Score one for humility.

The self-anointed Masters of the Universe who gather at Davos every year claim to have all the answers to all the world’s problems. But this year, with the economy in tatters, environmental missions in doubt, and the most vile forms of terrorism on the rise, this once confident collection of wealthy Westerners who gave Davos its prestige are eating humble pie.

To be sure, left-wing windbags like the billionaire investor George Soros – who decades ago nearly destroyed the British economy with his ruthless currency bets – still drift in and out of the WEF’s Congress Hall and make stern pontifications as to how they think the world should be. But the reality that’s set in for most of the forum’s participants is that the world’s markets have transformed over the past year – and that entrepreneurs need to change with the times, too.

“I’ve always asked myself what caused this great recession and values are always part of the answer we come up with,” the chief executive officer of Deloitte, James Quigley, said. “I don’t want to continue the blame game. Let’s have a forward look instead of an autopsy. What broad values do we need to re-think?”

Davos participants took a sober assessment of the economic slump’s effect on the markets. If there were a consensus on any point, it was that there was an overriding hope that investors were less reckless because of the financial fallout.

Jim Wallis, the editor-in-chief of “Sojourners,” a religious publication, said that it’s up to business and political leaders to shape a moral compass for the new economy. Maxims like ‘Greed is good’ and ‘I want it now’ wrought havoc with the culture and should be replaced with ‘Enough is enough,’ according to Wallis. “We are indeed at a populist moment,” he said. “Either it will be dark with anger and fear or one of optimism. This is a structural crisis but also a spiritual crisis that calls for a new accountability. If we go back to business as usual then all the pain will have been in vain.”

That pain might be what helped usher in a new era of personal responsibility, according to the chief executive officer of Thomson Reuters, Tom Glocer. “Many individual Americans filled out mortgage applications and lied about their income. Nobody forced them to lie. Nobody has a constitutional right to live in a house he can’t afford. Yet people are saying: If we only had a better regulation of our compensation system. But in the end, personal responsibility is key,” he said.

Muhammad Yunus, the managing director of Grameen Bank in Bangladesh, won a Nobel Peace Price and the Presidential Medal of Freedom proving that when people take responsibility for their actions – especially their financial ones – society wins. Grameen Bank has lent more than $8 billion to the poorest citizens of Bangladesh and boats a 100 percent repayment rate.

What follows are more candid thoughts from Davos participants on how the world could change for the better…

   Email This Post      Print This Post