Another report from the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland

Being creative about solving the world’s problems: a report from the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland
This year’s WEF agenda encouraged participants to discuss and take the lead to find creative solutions to the world’s problems – and gosh, I do hope they move quickly . . . Together with the 2,300 business delegates are world experts from the leading development agencies and environmental NGOs, foundations, universities and think tanks, and us “social entrepreneurs”. Forty people like me, all running different companies and organisations at grassroots level, creating livelihoods for the most marginalised people, protecting people’s rights.
Someone should write a pocket guide to economics that gives concrete examples of how the so-called “free” market system isn’t free at all. I’m sure this is why I gave up my economics A-level half way through, frustrated to hear how Adam Smith’s “invisible hand” and “perfect information exchanged between producer and consumer” mean that a fair price can be reached. It doesn’t take a particularly bright 17-year-old to work out that the reality is quite different. Presumably most of the business elite at Davos have realized this too, but for some reason the debate always starts on the basis that we have a “free” market, and anything extra for the community at large is nice of companies to do.
A book like this would save a lot of time and might cut down some of the 220 or so other meetings during the 5-day Davos programme. More importantly, it would also help to slow down the exploitation of the world’s natural resources and help over a billion people to escape from the poverty trap. It would also help to nurture a better kind of economics and business graduate.
A leading union representative and regular at Davos quite rightly became passionate when reminding the audience at the workshop on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) that ILO labour standards have been agreed by all nations some fifty years ago, so business should not still be ignoring them. In practice the prices of the products that we buy rarely reflect the basic human rights of the people who toil to make them. If companies were simply to meet their legal obligations on labour rights and environmental regulations, we would find that poverty would be reduced on a massive scale. Yes, products might cost a bit more, but I’d rather pay a bit more now, than later, in associated climate change and the continued misery of global poverty and unrest.
Highlight of the day: Having lunch with Rory Stear of Freeplay.

Meeting the global elite: A report from the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland