In 1929, Davos was the setting for a debate between two great philosophers of the time. One was Jewish (Ernst Cassirer), the other later became a Nazi (Martin Heidegger). Commenting on the 1929 gathering, the philosopher Emmanuel Levinas (also Jewish), said of the Heidegger-Cassirer confrontation: “I saw the end of one world and the start of another. Ten years later, the second world war broke out, and delivered to us a world that would never be the same again.”
It’s tempting to use Levinas’ observation as some kind of analogy. This week, some of the smartest and wealthiest of people, almost all of whom play a vital role in influencing the ideas and policies that shape the global political economy, are meeting in Davos for the World Economic Forum (WEF) 2020.
How do we reshape economies so that growth benefits the many and not just the few and so ensure that the extraordinary engine of human development we built is made sustainable?
Economic and commerce ministers from around the world, and some of the more important and prominent politicians and individuals, will present their thoughts and ideas on how to achieve “fairer” economies — one of seven themes of this year’s WEF meetings. From the WEF’s publicity material we learn that they will “bring together 3,000 participants from around the world and aim to give concrete meaning to ‘stakeholder capitalism’ ”.
The WEF explains on its website: “Since World War 2, average life expectancy across the globe has risen by 30 years. Meanwhile, access to health care and education has lifted billions out of poverty. But wealth inequality within many nations has soared, social mobility reversed, and cohesion undermined. Now there are fears new technology will make things worse. How do we reshape economies so that growth benefits the many and not just the few and so ensure that the extraordinary engine of human development we built is made sustainable?”
This goes to the heart of the future of capitalism. It is, however, not the end-of-capitalism crisis Marxists have been waiting for with the devotion of believers in the second coming. It is what the economist Branko Milanovic described as a “clash of capitalisms”. Briefly stated (Milanovic lays it out much better than I could imagine), it’s a contest between liberal meritocratic capitalism (represented mainly by the US), and state-led political economy (represented mainly by China).
What is clear, and relatively undisputed, is that capitalism reigns unchallenged across the globe. The regions where the two capitalisms dominate (Asia and Europe/North America) are home to 70% of the world’s population and 80% of its economic output, and the two regions are inexorably linked in a process of exchange (the movement of goods and services, finance, technology transfer and sharing of ideas). It is on this shared habitus — a plane of shared beliefs, values, attitudes, conduct of business, skills and dispositions — where the two capitalisms compete for dominance.
What does seem clear, at least for the foreseeable future (possibly for the rest of this century), is that capitalism is here to stay. I should say that I hold a much more pessimistic view of “the next stage of capitalism”. This pessimism should not be confused with catastrophism. There is little about the future that I can say with any confidence and believe myself.
It is not overly dramatic to say the movers and shakers of the global political economy are meeting in Davos at a time of liminality; somewhere between the apparent end of liberal capitalism and the rise of state-led political capitalism (Levinas’ end of the old world and start of a new). In this sense, it is capitalism in the midst of an existential crisis. There really is no time and space to give this discussion the treatment it deserves.
It does give me great joy to know that Donald Trump will have to share a stage with formidable women: German chancellor Angela Merkel; climate activist Greta Thunberg; European Central Bank president Christine Lagarde; Winnie Byanyima, UN undersecretary-general and executive director of UNAids; and Deepika Padukone, founder of the Live Love Laugh Foundation.
Speaking of Trump, I must admit to having a slight grin and a devious glint in my eye when I think about the Davos described in Thomas Mann’s book Magic Mountain and the sanatorium, which I think was housed in what is today the Hotel Schatzalp. In the sanatorium of Magic Mountain, people with chest problems were given a pneumothorax treatment that entailed punching a hole in the lungs and filling it with nitrogen.
Anyway, the way Levinas described the competing ideas of Heidegger and Cassirer — the end of one era and the start of another — the folk meeting in Davos this week would imagine they have a hold on the future.
• Lagardien, a visiting professor at the Wits University School of Governance, has worked in the office of the chief economist of the World Bank, as well as the secretariat of the National Planning Commission.
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