Davos Man, 'the most highly evolved mammal on the planet', should say 'sorry' for the economic mess he's got us into, according to a trenchant little piece in The Times of London by the British Conservative MP and journalist, Michael Gove.
Davos Man, 'the most highly evolved mammal on the planet', should say 'sorry' for the economic mess he's got us into, according to a trenchant little piece in The Times of London by the British Conservative MP and journalist, Michael Gove.
Timothy Garton AshSource:
Close the entire text of the article here
Scanning the list of participants in this year's annual meeting of the World Economic Forum, I notice the name of the British Conservative party leader, David Cameron. If memory serves, Cameron was a Davos Man last year too. So clearly Mr Gove is calling on his party leader to say sorry.
There is something both predictable and ridiculous about the blame game currently being played, with politicians blaming bankers, bankers blaming regulators, regulators blaming politicians, and so on. If, as Barack Obama famously remarked to Joe the Plumber, we need to spread the wealth around a bit more, we also need to spread the blame around a bit more - and more discriminatingly.
Those of us who are not financial experts are only beginning to understand what went wrong in what George Soros has described as a super-boom followed by a super-bust. (If you want a crash course - the term is doubly apt - I recommend a special report on finance in the latest Economist and a recent lecture by the head of Britain's Financial Services Authority, Adair Turner, available on the FSA website.) On the evidence we have so far, the following could plausibly be asked to interrogate themselves on their share of the responsibility. With the exception of the first and last categories, the words 'some of the', should be inserted before each heading. My list is, of course, merely indicative.
Crooks. Bernie Madoff was (it appears, subject to the finding of the courts) a crook, a fraudster and a confidence trickster. His like will always be with us. The relevant question is how he was able to get away with it for so long and on such a scale.
Bankers. Some highly respected and law-abiding bankers took huge gambles and made horrible miscalculations at our expense, themselves walking of with multi-million bonuses while leaving shareholders and taxpayers to pick up the tab. Others did not.
Regulators. There,s a lot of failure to go around in this category. 'Is that a typo?' one official at the US Securities and Exchange Commission reportedly asked, when faced with the $50bn estimate for Madoff's losses. 'Isn't that number meant to be $50m?'
Politicians. It's all very well for politicians to rail against 'Wall Street', and the 'banksters', but this happened on George Bush's and Gordon Brown's watch. 'The cheerleaders of finance', writes the Economist's Edward Carr in his excellent report, 'were unwilling to admit that houses were too expensive and risk too cheap.' Yes, but so were the cheerleaders of British and American politics.
Economists. Here's a guild from which we might usefully hear a little more self-criticism - especially from the quantitative economists whose mathematical models helped to lead investors astray. In what sense can economics still claim to be a science if its predictive capacity is so low? Imagine Newtonian physics when apples start falling upwards.
Journalists. Yes, a few warned, as did a few exceptional economists like Nouriel Roubini; but it's only now that your average reader of the business pages is in a position to understand how risky his or her investments were.
Did business journalism fail us? We, the people. Some of us, anyway: piling up household debt, especially in Britain and America, on the back of inflated house prices that gave the illusion of security; not asking sufficiently probing questions about where our pension funds were invested.
The system. Blanket charges against some denatured, depersonalised 'system' usually betray incoherence wrapped in indignation. But there is a sense here of a global financial system that had become so large, complex and un-transparent that it was beyond the capacity of even the largest actor in the markets to understand, let alone control. And one in which apparently short-term rational decisions by most individual participants produced a result collectively damaging for all.
The first conclusion that I draw is about knowledge and transparency. What many of these categories have in common is that those involved, whether bankers, regulators, politicians, journalists or ordinary pension fund-holders, did not see and understand enough about what was really going on. There were too many black boxes and unopened Russian dolls - such as those repeatedly repackaged 'collateralised debt obligations'. Even Soros, the legendary master-investor, is reported to have been wary of derivatives because he didn't 'really understand how they work'.
Now you may say: 'well, if Soros couldn't understand, how on earth do you expect me too?' But you can also turn that round the other way and say: 'Follow the Soros rule - don't invest in anything you don't understand'. If enough individual and institutional investors made that paradigm-shift, this would have the beauty of using market mechanisms to discipline markets. Offer more transparency or you don't get my money. This is not a substitute for better regulation by national governments and international institutions, but would be a formidable complement to it.
My second conclusion brings us back to Davos Man, a term of art coined by the late Samuel Huntington to describe a member of a new global elite, liberated from national loyalties and contemptuous of national boundaries - a kind of ruthless cosmopolitan. Davos Man was always what social scientists call an ideal type. In practice, Davos is a meeting-place of diverse business, political and media elites. Many of the multi-national companies, banks and media concerns represented here do have global business plans and strategies, yet even they often remain rooted in a national business or media culture. CNN is global but also very American, BBC World is global but also quite British, Nestlé is global and thoroughly Swiss.
As for the political leaders who come to Davos, most of them are still firmly based in national politics. Up here, on the magic mountain, they present their national views and interests to an international audience in the most cosmopolitan terms of which they are capable - as the Chinese premier Wen Jiabao and the Russian premier Vladimir Putin did yesterday. But they always remain acutely conscious of how their words will play through national media to national publics back home.
The biggest danger to the world's economic system today is not a surfeit of Davos-type internationalism; it's the strengthening of economic nationalism. Davos itself has always been just a small part of a larger effort not to supplant international competition but to place it within a stronger framework of international cooperation.
Now we are at a crossroads. One road leads back to economic nationalism, protectionism and beggar-thy-neighbour policies. Another leads forward to more international cooperation, including more regulation and transparency.
Without a conscious effort, the dynamics of both democratic and undemocratic politics, which remain national, will lead us down the former road. Inside Davos Man, there is his predecessor and possible successor always struggling to get out. If you don't like what you've seen of Davos Man, wait till you see Nationalist Man get to work.
Timothy Garton Ash.
Senior fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution and professor of European studies at Oxford University.
Sounds so impressive, yet every article that he wrote seems to be uncritical in its pro-western bias.
Not so long ago in article "Taming the Russian bear" published in several newspapers he lamented over Georgia and failure of Russia to "respect integrity and sovereignty of even the smallest states", something that clearly separates it from Western states, in his words, that are firmly in favor of this principle.
Could it be that he never heard about Serbia, and its Kosovo problem? He is professor of European studies after all.
Ones again he comes across as a stauch defender of the establishment.
Is there alternative to Davos Man? This "'the most highly evolved mammal on the planet", this " member of a new global elite, liberated from national loyalties and contemptuous of national boundaries - a kind of ruthless cosmopolitan."
(Wow, yet another, equally ruthless Übermensch)
Not only that, but "Davos Man was always what social scientists call an ideal type."
And there is the problem! Since when is this man, who normally scores zero on the scale from one to ten, considered ideal?
Davos Man vs. Nationalist Man is presented as only options available, with preferance clearly given to Davos Man.
"If you don't like what you've seen of Davos Man, wait till you see Nationalist Man get to work."
But, there is another man out there, ignored by professor Ash.
Fifth World Social Forum just ended on Sunday in Brazilian city of Belém after six days. It coincided with Davos this year.
And this year it gathered not only NGO's etc. but a record number of government officials from developing world, including 5 south-american presidents (Brazil, Equador, Paraguay, Venecuela and Bolivia).
Just like Davos Man, Belém Man is cosmopolitan, not Nationalist Man. Unlike Davos Man, he's not appearing ruthless.
Let me get this straight. At the time of collaps of the left everywhere, Davos Man came up with globalisation. "Global village", "globaly integrated economy" etc. were the buzzwords.
Here I have to say that I'm not opposed to globalisation itself, only to the way its done and its major goals.
And the major goal of globalisation is maximising the PROFITS for few (owners of gigantic corporations, etc.), not well-being of the people.
And the magical word to acomplish this is the word GLOBAL MARKET.
And this "new global elite, liberated from national loyalties and contemptuous of national boundaries" went global, moving production and services to other places.
So what if those places don't have any laws on ecology, for example? This would only force this "ruthless cosmopolitan" to pay for filters that could be expensive. Sure, they would make water suitable for use, or air less poluted, but what does he care? He's not the one drinking that water, isn't he? And he's not there to make anybody's life better, but to increase his PROFITS.
Maybe this country has no laws prohibiting use of child labor, and allows children as young as 10 to work 14 hour days in the factories? So what, it's good for the bottom line - The Profit.
And the logic of profit is simple, make it as cheap as possible, and sell it as high as you can. Greater the difference, greater the profit.
So, with profit as our primary goal it does make sense.
And it's true that there is no national boundaries to these people.
They will relocate their buissinesses to the countries where people will toil for 2 dollars a day.
Sure, some people will loose their jobs and livelyhoods, whole small towns that depend on one manufacturing facility may fall on the hard times. So what?
They better start competing.
Their decent standard of living, health care or education for their children, etc. are expensive. It makes production more expensive, too, affecting the bottom line - THE PROFITS.
Why would they pay those expenses if there is enormous pool of people that are villing to work cheaper?
Why would they pay for your children's dental visits, when they are people that could do the same job without asking for such excesses as health care or basic education?
And here we use GLOBAL MARKETS. As any other market it's regulated by demand and supply.
World's population is more then 6 billion people now and growing. Supply is growing. In the same time, today's techonology enables a worker to be more productive and to acomplish the final results that would take 10 workers only few decades ago. Again, techonology is constantly improving, too. (somehow, we don't all benefit, only few)
Math is clear.
So, you might as well, take your children out of schools and take them to work, get them used to substandard housing, etc.
Governments got it!
They cut services here and there, all over the world. They have to in order to cut taxes for the wealthies.
Again, they have to or those "investors" will take their money somewhere else.
There are more cuts and they are getting deeper.
Race to the bottom is on!!
Few more decades of this and situation in poor countries won't improve, while situation in rich countries will detorriate.
Few more decades and our ideals will be achieved - One World!
Everything will be Third World.
If you think of this as a bad outcome, you may want to think again.
If we understand that the sole puropose of the ECONOMY is increase of the profits for the wealthiest, then it's the most prefered outcome possible. It spells ideal economic conditions to maximise the profits.
Or does it?
Lets just leave this professor at Oxford University alone, and visit another professor at another University (York University, Toronto, Canada).
Professor Shannon Bell was one of the speakers at Belém.
"People see capitalism as not being able to maintain itself and there's a hope that it can't, too," he said there.
There is one fundamental flaw in current development model, that had economists and political scientists struggling with for years.
It drives large swaths of populations to poverty.
Don't get me wrong, Davos Man is fine with that. His problem is that impoverished population may be more capable of producing at cheapest expense, but is unable to purchase those products.
Ultimatelly, their greed hurts themselves, and their bussiness decline.
This was noticed by the wealthier class before, especially after Great Depression.
And they acted accordingly.
While profit is not a dirty word, greed is.
They realise that by allowing greed to be out of control, they will ultimatelly hurt themselves, too.
Record number of countries adopted measures such as minimum wage (rather then allowing markets to form labor price), relaxed rules to allow for labor unions, etc.
In short, well-being of oridinary people was considered important for their own well-being.
But, this lesson was lost in time, and with first opportunity (and left in disarray in 90's)more of the same was back again and all the safeguards were removed.
And why not?
Here we go back again to following statement:
"Davos Man was always what social scientists call an ideal type. "
Selfishness, self-centricism and greed are nothing new. And they used to be considered human vices. "They used to be" I said, as it's not true any more.
Selfishness and greed are not vices, but "drivers of the economy", "motivational engine of prosperity" etc.
No longer a vice, but the virtue.
Why keep virtues in check?
In conclusion, Davos Man and Belém Man are not different species, like Neanderthal Man and Homo Sapiens. Unfortunatelly, as this would enable us to leave those modern Neanderthals in Davos and move to the future without them.
But, we are all a little bit of both.
But, isn't it time to start listening to our other side?
I say that we should start listening to Belém Man a little bit more, that's all. Maybe there are other, alternative models of development out there?
And if you don't like what you've seen of Belém Man, wait till you see Davos Man get to work.
Oh, wait. We've seen it already. That's how we got into a current crisis in the first place.
(Sreten, 6 February 2009 05:19)
Congratulations, Timothy Garton Ash, for not mentioning the most enlightened Davos man's speech of Vladimir Putin.
Anti-Russian paranoya blinds
such a brilliant analyst.6TS
(Peter RV, 3 February 2009 17:10)
Timothy Garton Ash.
Senior fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution and professor of European studies at Oxford University.
Sounds so impressive, yet every article that he wrote seems to be uncritical in its pro-western bias.
Not so long ago in article "Taming the Russian bear" published in several newspapers he lamented over Georgia and failure of Russia to "respect integrity and sovereignty of even the smallest states", something that clearly separates it from Western states, in his words, that are firmly in favor of this principle.
Could it be that he never heard about Serbia, and its Kosovo problem? He is professor of European studies after all.
Ones again he comes across as a stauch defender of the establishment.
Is there alternative to Davos Man? This "'the most highly evolved mammal on the planet", this " member of a new global elite, liberated from national loyalties and contemptuous of national boundaries - a kind of ruthless cosmopolitan."
(Wow, yet another, equally ruthless Übermensch)
Not only that, but "Davos Man was always what social scientists call an ideal type."
And there is the problem! Since when is this man, who normally scores zero on the scale from one to ten, considered ideal?
Davos Man vs. Nationalist Man is presented as only options available, with preferance clearly given to Davos Man.
"If you don't like what you've seen of Davos Man, wait till you see Nationalist Man get to work."
But, there is another man out there, ignored by professor Ash.
Fifth World Social Forum just ended on Sunday in Brazilian city of Belém after six days. It coincided with Davos this year.
And this year it gathered not only NGO's etc. but a record number of government officials from developing world, including 5 south-american presidents (Brazil, Equador, Paraguay, Venecuela and Bolivia).
Just like Davos Man, Belém Man is cosmopolitan, not Nationalist Man. Unlike Davos Man, he's not appearing ruthless.
Let me get this straight. At the time of collaps of the left everywhere, Davos Man came up with globalisation. "Global village", "globaly integrated economy" etc. were the buzzwords.
Here I have to say that I'm not opposed to globalisation itself, only to the way its done and its major goals.
And the major goal of globalisation is maximising the PROFITS for few (owners of gigantic corporations, etc.), not well-being of the people.
And the magical word to acomplish this is the word GLOBAL MARKET.
And this "new global elite, liberated from national loyalties and contemptuous of national boundaries" went global, moving production and services to other places.
So what if those places don't have any laws on ecology, for example? This would only force this "ruthless cosmopolitan" to pay for filters that could be expensive. Sure, they would make water suitable for use, or air less poluted, but what does he care? He's not the one drinking that water, isn't he? And he's not there to make anybody's life better, but to increase his PROFITS.
Maybe this country has no laws prohibiting use of child labor, and allows children as young as 10 to work 14 hour days in the factories? So what, it's good for the bottom line - The Profit.
And the logic of profit is simple, make it as cheap as possible, and sell it as high as you can. Greater the difference, greater the profit.
So, with profit as our primary goal it does make sense.
And it's true that there is no national boundaries to these people.
They will relocate their buissinesses to the countries where people will toil for 2 dollars a day.
Sure, some people will loose their jobs and livelyhoods, whole small towns that depend on one manufacturing facility may fall on the hard times. So what?
They better start competing.
Their decent standard of living, health care or education for their children, etc. are expensive. It makes production more expensive, too, affecting the bottom line - THE PROFITS.
Why would they pay those expenses if there is enormous pool of people that are villing to work cheaper?
Why would they pay for your children's dental visits, when they are people that could do the same job without asking for such excesses as health care or basic education?
And here we use GLOBAL MARKETS. As any other market it's regulated by demand and supply.
World's population is more then 6 billion people now and growing. Supply is growing. In the same time, today's techonology enables a worker to be more productive and to acomplish the final results that would take 10 workers only few decades ago. Again, techonology is constantly improving, too. (somehow, we don't all benefit, only few)
Math is clear.
So, you might as well, take your children out of schools and take them to work, get them used to substandard housing, etc.
Governments got it!
They cut services here and there, all over the world. They have to in order to cut taxes for the wealthies.
Again, they have to or those "investors" will take their money somewhere else.
There are more cuts and they are getting deeper.
Race to the bottom is on!!
Few more decades of this and situation in poor countries won't improve, while situation in rich countries will detorriate.
Few more decades and our ideals will be achieved - One World!
Everything will be Third World.
If you think of this as a bad outcome, you may want to think again.
If we understand that the sole puropose of the ECONOMY is increase of the profits for the wealthiest, then it's the most prefered outcome possible. It spells ideal economic conditions to maximise the profits.
Or does it?
Lets just leave this professor at Oxford University alone, and visit another professor at another University (York University, Toronto, Canada).
Professor Shannon Bell was one of the speakers at Belém.
"People see capitalism as not being able to maintain itself and there's a hope that it can't, too," he said there.
There is one fundamental flaw in current development model, that had economists and political scientists struggling with for years.
It drives large swaths of populations to poverty.
Don't get me wrong, Davos Man is fine with that. His problem is that impoverished population may be more capable of producing at cheapest expense, but is unable to purchase those products.
Ultimatelly, their greed hurts themselves, and their bussiness decline.
This was noticed by the wealthier class before, especially after Great Depression.
And they acted accordingly.
While profit is not a dirty word, greed is.
They realise that by allowing greed to be out of control, they will ultimatelly hurt themselves, too.
Record number of countries adopted measures such as minimum wage (rather then allowing markets to form labor price), relaxed rules to allow for labor unions, etc.
In short, well-being of oridinary people was considered important for their own well-being.
But, this lesson was lost in time, and with first opportunity (and left in disarray in 90's)more of the same was back again and all the safeguards were removed.
And why not?
Here we go back again to following statement:
"Davos Man was always what social scientists call an ideal type. "
Selfishness, self-centricism and greed are nothing new. And they used to be considered human vices. "They used to be" I said, as it's not true any more.
Selfishness and greed are not vices, but "drivers of the economy", "motivational engine of prosperity" etc.
No longer a vice, but the virtue.
Why keep virtues in check?
In conclusion, Davos Man and Belém Man are not different species, like Neanderthal Man and Homo Sapiens. Unfortunatelly, as this would enable us to leave those modern Neanderthals in Davos and move to the future without them.
But, we are all a little bit of both.
But, isn't it time to start listening to our other side?
I say that we should start listening to Belém Man a little bit more, that's all. Maybe there are other, alternative models of development out there?
And if you don't like what you've seen of Belém Man, wait till you see Davos Man get to work.
Oh, wait. We've seen it already. That's how we got into a current crisis in the first place.
(Sreten, 6 February 2009 05:19)
Congratulations, Timothy Garton Ash, for not mentioning the most enlightened Davos man's speech of Vladimir Putin.
Anti-Russian paranoya blinds
such a brilliant analyst.6TS
(Peter RV, 3 February 2009 17:10)
Congratulations, Timothy Garton Ash, for not mentioning the most enlightened Davos man's speech of Vladimir Putin.
Anti-Russian paranoya blinds
such a brilliant analyst.6TS
(Peter RV, 3 February 2009 17:10)
Timothy Garton Ash.
Senior fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution and professor of European studies at Oxford University.
Sounds so impressive, yet every article that he wrote seems to be uncritical in its pro-western bias.
Not so long ago in article "Taming the Russian bear" published in several newspapers he lamented over Georgia and failure of Russia to "respect integrity and sovereignty of even the smallest states", something that clearly separates it from Western states, in his words, that are firmly in favor of this principle.
Could it be that he never heard about Serbia, and its Kosovo problem? He is professor of European studies after all.
Ones again he comes across as a stauch defender of the establishment.
Is there alternative to Davos Man? This "'the most highly evolved mammal on the planet", this " member of a new global elite, liberated from national loyalties and contemptuous of national boundaries - a kind of ruthless cosmopolitan."
(Wow, yet another, equally ruthless Übermensch)
Not only that, but "Davos Man was always what social scientists call an ideal type."
And there is the problem! Since when is this man, who normally scores zero on the scale from one to ten, considered ideal?
Davos Man vs. Nationalist Man is presented as only options available, with preferance clearly given to Davos Man.
"If you don't like what you've seen of Davos Man, wait till you see Nationalist Man get to work."
But, there is another man out there, ignored by professor Ash.
Fifth World Social Forum just ended on Sunday in Brazilian city of Belém after six days. It coincided with Davos this year.
And this year it gathered not only NGO's etc. but a record number of government officials from developing world, including 5 south-american presidents (Brazil, Equador, Paraguay, Venecuela and Bolivia).
Just like Davos Man, Belém Man is cosmopolitan, not Nationalist Man. Unlike Davos Man, he's not appearing ruthless.
Let me get this straight. At the time of collaps of the left everywhere, Davos Man came up with globalisation. "Global village", "globaly integrated economy" etc. were the buzzwords.
Here I have to say that I'm not opposed to globalisation itself, only to the way its done and its major goals.
And the major goal of globalisation is maximising the PROFITS for few (owners of gigantic corporations, etc.), not well-being of the people.
And the magical word to acomplish this is the word GLOBAL MARKET.
And this "new global elite, liberated from national loyalties and contemptuous of national boundaries" went global, moving production and services to other places.
So what if those places don't have any laws on ecology, for example? This would only force this "ruthless cosmopolitan" to pay for filters that could be expensive. Sure, they would make water suitable for use, or air less poluted, but what does he care? He's not the one drinking that water, isn't he? And he's not there to make anybody's life better, but to increase his PROFITS.
Maybe this country has no laws prohibiting use of child labor, and allows children as young as 10 to work 14 hour days in the factories? So what, it's good for the bottom line - The Profit.
And the logic of profit is simple, make it as cheap as possible, and sell it as high as you can. Greater the difference, greater the profit.
So, with profit as our primary goal it does make sense.
And it's true that there is no national boundaries to these people.
They will relocate their buissinesses to the countries where people will toil for 2 dollars a day.
Sure, some people will loose their jobs and livelyhoods, whole small towns that depend on one manufacturing facility may fall on the hard times. So what?
They better start competing.
Their decent standard of living, health care or education for their children, etc. are expensive. It makes production more expensive, too, affecting the bottom line - THE PROFITS.
Why would they pay those expenses if there is enormous pool of people that are villing to work cheaper?
Why would they pay for your children's dental visits, when they are people that could do the same job without asking for such excesses as health care or basic education?
And here we use GLOBAL MARKETS. As any other market it's regulated by demand and supply.
World's population is more then 6 billion people now and growing. Supply is growing. In the same time, today's techonology enables a worker to be more productive and to acomplish the final results that would take 10 workers only few decades ago. Again, techonology is constantly improving, too. (somehow, we don't all benefit, only few)
Math is clear.
So, you might as well, take your children out of schools and take them to work, get them used to substandard housing, etc.
Governments got it!
They cut services here and there, all over the world. They have to in order to cut taxes for the wealthies.
Again, they have to or those "investors" will take their money somewhere else.
There are more cuts and they are getting deeper.
Race to the bottom is on!!
Few more decades of this and situation in poor countries won't improve, while situation in rich countries will detorriate.
Few more decades and our ideals will be achieved - One World!
Everything will be Third World.
If you think of this as a bad outcome, you may want to think again.
If we understand that the sole puropose of the ECONOMY is increase of the profits for the wealthiest, then it's the most prefered outcome possible. It spells ideal economic conditions to maximise the profits.
Or does it?
Lets just leave this professor at Oxford University alone, and visit another professor at another University (York University, Toronto, Canada).
Professor Shannon Bell was one of the speakers at Belém.
"People see capitalism as not being able to maintain itself and there's a hope that it can't, too," he said there.
There is one fundamental flaw in current development model, that had economists and political scientists struggling with for years.
It drives large swaths of populations to poverty.
Don't get me wrong, Davos Man is fine with that. His problem is that impoverished population may be more capable of producing at cheapest expense, but is unable to purchase those products.
Ultimatelly, their greed hurts themselves, and their bussiness decline.
This was noticed by the wealthier class before, especially after Great Depression.
And they acted accordingly.
While profit is not a dirty word, greed is.
They realise that by allowing greed to be out of control, they will ultimatelly hurt themselves, too.
Record number of countries adopted measures such as minimum wage (rather then allowing markets to form labor price), relaxed rules to allow for labor unions, etc.
In short, well-being of oridinary people was considered important for their own well-being.
But, this lesson was lost in time, and with first opportunity (and left in disarray in 90's)more of the same was back again and all the safeguards were removed.
And why not?
Here we go back again to following statement:
"Davos Man was always what social scientists call an ideal type. "
Selfishness, self-centricism and greed are nothing new. And they used to be considered human vices. "They used to be" I said, as it's not true any more.
Selfishness and greed are not vices, but "drivers of the economy", "motivational engine of prosperity" etc.
No longer a vice, but the virtue.
Why keep virtues in check?
In conclusion, Davos Man and Belém Man are not different species, like Neanderthal Man and Homo Sapiens. Unfortunatelly, as this would enable us to leave those modern Neanderthals in Davos and move to the future without them.
But, we are all a little bit of both.
But, isn't it time to start listening to our other side?
I say that we should start listening to Belém Man a little bit more, that's all. Maybe there are other, alternative models of development out there?
And if you don't like what you've seen of Belém Man, wait till you see Davos Man get to work.
Oh, wait. We've seen it already. That's how we got into a current crisis in the first place.
(Sreten, 6 February 2009 05:19)