Two prominent attendees at the World Economic Forum in Davos have grabbed headlines for telling the gathering its ideas were wrong.Argentinian President Javier Milei used his first trip abroad to tell the WEF that “the Western world is in danger” because those who should defend its values had been “co-opted by a vision of the world that inexorably leads to socialism and thereby to poverty.”“Unfortunately, in recent decades, the main leaders of the Western world have abandoned the model of freedom for different versions of what we call collectivism. Some have been motivated by well-meaning individuals who are willing to help others and others have been motivated by the wish to belong to a privileged caste,” Milei said in his speech. In what The Economic Times called a “capitalist manifesto,” Milei lauded the industrial revolution, free market capitalism, population growth, prosperity and freedom, before taking on a broader spectrum of issues.“The problem is that social justice is not just and it doesn’t contribute to general well-being,” Melei said.“Quite on the contrary, it’s an intrinsically unfair idea because it’s violent. It’s unjust because the state is financed through tax and taxes are collected coercively. The higher the tax burden, the higher the coercion and the lower the freedom.”Melei said Classical Marxism failed, only to be followed by Cultural Marxism, which also failed.“Given the dismal failure of collectivist models and the undeniable advances in the free world, socialists were forced to change their agenda: they left behind the class struggle based on the economic system and replaced this with other supposed social conflicts, which are just as harmful to life and to economic growth,” Melei said.Melei said the Creator gave people “inalienable” and equal rights, “including life, freedom and ownership.” By contrast, “radical feminism” had led to more state intervention and “giving jobs to bureaucrats who have not contributed anything in society.” He said socialists created conflicts between the sexes and even between man and nature, “advocating for population control mechanisms or the abortion agenda” to save the planet. “Harmful ideas have taken a stronghold in our society. Neo-Marxists have managed to co-opt the common sense of the Western world and this they have achieved by appropriating the media, culture, universities and also international organisations."“The latter case is the most serious one, probably because these are institutions that have enormous influence on the political and economic decisions of their member states.”The World Economic Forum is just such an influential international organization, having trained or embraced many leaders in business and politics through its Forum of Young Global Leaders. Melei urged his audience at Davos to abandon its approach for a better one.“Fortunately there’s more and more of us who are daring to make our voices heard, because we see that if we don’t truly and decisively fight against these ideas, the only possible fate is for us to have increasing levels of state regulation, socialism, poverty and less freedom, and therefore, worse standards of living,” Melei said.“Do not surrender to the advance of the state. The state is not the solution. The state is the problem itself. Long live freedom, dammit!”Kevin Roberts, president of the Heritage Foundation in the US, was even more direct as he spoke at a panel entitled, "What to expect from a possible Republican administration.”The moderator, British international affairs expert Sir Robin Niblett, suggested “retribution” from a re-elected Donald Trump would “sweep under the rug” the WEF’s efforts to defend liberal democracy. Roberts thought otherwise."It's laughable that you or anyone would describe Davos as ‘protecting liberal democracy,'" Roberts said."It's equally laughable to use the word ‘dictatorship’ at Davos and aim that at President Trump. In fact, I think that's absurd."Elites of the WEF ilk told the public "the reality is ‘X,'when in fact the reality is ‘Y,’" on border security, climate change and other issues, Roberts explained."The kind of person who will come into the next conservative administration is going to be governed by one principle and that is destroying the grasp that political elites and unelected technocrats have over the average person," he said."The thing that I want to drive home here, the very reason that I'm here at Davos, is to explain to many people in this room and who are watching, with all due respect, nothing personal, but that you're part of the problem.”Whatever slim chance Roberts had of a future invitation to Davos was soon destroyed."I will be candid and say that the agenda that every single member of the next US presidential administration needs to have is to compile a list of everything that's ever been proposed at the World Economic Forum and object to all of them wholesale.”
