The Rich Plan To Become Richer In Davos

Dr. Michael LaitmanOpinion (Aditya Chakrabortty, columnist): “More than 2,500 business executives and bankers will converge on the highest town in Europe for the annual World Economic Forum. …

“The theme of this year’s conference is ‘Resilient dynamism.’

“As participants acknowledge, the real business lies in private sessions with industry peers and amenable politicians, and access to those starts at around £98,500.

“And this is what makes Davos so fascinating: it is the most perfect case study of how the practitioners of free-market, globalised capitalism give the public one explanation for what they are doing and why, while privately pursuing the complete opposite. … From its inception, the whole point of Davos has been to promulgate the gospel of free-market fundamentalism. …

“And it’s true: unlike previous generations of the ultra-wealthy, many of the modern super-rich work for a living, in running major businesses or in finance (although the Davos guestlist still includes plenty of sheikhs and royals). But that doesn’t mean they truly earn the millions they claim. …

“Take a look at who’s in the Davos set. Last spring, two American academics, Jon Bakija and Brad Helm, and a US Treasury official, Adam Cole, published the most comprehensive analysis yet of the richest 0.1% earners, based on tax returns. Of these top dogs, nearly two in three were top corporate executives and bankers. And the story in both those professions has not been of brilliant returns to shareholders or vast improvements for society, but of wealth extraction and lobbying politicians, Davos-style.

“Earlier generations would have known what to call this Davos set of wealth extractors and rip-off merchants. Andrew Sayer, a Lancaster professor working on a book to be called Why We Can’t Afford The Rich totes up the terms: Ruskin referred to such wealth as illth, the liberal JA Hobson as ‘improperty.’ Only now, the top 0.1% are able to conceal what they’re up to in plain sight.”

My Comment: Until people decide that only through changing themselves will they correct the world and that otherwise they will destroy themselves, everything will continue as dictated by our egoism, and everything will be done only for its sake, even if it does not lead to the better. After all, our nature is like the serpent that absorbs everything but is not sated. Only immense suffering will compel us to kill it (the path of suffering) … or we can come to the awareness that it is something that brings death (the path of awareness, Light).
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