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The Agony of Mammon: The Imperial Global Economy Explains Itself to the Membership in Davos, Switzerland
Earlier this year some 2,000 of the world’s most prominent business and political leaders—among them Bill Gates and the President of Brazil, also George Soros and the Chairman of the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank—made their way to Davos, Switzerland, for the 27th annual meeting of The World Economic Forum. They brought with them a wealth of good intentions as well as what the correspondent for London’s Financial Times estimated at “roughly 70% of the world’s daily output of self-congratulation.”
This year the quorum of journalists included the incongruous presence of Lewis Lapham, a writer known for his not always flattering portraits of America’s ruling and possessing classes. The larger cast of an international plutocracy assembled in the shadow of an alp made famous by Thomas Mann’s The Magic Mountain, presented Lapham with a broader canvas on which to exercise his considerable talent for keen observation and sardonic wit.
Diligently attentive to the program of scheduled events, Lapham goes to briefings on the outlook for Thailand and the subtleties of corporate espionage, carries forward the discussions over lunch or dinner at picturesque resort hotels, listens to speeches by eminencies as grave and diverse as Newt Gingrich, John Sweeney, the Chairman of Toyota, and the Vice Premier of China. He encounters finance ministers and professors of economics who gaze into the glass of the future and see little else except their own reflections. After five days in Davos he understands that the masters of markets and captains of commercial empire know as little about the likely movements of the global economy as the waiters supplying them with plum brandy and cheese fondue.
“Although in many ways bountiful and in some ways benign, the colossal mechanism that generates the wealth of nations lacks the capacity for human speech or conscious thought, a failing the troubles those of its upper servants who wish to believe that it is they who control the machine and not the machine that controls them. Their armour proper forbids them from picturing themselves as mere stokers heaving computer printouts and Montblanc pens into a blind, remorseless furnace. They seek a more gracious portraiture, and so, every year in late January, they make their optimistic way from the low-flying places of the earth to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, where, high up on the same alp that provided Thomas Mann with the setting for The Magic Fountain , they brood upon the mysteries of capitalist creation.
Given the chance last winter to make the annual ascent, I didn’t see how I could refuse ... ”
This year the quorum of journalists included the incongruous presence of Lewis Lapham, a writer known for his not always flattering portraits of America’s ruling and possessing classes. The larger cast of an international plutocracy assembled in the shadow of an alp made famous by Thomas Mann’s The Magic Mountain, presented Lapham with a broader canvas on which to exercise his considerable talent for keen observation and sardonic wit.
Diligently attentive to the program of scheduled events, Lapham goes to briefings on the outlook for Thailand and the subtleties of corporate espionage, carries forward the discussions over lunch or dinner at picturesque resort hotels, listens to speeches by eminencies as grave and diverse as Newt Gingrich, John Sweeney, the Chairman of Toyota, and the Vice Premier of China. He encounters finance ministers and professors of economics who gaze into the glass of the future and see little else except their own reflections. After five days in Davos he understands that the masters of markets and captains of commercial empire know as little about the likely movements of the global economy as the waiters supplying them with plum brandy and cheese fondue.
“Although in many ways bountiful and in some ways benign, the colossal mechanism that generates the wealth of nations lacks the capacity for human speech or conscious thought, a failing the troubles those of its upper servants who wish to believe that it is they who control the machine and not the machine that controls them. Their armour proper forbids them from picturing themselves as mere stokers heaving computer printouts and Montblanc pens into a blind, remorseless furnace. They seek a more gracious portraiture, and so, every year in late January, they make their optimistic way from the low-flying places of the earth to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, where, high up on the same alp that provided Thomas Mann with the setting for The Magic Fountain , they brood upon the mysteries of capitalist creation.
Given the chance last winter to make the annual ascent, I didn’t see how I could refuse ... ”
- GenresEconomics
84 pages, Hardcover
First published November 1, 1998
About the author
Lewis H. Lapham
181 books134 followersLewis Henry Lapham was the editor of Harper's Magazine from 1976 until 1981, and again from 1983 until 2006. He is the founder and current editor of Lapham's Quarterly, featuring a wide range of famous authors devoted to a single topic in each issue. Lapham has also written numerous books on politics and current affairs.
Lapham's Quarterly
http://www.laphamsquarterly.org/
Lapham's Quarterly
http://www.laphamsquarterly.org/
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
March 2, 2024
Worth reading for a few snippets of commentary which are particularly provoking. Especially now 25 years have passed, the commentary evokes an eerie hindsight for the modern reader.
December 23, 2020
A short bulletin from a talented writer that packs a punch from the heart of darkness - the World Economic Forum pre-Seattle ‘99.
“Because the meeting in Davos represented a quorum of investors rather than an assembly of citizens, and because the advantages implicit in the euro clearly would accrue to the accounts of large businesses and the central banks, it was no surprise that sentiment in its favor heavily outweighed the expressions of suspicion or mistrust.”
“Because the meeting in Davos represented a quorum of investors rather than an assembly of citizens, and because the advantages implicit in the euro clearly would accrue to the accounts of large businesses and the central banks, it was no surprise that sentiment in its favor heavily outweighed the expressions of suspicion or mistrust.”
May 12, 2021
A brisk and witty piece of reportage from the commanding heights of global capitalism at the turn of the millennia. Lapham writes with the erudition and trained tones of cynicism that can be expected from him, but the book doesn't overstay its welcome.
July 21, 2017
a blisteringly sarcastic account of the 27th annual meeting of the World Economic Forum that also surveys the failures of capitalism at the end of the twentieth century. entertaining and thought provoking
October 31, 2007
I love Lewis Lapham, a well-rounded snark artist on the same page (and circle of hell) as Gore Vidal. Here is his experience among the neoliberals and blutocrats at Davos.
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February 25, 2012On Amtrak.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews