Confessions of an (Almost) Davos-Man

By A. J. Rees

Every January, the world’s elite gather to rub shoulders, hobnob, and discuss how the world would be so much better if the great unwashed would just do as they were told. This is the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos, and as its star has risen in the public and popular consciousness, so has scrutiny against it. I found myself attending twice in its earlier, less publicised days, hoping for career opportunities but leaving disillusioned.

In 2024, the old saying “It’s not what you know, it’s who you know,” rings as true as ever. It was with this truism in mind that in 2011, I, a boy from the smallest city in the UK, unknowingly ventured into the global epicentre of scum and villainy. 

In those heady days of 2011, the world was still untouched by Social Justice, DEI, Gamergate, and all the rest; my focus was on trying to find a step back onto the career ladder after the financial crash of 2008. My first interactions with the Forum were in 2006 and 2007 when I attended some lectures, seminars, and workshops while at university. These seminars and lectures were put on by the WEF as part of their Young Global Leader (YGL) project, which seeks to nurture (indoctrinate) and assist (place in positions of power) attendees, all wrapped up in a lovely bow of “Only you can save the world” (feeding the ego so you do as you are told). Little did I know that when applying to these events, I would suffer herpes-esque outbreaks of emails informing me of upcoming WEF events and that I would be welcome to attend for the price of only a few thousand dollars (Sign up now, spots are limited!). So, in 2010 when I got an email invitation to attend the WEF’s 2011 get-together in Davos, I thought, what the hell, let's give it a go.

Having spent nearly two years working at the European Parliament, I thought I was prepared for the rampant hubris, misanthropy, and the inability to throw an overpriced can of coke without hitting a Hapsburg descendant. But like Spinal Tap’s amplifiers, Davos turned it up to 11 and ripped the nob off.

When the WEF comes to town, its members occupy local cafes and shops, converting them into temporary corporate recruiting offices. This allows member companies to peacock and proselytize their corporate virtues to would-be applicants – there is a strong sense of a Holy Ground when in Davos. If the Vatican is the heart of Catholicism, then for two weeks, Davos becomes the tangible heart of Globalism.

The WEF champions the concept of world-as-global-village, with themselves as its chief stewards. As such, it has instituted a strict internal hierarchy, keeping the wheat separated from the chaff, and ensuring that the scum can rest upon the cream. One’s entry to the club is not predicated on bloodlines, school ties, or accents; in our enlightened age, all one needs is money. Getting the little white piece of plastic that denotes one as one of the WEF’s worthies is not cheap. Even in 2011, my eyes nearly popped out of my head, and it was only with the kind assistance of a long-time friend and former Davos man that I was able to gain admittance, mostly as the price of a family car was a pittance to him, and he did not want to suffer alone.

Most readers will be familiar with the inner workings of Davos: lectures, speeches, and workshops, all led by people entirely detached from reality, all giving their opinions on how everyone else should lead their lives. What was surprising was how blasé they were about it, as if channelling a 1960s Bond villain was completely normal. In 2011, I attended a lecture discussing how technology and the internet would free us from traditions and "self-imposed" realities of sex, gender, and the very meaning of what it means to be human. Given the sudden and rapid onset of transgenderism in the 2010s, I now suspect I witnessed the inception – or rather, the legislative top-down priming – of these ideas. Talks doubled down on how these ideas could aid in depopulation and ushering in a new age. I imagine that hearing such pronouncements, even couched in the fanciest of terms, would worry some, but amongst the attendees, there is a sense of indifference. After all, this doesn't concern them. The pods and bugs are for everyone else; they, those who can drop an average person’s yearly salary on attending a 4-day brown-nosing event, need not worry about anything.

There is something awfully plastic and empty about the attendees, and this applies double to WEF employees. Nowadays, people talk about “current-yearism,” where people are solely defined by the ever-changing now. What is true now was true then. The gathering is more like a gathering of the Popular Kids Club, but all the attendees are nerds mimicking each other in their efforts to appear cool and accepted. To use a colourful and apt description given by one woman whom I spoke to at an evening reception, we mere ‘white-cards’ were the “flies” who hover around the “shit.” The ‘shit’ were those with the top-level cards – notables or “beautiful people” – and given the background and facial features of the woman who gave me the analogy, I assume it was horse manure she was referring to.

Not to say that Davos is all bad; the food is good, and if you are willing to sell your ideals for a mid-level position on the pyramid of power, then in 2011, you could waltz into a corporate job immediately, provided you passed the colour and smell test. Ultimately, however, what turned me away from becoming a full-on Davos Man was not the cost of admission, but coming face to face with the “elites” and finding them wanting.

To use a gaming analogy, the 1 per cent of the 1 per cent have beaten the game; they have got infinite money, and now there are no challenges against them – or none that they deem respectable. While Elon Musk ventures into space and Trump erects towers, a finance billionaire prefers to manipulate spreadsheets. Herein lies the problem: the globalists are not builders; they are meddlers. They are priests who think about how people ought to be, rather than engineers who make the world a better place based on how people already are. The WEF is filled with the types of people who made Europe a misery and led millions to up-sticks and risk it all in settling the plains of North America. 

Deep down, I am a builder, and to Elon Musk, I say: get your ass to Mars so I can join you, but let’s leave the middle managers behind!