Today I arrived in Switzerland for the first day of the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) yearly summit in Davos. I’m one of a dozen or so religious leaders in this alpine retreat and am joining over a thousand CEOs and 40 heads of state for five days of discussion, deliberation, and collaboration on a wide variety of global affairs.
The forum was started in 1971 by a German economist named Klaus Shwab, and its mission is to serve as “an independent international organization committed to improving the state of the world by engaging leaders in partnerships to shape global, regional, and industry agendas.”
Some have noted that they would expect me to be protesting outside of the WEF and not a participant in it. While it would not be hard to find “enemies” to fight here at Davos, I find my time much better spent looking for allies. Over the past few years, I have seen from at least some business leaders across the world a growing desire to understand morality in the midst of markets.
A Wall Street Journal story about Davos that I read on the plane was headlined “World Elite Visit Davos in Doubt” and quoted an economics professor at a French business school commenting, “This may be the first Davos where capitalism is widely viewed as a failure, rather than something to be admired.”
It may be that this year more economic leaders than before will be open to a different message. Switzerland’s European neighbors to the East (and North) – Iceland, Latvia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Bulgaria, and Greece – have all experienced civil unrest in the past several months because of the global economic crisis. And a deep anxiety prevailed in America as I flew out of Washington, D.C., this afternoon, even amid the hopes engendered by our new President Barack Obama.
It is unfortunate but often the case that it takes these moments of crisis to expose our flawed and sometimes fatal mistakes. Perhaps that is why Klaus Shwab asked me to speak to a plenary session on Thursday morning on the moral values of capitalism — what they are and what they should be. We came up with the idea over a lunch in Washington this fall, and we both think that some fundamental re-evaluation may be possible because of this crisis.
My prayers have been especially focused on America’s new political leaders for the past several weeks. Today, I pray especially for our business leaders and ask your prayers as I decide what would be best to say to them. They have the potential to reform and transform many of our assumptions about what a global economy could and should look like, and I pray God grant them wisdom.
