Global Village

WEF Vice-President Claude Smadja assures that there will be no riots and Davos, as always, will greet forum participants with snow and a queue for registration at the convention center (Photo: AP )

The chief forester of the canton of Graubünden, Gian Kapretz, has long since translated his name into the language of international communication. When introducing himself, he immediately calls himself John in order to avoid lengthy explanations about his Romansh origin, as well as conversations about who these Romansh people are. John is also John in Switzerland.

“Since the political and business elite from all over the world are ready to climb to a height of one and a half thousand meters and pay almost the highest prices in the world for it, then once a year we can tolerate it,” John chuckles. - For them, Davos is the birthplace of the WEF; not everyone even knows that it is Switzerland. Not everyone even understands that the best sleds in the world are made here, which are called “Davos”.

In fact, Davos is the homeland of Switzerland too. In any case, the population here is the oldest in the Confederation - the ancestors of the local residents hid in these mountains from the Romans. But that's not even the main thing. If you believe my interlocutor, in this highland deprived of nature, almost everything that the economy of the Alpine republic was based on in different centuries was invented, “perhaps, except for cheese and banks.” “Everything” is, firstly, mercenarism, thanks to which Swiss peasants survived for many centuries in times free from agricultural work. Secondly, the production of sweets - in the 18th century, local residents brought them all the way to St. Petersburg. When others learned to make candy, and the demand for mercenaries fell everywhere, with the exception of the Vatican, local residents, in modern economic parlance, accepted the “global economic challenge.”

“We went to the service,” John explains to me. - You know, some visiting French doctor in the century before last discovered that our mountain air is the best cure for tuberculosis, and published a treatise about it. Then people came to us from all over the world - it was time, because the region was dying out...

These words are not an exaggeration. According to the decision of the peasant communities, only the eldest son remained on the land, and all the others left to work, most often to America. They were given a symbolic franc for the journey.

“The resorts gave us a chance,” says the forester. - Having humbled their pride, our great-grandfathers learned to shine shoes for tourists, to give them the best rooms in their houses, until the mountains were overgrown with hotels and sanatoriums. But most importantly, they understood that economics is when you know how to start over.

I had to start over many more times. When the slopes of the Alps and other European mountains became overgrown with health resorts, resorts for winter sports were invented in Davos (“young skiers descended from the mountains” here long before World War II, and not at all when they looked out the window of Stirlitz and Müller). Have your competitors caught up again? Well, Davos was repurposed again - after the war, empty sanatoriums began to be rented out for symposiums in the off-season. They say doctors were the first to gather here...

Capitalists of all countries, unite!
If the idea of ​​turning a remote village into a resort came to the mind of a Frenchman, then it was a German who came up with the idea of ​​turning a resort into the navel of the earth, where once a year the powers that be can talk about how to develop the planet. A native of Ravensbrück, professor of economics at the University of Geneva Klaus Schwab conceived this project exactly thirty years ago. As the “official version” says, in 1970 he invited members of European governments to gather to discuss “in an informal setting” the economic strategy for the continent and the prospects for integration into the world market. Very representative people responded. True, there was no talk about Davos at that time.

In 1971, a non-profit association called the European Management Forum arose, which in just a couple of years acquired worldwide scope. The forums were initially held in different countries, but their format was immediately guessed surprisingly correctly - Mr. Schwab sought to gather business generals, national politicians and international bureaucracy from the UN, IMF, and World Bank in one place. In 1976, the forum became a permanent organization. And by the beginning of the 80s, the idea arose to hold meetings away from indiscreet eyes.

The choice fell on Davos, where the first meeting took place in 1982. Central issues were the discussion of the progress of reforms in China, as well as the abolition of trade restrictions on a global scale and the creation of the World Trade Organization (WTO). Then only the initiated paid attention to the last topic. However, 28 years will pass, and at a session of the powerful WTO in Seattle, America, thousands of demonstrators will stage unprecedented riots. The protest will be directed against intentions to subordinate particularly sensitive areas of human life to the norms of market trade and competition - science, culture, healthcare, education, etc. The Davos Forum as the founder of boundless liberalism will then be remembered more than once. And the tireless fighter against standardized food and “mad cow disease,” French farmer Jose Beauvais, will even call it a “capitalist Politburo.”

“Politburo” or not, the topics and events that became the “highlight of the program” in Davos more than once guessed (or even changed) the course of historical events. This is not a complete list of them. 1987: The forum changes its name and becomes the World Economic Forum. The main theme is the end of the Cold War and the beginning of the economic development of Eastern Europe. In Davos, German Foreign Minister Genscher makes a famous speech, calling on the West to cooperate with Gorbachev's USSR. 1988: Greece and Türkiye agree to resolve the Cyprus problem. 1989: First ministerial meeting between representatives of the two Koreas. 1990: acceleration of the unification of the two Germanys, meeting of Chancellor Kohl with the Prime Minister of the GDR Modrow. That same year, influential representatives of the opposing sides in South Africa gathered at the foundation's headquarters in Geneva. In 1992, de Klerk and Mandela meet in Davos. 1994: Arafat meets with Peres, the creation of a “Middle East common market” is discussed. 1996: Almost all the leaders of the countries that emerged after the collapse of the SFRY come to Davos to discuss the economic prospects that the 1995 Dayton Peace Agreement on Bosnia opens up in the Balkans.

This, however, is a list of only the most high-profile topics - much remained behind the scenes. Over the course of a quarter of a century, the forum has turned into a permanent organization - it establishes prizes, holds symposia and brainstorming sessions, and monitors political, economic, scientific and technical conditions. However, the goal of the world's most elite club remains the same: to provide its members with constant communication with top politicians. Membership in the club is not a cheap pleasure: a company (or bank) can join the WEF if its annual turnover is at least $1 billion; membership fee is 12.5 thousand dollars (15 thousand for banks); “entrance ticket” to Davos (more precisely, to the annual meeting of the WEF) - several thousand more. An important detail: politicians and journalists are invited at the expense of the organizers. This year, for example, according to WEF Vice-Director Claude Smudge, 2,300 people, including 600 journalists, are expected to be invited to participate in 350 meetings from January 25 to 30. The Davos 2001 budget will be over 12 million Swiss francs (excluding salaries).

Such a strict selection and the organizers’ favor to various kinds of VIPs (for several years now there has been a rumor that the amount of participants’ contributions determines the time for which they are allowed to the microphones) cannot but leave an imprint on the discussions themselves. The topics for the meetings are worked on throughout the year, trying to create both an “advanced” and trusting atmosphere: they range from “Does money have a future?” to, for example, “What family problems do spouses who succeed in business have?” However, no matter how many journalists come to the forum, they will still only learn what they want to say. No matter how approachable high-ranking delegates may appear walking down Davos's main street, the most important meetings take place behind closed doors. Even during public discussions, it is difficult to get rid of the impression that some “decision makers” communicate with others through the heads of the room.

Strictly speaking, this is the strength of Davos. Only here is it possible to make invaluable - for those who understand, of course - contacts and feel the pulse of the world. If those who claim that the term “globalization” (which refers to the rapid convergence of economies and societies after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the beginning of the Internet era and the freedom to move financial flows across borders) are correct were born in 1989, then it finally entered the political lexicon in 1993 in Davos. It was then that the main character of the meeting became, in fact, capitalism without national borders: with “global” markets, media, economic progress. “It is at the UN that national points of view are expressed, but here we have long been dominated by global thought,” Klaus Schwab said then. In fact, thanks to technological and political progress, the world and its economy were rapidly turning into a single whole - into a “global village”, as the American McLuhan put it.


"Think globally, eat locally!" - Davos McDonald's wrote on billboards on the eve of the WEF 2000, for which it paid. In a “local” battle on the streets of Davos, anti-globalization fighters destroyed a restaurant and burned American flags. The police were concerned about protecting the distinguished guests (Photo: AP )

International of the Dissatisfied
Davos realized that once a year it becomes this very global village, without any quotes, and set about building globalism on a world scale. The Asian-Russian crisis of 1997-1998, the emergence of a new (electronic) economy, the unprecedented economic growth based on it in the United States, the boom of biotechnology and genetic engineering, the WTO and the need to create new norms that global players must adhere to - all these topics were remain the main ones for its organizers and participants. Last January, however, there was a glitch: immediately after the riots in Seattle (December 1999), fighters for “globalization with a human face” rushed to WEF 2000.

Desperate attempts by the organizers to explain that they have always paid great attention to the “human dimension of modern processes,” to put it mildly, were unsuccessful. Taught by the bitter experience of Seattle, former US President Bill Clinton tried to improve matters. Arriving by helicopter to his first Davos, he voiced a whole set of “politically correct” theses about “responsible” globalization, admitted that the creation of a global economy (“which he generally supports”) and unlimited market freedom could be painful (in the first stage) for national producers, and the fruits of the new economy based on Internet technologies are not available to everyone. However, the situation could not be saved. “What kind of Internet economy,” Mrs. Whitman, the governor of New Jersey, marveled after him, “billions of people on earth have no electricity at all...”

On the street, meanwhile, several hundred people, led by Jose Beauvais, who had rejected the official invitation to the EEF, were rushing towards the Congress Center through the police cordons. "What do you want?" - the police officer asked their leader. "Come in with your friends, listen and talk for yourself!" - he answered. After this, a fight began, during which the worst damage came from the Swiss law enforcement officers, who were unaccustomed to brawls, and, as usual, from the new McDonald's - by the way, the cheapest eatery in expensive Davos. The demonstrators, however, were allowed to disperse, but television footage depicting local disgrace in the global village is still before the eyes of the inhabitants of the Swiss Confederation and the distinguished guests of Klaus Schwab.

Is this why now, on the eve of the opening of Davos 2001, the “global press” is so unusually quiet? There are no loud forecasts, and it seems that no particularly high-profile visits are expected, although the organizers emphasize that none of the invitees refused. At the same time, they restrainedly inform that the cantonal authorities did not give permission for demonstrations during the forum, the law enforcement contingent was reinforced just in case by several hundred police officers and reservists, and one of the main topics of discussion (apparently out of sin) was “Maintaining economic growth.” and reducing inequalities in access to education, health care and new technologies.” The last part of the topic seems to have been copied from numerous websites of civil society fighters.

The “ghost of anti-globalism” has been wandering around Europe for a year now - it made itself known at the session of the IMF and the World Bank in Prague, and at the EU summit in Nice, and at the headquarters of the World Health Organization in Geneva. The scenario is still the same - fights, slogans and desperate attempts by the organizers of prestigious forums to lure inside, into the meeting rooms, the ideologists of this International of the Dissatisfied, whose ranks are constantly growing. The crisis due to attempts by liberal reformers to undo social gains in healthcare, panic over “mad cow disease”, mass protests over the approval of transgenic products, growing fears about the appropriation of copyright by pharmaceutical companies for the use of newly deciphered human genes - the mass consumer is feeling himself a victim of business generals in cahoots with political managers. It seems that while Davos was setting up a “global village” for distinguished guests, a public opinion arose in the world, also global by the way, which believes that the arrangement was carried out incorrectly and without taking into account the opinions of the residents themselves. It’s somehow even hard to believe: could Klaus Schwab’s charges really have slept through this?

The demonstration against the WEF is still scheduled for Saturday, January 27, but it is obvious that the main forces of the anti-globalists will be focused on finding an alternative. This time, simultaneously with the Klaus Schwab forum, as many as three “anti-Davos” will be held - one in Davos itself, another in Zurich, the third in Porto Alegre, Brazil, which is called the World Social Forum and should become the most important. The idea is clear: elite globalization must be opposed to public globalization.

The native residents of Davos have not yet linked their prospects with the outcome of this discussion. At the dawn of the third millennium, according to the Swiss press, they are very upset that local manufacturers of the Davos sleds are going bankrupt. The trouble is that this brand, like the other one, “Grindelwald,” is about to fall victim to the omnipotence of the market: it turned out that it was not registered, and representatives of one of the “emerging markets” (to put it simply, luge runners from the Czech Republic) began to sell that the same product in the Confederation at bargain prices. In general, I understand both of them, because about five years ago the forester John Kapretz gave me, through his connections, to ride such a sled down some Davos hill...


Last year, the American delegation in Davos was perhaps the most impressive. In addition to regulars like Bill Gates and other singers of the “new economy,” a “political landing party” led by President Clinton and Secretary of State Albright also landed in Switzerland (Photo: AP )