Einstein and Davos

While on vacation last week I was reading some collected essays by Einstein. In one, he bemoans the lack of a common intellectual culture.

As late as the seventeenth century the savants and artists of all Europe were so closely united by the bond of a common ideal that cooperation between them was scarcely affected by political events. This unity was further strengthened by the general use of the Latin language.

Today we look back at this state of affairs as at a lost paradise. The passions of nationalism have destroyed this community of the intellect, and the Latin language which once united the whole world is dead. The men of learning have become representatives of the most extreme national traditions and lost their sense of an intellectual commonwealth.

Nowadays we are faced with the dismaying fact that the politicians, the practical men of affairs, have become the exponents of international ideas. It is they who have created the League of Nations.

Klaus Schwab is the head of the World Economic Forum, which is the group that meets in Davos. He recently said this.

The future is not just happening. The future is built by us, by a powerful community as you here in this room. We have the means to improve the state of the world. But two conditions are necessary. The first one is that we act all as stakeholders of larger communities, that we serve not only self-interest but we serve the community. That’s what we call stakeholder responsibility. And second, that we collaborate.

When I read Einstein talking about a lost international community of intellectuals, I feel sad. When I read Schwab trying to create a powerful international community to run the world, I feel threatened.

Here’s how Ben Shapiro characterized Schwab’s comments.

This is the call to action for elitists the world over. They appoint themselves the representatives of global interests — without elections, without accountability — and then create mechanisms of national and international order to control citizens over whom they claim to preside.

It’s one thing to have an international community of intellectuals who meet and think and propose. It’s another to have an international group that meets and thinks and imposes. And I think the fear Shapiro is expressing — and I’m feeling — is that the Davos people are more in that latter camp.

Intellectuals should be thinking about big problems. But they should never be given the power to implement their ideas, because ideas from intellectuals are often ridiculously impractical.

Somehow or other, the confusing, disjointed mess of having to convince people of an idea through some sort of democratic process is more likely to give us better solutions than a top-down system run by geniuses.