"A certain era ends." Davos turns on values and chooses the cult of economical growth

A small later came the turn for Brian Moynihan, a man who, after a decade and a half in a management position at the Bank of America, had adequate courage to ask Trump how his many decrees fuel the stock markets.

‘The business of business is business‘, ignored for many years The Nobel Prize-winning mot of economist Milton Friedman abruptly returns to favors. The attitude of good samaritan, which Klaus Schwab, founder of WEF, liked to put on the Davos banners, was set aside to lame.

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Speeches by Klaus Schwab at the 55th planet economical Forum in Davo, 21 January 2025.

Business times based on common values have passed. — 1 word that is frequently heard in Davos this year is the German word Realpolitik, meaning the request for a pragmatic consequence to the changed reality — says Wolfgang Fink, head of the German branch of the Goldman Sachs investment bank, in a treatise with “Die Welt”.

— The basic value that exists in the economy, growth “ adds Nick Studer, head of global consulting company Oliver Wyman. “ In this sense, an era ends.

Better to gain than win a Nobel Peace Prize

What works is good — or at least not bad. fresh Ultra-Pragmatism even reached European policy. Loyalty to the alliance rapidly becomes the subject of negotiations. Of course Europe will stand by its values, announced European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen in Davos to less than a minute later, go to relativization.

On the first journey together, the fresh Commission will go to India. Von der Leyen announced this as a completely apparent thing, ignoring the fact that they are increasingly visible there authoritarian tendencies. She besides wanted “to grow trade and investment relations with China, if possible” — as if debate on "de-risking" It never happened. "Beyond the blockades and taboos," announced von der Leyen.

It is nothing fresh that noble values and circumstantial corporate decisions are in conflict. “If you are in the company, you request to optimize values and interests all day,” admits in Davos Joe Kaeser, president of the Siemens Energy Supervisory Board. - But After all, it is the customers who decide, and the customers have their interests. If you do not service these interests, you can win the Nobel Peace Prize for corporate policy based on values, but you will not have more sales.

But what's fresh is that business leaders are moving in a planet where the smallest common denominator of values has shrunk to the minimum. This applies primarily to basic ideas relating to economical order.. Ideals specified as the free movement of goods and capital, sound fiscal policy and monetary stableness — summarized in the 1980s with large public effect as the "Dashington consensus" — are even contested in bourgeois-liberal circles.

However, even democracy, civilian rights and the regulation of law are no longer universal values in the world, in which the West has 2 major antagonists, China and Russia, and in which many large emerging economies are eager to side with 1 (US) or the another (China) depending on their needs.

According to an analysis conducted by the California Hoover Institution, the period of global liberal democracy passed a 4th century ago and it is improbable that this trend will be reversed soon. “ What should truly worry us is that there are only a fewer values - based planet order advocates left,” said Harvard scientist Steven Pinker in Davos. The last public defenders under the G7 have now stepped down, like Justin Trudeauor are severely weakened, Like Emmanuel Macron.

Faith in universal values was wrong

The foundations are besides falling apart. The belief that societies automatically decision from conventional to secular-rational values and from endurance to the perfect of self-fulfillment with the increase in material prosperity proved to be wrong. As shown by the planet Value survey (WVS), values do not converge internationally And they're not necessarily all going in the same direction.

The best example of this is the United States, despite their global impact on consumer goods and entertainment. Even before the Trump era, the United States had, according to WVS authors, "much more conventional value strategy than any another post-industrial society but Ireland’.

But what connects Americans to another nations is theirs. readiness to break the rules game. This is shown, for example, by the conventional "Edelman Trust Barometer", where 33,000 people in 28 countries were examined in this year's late published edition. According to survey results, as many as a 4th of the population considers it appropriate to distribute misinformation (25%), to usage force (23%) or to destruct property of another people (also 23%)

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Broadcasting of president Donald Trump's speech at a forum in Davos, 23 January 2025.

What real economical policy means against specified trends is not clear at all. If existing rules are perceived to be incorrect and even if the meaning of the rules is mostly contested, This is simply a challenge, especially for Germanswho besides like to focus on the principles of economical issues.

It wasn't a coincidence that German Chancellor Angela Merkel at the time proposed in Davos in 2009 to kind out the mess caused by the global financial crisis: Merkel wanted to make World economical Council under the auspices of the United Nations. At the time, the German Chancellor was ignored. present in Davos she would meet with a cynical laugh.

Optimists in Davos this week assumed that realpolitik will yet be the name of the game, especially in dealing with the fresh American president. That he would yet come to an agreement. Threats, according to popular wishful thinking, are alternatively negotiated tactics. After all, if he's a businessman, he'll be looking for an chance to make a deal.. As Olaf Scholz in Davos put it, directing his words towards Washington: “It is frequently in our own interest to understand.”