Good article from Sky News (UK) making the case that as globalization fades or slows, so does the World Economic Forum. Worth a full read.
At its core, it is a four-day-long meeting of businesspeople, politicians, academics, campaigners and, yes, celebrities, up the mountain in a Swiss ski resort.
There are speeches from world leaders, forums where people talk about the big issues of the day, from poverty to climate change to inequality and countless meetings and parties outside the official World Economic Forum cordons.
Bankers come here to meet potential clients and do deals in hotel suites, politicians have quiet bilateral meetings with their peers and with businesspeople.
But there are two overarching reasons why Davos matters. The first is: convening power.
It stands and falls on whether it can persuade enough influential people to come here, so that the other influential people can rub shoulders with them.
The second is something deeper: most of the delegates here benefit from a world where capital and trade move freely from one part of the world to another. This place is not the explanation for the globalisation of the past few decades, but it has certainly thrived in that world.
And on both of these fronts, things are not looking good for Davos.
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