As you read this, about 3000 members of the global business and political elite are winging their way – some by helicopter, some by private jet – to the snow-covered ski resort of Davos, in Switzerland.
There they will stay, in hotels or private chalets, to attend the four-day annual meeting of the World Economic Forum, commencing Tuesday.
![Star power: Matt Damon will launch a new clean water initiative at this year's World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, ...](/web/20170117172232im_/http://www.theage.com.au/content/dam/images/g/q/c/5/8/0/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gtrdk6.png/1484523380205.jpg)
They will have paid upwards of $US50,000 for annual membership of the elite forum – closer to half a million dollars for a premium corporate membership.
They are chief executives, investors, bankers, consultants, central bankers, politicians and celebrities. Pop songstress Shakira will follow in the footsteps of previous attendee Bono to be recognised for her work promoting early childhood learning in Colombia. Matt Damon will launch a new clean water campaign with Stella Artois. Jamie Oliver will spruik his food revolution.
![illustration: Jim Pavlidis](/web/20170117172232im_/http://www.theage.com.au/content/dam/images/g/t/r/w/c/0/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gtrdk6.png/1484523380205.jpg)
There will be billionaires aplenty, including Bill Gates and China's richest man Wang Jianlin, whose personal wealth from his real estate and entertainment empire stands at some $30 billion. Fellow Chinese billionaire and Alibaba founder, Jack Ma, who met Donald Trump in New York a week ago will also attend.
This year's China contingent is strong, with president Xi Jinping set to become the first Chinese leader to address the conference.
Four in five attendees will be men.
Two-thirds will have travelled from Europe or America.
The average age will be 52.
These are the global creme de la creme of the globalisation and liberalisation agenda. They want free trade, free markets, low taxes, deregulation, privatisation and a strait-jacketed role for government.
But devotion to a liberal ideology comes with a liberal side-serving of an eye for business opportunities.
At lavish after hours parties, lucrative deals will be done, shoulders rubbed and egos stroked.
Last year, high-profile participants dismissed the emerging campaign of populist Donald Trump variously as "unbelievable", "embarrassing" or even "dangerous".
This year, they will listen to International Monetary Fund chief Christine Lagarde and American billionaire Ray Dalio debate "Squeezed and Angry: how to fix the middle-class crisis".
Public relations material for this year's meeting is keen to stress the diversity of attendees and topics to be covered.
More than 400 sessions will cover subjects as diverse as "Advancing the sustainable development agenda", "Can women have it all", "A basic income for all: dream or delusion" (hint: the latter) and "What is it to be human in the fourth industrial revolution".
The topic for the meeting is: "Under-Employed, Under-Inclusive and Under Threat: the World in 2017".
It could as easily be a descriptor of the conference itself, not known for its productivity or inclusiveness. Whether it is truly "under threat" from the rising tide of anti-globalisation remains to be seen.
Forum founder, Klaus Schwab, possibly the most successful event organiser to have ever lived, has styled the meeting as occurring at a "tipping point".
"We are living in a world no longer driven by linear change, but rather exponential change occurring simultaneously in all fields. This is creating extreme volatility, uncertainty and, as a consequence, an understandable nostalgia to 'turn back the clock'.
"Historians will look back at this time as the tipping point in choosing the positive path for building a better future. For this to happen, we must overcome the present mood of divisiveness and negativism.
"There are no simple, ready-made solutions. What we urgently need are pragmatic and future-oriented actions, even in the form of small steps, to provide positive narratives."
Let the talkfest begin!
Much serious nodding of heads will be had around the need to reignite economic growth, to make it more inclusive, to strengthen international cooperation and to safeguard the dignity of work in the face of technological advances.
More fundamental questions will be left unanswered.
Policies that might actually help to ameliorate the concerns of the silent majority – a greater tax burden on the elite, a devaluation of the inflated asset prices they have enjoyed, or a radical reinvestment in public education – remain firmly off the table.
The biggest question facing the world in 2017 is whether the populist backlashes of 2016 represent just a hiccup on the road towards ever greater globalisation and liberalisation, or the beginning of a new retreat from these ideas which have shaped the world post World War II world.
The gathered elite in Davos will no doubt believe it is the former.
They may well be right.
For all his populist rhetoric, one can imagine President-elect Trump hobnobbing with the best of them at Davos. He has already appointed six Goldman Sachs alumni to his administration.
Nor is it clear that globalisation is at death's door.
Hardly, says ANZ chief economist Richard Yetsenga. "Let's be clear: a Trump presidency represents a challenge to globalisation, not its end. Mr Trump's rise is as much about citizen-initiated debate, as anything else."
China's attendance at Davos only underscores the determination of China to engage with the world, as the US is closing down, says Yetsenga.
"Asia's prosperity is clearly tied to a more open trading environment, and Asian leaders in recent months have been vocal in their support of a transparent and open trading system."
And Trump's own policy to unleash $1 trillion in spending on infrastructure will only increase its demand for imports, stimulating trade.
That's no bad thing. Freer trade brings benefits of lower prices, greater choice and more exports. But those benefits are not necessarily evenly spread – and have not been.
For all its guise of concern about remedying the situation, Davos is no place to find solutions to the great modern challenge of adding legitimacy to the globalisation agenda.
For here, the establishment lives on. The middle classes have been had. And the solutions for a more inclusive form of economic growth remain as far away as ever.
Welcome to Davos 2017.
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