The stated mission of the WEF sounds harmless enough, but the long endgame is horrifying if we take them at their word.

“The World Economic Forum is the International Organization for Public-Private Cooperation”

In my last article I explored some of the connections between the tech industry, government, big investment and central banking that make up what Klaus Schwab, founder and executive chairman of the World Economic Forum calls “public-private cooperation” and showed it to be nothing more than systemic corruption, graft, and corporate welfare.

This scenario may often be the case but there have been times in the past when public private partnerships have been a great deal more than simple corruption and inefficiency. With the dawn of COVID-19 and the World Economic Forum’s announcement of the Great Reset, it is vital to examine the other, much darker side of public-private partnerships. As we’ll unfortunately see, there are many reasons to be concerned (alongside those who many will call alarmists) about continued progress toward authoritarian dystopia.

The dark history of public-private cooperation

At the beginning of the 1930’s pre-war rearmament period in Nazi Germany, Hugo Junkers was the owner of one of the most respected, and innovative aircraft manufacturers in Germany. When the Nazis seized power in 1933, Reichskommissar of Aviation, Hermann Göring:

…requested Junkers and his businesses aid in the German re-armament. Junkers declined, to which the Nazi’s responded to by demanding ownership of all patents and market shares from his remaining companies under threat of imprisonment on the grounds of High Treason.

Junkers was confined to house arrest and died mysteriously the same day Nazi officials visited his home for a round of “negotiations” to persuade him to give up his company. “Very shortly after, his wife Therese ceded all control of the Junkers companies and patents to the Nazis for a tiny fraction of their worth.”

In public-private cooperation with the Nazis but without Hugo, the Junkers company went on to design and manufacture the notorious Stuka dive-bomber which wrought havoc over Europe all during World War II.

Unlike Junkers, the executives and stockholders of quite a number of companies with still familiar names like Krupp, Bayer, BMW, Daimler, and IG Farben profitably cooperated with the Nazis during the same period. One such company was the Ravensburg Germany branch of a lesser-known Swiss company, Escher-Wyss AG, whose managing director was one Eugen Schwab, father of Klaus Schwab.

As Johnny Vedmore reports for Unlimited Hangout, during this time, Escher-Wyss, was the largest employer in Ravensburg. In addition, during the same period and while Eugen Schwab was chief executive, the Ravensburg factory was awarded the title, “National Socialist Model Company”. This award was not for nothing as the Ravensburg factory employed forced laborers and even maintained a small special camp for these “workers” on the factory premises. Specifically for the war effort, Escher-Wyss aided the Nazi Wehrmacht in producing:

…significant weapons of war as well as more basic armaments. The Escher-Wyss company was a leader in large turbine technology for hydroelectric dams and power plants, but they also manufactured parts for German fighter planes.

In addition:

The company had engineered a 14,500 HP turbine for the Norsk Hydro industrial facility’s strategically important hydroelectric plant at Vemork, near Rjukan in Norway. The Norsk Hydro plant, part powered by Escher Wyss, was the only industrial plant under Nazi control capable of producing heavy water, an ingredient essential for making plutonium for the Nazi atomic bomb program.

Allied forces were aware of the potentially game-changing developments as revealed by Record Group 226 compiled by the US Army Office of Strategic Services (OSS). In 1944, aided by the intelligence, Norwegian resistance forces were able to sink the ship transporting the heavy water to Germany. As Vedmore puts it, “With help from Escher-Wyss, the Nazis were almost able to change the tides of war and bring about an Axis victory.”

By 1945, with the defeat of Hitler, there was no more Nazi master to serve, but no matter. The remaining power vacuum was filled not just by the US and allies but by the Cold War itself. For Eugen, and later for Klaus, this meant the rise of the Military Industrial Complex (MIC). Cloaked in an appealing veneer of democracy, the MIC was a bigger, new-and-improved gravy train, and far more lucrative than Nazi Germany ever even had the potential of becoming. It exported its violence far from Europe to places like Vietnam, and it was growing.

Eugen’s career continued to advance. By 1966 (after Klaus had come of age), Eugen was President of the Ravensburg Chamber of Commerce and involved in the founding of a committee for the construction of a railway tunnel connecting Switzerland with Italy. This particular tunnel was never constructed, but his comments regarding the committee show that he was likely a strong influence on Klaus in terms of world philosophy. He defined this committee as a project “that creates a better and faster connection for large circles in our increasingly converging Europe and thus offers new opportunities for cultural, economic and social development”. Like Klaus and his concept of “Stakeholder Capitalism”, Eugen sought to shape the nature of cultural and social interaction and use the state to merge them with for-profit business. Now, recall the kinds of cultural and social “development” with which Eugen had been willing to collaborate during the Nazi era just a short time before. Eugen Schwab inserted himself as a beneficiary of the Nazi war machine, not because he was a Nazi or that he loved war but because the Nazi war machine was the biggest, most powerful machine available in which to insert himself.

By 1967, Klaus Schwab had earned multiple degrees including a Master of Public Administration from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard. While at Harvard, Schwab was taught by Henry Kissinger. Kissinger would of course soon go on to become President Nixon’s National Security Advisor as well as a notorious war criminal. Klaus, however later names Kissinger as one of the top three to four figures who had most influenced his thinking throughout his life.

Two years later, it was Klaus’s turn as a director of the newly merged Sulzer Escher-Wyss AG. With his arrival, the company began none other than the illegal proliferation of nuclear weapons technology. Again, according to Vedmore, “…while Schwab was on the board, [the company] also began playing a critical key role in the development of South Africa’s illegal nuclear weapons programme during the darkest years of the apartheid regime. Klaus Schwab was a leading figure in the founding of a company culture which helped Pretoria build six nuclear weapons and partially assemble a seventh.” In addition:

… South Africa had constructed a reactor as part of a plan to produce plutonium, the SAFARI-2 located at Pelindaba. SAFARI-2 was part of a project to develop a reactor moderated by heavy water… This link to developing heavy water for the creation of uranium [sic, likely plutonium], the same technology which had been utilised by the Nazis also with the help of Escher-Wyss, may explain why South Africans initially got Escher-Wyss involved.

Clearly Klaus saw what his father had done and early on and sought to emulate it. Apparently unsatisfied, however, he sought out and made acquaintance with bigger fish than his father, who had once played nice with the Nazis and gotten away with it.

In 1946, Hermann J. Abs became a member of the European League for Economic Co-operation. The ELEC’s mission was to develop policies on monetary integration, common transport, energy, and welfare systems. Moreover, the ELAC was generally dedicated to the establishment of the European common market, which was the precursor of the European Union. In 1948, Abs was put in charge of allocating the funds of the Marshall Plan to fitting recipients in German industry, and in 1949 he became a top financial advisor to Konrad Adenauer, West Germany’s first post-war Chancellor. By all appearances, at this point, Abs was a man of the new, progressive, uniting Europe and just the kind of high-level business leader an up-and-comer like Klaus would want to rub elbows with. Now let’s look deeper at Hermann’s history.

In 1937, as the Nazis were expanding their reign of terror into neighboring countries, Abs joined the board of directors at Deutsche Bank, Germany’s largest bank. It was during this period that Deutsche Bank was tasked with ‘Aryanization’ of banks in Austria and Czechoslovakia that were owned by Jews.

By 1942, as a representative of lender Deutsche Bank, Abs sat on the boards of 40 companies. A quarter of these were in Nazi occupied countries and like Escher-Wyss used slave labor. By 1943, Deutsche Bank’s wealth had quadrupled. One of the boards on which Hermann Abs served was none other than I.G. Farben, whose subsidiary Degesch was the supplier of the cyanide gas Zyklon B. used in the gas chambers at Auschwitz and other death camps. Unlike many of his I.G. Farben colleagues (who claimed ignorance, received acquittals or light sentences, and went on to “respectable” post war industrial careers), Abs, despite being arrested by the British in 1945 was never prosecuted for war crimes. He later returned to Deutsche Bank as chairman of the board and as we’ve seen, became one of the most important figures in Germany’s post-war reconstruction.

Finally, in 1971, after witnessing a winning formula of public-private partnership carried out by his father, Klaus Schwab created a global outfit whose sole purpose was to promote the same formula over and over again between governments and politically connected corporate movers and shakers. The inaugural European Management Symposium, later to be known as the World Economic Forum, was held in Davos, Switzerland in January of that year. After a successful first gathering, the following year’s symposium promised to be even better, but unfortunately for Klaus:

The Meeting Chairman, Hermann J. Abs, Chairman of Deutsche Bank and the most prominent European business leader at that time, had to cancel his participation at short notice. (Emphasis added.)

So what?

Plenty of so-called public-private partnerships have existed in the US before and since WWII. In fact, they’ve been on all corners of the globe ever since there have been governments. Many consider them wasteful and unproductive, but we don’t usually think of them as horrifying as in the above. History shows they can certainly be lived with. Besides, progressives believe in all kinds of reasons why they’re beneficial. So why be so concerned about Klaus Schwab’s father and his peripheral role in a long-defeated regime and whether Klaus may have learned a thing or two from him? We don’t live in that world anymore. We’ve moved on.

We have moved on indeed…

In Klaus Schwab’s own words:

We stand on the brink of a technological revolution that will fundamentally alter the way we live, work, and relate to one another. In its scale, scope, and complexity, the transformation will be unlike anything humankind has experienced before.

He is describing what he and the crowd that jets into Davos call the “Fourth Industrial Revolution”. He continues:

The First Industrial Revolution used water and steam power to mechanize production. The Second used electric power to create mass production. The Third used electronics and information technology to automate production. Now a Fourth Industrial Revolution is building on the Third, the digital revolution that has been occurring since the middle of the last century. It is characterized by a fusion of technologies that is blurring the lines between the physical, digital, and biological spheres.

He lists off a number of emerging technologies:

… such as artificial intelligence, robotics, the Internet of Things, autonomous vehicles, 3-D printing, nanotechnology, biotechnology, materials science, energy storage, and quantum computing.

And:

The speed of current breakthroughs has no historical precedent. When compared with previous industrial revolutions, the Fourth is evolving at an exponential rather than a linear pace. Moreover, it is disrupting almost every industry in every country. And the breadth and depth of these changes herald the transformation of entire systems of production, management, and governance.

He tells us that the kind of impact current technological changes will have on our lives and the economy is like nothing we’ve ever seen and implies that, as individuals, we are ill equipped to face its challenges. In his 2017 book, The Fourth Industrial Revolution, he writes:

About 47% of total employment in the US is at risk, perhaps over the next decade or two, characterized by a much broader scope of job destruction at a much faster pace than labor market shifts experienced in previous industrial revolutions.

In his 2018 book, Shaping the Fourth Industrial Revolution, Schwab writes:

We will become better able to manipulate our own genes, and those of our children. These developments raise profound questions: where do we draw the line between human and machine? What does it mean to be human?

Who is “we”? Somebody might become better at manipulating my genes and those of my children, but it doesn’t really seem to include me. Do you plan to become better at manipulating your own genes? Takes a lot of know-how. Good luck. Collectivists like Schwabs’ use of the word “we” can be both hypnotic and absurd.

And:

Fourth Industrial Revolution technologies therefore appear to be undermining humans’ choice and ability to apply their skills and interests to meaningful work, and may lead to generations of workers living precarious and fragmented lives. Navigating these shifts will require new regulations for non-standard work, investments in adult learning and proactive employment services.

He certainly sounds like he knows what he is talking about. Is he right? Is this the future? Maybe. But, in light of all we know about Klaus Schwab, assuming all of these changes come to pass, isn’t it equally important to ask, “Who benefits?”Klaus tells us who should benefit. Why, everyone, of course! All the “stakeholders” need to be brought together in new forms of 21^st century global “governance”, imbued with “a new leadership mindset” to ensure all the new technologies are designed with “our collective values” built-in from the very start. That way, the “externalities” of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4thIR) can be adequately managed, and the promise of the new technological era can be incorporated into “smart cities” and “bridge the digital divide” to the remotest parts of the planet for the benefit of the most isolated of people. So, by everybody, he literally means everybody.

Okay, but besides everybody who benefits? Among the listed founding partners of the WEF’s Centre for the Fourth Industrial Revolution are: Salesforce, Accenture, Deloitte, Facebook, Hitachi, Huawei, McKinsey, Microsoft, Mitsubishi, Palantir, Visa, Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, and Netflix. The major stockholders and executives of these companies are just a few of the “stakeholders” in the 4thIR. Stakeholders like these are the important ones because they are the ones who pay Klaus Schwab handsomely to do what he does. And that’s just the private side of “public private cooperation”. When writing about the 4thIR, the WEF devotes an enormous amount of print and online real estate to not just issues of “privacy” but also to “our collective values”. These are areas for the public side of the partnership. Schwab would tell us that the role of the public side is to see that the needs and concerns of all “stakeholders” are heard. He also envisions a regulatory environment that is accommodating to “changing and unforeseen needs”.

There is, however, one characteristic of the “public” side of the public private partnership without which it would be useless to Schwab and all the entities above: the government monopoly on the use of force and the threat thereof.

More specifically, then, my question is, “Who benefits from the use of government force in the name of the Fourth Industrial Revolution?”

In a World Economic Forum white paper entitled Reimagining Regulation for the Age of AI: New Zealand Pilot Project, the authors state:

Modern regulatory domains are so complex that they can no longer be handled by the state alone. A modern regulatory body is not authoritarian, but one part of a broader system that influences and steers through a full spectrum of approaches. Harder regulatory powers may be useful in certain situations, while
soft approaches will work better in others.

…a lack of experience can be solved through giving the group the ability to call on expert advice when it is needed. Other challenges are more complex.… too narrow or specific a scope may work against regulators in areas of fast-moving technology. Some regulators (such as the US Food and Drug Administration…) have deliberately broad remits that are intended to future-proof it if the field moves in unforeseen directions. (Emphasis added.)

The companies mentioned above and countless like them don’t only devote significant time and financial resources to the World Economic Forum but also millions of dollars to the campaigns of politicians and their parties as well as to lobbyists who write the legislation that regulates them.

We are taught to believe that the purpose of government regulation is to protect consumers and the public from nefarious or dangerous business activity; and in some cases, perhaps, it actually does. But when it is most effective, it provides a government enforced monopoly to a small cartel. This is an old game. In the US, it goes back at least to the first transcontinental railroads. This is accomplished with regulations, written by industry lobbyists themselves, so expensive to implement that only the biggest and most politically established corporations can afford to implement them. All other competition is driven out.

And what about situations where “soft approaches will work better”? One timely public private partnership to highlight these days is the rollout of the COVID-19 vaccines, particularly when it comes to vaccine mandates. There were no widespread government enforced mandates until the Comirnaty vaccine by WEF partner Pfizer was approved for use by the FDA. Who benefits from this rapid approval? For Pfizer’s sake, it was a good thing the “soft approach” option was available, as well as a “broad remit”. Otherwise, more scrutiny of its safety and effectiveness would have been required.

It is important to note that a current Pfizer board, and WEF member Scott Gottlieb, M.D., served as FDA Commissioner from 2017 to 2019. These kinds of connections are frequently referred to as “the revolving door”. When the WEF talks about “soft approaches” and says, “A modern regulatory body is not authoritarian”, it seems to mean not authoritarian toward the interests of the companies with the most legislative and regulatory clout, whereas it may be quite authoritarian to countless others, like those who are vaccinated against their will to the benefit of Pfizer.

Decoding the WEF

Again, in Klaus Schwab’s 2018 book, Shaping the Fourth Industrial Revolution, he provides his wish list for a world dominated by such things as AI, quantum computing, and biotech. Several quotes are demonstrative of a graft agenda in the guise of concern for the well-being of humanity. A lot can be learned if one cares to read between the lines using history and WEF actions as a guide:

“All technologies are political.” …technologies are solutions, products and implementations that are developed through social processes, stand in for people and institutions, and contain within them a whole set of assumptions, values and principles that intern can (and do) affect power, structure and status in society. (p.32)

The fact that different cultures and types of values highlight differences in priorities shouldn’t be a roadblock to thinking through a values-based approach to technologies. On the contrary, the more we think it through, the better we will become at understanding which priorities are critical for societies and how technology affects and mediates these values.… (Emphasis added.) (p. 35)

Current disruptions are forcing political leaders to rethink the paradigm that shapes the relations among individual, society and economic activity. This includes considering reforms for reshaping the social contract between individual and society.… (p.61)

…We must seek to share the benefits of this technological age among all citizens regardless of age, income, race or beliefs.(p. 64)

He references a WEF white paper:

In a White Paper entitled, “A New Social Covenant,” The World Economic Forum Global Agenda Council on Values (2012 to 2014) identified “a broad consensus across cultures religions and philosophies on some shared, human aspirations” which together represent “a powerful, unifying ideal” of “valued individuals, committed to one another, and respectful of future generations.” (P.35)

He quotes from A New Social Covenant:

Many previous efforts have focused on individual rights— which are essential.But our focus is on what we owe to one another — both within nations and among nations.… There is great cultural diversity when it comes to values but there is also broad consensus — across cultures, religions and philosophy — on some shared, human aspirations. [Such as] The importance of a common good that transcends individual interests. (Emphasis added.)(pp. 35-36)

Here is how I interpret what I read above:

Not just anyone possessing the know-how should be allowed to develop new technologies. New technology needs to be controlled and kept within the right hands, preferably members of the WEF who are qualified to ascertain the correct “assumptions, values and principles” that preserve the correct centers of “power, structure and status”, and “which priorities are critical for societies”.

The rights of individuals are an impediment to bottom lines of WEF members. Everybody needs what we’re selling, and we’ll use the taxes and newly printed money from your governments to make sure you get it.

The clearest, most sinister, and disingenuous tell that “Stakeholder Capitalism” is a scam, is Klaus Schwab’s advocacy of a universal basic income (UBI). We can leave aside all economic arguments for or against the UBI. In his advocacy, Schwab is showing himself and the activities of the WEF to be that of a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Again, in Shaping the Fourth Industrial Revolution,he writes: (p.61)

Current disruptions are forcing political leaders to rethink the paradigm that shapes the relations among individual, society and economic activity. This includes considering reforms for reshaping the social contract between individual and society.

The discussion of a universal basic income (UBI) is one example of this conversation.… the primary justification for UBI is social justice: as income increasingly goes toward land, natural resources, and intellectual property – all parts of society is collective wealth – everybody should have a modest share of this collective wealth in the form of an unconditional basic income. (Emphasis added.)

The process of, as he says, income increasingly going toward “land, natural resources, and intellectual property” is demonstrably the result of central bank policies. Here it is worth mentioning that central banks are government enforced cartels of private banks with monopoly authority to issue “legal tender” currency.

In my June 5, 2021, article Can the Great Reset Succeed, and Does It Matter?, I pointed out that:

Out of 31 members of the WEF board of trustees, 13 represent high level banking interests from the US, UK, EU, Canada, Japan, Russia and China. Ten of the 13 hold or have held high level government and central banking positions in and out of their respective countries. In addition, eight WEF board members are high level investment firm executives.

In an inflationary environment of artificially low interest rates and inflated money supply, those who receive the new money first will quickly use it to artificially bid up the prices of assets, concentrating that wealth into fewer and fewer hands, and make it nearly impossible for ordinary people to save for the future. The membership and highest governance of the WEF is made up of the central and commercial bankers, who create the new money out of nothing, and those with the greatest capacity to borrow it and turn it into assets like “land, natural resources, and intellectual property”. In addition, asset bubbles are created by the policies of these actors, allowing them to snatch assets for pennies on the dollar, including homes from the individuals who are bankrupted when these bubbles finally burst. We saw this in 1999, 2008, and most recently with the COVID lockdowns.

Under Schwab’s vision, the central banking scam is to go to such extreme that it eliminates peoples’ ability to make a living, and a UBI is required to keep the population pacified, and compliant with the program.

One can connect the events of 2008 with the incestuous relationship between Congress, the Treasury, the Fed, the world’s largest investment banks, and the World Economic Forum by looking at the crisis caused by the government lockdowns of 2020 and the government response.

Again from Can the Great Reset Succeed, and Does It Matter?:

Out of the $2.2 trillion Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act, Congress allocated $454 billion to be used for Federal Reserve emergency lending programs.

Investment giant BlackRock … was appointed the sole manager for two of the lending programs: the Primary Market Corporate Credit Facility (PMCCF) and Secondary Market Corporate Credit Facility (SMCCF). These two were intended to provide access to credit so that companies could maintain business operations during the economic shock of the COVID lockdowns.

BlackRock made its fortune after the 2008 financial crisis in “exchange traded funds” (ETFs). By 2020, it owned over 800 funds with $1.9 trillion in assets under management and was number one of a “big-three” that by 2017 had become the largest shareholder “in almost 90% of S&P 500 firms, including Apple, Microsoft, ExxonMobil, General Electric and Coca-Cola.” In addition “BlackRock owns major interests in nearly every mega-bank and in major media.”

The SMCCF began operating on May 12, 2020. As of May 30, the only purchases made under the BlackRock administered facility “were ETFs, mainly owned by BlackRock itself. Between May 14 and May 20, about $1.58 billion in ETFs were bought through the…SMCCF, of which $746 million or about 47% came from BlackRock ETFs.” BlackRock was using its position as sole manager of the SMCCF to buy ETFs in the name of the Fed owned by BlackRock itself. This gave BlackRock a golden opportunity to self-deal.

The story finishes itself when we realize that BlackRock Chairman and CEO Larry Fink also sits on the board of trustees at the World Economic Forum.

When Klaus Schwab advocates for a UBI, it is not out of a concern for social justice. It is because apparently central banking is a scam that extends so far and it’s impoverishment of individuals is so complete, that it impairs the perpetrators’ ability to carry the scam out any further! If the banksters don’t hand back a few crumbs from what they’ve stolen, the resulting social unrest could mean the end of the party.

At this point, is it such a stretch to infer that with his creation, the World Economic Forum, Klaus Schwab is following in the footsteps of such men as Eugen Schwab, Henry Kissinger, and Hermann Abs? Is it even a stretch to guess he is aiming to outdo them? If you are still not convinced, consider the following:

“I own nothing, have no privacy, and life has never been better.”

The potential need for a UBI is a symptom of a financial system designed for the stealth extraction of wealth and resources from the population as a whole and consequently fosters dependence upon it. Such a level of dependence for life itself necessarily results in greater and greater control over the behavior and movements of individuals.

Nowhere is this more succinctly illustrated than in the 2016 World Economic Forum article entitled, Welcome to 2030. I own nothing, have no privacy, and life has never been better, written by Danish MP Ida Auken. In it, she presents an urban future where all goods are provided as services, chosen for you by AI algorithms based on your prior choices, choices which are not your private business but data that belongs to the AI cloud. (And who owns the AI cloud? We don’t know.)

In it, she laments that her “…biggest concern is all the people who do not live in our city…Those who got upset with the political system and turned against it. They live different kind of lives…in the empty and abandoned houses in small 19th century villages.”

She seems to be saying that political dissenters will be confined to ghettos but then goes on to say, “…I have no real privacy. No where I can go and not be registered. I know that, somewhere, everything I do, think and dream of is recorded. I just hope that nobody will use it against me.”

“I just hope that nobody will use it against me?” She doesn’t even hint at what she might be able to do (if anything), if somebody does use it against her, or who that somebody might be. We do know that somebody will possess a highly advanced version of Total Information Awareness and be part of a class of people who own everything to her nothing. She has no agency, no power, and it’s either this utopian fishbowl existence or the ghetto. Yet she goes on to say, “All in all, it is a good life.”  A good life for whom? Keep in mind, she’s a parliamentarian of a Western European country, and thus, certainly a “stakeholder” or possibly a literal stockholder in the “own everything” pie. So sure, for Auken and a fortunate few, “Life has never been better”.

Incidentally, Internet Archive shows increased interest in the 2016 article during the month of November 2020, and on November 20th the provocative title was changed to, Here’s how life could change in my city by the year 2030. You may notice the preceding link with the new title is broken. Searching for it on the WEF website also won’t give it to you either. Except for Internet Archive and a few other sites, the article has been effectively “memory holed”.

How “Useless” are you?

At the January 2020 annual WEF meeting in Davos, futurist-historian Yuval Noah Harari gave a speech: