The Great Reset , what is this and why is it controversial.
Q. What is The Great Reset?
The Great Reset is an initiative by the World Economic Forum.
It has been conceptualised by the founder and executive chairman of the World Economic Forum’s , Klaus Schwab, and has evolved over the last few years. It is based on the assessment that the world economy is in deep trouble.
It has been argued that the situation has been made a lot worse by many factors, including the pandemic’s devastating effects on global society, the un- folding technological revolution, and the consequences of climate change.
Schwab demands that “the world must act jointly and swiftly to revamp all aspects of our societies and economies, from education to social contracts and working conditions. Every country, from the United States to China, must participate, and every industry, from oil and gas to tech, must be transformed. In short, we need a ‘Great Reset’ of capitalism.”
The agenda of The Great Reset touches on many key issues facing the world, according to , director, Institute of South Asian Studies.
Q. What are the agenda of The Great Reset?
First is the question of reforming capitalism. Davos has been at the forefront of calling for “stakeholder capitalism” that looks beyond the traditional corporate focus on maximising profit for shareholders.
Second, Davos is certainly right to focus on the deepening climate crisis. Climate sceptics have been ousted from Washington and President Biden has rejoined the 2015 Paris accord on mitigating climate change.
Third is the growing difficulty of global cooperation that Davos wants to promote. The era of great power harmony that accompanied the liberalisation of the global economy at the turn of the 1990s has yielded place to intense contestation. The contestation is not just political but increasingly economic and technological.
But whether it is a clever gimmick or a serious attempt to produce structural changes in the organisation of global capitalism, the initiative has set off furious conspiracy theories on the right and contemptuous dismissal from the left.
The right sees the WEF arguments about restructuring the global economy as a dangerous attempt to impose ‘socialism’ and dismantle the traditional society, or what remains of it. The left scoffs at the Davos Man’s talk on the crisis of capitalism. It points to the complicity of the Davos forum in promoting policies that have brought the world to the current impasse and question its capacity to produce solutions.
Q. What is World Economic Forum?
The World Economic Forum is an independent international organization committed to improving the state of the world by engaging business, political, academic and other leaders of society to shape global, regional and industry agendas.
The Forum is "committed to improving the state of the world" and we go about achieving this through projects which address issues like HIV/AIDS treatment, water supply and fostering dialogue between Islam and the West. The Forum’s headquarters are located on the outskirts of Geneva in a town called Cologny. The Forum also has an affiliate in New York, World Economic Forum USA, a representative.
