The Great >Reset Of Capitalism from Davos to Singapore by Giovanni Di Lieto
Giovanni di Lieto, International Trade Specialist asks whether The Great Reset will bring real change or just more of the same?
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he World Economic Forum Special Annual Meeting 2021 will convene in Singapore on the 17th to the 20th of August to further develop the Davos Agenda. The Forum will gather global stakeholders to address the steps for global recovery in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic. Klaus Schwab, Founder and Executive Chairman of the World Economic Forum, is adamant that we can emerge from this crisis a better world, if we act quickly and jointly. In his latest book, The Great Reset, Schwab writes that the changes we have already seen in response to COVID-19 prove that a reset of our economic and social foundations is possible, and that this is our best chance to instigate stakeholder capitalism. Thus, Schwab urges a new social contract to reform education and working conditions together with the transformation of key industries, from oil and gas to tech. In short, Schwab calls for a “Great Reset” of Capitalism. But it’s an ambitious goal that begs the question: Can global capitalism be saved from itself, by itself, despite itself ? To attempt an answer, first we need to
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consider that the World Economic Forum’s Great Reset Initiative is the vanguard of an ideological re-foundation from above, which is expressly proposed by the elites for the elites facing the abyss of an existential crisis due to internecine economic conflict, faltering political domination and social revolt from below. For Schwab and his acolytes, it is a question of taking up the challenge posed by the evident failure of the neoliberal economy and by the end of its economic, political and cultural hegemony that became globally entrenched after the Cold War ended. The COVID-19 pandemic cruelly made evident that amoral shareholder capitalism within a context of small government is simply no longer sustainable. So, after more than three decades of neoliberal determinism, what is to be done to save capitalism according to the World Economic Forum? Reading through the Great Reset Initiative, one may have the impression that the COVID-19 pandemic converted Schwab into a bleeding-heart liberal. More cynically, one may add that he is expediently repositioning the World Economic Forum at the spearhead of a reprise of neo-classical liberalism.
Segmento Issue XXIII • June-August 2021
