Economic Domination vs. Social Capital

The World Economic Forum convened today in Davos, Switzerland for the annual five-day business smooze fest among the world's powerful.

From the BBC:

...Mix them with a brace of hot inventors, the bosses of aid organisations and social enterprises, and religious leaders, and then add a sprinkling of stars - Bono, Michael Douglas, Angelina Jolie and Peter Gabriel among them - and you have the world's ultimate networking event.

It's a chance to rub shoulders with Bill Gates and Michael Dell, talk to Sir Richard Branson and Intel boss Craig Barrett, track down the founders of Google and the boss of Coca Cola, and listen to Chinese Vice Premier Zeng Peiyan and Germany's new Chancellor, Angela Merkel.

The Davos congress hall has all the charm of a nuclear bunker (which its lower basements are).

It is also surrounded by barbed wire, more than 5,500 heavily armed soldiers and police officers, and numerous checkpoints.

But despite this, the throngs of millionaires pack happily into its 1970s interior to talk and listen.

At the last count, the organisers had scheduled 243 official events for the four-and-a-half days of Davos. At times, eight or nine sessions are running in parallel.

The importance of the Economic forum has waned over the year because critics feel nothing really gets accomplished. In recent years leftist activists who believe "another world is possible" have congregated in the concurrent World Social Forum in Venezuela. However the hyprocrisy of being against capitalism and neoliberalism shines in the streets of Caracas.

Also from the BBC:

"The Chavez T-shirt is my bestseller," says Luz Castillo, who owns a little stall next to the conference centre for the Caracas World Social Forum. "I've sold six shirts within the space of an hour. I'm making a profit of $7 per item."

Other street vendors are selling Chavez posters, watches, books, flags, audio tapes and even toy plastic dolls of Venezuela's charismatic leader.

"Chavez is cool," said Alejandro Montoya, a student from Peru, who explained that he had paid $1,500 for a tailor-made tourist package to take part in the Social Forum.

"Is it a lot of money? Yes, of course, but just remember it's a chance in a lifetime for me to come face to face with my hero, Comandante Chavez."

Homelessness is very prominent in Venezuela. Chavez pledges to eradicate poverty by 2011. Nonetheless, as the Bible says, "the poor will always be with us."

Five hundred metres away from the Hilton, homeless people scavenge in dustbins for what little food they can find. Sometimes they find a half-eaten hamburger or sandwich thrown away by one of the visitors staying at the hotel.
Carlos, a middle-aged man, who has spent the last three years sleeping rough on the streets, shrugs his shoulders.

"If you ask me, it's all very well for these people to fly in from abroad, to buy their T-shirt and then disappear," he says. "Nothing changes for me and the five other guys who sleep on these park benches next to me."