You can even detect the uncertainty over the future of the World Economic Forum at Davos from its own annual crowning blandishments.
The theme for WEF 2019 was “Globalisation 4.0: shaping a global architecture in the age of the fourth industrial revolution”. For 2023: “Co-operation in a fragmented world”. For 2024: “Rebuilding trust”.
It is an awkward time for elitist gatherings of business and politics given rising geopolitical tensions and cracks in the multilateral order. So that makes the announcement earlier this month that Klaus Schwab, WEF’s octogenarian founder is stepping back from his day to day management of the shindig something of a moment for Davos.