{"article":{"id":14697,"heading":"\"Aura of Social Change Cloaks Economic Forum\"","author":"Alan Murray, WSJ reprint","created":"2002-02-05 19:27:11","modified":"2005-08-15 00:53:26","last_modified":"Mon, 15 Aug 2005 07:53:26","article":"

\"Aura of Social Change Cloaks Economic Forum\"

-Alan Murray, WSJ, 2\/4\/02, pA1 (reprint)



The American chief executives who pony up $25,000 each year to attend the World Economic Forum get at least this for their money: a sense of their current place in the global pecking order.

Two and three years ago, they ruled the roost. After a quarter century in which governments across the globe were in retreat and market forces on the rise, tech-savvy U.S. businessmen like Bill Gates, John Chambers and Steve Case were treated at the Davos, Switzerland, conference like visiting heads of state. \"There was a sense of New Economy triumphalism,\" recalls Jeffrey Garten, dean of the Yale School of Management. \"The mood was: 'Get the governments out of the way; Silicon Valley is reinventing the world.'\"

By last year, their status had fallen down a path roughly comparable with their stock prices. For the first time, there were more policemen than policy wonks at the conference, as an army of antiglobalization protestors tried, against a barrage of water cannons, to force their way into the conference and steal the show.

This year, with the conference in New York City, the dissent against American corporate leadership has moved indoors. It could be heard at sessions like the one Friday titled \"Understanding Global Anger,\" or the workshop Saturday called \"Responding to Anti-Globalization: The New Role of Business.\" And it could be heard in the countless conversations in hallways and at coffee bars spread around the Waldorf-Astoria for this event. There is a sense, says Mr. Garten, \"that we are entering very uncertain territory.\"

In the big-picture view that is encouraged at these conferences, seemingly unconnected events begin to look like a trend. The rise of the antiglobalization protestors, the collapse of the Nasdaq, the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, and the Enron scandal, all are cited as signs of challenge to the reigning social order. The critics have a chaotic multitude of complaints--they are worried about the growing gap between rich and poor, about the environment, about American cultural imperialism, about the honesty of U.S. corporate leaders. But much of the focus of their criticism is the same: the global corporate establishment, in general, and the American corporate establishment in particular.

Richard Edelman of Edelman Public Relations offered up new survey results at one session to show how American public attitudes have changed in just the past year. The number of people who held favorable attitudes toward business declined only modestly, he said, to 40% from 43%; but those with favorable attitudes toward government shot up to 46% from 23%. Attitudes toward nongovernmental organizations such as Amnesty International and the World Wildlife Fund, who often find themselves pitted against corporate interests, have improved sharply as well.

Labor leaders also sense the change. John Sweeney, president of the AFL-CIO, says when he first went to the Davos conference six years ago, he was one of only four labor leaders to attend. Now there are more than 40. \"We are certainly still in a minority here,\" he says; \"But now we are being listened to.\"

Meanwhile, Michael Moore, who heads the World Trade Organization, noted the solidarity of developing countries that insistently pressed their own demands at the recent talks in Doha, Qatar, that led to the new round of global trade talks. \"In terms of justice,\" he said approvingly, \"they are right.\"

Much of the dissent heard here focused more on the U.s. government than on U.S. corporations. The president's State of the Union address, which played well in U.S. living rooms, fell on this crowd \"like a lead balloon,\" observed one GOP member of Congress in attendance. The president's call to arms, and his threats against Iraq, Iran and North Korea, were seen by the Europeans here as another manifestation of his tendency to go it alone, without consulting allies across the Atlantic.

Others noted that the president is now cloaking his economic program in the rhetoric of \"security,\" much as Presidents Eisenhower and Kennedy did during the height of the Cold War. That's another sign that the pre-eminent concern for economic growth and efficiency that characterized the last quarter of the 20th century may be coming to an end.

Such sentiments could prove ephemeral--the temporary byproducts of recession, an outbreak of terrorism, and a passing corporate scandal. But there are at least some here who sense more. \"I think we are at a turning point,\" says David Rothkopf, chief executive of Intellibridge Corp., which advises companies on global trends. \"In every meeting I've been in there is an undercurrent of resentment to the U.S. corporate establishment. There's a sense that the system doesn't work for everybody.\" What comes next, he says, is unclear; but the order is changing.

In his State of the Union address, President Bush said the world is entering a \"decisive decade in the history of liberty.\" If the sentiments at the World Economic Forum are any indication, it also may be a decisive decade in the history of capitalism. Twenty-five years of increased reliance on markets and reduced interference by governments produced an unprecedented era of prosperity, particularly for the world's fortunate few. But like all social trends, this one nurtured the seeds of reaction. Something new is afoot, and America's corporate leaders may not find it entirely to their liking.

(reprinted and distributed for non-commercial, educational use)<\/p>\n","contact":"","link":"","address":"","phone":"","parent_id":0,"mime_type":"text\/plain","summary":"\"I think we are at a turning point,\" says David Rothkopf, chief executive of Intellibridge Corp., which advises companies on global trends. \"In every meeting I've been in there is an undercurrent of resentment to the U.S. corporate establishment. There's a sense that the system doesn't work for everybody.\" What comes next, he says, is unclear; but the order is changing. ... Something new is afoot, and America's corporate leaders may not find it entirely to their liking.","numcomment":2,"fileurl":"\/uploads\/2002\/02\/\\_aura_of_.txt","filesize":"5.5 kibibytes","article_url":"\/news\/2002\/02\/14697.php"},"attachments":[],"comments":[{"id":14703,"heading":"great but...","article":"this is all good and stuff that these folks reportedly are catching wind of the shit they are laying...\r\nbut the institutions they represent and thier meetings still are entirely undemocratic and have no structural way to take into account the needs and interests of the rest of the world.\r\n\r\n","author":"yile","parent_id":14697,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2002-02-05 22:12:53","modified":"2002-02-05 22:50:09","fileurl":""},{"id":14707,"heading":"In Agreement","article":" Exactly right, which is why we need to keep turning up the heat on them!","author":"Anti-Fascist","parent_id":14697,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2002-02-05 23:28:12","modified":"2002-02-05 23:49:21","fileurl":""}]}