Nailing Down A Forked Tongue [Pt.1]
Explaining How and Why the World Economic Forum Promotes and Attacks Individualism
Attacking Individualism
Due to the intrepid work of many online researchers, the World Economic Forum and its goals have become the objects of public scrutiny. Informed citizens are concerned with, among other things, the WEF’s promotion of collectivism. In many of its articles, one finds subtle, pseudo-scientific, pseudo-scholarly criticisms of individualism alongside the promotion of collectivism. For instance, on May 19, 2022 the WEF published a video titled “3 Ways We Can Use The African Philosophy Of Ubuntu To Create Community,” which maintains that the philosophy — often set in direct opposition to the Cartesian cogito1 — can be used to help us become “better global citizens,” foster a stronger emphasis on the value of focusing on the collective in business (over and against the individual), and improve responses to “future health emergencies.”2 In another article, titled “Could our growing individualism lead to greater dependence?,” author Trudpert Schelb argues that growing individualism, due to the democratizing effect of technological innovation —
…will have profoundly disruptive effects on a wide range of industries. Just as the media and music industries have struggled to adapt their business models in recent years, other sectors will increasingly be disrupted by the rising power of the individual – from product design and manufacture through 3D printing, to energy utilities as a fragmented and emancipated customer base increasingly produces its own energy using technology such as solar and wind power. All of this can be considered as a major threat for traditional industry players due to the radically lower entry barriers to their changing markets. The only way to survive is to transform their structures and to innovate business models.3
This negative assessment of individualism, in the form of individualistic empowerment and expression via new technologies, is given something a weak counterbalance in the article, but it is overall viewed as a strange new world that poses more risks and problems than does the collectivist future for which the WEF advocates.
Thus, in another WEF article author Lynda Gratton argues that while it is a overall a good thing that we will likely be seeing the rise of what she calls “centurions,” i.e. people living up to the age of 100, we need to realize that “individualism is not the answer” to questions regarding what we should do with ourselves if we happen to live to that ripe old age. She writes —
…these long lives are not lived in isolation. And as David Agus pointed out, all the evidence suggests that connectedness strengthens health, while isolation reduces vitality. Over long lives, strong, positive, enduring relationships are crucial, as is the framework of the family. In a world of increasing individualism, it’s important to remember the value of interdependencies.4
These authors see the need to temper our individualistic tendencies “for the greater good.” As the world moves forward what is needed, argue Silvia Castrogiovanni and Elena Pattini, is empathy, and that is, supposedly, precisely what individualism lacks.
They write —
Empathy, defined as the ability to detect other people's feelings, constitutes the basis for quality human relationships; however, it is often a capacity we are unable to exploit, mostly due to cultural constraints. This holds true in different social contexts, from personal to professional. However, our empathic capacities can be recruited and trained through constant practice, and become great resources for genuine and productive relationships. Empathy, in fact, represents the antithesis of individualism, of abuse of power, and of disconnection among human beings – and these are the pillars of stressful environments filled with tension and social conflict.5
Indeed, “empathy” — which is really a code word for collectivist-oriented thinking, i.e. communitarianism — is presented by the WEF as a better, if not the best, alternative to their strawmanned understanding of capitalism. As Murilo Johas Menezes writes —
…the capitalist model of production and consumption has not been able to promote shared prosperity, and inequality is growing. At the same time, the gap between the individual self and others in society has grown, eroding a sense of community. Reducing the difference between the self and the other is one of the meanings of empathy. That is exactly what the world needs - pragmatic empathy. The direction in which we are heading in the current model – that allows, for example, individuals to pursue their own success while disrespecting the environment – is very concerning. After all, no one can be considered successful in a world that fails. Pragmatically, societies need to collectively reimagine a world where people have the chance to live a dignified life. As shareholders of the planet Earth, people would own dividends. In other words, they would have the right to a basket of goods and services – including access to housing facilities; healthy food, clean water and sewage; healthcare and education. A good starting point to promote a world where all of this is possible is by practising more empathy.
[…]
Finding a midway point between traditional capitalism and socialism, empathicalism would be about bridging concepts, regions and people. It would be about ending divisions and promoting collaboration, driving individuals towards a real sense of community. Empathic societies remind us that we are just a part of the whole, and that without the whole we are nothing. If we want to promote change in the world, there is no other way than to be empathetic with one other - as well as with our planet.6
Like Carl R. Trueman, the Gospel Coalition, and the “Christian” Communitarians I’ve elsewhere talked about,7 the WEF consistently presents this critique of individualism as anti-empathy, ruthless, disruptive of social unity, and a corrosive problem.8 It is viewed as almost entirely negative for everyone, but in different ways.
Individualism is Bad for Business
The WEF promotes a purported new form of capitalism they call “stakeholder capitalism.” What is it? Klaus Schwab and Peter Vanham explain it as follows —
That is the core of stakeholder capitalism: it is a form of capitalism in which companies do not only optimize short-term profits for shareholders, but seek long term value creation, by taking into account the needs of all their stakeholders, and society at large.9
This is a form of economic communitarianism that they argue
…was common in the post-war decades in the West, when it became clear that one person or entity could only do well if the whole community and economy functioned. There was a strong linkage between companies and their community.10
In this way of thinking, every individual in society is a “stakeholder” whose needs ought to be taken into consideration if the entire social body is to flourish. Put a little more straightforwardly, what is good for “the greater good” is a social and economic philosophy in which the individual’s needs must be subordinated to the supposed needs of the entire social body.
Individualism is thus presented as bad to the so-called stakeholders, which are divisible into two broad categories — (1.)business owners and (2.)non-business owners. Individualism is bad for business owners as regards non-business owners. This is a point I drew your attention earlier in this article, but which comes out very clearly in a 2020 “Great Reset” podcast episode titled “Greed is Dead,” in which the WEF podcast host Robin Pomeroy interviews author John Kay on his eponymously titled book.11 Kay and his co-author Paul Collier argue that individualistic capitalism — i.e. capitalism — has been socially destructive. Kay states —
“What we argue strongly in the book is that the distinguishing characteristic of humans among other mammals is that we're extremely social. We work with each other. We communicate with each other. We talk to each other, we do things together and we talk particularly about communities at work and communities of place.
And what we suggest is that a lot of these communities have been destroyed or eroded in the last 30 years, to our great cost, both socially and economically. And we need to turn that round.”12
The flourishing of the corporation is what is in view here, mind you, and not necessarily the individuals comprising the social body. It is the corporation whose needs must be met by individual non-business owner stakeholders. In essence, what this means is that the promotion of this form of collectivism serves the interests not of society as a whole, but those who fall under category (1.) — business owner stakeholders.
[Continued in Pt.2]
Whereas Descartes wrote “I think, therefore I am,” the Ubuntu philosophy teaches “I am because we are, and because we are, therefore I am.” For more on this see, Birhane, Abeba. “Descartes was wrong: ‘a person is a person through other persons’,” Aeon, April 7, 2017, https://aeon.co/ideas/descartes-was-wrong-a-person-is-a-person-through-other-persons. [N.B. Note that this is the same collectivist, social constructivist notion of the self that is embraced and promoted by Carl R. Trueman in his book The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self.]
“What Happens When We All Live to Be 100?,” World Economic Forum, Jan 30, 2017, https://weforum.org/agenda/2017/01/what-happens-when-we-all-live-to-be-100/.
“Why Empathy is Good for Business — and How to Improve It,” World Economic Forum, Nov 10, 2020, https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/11/companies-can-learn-empathy-heres-why-they-should/. (emphasis added) [N.B. This is not the only place where individualism is presented by WEF authors as the antithesis of all civic good. For instance, to give just one more example, WEF author Vilhelm Carlström sets “individualism” in opposition to “traditional Icelandic values like honesty, tolerance and respect towards the environment.” [Source: “Iceland is building its first Nordic paganist temple in 1000 years,” World Economic Forum, July 11, 2018, https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2018/07/iceland-s-fastest-growing-religion-will-soon-complete-the-first-temple-to-thor-and-odin-in-1000-years.]
“Can we create an empathic alternative to the capitalist system?,” World Economic Forum, Aug 8, 2019, https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/08/empathy-can-create-a-new-economic-system/.
See Ann Barington & Agnese Vitali. “What will the family of the future look like?,” World Economic Forum, Aug 12, 2016, https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/05/what-will-the-family-of-the-future-look-like/; Klaus Schwab, Thierry Malleret, & Sahdguru. “Yogi Sadhguru reflects on depleting resources in a future world,” World Economic Forum, Jan 11, 2022, https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2022/01/yogi-sadghuru-reflects-on-depleting-resources-in-a-future-world/.
“What is stakeholder capitalism?,” World Economic Forum, Jan 22, 2021, https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2021/01/klaus-schwab-on-what-is-stakeholder-capitalism-history-relevance/.
ibid.
“‘Greed is Dead’: This Week's Great Reset Podcast,” Sept 4, 2020, https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/09/great-reset-podcast-greed-is-dead-john-kay/.
ibid.