not believe that the grand plans and projects of climate experts will work as advertised. And at another, many though not all remain skeptical that climate change will arrive as quickly or be as devastating as the Davos consensus believes. To the degree that Republicans influence the future of American politics, the U.S. will largely reject the Davos agenda. The American economy is so large, and American political influence so pervasive, that the Davos agenda will fail without American support.
Both sides need to reflect. Years of bitter clashes over climate policy won’t advance the Davos agenda. A poisonous trans-Atlantic atmosphere won’t strengthen America’s international position, depolarize American politics, or boost American growth.
