As the first big international meeting since the World Trade Organization debacle in Seattle, Washington, the World Economic Forum will confront what could be termed a crisis of overconfidence. Because, as it turns out, much of what might seem to be going wrong in the world stems directly from things that have gone right. The good guys won the cold war–but is America now too powerful? More people are prosperous than ever–but are multinational corporations getting too big?
Fittingly, the star speaker at the gathering will be a man who knows a thing or two about the perils of overconfidence: Bill Clinton. It was Clinton, of course, who arrived in Seattle with ideas about reconciling the interests of poor countries, multi-national corporations and rich-country activists. Two days later the talks collapsed completely.
Will the protesters make it to Davos? They’re working on it, but geography’s not on their side. They’ll be watching over the Internet, though–which is, of course, as it should be. Some conversations are too important to hold in private.
