January 23, 2024
Joel Kotkin reports from Davos that things are not well with Klaus Schwab’s World Economic Forum. Says he:
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The growing irrelevance of what Adrian Wooldridge has labelled “the progressive aristocracy” can even be seen in the less than enthusiastic press coverage. Politico describes the contemporary Davos crowd as a “smart set” which “sounds dumb.”
Then he sticks in the shiv:
The grandees don’t have to travel far to see the results of their “reset” as nearby Germany’s industrial machine collapses, with even its last solar panel plant about to go belly-up.
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But then there was Javier Milei’s rousing speech in Davos where he said that economic growth down the centuries looks like a “hockey stick.” No growth since forever, then all of a sudden a takeoff that has reduced extreme poverty from 95% of humanity to 5%.
So how come academia, international organisations, economic theorists and politicians demonise an economic system that has not only lifted 90% of the world’s population out of extreme poverty but has continued to do this faster and faster?
Good point, Javier. How come all these experts think that they can run the economy better than the businessmen? And what do we do about it?
I have a simple solution. It is this:
EVERYBODY: STAY IN YOUR LANE!
If you are an academic, stick to counting the number of angels on the head of a pin. And remember this: if “experts agree” on the number of angels, it means that someone has corrupted you. Experts never agree, because every expert believes in his own pet theory, and knows that the other expert´s theory isn’t worth the paper it is printed on. Stay In Your Lane, academics and experts!
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If you are an international organization, stick to funding Hamas and helping to build its tunnels. You know nothing about Israel, the Jews, “settler colonialism,” economics, business, and you know nothing about raising people out of poverty, as your record in Gaza testifies to all the world. Stay In Your Lane, international organizations, and stop Making Things Worse.
If you are an economic theorist, stick to your theories and stop teaching politicians how to game the economy, as in Keynesian “stimulus” and Modern Monetary Theory. Stay In Your Lane, economic theorists, and stop helping the politicians to implement a bit of “transitory” inflation here and run a trillion-dollar deficit there and screw things up for average Americans.
If you are a politician, stick to fighting world wars and dividing people by race, by sex, and by class! You know nothing about business — making, buying, selling, exchanging, inventing! Be content with your Ten Percent for the Big Guy, and Stay In Your Lane!
So, we have dealt with the demonizers of capitalism enumerated by Milei. Whatabout the folks he left out, the people that sneer at the market economy, because snobbery, or fear the market economy, because of lack of skill or culture?
If you are in the Educated Class, then stick to “lived experience” and “diversity” and “equity.” All you know is repeating Woking Class responses at periodic DEI training sessions. But if you have never met a payroll, or priced a product in the marketplace, or hired entry-level employees and trained them to do useful work, you know nothing. Just keep intoning your Diversity Mass in Woke Minor and Stay In Your Lane.
If you are a journalist, then all you know is sucking up to your sources, knowing every day that your career depends on echoing ruling-class narrative. Rulers have always needed their regime stenographers, but otherwise Stay In Your Lane.
All this is good clean all-American fun. But whatabout people that really want to matter, like George Soros or Klaus Schwab? Even John Kerry! What is their problem? And what is their lane? And then it came to me. These are people who, in the olden time, would have been courtiers, royal hangers-on, attracted to power, but not actually sitting in the catbird seat.
These are people who long to be the power behind the throne, and if they can’t have power, then at least they can strut their stuff in the corridors of power as a modern-day Gentleman of the Bedchamber or Groom of the Stool or Special Presidential Envoy for Climate. Put it this way:
If you are a throne-sniffer, then all you know is flying private and staying close to the powerful and using your money to buy influence. You gain the approval of the powerful by pushing their power projects, like climate change and systemic racism. You gather all the demi-semi-throne-sniffers together in Davos or pile wood on the fire to burn down the blue cities with prosecutors that don’t prosecute killers and shop-lifters so they have the time to prosecute Donald Trump at their leisure. Send your silk breeches to the cleaners, courtiers, and Stay In Your Lane.
Imagine there’s no lane jumpers.
It’s easy if you try.
Christopher Chantrill @chrischantrill runs the go-to site on US government finances, usgovernmentspending.com. Also get his American Manifesto and his Road to the Middle Class.
Image: William Brawley
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