Save the World: Nuke Davos
One of the few compensations of COVID was that the World Economic Federation meeting in Davos was canceled for two years. But all good things come to an end, and Davos is back, more malign than ever.
Of course the opening address was given by Klaus Schwab. (Aside: how come poor Appalachian whites are blamed for the evils of slavery, and the son of a for real hardcore Nazi gets a pass?)
He was touting “trust-based and action-oriented cooperation.” Orwellian doesn’t even come close to doing that justice. And nota bene: “cooperation” can be a synonym for conspiracy.
This is also Orwellian:
And finally. When it comes to business and economic activities, Davos is not a place for narrow self-interest. It is instead a place for the implementation of the notion of stakeholder capitalism, a concept I’m fighting for since 50 years. (Emphasis in original.)
A Forum partner is asked to value the contributions not just of shareholders, but of all those other stakeholders who are essential for business to succeed. As I wrote in my book Stakeholder Capitalism, Davos stands for a global economy that works for prosperity, people, and the planet.
“Stakeholder capitalism” is an oxymoron, and it is a synonym for fascism.
It is an oxymoron, because capitalism means that the owners of capital make the decisions on how it is used. Marxists have never liked the way that capitalists used it, which is why they wanted to expropriate it. At least they were honest, and didn’t say they were advocating “socialized capitalism.” “Stakeholder capitalism” means that those who don’t own something can nonetheless dictate how to use it, because they have some self-asserted “stake” in it. Using the word “capitalism” is a clever trick to seduce non-Marxists into believing that what Schwab et al are advocating is just a kinder, gentler version of a free market economy, when in fact their agenda is profoundly anti-capitalism and anti-freedom.
“Stakeholder capitalism” has no limiting principle. It can be used to claim control over anything anywhere anytime based on some Six Degrees From Kevin Bacon theory of somebody having a “stake” in it.
Though I would not recommend claiming that you have a stake in a fancy dinner at Davos. The WEF police (yes, they exist) will arrest you for sure.
It is a synonym for fascism because it is a variant on corporatism, which is the essence of the fascist economic model (as I’ve written before). Note the “cooperation” in the title of Herr Schwab’s speech: cooperation among stakeholders (namely, the state, corporations, and labor unions) was touted as the main virtue of fascist economics and governance. The stakeholders may be a little different (labor, for example, is barely even an afterthought at Davos), but the idea is functionally identical.
Now, Fascism 2.0 does have some differences with Fascism 1.0. The latter was avowedly nationalist, something which the former detests: it is avowedly anti-nationalist, and indeed globalist. “WEF” is more accurately an acronym for “World-Extensive Fascism.” It is the bastard child of world government types and economic fascists.
The WEF is also fascist in its utter antipathy for individual liberty and freedom. The most anti-freedom threat on the horizon–central bank digital currencies–was praised to the skies. And free speech? Well, you know, that needs to be “recalibrated.” (Inman is basically a less crazy-eyed version of Nina Jankowicz.) And you all just need to change the way you eat, got it?
I could go on.
The main moving force behind the WEF agenda is “climate change.” It is the existential threat that “stakeholders” need to “cooperate” on to fight. It is the primary reason why “stakeholder capitalism” has no limiting principle, because everything–I mean everything–supposedly affects climate, so everybody has a stake in it, so our enlightened WEF leaders acting benevolently on our behalf can reorder everything because climate change.
All of the nostrums that are being pushed will make energy and food more expensive. A lot more expensive.
Not that this lot cares. After all, energy and food expenditures represent a trivial fraction of their incomes. So they won’t feel a thing!
You, not so much. And the poorer you are, the more you will feel it.
Of course, these . . . people . . . claim to be acting on behalf of the poor. Because, of course, climate change hurts the poor most we’re told. Except that all of these assertions are highly speculative (at best), and the purported evidence supporting them is based on junk science.
Just like WEF-endorsed COVID policies (e.g., lockdowns), the cost of WEF-endorsed climate change policies will exceed the cost of climate change itself. And the cost difference will be greater, the poorer you are.
These people are your enemies. And the less well off you are, the bigger enemy they are.
You might think that the title of this post is hyperbole. You might want to think again.
That the adherents and mainstream media view stakeholder capitalism as a progressive initiative is funny. Many progressives who embrace stakeholder capitalism, on one hand, hate the Supreme Court’s 2010 ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission on the other because that decision permits corporate money to influence elections and protect the values of the evil corporate interests.
Stakeholder capitalism is Citizens United on steroids–it promotes powerful corporate interests to pursue the social agendas that their management teams want to push. Corporations evolved to provide goods and services that consumers want, not to push social agendas of special interest groups.
Comment by Tom Kirkendall — May 27, 2022 @ 5:07 am
This post is incoherent. The managers at Davos are responding to overwhelming push from the owners of capital, i.e. the shareholders, to address climate change. It’s fine to disagree on the impact of climate change, but if the shareholders believe that protecting the planet is important to the preservation of and returns on their capital, that’s their prerogative. The incredible push into ESG, for better or worse, isn’t happening because managers and CEOs are worried that people will be mean on twitter, it’s happening because the shareholders are demanding it.
But you, the not-shareholder, think the shareholders are wrong about climate change, so therefore the managers of this capital should be nuked. Who’s the fascist here?
Comment by Nick — May 27, 2022 @ 7:40 am
Wow – you really deleted my comment? I guess my free speech needed to be “recalibrated”.
Comment by Nick — May 27, 2022 @ 8:02 am
Chatter about Stakeholders entered British politics with Toni Blair. So I can be confident that the idea is simultaneously mindless and malevolent.
Comment by dearieme — May 27, 2022 @ 9:19 am
@dearieme
Just today Blair announced a new summit for the political and business elite this summer. The Future of Britain conference will “ be a conference of ideas that will show the political opportunity for progressive politics in Britain and the need for an ambitious plan that will shape the country for the next decade.” These will include “ Brexit, technology and climate change” that are three “revolutionary changes” that the UK is “ill-prepared” for.
They’re not even trying to hide it.
Comment by Jimmers — May 27, 2022 @ 11:53 am
No, @Nick. My spam filter caught your comment. Chill.
Comment by cpirrong — May 27, 2022 @ 1:32 pm
@Nick–You really think I care enough about you to censor you? Get over yourself.
Comment by cpirrong — May 27, 2022 @ 1:34 pm
A great post in that it understands the evil that is inherent in the radical left’s use of language, the twisting of the truth.
Klaus is, as we say in Australia, “full of it”, just another retarded bastard son of Nazi filth, who, like many a Nazi, thought they were superior beings while in fact being as dumb as dog shit. Klaus think the langauge that he uses to hide the bleeding obvious fools people.
These people aren’t smart, but they are evil and very dangerous.
We must root out their people from our national governments AND MAKE EXAMPLES OF THEM.
They must face justice for the last two years.
Comment by Struth — May 28, 2022 @ 1:08 am
So
Nick believes the attendees at Davos are responding to overwhelming push from the owners of capital, i.e. the shareholders, to address climate change……
The stupid
It burns
Comment by djm — May 28, 2022 @ 1:34 pm
@dearieme. Yes, an unerring indicator.
Comment by cpirrong — May 29, 2022 @ 2:22 pm
@djm. Some people have never heard of agency problems. Stakeholder capitalism is an agency problem on steroids.
Comment by cpirrong — May 29, 2022 @ 2:35 pm
—>”The incredible push into ESG, for better or worse, isn’t happening because managers and CEOs are worried that people will be mean on twitter, it’s happening because the shareholders are demanding it.”<—-
I had sworn off commenting on blog posts for the New Year, but complete BS like this needs to be pushed back against. ESG isn’t being demanded by corporate shareholders or its management, it’s being pushed by jackholes like Larry Fink of Blackrock and the SEC to some extent.
Comment by lyle — May 29, 2022 @ 4:58 pm
I am a shareholder and I must say that I have never believed in climate change as a major issue. The recent Texas blackouts have certainly convinced me of our need for fossil fuels.
Apparently the folks who own Black Rock and a few other investment firms really, really want ESG but I’m not convinced most investors even know what it is, or that they would support it if they did.
Comment by David H Dennis — May 29, 2022 @ 5:03 pm
The WEF love of the planet seems to be equaled only by the love of discoveries that might be, in their transhumanist expert’s view, pressed into service to create genetically modified humans. In light of the already extant fear and loathing of genetically modified organisms, I cannot imagine the self-hatred that would ensue were this to become the human condition.
Comment by JustLawful — May 29, 2022 @ 5:16 pm
I have been recommending a simultaneous nuclear strike on Davos for the WEF, and Basil for the BIS. You need to cut off as many heads of the oligarchs as possible.
Comment by Foot in the Forest — May 29, 2022 @ 5:38 pm
They are Communists. Call them whatever you like the only way to deal with them is a bullet in the head.
Comment by Chris — May 29, 2022 @ 5:39 pm
Fascism means the control of the private sphere by the public sphere for the good of the nation. We have the opposite, control of public sphere by the private sphere for the good of the economic elite. It’s not Fascism, but Plutocracy. Stop slandering Fascism and trying to get Big Business of the hook. There’s been way too much of that.
The two sphere can’t be kept separate in the modern industrial state. One will lead. Should it be the one which is elected and takes an oath of service to the nation? Or the one that in only accountable to the stockholders? Americans invariably choose the latter, the wrong answer. You are an American.
Comment by Jaego — May 29, 2022 @ 5:50 pm
We can best address “climate change” by laughing and pointing at the morons who believe in this giant fraud. We can’t change the weather by reducing a trace gas upon which all life depends.
Comment by NIdahoCatholic — May 29, 2022 @ 6:21 pm
I’ve taken to calling it “Transnational Corporatism”, and describing it as an unholy Hegelian synthesis of (nationalist) Fascism and World Socialism.
And remember Hillary’s campaign slogan? “Stronger Together”? What it it that the fasces symbolizes?
In reality, there’s a large component of hubris-on-steroids; the Cloud Minders have no comprehension of what the working classes do, or indeed of how anything happens in the mundane world, and truly believe that they can simply decree a better world and it will happen. In their exalted world, failing upward is the norm, and there are no criteria by which objectively wrong ideas can be weeded out nor underperforming (or even appallingly corrupt) individuals demoted.
The result of this is nigh indistinguishable from what we’d expect if the malign influence of Gharlane of Eddore were at work.
Comment by Eric Wilner — May 30, 2022 @ 1:37 am
Nick: “overwhelming push from the owners of capital, i.e. the shareholders, to address climate change.”
Bullsh!t. Everytime “climate change” actions -real actions that will cost money, not pious pronouncements – comes up at shareholder meetings, they are voted down.
AGW (*Anthropogenic* Global Warming) is nonsense, a figment of computer models with no pridictive power, which is why this power grab has been cloaked in in the chimeric term “Climate Change”. Record heat wave: climate change. Record cold spell: climate change. Record drought: climate change. Record flood: climate change. We have to DO something!
Coincidentally, “something” to stop drought, or flooding, or heat, or cold, always seems to result in more power and comfort for the Denizens of Davos, and more poverty for “the little people”.
Sod off, swampy.
Comment by buddhaha — May 30, 2022 @ 6:13 am
I’ve been thinking the same thoughts that your title says, for the last month or so…
It would be an *elegant* way to knock the fiat-money banksters back significantly, while taking out the trash of the biggest mouthpieces.
Let’s hope some non-corrupt politicians with the means, think of it as well…
Comment by Capitalist Eric — May 30, 2022 @ 7:40 am
No need to burn all of the jet fuel to go to Davos. We have a flourishing fascist state right here. What is most disturbing is how successful the operation has become. All of the buttons have been pressed. The party has taken over. Throwing up barricades around the capital does provide a glimmer of hope that the extant paranoia reveals the weakness in clinging to power for the greed of powers’ sake.
Comment by pspitz — May 30, 2022 @ 7:57 am
Well, just one sentence out of their own ‘institutional brochure’ – https://www.weforum.org/about/world-economic-forum – page 9: ‘Corporations are now being called upon to serve as co-owners of our global future.’ And on page 10 and 11 there’s a description of ‘their communities’ and ‘community of stakeholders’…they don’t mention anybody below what they call ‘leaders’, despite of this they say their ‘Mission’ would include: ‘The Forum engages the foremost political, business, cultural and other leaders of society to shape global, regional and industry agendas.’ So, they are forming the agendas, no democratic processes involving people and the corporations are ‘co-owners of the future’, wow, what can you not ‘own’? Wasn’t it the North American Indians that said ‘We did not inherit the earth and the land we live upon, we are owing it to the seventh generation of the children’? But who was really shaping these silly agendas along the lines of ‘zero carbon’, ‘zero covid etc.’, digitalization etc.? And is there any intelligence involved or is it an ‘IQ zero sum game’ across the whole WEF?
Comment by Mike B — June 27, 2022 @ 6:31 am
Davos 2023 is a big flop, despite what presstitutes try to hide:
https://rforresistance.wordpress.com/2023/01/20/davos-2023-outcome/
Comment by LiU — January 21, 2023 @ 4:49 pm