Burning Issues Amid Freezing Cold

As you read this, thousands of business and government leaders will be making their way to Switzerland - by plane, road, rail, or even helicopter – for an annual meeting to discuss the world's most pressing concerns.

They will brave snow and frigid cold - forecasts are for temperatures to dip to minus 17 deg C the next day - and a three-hour car ride from Zurich up to the small Alpine ski resort of Davos, for the conference organised by the World Economic Forum (WEF).

Hundreds of aides, academics and journalists, myself included, will be there to join in and follow their discussions.

When these leaders met last January, there was much talk about what the future might hold in the face of rapid and relentless technological change. Minds were focused on developments in robotics, artificial intelligence, virtual reality and 3D printing, and many questions were raised about what these entail for businesses and their workers, indeed for the very nature of work and leisure.

Few, however, saw or spoke about the prospects of Brexit or the rise of Donald Trump. Sure, there were a few tentative questions raised about these issue, which were more often than not laughed aside as long shots not to be taken too seriously.

So Davos man – as this elite group is sometimes derisively called – will have much pondering to do. For a while it was right that they focussed their sights on the trends that will shape the future, how did they not see the icebergs lying more immediately ahead, which now impede the once-seemingly inexorable path forward to further economic integration and progress?

While past discussions had focussed on the economic and social disruptions to come, Davos delegates will now have to recognise that the future economy they had envisioned is unfolding in a range of sectors, much sooner than most imagined, and worse, a wider Disruption 2.0 is under way, amid major shocks to the underlying global operating system that the WEF has long championed.

The consensus based on the virtues of globalisation, the benefits of immigration and gains from free trade is now under grave threat. Politicians have tapped into latent anxieties, alienation and anger felt by electorates in countries, from the United Kingdom to the United States and elsewhere. Their cries will reverberate around the Swiss Alps this week.

Source: ANN