World Economic Forum

Bill and Melinda Gates at the World Economic Forum (with David Cameron) in 2011, conspiring about their evil and nefarious plan to eliminate polio.

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The World Economic Forum (WEF) is a not-for-profit foundation headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland. As they put it in the mission statement of their page, "The Forum strives in all its efforts to demonstrate entrepreneurship in the global public interest while upholding the highest standards of governance."^[1] The foundation was initially established by a precocious German academic named Klaus Schwab (1938–) in 1971, for the purpose of making European businesses think more about stakeholders beyond those who own their shares (e.g., a business theory called stakeholder theory or stakeholder capitalism, of which Schwab was a prominent promoter),^[2] and to expose them to American management methods.^[3]

It is best known for its annual event in a Swiss resort town named Davos. An A-list bash for plutocrats, it attracts nearly 3000 corporate and political leaders every year.^[3] Compared to the type of capitalism envisioned by economists like Milton Friedman (who believed that businesses should only answer to shareholders), advocates of stakeholder capitalism theoretically believe that corporations should also be accountable to employees, customers, and the environment.^[4] Thus, Davos conferences are noted for tackling topics like climate change and inequality that would ordinarily not have fit into previous big business paradigms.^[4]

Contrary to conspiracy beliefs, the WEF does not prescribe policy, and cannot make any government create any law based on ideas discussed. Unlike intergovernmental organizations like the United Nations (UN), there is no formal mandate. The intent of the WEF is to facilitate problem solving by acting as a forum to exchange ideas.^[5][6][7]

Defenders of Davos note that the conference is one of the few forums where activists and business moguls can mingle, and historically it has served as a launchpad for new global development campaigns and programs. Examples of these programs include GAVI, a global health partnership with the goal of increasing access to immunization in poor countries that was launched at the World Economic Forum in January 2000; and the New Development Bank, which was conceived at Davos in 2011.^[8][9][10]

Criticisms[edit]

WEF protest in Basel Switzerland, 2006

Davos is seen as a symbol of globalism and neoliberalism that promotes capitalism and democracy.^[12] Optically, Davos is also seen as a gathering of a handful of untouchable elites. This has led to prominent criticism that the Davos conference is fueled by hypocrisy (a criticism that, true to form, has been brought up at Davos itself) — a conference that talks about the ill effects of climate change where the elite are flying in on their private jets, a conference that talks about the ill effects of inequality where issues like tax avoidance by the elite are downplayed.^[4]

Essentially, the suspicion of critics is that for all the talk, not much action takes place; the global elite are seen by these critics as uninterested in solutions to world problems if the solutions threaten their dominance.^[4] Indeed, hypocritically, some CEOs that espouse stakeholder capitalism at WEF have been known to act like old-fashioned Friedman-style "shareholder capitalists" (e.g. firing workers to reduce expenses and please shareholders) during periods of reduced profit.^[13] There are also concerns from some critics that WEF's mission implies that only unaccountable business elites, not democratically-elected governments, can solve the world's problems, a position seen as potentially more aligned with the ethos of authoritarian capitalism than democracy.^[13] The WEF annually publishes a "global competitiveness index"; some critics see this as a feature that has "flogged national governments into a race to the bottom to adopt lower taxes and slash regulations", essentially contradicting its purported "stakeholder capitalism" goals.^[14]

The late political scientist Samuel P. Huntington coined the term "Davos Man" to refer to the affluent attendees of the annual forum. Huntington saw these attendees as an elite global superclass who had "little need for national loyalty, view national boundaries as obstacles that thankfully are vanishing, and see national governments as residues from the past whose only useful function is to facilitate the elite’s global operations."^[15][16] For non-conspiratorial critics of Davos concerned about issues such as rising inequality, this term is a pejorative.^[16]

Although Davos historically has been criticized more from the left, with protests at Davos ranging from inequality-oriented movements like Occupy Wall Street to anti-capitalist and anarchist movements,^{[17][18][19][20]} since the 2020s it has also faced criticism from those on the right as well. In particular, Republicans in the United States have pushed against the WEF concept of stakeholder capitalism, and have labeled this and related concepts such as environmental, social, and governance (ESG) as "woke capitalism".^[21] Although some of this pushback reflects some longstanding pillars of the Republican party, such as anti-environmentalism (especially if said environmental policies affect fossil fuels),^[22] this also reflected a broader rise in the Western world of a new kind of right-wing populism that — fueled by such factors as the after-effects of the 2007–2008 financial crisis, the subsequent decline of manufacturing in the Western world (in favor of "offshoring" manufacturing to low-cost places like China), and the stark rise in inequality attributed to the aftereffects of the COVID-19 pandemic — adapted a new form of nationalism that was fiercely against the sort of globalization and elitism perfectly encapsulated by the Davos conference.^[23][24]

WEF conspiracy theories[edit]

Unsurprisingly, as a gathering of elites, Davos has long generated conspiracy theories, similar to other gatherings of elites such as the Bilderberg Group and the Bohemian Grove. In these conspiracies, the WEF is accused of being a shadowy group that manipulates global events and policy for their own benefit. Initially on the fringes, these conspiracy theories started intensifying and becoming mainstream during the COVID-19 pandemic.^[25]

I will not eat the bugs, I will not live in a pod[edit]

Fried insects for sale in Thailand. These are actually a popular snack there, often enjoyed with a cold beer.^[27]

Beginning in the 2010s, insects as food for humans was touted by some organizations such as the United Nations as a hypothetical solution to food security issues.^[28][29] These organizations include the WEF, who published several articles highlighting the potential environmental benefits of insects as food in the 2010s and 2020s.^{[note 1][31]} Although eating bugs actually is not uncommon in several countries (notably in Asia-Pacific regions), Western cultures at present typically do not accept insects as human food (never mind that other arthropods like shrimp and lobster don't face this reluctance).^[32] In countries where eating insects is uncommon, the idea of eating insects as a solution for sustainability has long been met with hesitancy and occasional ridicule.^[33]

Given that some of these articles about eating insects were being published by long-conspired-about world organizations,^{[note 2]} and given that the idea of eating insects is one that many Westerners would find disgusting, it is not surprising that the above inspired memes on Western populist message boards. Around 2019, a meme emerged in the 4chan sphere with the catchphrase "I will not eat the bugs", often paired with the phrase "I will not live in a pod".^[33] The phrase initially was used in a more generic way to imply that global elites were exerting more control over individual autonomy, including forcing people to eat insects. Often the meme was paired with photos of environmental activist figures seen as part of this elite, such as Greta Thunberg.^[33]

Since 2020, following the COVID-19 pandemic and the growth of the "Great Reset" conspiracy theory, this conspiracy meme has become increasingly associated with the WEF.^[34]

You will own nothing and be happy[edit]

In 2016, the WEF posted on their Facebook page an article containing "8 predictions for the world in 2030". Headlining the article was the phrase "you'll own nothing, and you'll be happy".^[35] The title, in particular, references a 2016 essay written for the World Economic Forum by Danish MP Ida Auken.^[36] The essay was written in the context of the growth of the deceptively-named sharing economy, which was a big business trend in the mid-2010s in the wake of Silicon Valley startups like Uber.^[37] The essay envisioned a more sustainable future where somehow abstracting all products as services and eliminating ownership (and privacy) would eliminate seemingly every ill known to humans… except for her biggest concern, all those pesky people who live outside of her utopian city who "felt obsolete and useless". Intended by the author as a "scenario showing where we could be heading — for better and for worse", the article was seen by many as an expression of her personal utopian vision. This vision naturally was criticized for appearing to be elitist and creepily dystopian.^[38]

The essay was not discovered by the conspiracy crowd for several years. In October 2020, as part of an ongoing thread on the "Great Reset" conspiracy theory in /pol/, the essay was unearthed by 4chan users and posted as "evidence" that the WEF was planing to abolish the right to property for the benefit of a few.^[39] The conspiracy theory gained enough traction on the populist right to eventually be mentioned by outlets such as the New York Post^[40] and Sky News Australia.^[41]

The Great Reset[edit]

A COVID-19 protester in Germany, with a poster with the "Great Reset" and "You Will Own Nothing and Be Happy" conspiracy slogans in German.^{[note 3]} The poster claims that this Great Reset is supported by all major German political parties.

“”A global plan called the Great Reset is underway. Its architect is a global élite that wants to subdue all of humanity, imposing coercive measures with which to drastically limit individual freedoms and those of entire populations. In several nations this plan has already been approved and financed; in others it is still in an early stage. Behind the world leaders who are the accomplices and executors of this infernal project, there are unscrupulous characters who finance the World Economic Forum and Event 201, promoting their agenda. The purpose of the Great Reset is the imposition of a health dictatorship aiming at the imposition of liberticidal measures, hidden behind tempting promises of ensuring a universal income and cancelling individual debt.

—Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, conspiring about the WEF in an ironically similar manner to how people conspire about the Catholic church.[42]

During the COVID-19 pandemic, a new Davos conspiracy theory emerged; this conspiracy ended up becoming particularly prominent with members of the populist right and the anti-vaccination movement. This theory was espoused (often to the point of dystopian hyperbole) by figures such as Alex Jones,^[43] Tucker Carlson,^[44] Glenn Beck,^[45] Charlie Kirk,^[46] Ben Shapiro,^[47] Rick Wiles,^[48] Laura Ingraham,^[49] Joseph Mercola,^[50] and Marjorie Taylor Greene.^[51] This conspiracy theory centered on an initiative drawn up by WEF titled the Great Reset.^[52][53]

Origins[edit]

In June 2020, Schwab (together with then-Prince Charles) launched the Great Reset initiative.^[54] Schwab saw the pandemic as a "rare but narrow window of opportunity to reflect, re-imagine, and reset our world to create a healthier, more equitable, and more prosperous future." This prompted him to create this initiative as a way to promote his "stakeholder capitalism" vision.^[55]

The initiative had three main components. The first component was to attempt to steer the market towards fairer outcomes by advocating certain government reforms (such as wealth taxes and the withdrawal of fossil fuel subsidies). The second component was to ensure that COVID stimulus programs advanced equality and sustainability. The third component was to "harness the innovations of the Fourth Industrial Revolution to support the public good, especially by addressing health and social challenges."^[55]

Despite large amount of content (including a book and a podcast) produced about the plan, the wide scope of changes advocated was short on exact details on what this would mean in practice.^[54] The combination of the lack of clarity, the huge scope, and the fact that it was produced by an organization seen by many as the "global elite" created a fertile ground for the "Great Reset" plan to become a major conspiracy theory, one which neatly fit in with the many other conspiracies surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic.^[54]

The conspiracy[edit]

The "Great Reset" initiative was seen as proof (to the conspiracy crowd) that pandemic responses, such as lockdowns and vaccines, were created to deliberately bring about economic collapse and bring about a single world government run for the benefit of a powerful elite few.^[54] Due to the nebulousness of this conspiracy theory, these ideas not only attracted many on the populist political right, but also others (such as New Age healers) who were also prone to one world government conspiracy theories.^[54]

Great Reset conspiracy theories are very similar to older one-world-government conspiracy theories such as the New World Order.^[33] Just as the New World Order conspiracies were conflated with the UN's Agenda 21 hopeful guidelines, Great Reset conspiracy theories are conflated to the UN's update of Agenda 21, Agenda 2030.^[56][57]

Like many other social media-driven conspiracy theories (such as QAnon), the Great Reset conspiracy theory took on unified conspiracy theory elements and was integrated into other similar conspiracy movements. For instance, fundamentalists have used the "Great Reset" trope to revive the idea that the End Times is coming and that the rise of the Antichrist is near, as part of a wave of apocalyptic fervor that swept across the evangelical scene (including the Christian book publishing market) in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and the Big Lie of Donald Trump.^[58] WEF founder Schwab was a prominently featured "villain" (alongside other conspiracy-touted "villains" like Bill Gates and Barack Obama) in the Christian nationalist tour created by Michael Flynn and Clay Clark called ReAwaken America.^[59]

Climate change deniers such as Marc Morano^[60] have integrated the conspiracies surrounding the "great reset" into their denialism narrative, and integrate other WEF conspiracies (such as the purported push to have people consume bugs) to imply that the WEF wants to control food production and police what people eat.^[61] Similarly, a website called The People's Voice, one of many aliases for the fake news site YourNewsWire, falsely claimed (using cherry-picked information, including tidbits not even related to the WEF at all) that the WEF ordered governments to ration water.^[7]

Purported Great Reset conspirators[edit]

Shortly before the COVID-19 pandemic in October 2019, the WEF worked with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security to host a high-level pandemic simulation in order to brainstorm pandemic preparedness concepts. This simulation was called Event 201.^[62] To conspiracy theory believers, this was bizarrely seen as evidence that the WEF had prior knowledge of the COVID-19 virus, and thus this became another part of the "proof" of the conspiracy. As Gates played a big role in many other COVID-19 conspiracies, it was only natural that he showed up in many "Great Reset" conspiracy theories as well.^[63]

Another person who became associated with the Great Reset conspiracy theory is Yuval Noah Harari. Harari is an Israeli historian who specializes in Big History, as well as a philosopher who often waxes about a possible dystopian future when it comes to technology (in particular artificial intelligence).^[64][65] Harari is not part of WEF management, but he has spoken at the WEF (a grand total of two times, in 2018 and 2020). In the past, Harari has also made a few philosophical allusions to God and religion (such as referencing Friedrich Nietzsche's famous "God is Dead" quote) that, when taken out of context, could be used to imply a position of antitheism. These little nuggets somehow got twisted into a conspiracy where the WEF and/or Schwab purportedly said that Jesus himself was "fake news" or that God was dead. This conspiracy was often combined with the false notion that Harari was Schwab's right-hand man. Harari's dystopian technological what-ifs, which were sometimes written with Biblically-tinged sturm und drang and ironically were often similarly concerned about a world ruled by elites (in Harari's case, data-driven digital dictatorships), were often re-appropriated by the conspiracists to support their claims.^[66][67][68]

Politicians that used the "Great Reset" term also got associated with the conspiracy theory. For instance, in September 2020, Canadian PM Justin Trudeau mentioned that the "pandemic has provided an opportunity for a great reset… this is our chance to accelerate our pre-pandemic efforts, to re-imagine economic systems that actually address global challenges like extreme poverty, inequality and climate change." Conservative MP Pierre Poilievre seized on the "great reset" term to "warn" (with a nod to the conspiracy theorists) that "global financial elites" were attempting to "re-engineer economies and societies" to "empower the elites at the expense of the people".^[69] Great Reset and WEF conspiracy theories were still used by Trudeau protesters in Canada three years later.^[70]

15-minute cities[edit]

Pedestrian zones, clearly a tool of the New World Order.

In 2010, a Parisian scientist and business professor named Carlos Moreno started developing a concept called the 15-minute city.^[71] This urban planning idea was simple: when developing cities, the goal should be that everyday destinations such as schools, stores, and offices should only be a short 15 minute walk or bike ride away from home.^[71] Initially obscure, the plan picked up momentum among many local governing districts during the COVID-19 pandemic. Notably, by 2021, the 15 minute city idea was being promoted by the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group, an international organization (representing 96 cities) focused on fighting the climate crisis, as a blueprint for the post-COVID-19 recovery.^[71][72][73] In 2020, Anne Hidalgo successfully used the 15 minute city concept as a centerpiece of her Paris mayoral re-election campaign.^[74] This plan was not a novel idea; similar urban planning ideas were conceptualized (and in some cases implemented) in many other cities prior to the COVID-19 pandemic.^[75] The roots of the 15 minute city idea can be traced as far back as 1898, when an English urban planner named Ebenezer Howard proposed the concept of garden cities.^[76]

The conspiracy crowd paid little attention to this concept until 2022, when Oxford, England started trialing a traffic calming plan (only tangentially related to the 15 minute city concept) called a low traffic neighbourhood (LTN).^[71] The goal of this plan was to attempt to reduce heavy city traffic during peak periods by requiring drivers to have permits during these peaks on six key snarled up city roads. These restrictions would be enforced by traffic cameras. Although similar LTNs (or equivalents) had been set up in several other British cities over the past few decades, somehow this particular plan fired up the conspiracy crowd's imagination. The Oxford LTN plan was transformed by this crowd into a conspiracy theory where the city of Oxford was carved up into six sealed-off "15 minute cities". According to the conspiracy theory, once separated, citizens would be strictly confined to their zone by physical barriers, facial recognition technology, or other means.^[75][77]

In late December 2022, Jordan Peterson helped amplify this conspiracy theory by retweeting a post detailing the above bullshit; this post also happened to conflate the Oxford conspiracy with the WEF and the "Great Reset". Peterson even attempted to use the C40 endorsement of the 15 minute city concept as "proof" that the post he was retweeting was somehow not a conspiracy theory.^[78] By February 2023, the online furor had risen to the point where local Oxford officials (as well as Moreno) were getting a torrent of angry and abusive messages on social media (including death threats) from people who often had no connection to Oxford at all.^[75].

As the conspiracy spread, it was transformed into a more generic purported nefarious concept where the WEF (or the UN) would use the 15 minute city idea to implement tyrannical control. According to this conspiracy's dystopian vision, in this future "15 minute city", cameras would track every movement, car ownership would be banned (except for a few globalist elites), people would only have the "freedom to operate in the part that you live" and would need permits to leave their zones, and dystopian oppression would become the norm.^{[71][75][77][79][80]} Frequently, posters also referenced ideas found in other "Great Reset" and WEF conspiracies.^[81] Essentially, the conspiracy crowd feared that 15 minute cities would become a vehicle to enforce a "permanent lockdown".^[82]

Similar conspiracy theories have been propagated about "smart cities", a phrase sometimes used by the WEF and the UN to simply refer to cities that use technology to improve operations.^[83]

Notes[edit]

References[edit]