The “Davos Man” is a coinage of the US political scientist Samuel Huntington (who also gave us the “Clash of Civilizations”). More than two decades ago he used it to describe people for whom globalization has only brought advantages. People who float through the world without borders, no longer know their homeland – but who meet once a year at the World Economic Forum in Davos, of course exclusively with other globalization winners.
I was at the Swiss Forum this year and I can say with certainty that the “Davos Man” no longer exists. This not only has to do with the fact that 27.5 percent of the participants and even 42 percent of the speakers there are women. But rather with how much “globalization” has become a dirty word even at the meeting in the mountain idyll. Even the toughest “Davos Man” understood that this didn’t just produce winners. So China’s Deputy Prime Minister Liu He charmed that his country would reopen after three years of corona lockdown – but hardly any of the around 600 CEOs present could rejoice, the dependence on the autocratically managed Chinese market seems so uncertain. So while American companies like Meta celebrated their virtual worlds of wonder, prominent politicians from the States preferred to stay at home.
Germany, on the other hand, which has long been the world champion in exports, was less conspicuous for its company presence than for its politicians. Economics Minister Robert Habeck called his Swiss political colleague “Röstli” instead of “Rösti” – and Finance Minister Christian Lindner thundered confidently from the podium that even in the crisis we are all pilots, not passengers. The latter almost sounded like “Davos Man” again.
Olaf Scholz, in turn, used his appearance to do what Olaf Scholz does best: praise Olaf Scholz. The Chancellor’s speech in Davos turned into a lengthy instruction as to why Germany is in an excellent position as a business location, despite all the rumors to the contrary. Scholz did not want to answer the question of whether Germany is also in an excellent position as a leading nation. The chancellor is silent, probably also because he senses the reluctance of the German population to become more involved in Ukraine. Perhaps this reluctance is simply because Scholz does not explain his strategy. In a Forsa survey for the star, only a quarter of Germans consider him a strong leader. “Germany, the embarrassing partner” was our title last week. We had no idea how durable the line would be.
This week’s title got stuck. At the time of going to press, it was not clear whether Recep Tayyip Erdoğan would be traveling to Germany any time soon. However, it is certain that the Turkish President would like to use his influence on many well-meaning German Turks for his upcoming election campaign. And also that he wants to remain a troublemaker or arsonist nationally and internationally, as our cover team around Turkey correspondent Jonas Breng and reporter Nicolas Büchse researched for you.
And where is the positive? I admit that when I was young I thought Boris Becker was the greatest living philosopher. It fills me with great joy that the tennis veteran apparently found his way to the great thinkers in prison of all places. You can only read the whole boom-boom philosophy here.
