{"id":461,"date":"2015-01-26T05:25:58","date_gmt":"2015-01-26T05:25:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/global-labour.info\/en\/2015\/01\/26\/davos-scene-of-bribery-bullying-and-co-option-terry-bell-2015\/"},"modified":"2015-01-26T05:25:58","modified_gmt":"2015-01-26T05:25:58","slug":"davos-scene-of-bribery-bullying-and-co-option-terry-bell-2015","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/global-labour.info\/en\/2015\/01\/26\/davos-scene-of-bribery-bullying-and-co-option-terry-bell-2015\/","title":{"rendered":"Davos: Scene of Bribery, Bullying and Co-option – Terry Bell (2015)"},"content":{"rendered":"


\nDAVOS: SCENE OF BRIBERY BULLYING AND CO-OPTION
\n<\/strong>
\nby Terry Bell<\/strong>
\nThe annual World Economic Forum (WEF) extravaganza got underway last week as
\n700 private jets whizzed into the Swiss Alpine resort of Davos. This is a gathering
\nwhere the heads of immensely rich corporations wine, dine, bribe and bully various
\npower brokers and wannabe tycoons to do their bidding and to adopt policies that suit
\nthe corporate world.
\nBecause, far from being the United Nations-style interdisciplinary institution it is
\noften portrayed as being, the WEF is, in fact, a private club whose members comprise
\nthe chief executives of 1 000 of the world\u2019s wealthiest and most powerful
\ncorporations. Their annual Davos talkshop is now an horrendously expensive and
\nlavish opportunity where anybody who thinks they are anybody, has to be seen.
\nIt provides an opportunity for pop stars and fading movie icons to parade their hearts
\non their sleeves as they tuck into caviar or R400 hamburgers to discuss issues such as
\nalleviating global poverty. But there is no denying that it is a very professional and
\nsuccessful public relations exercise.
\nIt should be remembered, for example, that at the 1993 WEF gathering Nelson
\nMandela was persuaded to dump the redistributive policies drawn up over several
\nyears by the ANC\u2019s Macro-Economic Research Group, headed by the late Vella
\nPillay. This led to the formal adoption in 1996 of the business friendly, \u201ctrickle
\ndown\u201d approach of the Growth Employment and Redistribution (GEAR) programme,
\npinpointed by the unions as a major reason for our current social and economic woes.
\nIt is for all these reasons that the South African labour movement was not represented
\nat Davos this week. However, at taxpayers\u2019 expense, President Jacob Zuma and
\nclutch of ministers and officials were there. As indeed are invited media
\nrepresentatives, some of them professed acolytes of the WEF, who may rub
\nshoulders, as apparent equals, with presidents, monarchs, politicians and some of the
\nmost powerful people on earth.
\nTheir hosts are the representatives of the 1% of the global population that last week\u2019s
\nOxfam report notes will, by next year, own and control 50% of the entire wealth of a
\nworld of increasing inequality. As Cosatu spokesperson Patrick Craven says: \u201cThis
\nis a business elite who are more powerful than the political elite.\u201d
\nAnd, according to Federation of Unions (Fedusa) general secretary, Dennis George, it
\nis \u201ca talkshop with no real follow-up\u201d. However, the unions generally concede that
\nthere may be a few crumbs from the tables of the uber-rich, often in the form of taxdeductible
\ndonations to one or other good cause.
\nThis is not to denigrate those international labour, religious and human rights
\nrepresentatives who went \u2014 again \u2014 to Davos to plead for real change and for a
\nbetter world. Says British TUC general secretary Frances O\u2019Grady: \u201cIf Davos is a
\nclosed shop for the wealthy and powerful elites who caused today\u2019s global inequality,
\nit won\u2019t come up with the answers needed for a more fair and prosperous future…we
\nneed the business leaders attending to commit to…investing in decent jobs instead of
\nthe casino capitalism that caused the crash.\u201d
\nBut the small union delegation at Davos should perhaps have been reminded of a
\nstatement attributed to the British reformist economist, John Maynard Keynes:
\n\u201cThere exists the astonishing belief that the nastiest motives of the nastiest men
\nsomehow or other work for the best results in the best of all possible worlds\u201d.
\nThe super rich members of the WEF club may not be nasty at a personal level, but
\ntheir positions and the corporate dynamic puts their profit-driven interests above
\nthose of humanity. And the members are desperately worried. WEF founder and
\nCEO, Klaus Schwab, noted last week that \u201cthe world is at a crossroads\u201d.
\nHe pointed out that in one direction lay disintegration and terror, in the other, cooperation
\nand stability. This is, in much the same words, what the trade unions have
\nbeen saying for years and what Karl Marx or Rosa Luxemburg warned about a
\ncentury and more ago.
\nBut, as the labour movement continues to point out, it is the likes of the WEF club
\nthat has created the crossroads \u2014 and driven the world to the critical situation we all
\nnow find ourselves in. Says Craven: \u201cThese are representatives of a system in which
\ninequality is entrenched.\u201d
\nJanuary 25, 2015
\nTerry Bell
\nwriting, editing, broadcasting
\nspecialising in:
\npolitical\/economic analysis and labour
\nP.O Box 373, Muizenberg 7950
\nSouth Africa
\nTel: +27 +(0)21 788 9699
\nSkype: belnews \u2022 Twitter: @telbelsa
\nBlog: terrybellwrites.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[33],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/global-labour.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/461"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/global-labour.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/global-labour.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/global-labour.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/global-labour.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=461"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/global-labour.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/461\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/global-labour.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=461"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/global-labour.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=461"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/global-labour.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=461"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}