Maybe the WEF needs to grow up

 Yesterday I went to work at 6:30 am and got home at 6:30pm, so I was beat.  But I saw this yesterday morning and wanted to bring it to gentle readers' attention.  It is a piece at the American Thinker by Gary Gindler entitled Davos :From Proto-Fascism to Post-Fascism.   Ginlder connects the dots from the French Revolution to Hitler and Mussolini and the Soviet Union to show that the World Economic Forum (WEF) is just another attempt by small men of little accomplishment, but having huge egos, to rule the world. Gindler doesn't say so, but I will: this is demonic, and we should fight it just as we did with Fascism in the 1940s and with the Soviets in the Cold War.

The political adage “If you cannot beat them, join them” has been well-known for centuries. So, the Left made one extra step and arrived at the “if you cannot beat them, lead them.” The Left has been trying (unsuccessfully) various methods to eliminate capitalists and private property.

Eventually, Leftists learned their lesson and decided to preside over private property instead of confiscating and spreading it around. Lenin used it (the so-called “New Economic Policy” in the Soviet Union 1921-1928), Mussolini used it, Hitler used it, and the Chinese used it. It blatantly violates a well-demarcated borderline between the government and the governed. However, by now, it is the cornerstone of globalism.

Note that the systematic and deliberate infiltration of the state into private economic affairs did not begin with Mussolini. In 17th-century France, for example, Chief Minister Cardinal Richelieu established state-sponsored and state-directed cartels. That resulted in public-private entities that were granted monopoly status in their respective fields. Richelieu aimed not to build a proto-fascist state per se; his cravings were more down-to-earth: France had a war to win. (The following definitions are used: “Socialism is a state of society where most wealth, either de jure or de facto, belongs to a government. Fascism is a form of Socialism where most wealth de facto but not de jure belongs to a government.)

Nevertheless, Cardinal Richelieu deployed state power to consolidate state power even more. His offer to the French merchants was one they could not refuse: guaranteed profits under the protection of the state or guaranteed imprisonment at the Bastille.

Let us pause here and consider the many manifestations of fascism we have seen over the last three years. We have seen Bud Light fall on its sword over transgender Dylan Mulvaney. We have seen Dick's Sporting Goods lose business because of a decision to not sell modern sporting rifles. We have seen Target trying to push transgender clothing, another blunder. Ford is losing money on EVs, but pushes on anyway, possible to its own bankruptcy. Then there is Bank of America that voluntarily handed the government the credit card records for January 6 suspects without a warrant. Can we really say that all these CEOs are doing this purely for ideological reasons, or are they being pressured by government forces?

The story of the proto-fascist policies of Richelieu demonstrates the theme observable in all future left-wing economies: a short-term boost in economic activity due to crushing, inescapable state intervention, and then, in the long run, unavoidable decline and stagnation. As it is known, the Soviet Union, Nazi Germany, Cuba, Venezuela, and the entire Soviet bloc post-World War II followed this course. The demise of Communist China is inevitable for the same reason. A similar fate is awaiting the Davos Oracles of “stakeholder capitalism.” From that outlook, all four of Dumas’s three musketeers were the first proto-anti-fascists.

State-managed “stakeholder capitalism” was known in the 1600s as mercantilism. To use 21st-century terminology, Cardinal Richelieu established a form of stakeholder capitalism in France, where the government served as the only principal stakeholder.

Karl (sic) Schwab publicizes “the third way,” “stakeholder capitalism,” as the ultimate solution. His “capitalism” must be quoted because it corresponds to free-market capitalism in only the remotest sense. Note that National Socialists of the Third Reich also run under the banner (or, rather, the smokescreen) of “the third way.” Schwab is painfully aware that “the stakeholder concept competed head-on with Friedman’s notion that ‘the business of business is business’—and it ultimately lost out.”

There are no surprises here. Schwab’s “stakeholder capitalism” is just a reformulated branch of leftism, rebranded for the 21st century, commonly known as Fascism. Of course, it is not a replica of 20th-century Fascism; it has been updated and modified to incorporate “climate change,” digital technologies, and the pandemic, and has expanded global outreach. “Planet’s health” becomes the central stakeholder in the global economic system.

I urge gentle readers to read the whole article, and tell anyone you know that the whole WEF schtick, with its 15-minute cities, the eating of bugs, riding in underpowered and unreliable EVs to mindless jobs that you didn't choose is not designed for human flourishing. The great ideas that power the world do not come from the likes of the Davos crowd.  They come from people you never heard of in odd corners of the world.  But that constant innovation will be lost under fascism.

Then, there is this: these morons honestly believe that there are too many people and they need to kill about 8 billion of us off. None of this is true. None of it. Like the Left in general, these people are living in a fantasy in which they are the kings, the rest of us serve as peasants at their suffering.  But we all outgrew playing prince and princesses years ago.  Maybe they should grow up too.