Dispatch From Davos

Caitlín Doherty at Harper’s Magazine:

Davos is an archetypal Swiss mountain town. With its smattering of church spires rising above a low skyline of blocky, pastel-colored condominiums and its pyramidal structure of councils (large, small, and school), for fifty-one weeks of the year it seems the very model of a self-contained Alpine community. But on the first day of the forum, as I made my way toward the Congress Centre (the cuboid wooden structure, opened in 1969, where the official meetings take place), signs of the command of global capital—however subtle—accumulated quickly.

Droves of delegates arriving for the WEF were disembarking from their trains via a temporary railway platform that had been built halfway between the permanent Davos Dorf and Davos Platz stations that bookend the town. A secondhand shop was shuttered, with a note in the window reading wef: geschlossen. Next to a pair of billboards advertising discount ski gear was another bearing the image of Narendra Modi inviting you to immerse in india’s vibrant culture through technology. A Methodist church displayed a banner of Christ washing a disciple’s feet, inscribed with the words wirtschaft soll menschen dienen! (“the economy should serve the people!”); several streets away, its Evangelical counterpart had rebranded for the week as a crypto “sanctuary.”

more here.

Enjoying the content on 3QD? Help keep us going by donating now.