Does Donald Trump’s ascent to power in the US mark an end to the influence of Davos Man? This is a term invented by Samuel Huntington, the late political scientist, himself a participant at the annual meetings of the World Economic Forum in Davos, for a class of people he despised.
He argued that they “have 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”.
So are we about to witness a decisive shift away from the aspirations of the WEF’s members and, if so, is this desirable? The answers are “yes” and “no”.