By Khulu Radebe
1. Davos as the ideological headquarters of monopoly capital
From a Marxist standpoint, Davos is not a neutral global dialogue space. It is the ideological superstructure of global monopoly capitalism.
It brings together:
– Finance capital (BlackRock, IMF-aligned banks)
– Monopoly industrial capital
– Imperial-state political elites
– Technocratic institutions
Its function is not to solve humanity’s problems, but to:
– Manage capitalism’s crises
– Coordinate ruling-class strategy
– Maintain legitimacy of an increasingly delegitimised system
Marx teaches us that when contradictions sharpen at the level of production, the ruling class intensifies ideological coordination, Davos is precisely that coordination space.
2. Lenin: Davos as a forum of imperialism in decay
Lenin defined imperialism as:
– Monopoly capitalism
– Fusion of bank and industrial capital
– Export of capital over goods
– Division and re-division of the world
Davos reflects imperialism in its late, defensive phase.
Key features visible in Davos deliberations:
– Anxiety about supply chains shifting away from the West
– Fear of de-dollarisation
– Obsession with “geopolitical risk” (code for loss of imperial control)
– Calls for “rules-based order” (rules written by imperial powers)
This is imperialism managing decline, not confidence in expansion.
3. Multipolarity: a material shift, not a moral one
From a Marxist-Leninist view, multipolarity is not progressive by default.
It is a reconfiguration of imperial relations driven by material forces:
– Rise of China as industrial capital power
– Russia as energy and military counterweight
– BRICS challenging dollar hegemony
– Global South asserting policy space
At Davos, this reality is acknowledged only partially and reluctantly.
Hence the language:
– “Fragmentation”
– “Geoeconomic blocs”
– “Risk to globalisation”
These are bourgeois terms for the loss of unilateral imperial control.
4. Mao: contradiction as the engine of the Davos agenda
Mao teaches us to identify the principal contradiction.
At present, the principal contradiction within Davos thinking is:
– The need to maintain global capitalist accumulation while losing the political and monetary instruments that sustained Western dominance.
– Secondary contradictions include:
– Climate vs profit
– Labour precarity vs social stability
– Technology vs regulation
– National sovereignty vs global capital
Davos discussions attempt to manage contradictions, not resolve them.
This is classic reformism at the top, revolution avoided at all costs.
5. Green transition and digitalisation, new accumulation frontiers
Marx reminds us that capitalism survives by creating new spheres of accumulation.
At Davos:
– Climate crisis becomes “green finance”
– Digital surveillance becomes “AI governance”
– Social collapse becomes “resilience”
This is not transformation, it is commodification of crisis.
Lenin would describe this as capital exporting itself into new technological and ecological frontiers, while Mao would warn that without mass control, these transitions reproduce exploitation in new forms.
6. Davos and the Global South, managed inclusion
The Global South is invited to Davos as a problem to be managed, not as an equal actor.
Narratives include:
– “Debt relief” without structural reform
– “Development finance” tied to conditionalities
– “Energy transition” without industrial sovereignty
This reflects what Lenin called unequal exchange, and what Mao identified as semi-colonial dependency.
Multipolarity threatens this arrangement hence the anxiety.
7. Ideology of optimism vs scientific socialism
A recurring Davos theme is optimism, innovation, confidence.
From a Marxist view:
– This is ideological pacification
– Designed to suppress revolutionary clarity
– Encourages belief in technical fixes over structural change
Mao would call this subjective idealism, divorced from material reality.
The ruling class fears pessimism not because it is unhealthy, but because it leads to organisation, struggle, and rupture.
8. What Davos reveals about the current moment
Davos today reveals:
– A ruling class aware of decline but unwilling to surrender power
– An imperial core attempting to renegotiate dominance
– A Global South increasingly resistant to unilateral control
– A world moving toward multipolarity without yet achieving emancipation
In Marxist terms, this is an interregnum:
Meaning the old order is dying, the new order is struggling to be born.
9. Revolutionary implication
Marxism–Leninism–Maoism teaches us:
– Multipolarity alone does not liberate the masses
– Without class struggle, new poles reproduce old hierarchies
– Without mass line politics, elites simply change flags
The task of progressive forces is not to cheer Davos’ decline,
but to organise outside and against its logic.
My Remarks
Davos is no longer a forum of confidence, it is a forum of containment.
It seeks to:
– Slow the erosion of Western hegemony
– Rebrand exploitation as sustainability
– Absorb multipolarity without losing class power
From a Marxist, Leninist, Maoist perspective, Davos represents the ruling class thinking collectively about how to survive a world it no longer fully controls. History, however, does not move by conferences, it moves by material struggle and the organized action of the masses.
- Khulu Radebe is an Independent thinker and Community activist.
