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Davos is the Neoliberalism's Brigadoon: an earthly projection of the World Economic Forum that annually overlays itself over its Swiss skiing village host, like a night's snowfall, or a Weyland-Yutani facehugger.
There, perpetually frozen in not-quite-1998, avatars of statecraft, NGOs, and public-private partnerships manifest. They manifest moderated panels with each other, office-party-dance in makeshift euroclubs, and pop the deal stacks that can only progess when stars align and travel plans intersect. An ageless CEO of a sagging Japanese tech companies pushes a stapled Powerpoint printout toward a sovereign fund investor; exiled lamas diffidently bless you with a business card for their World Peace Project. Climate change protestors huddle around burning braziers for warmth. Public relations staff stand nervously beside every threshold. In the distance, will.i.am can be heard, soft-launching.
And then, as soon as they have arrived, the ghosts of the global consensus slip their snowboots back over suit trousers and recede like glaciers to Zurich and Zug.