The World Economic Forum's first meeting in more than two years was markedly different from the many previous Davos conferences that I have attended since 1995. It was not just that the bright snow and clear skies of January were replaced by bare ski slopes and a gloomy May drizzle. Rather, it was that a forum traditionally committed to championing globalisation was primarily concerned with globalisation's failures: broken supply chains, food- and energy-price inflation, and an intellectual-property (IP) regime that left billions without Covid-19 vaccines just so that a few drug companies could earn billions in extra profits.
Among the proposed responses to these problems are to "reshore" or "friend-shore" production and to enact "industrial policies to increase country capacities to produce". Gone are the days when everyone seemed to be working for a world without borders; suddenly, everyone recognises that at least some national borders are key to economic development and security.
For one-time advocates of unfettered globalisation, this volte face has resulted in cognitive dissonance, because the new suite of policy proposals implies that longstanding rules of the international trading system will be bent or broken.
