Thierry Malleret: Is the Great Reset Underway?
Great Reset co-author Thierry Malleret discusses stakeholder capitalism, libertarianism, and his new book satirizing the World Economic Forum on Just Asking Questions.
What's the agenda of the World Economic Forum? And what was The Great Reset? Just asking questions.
Every year, there's a big gathering of global elites in Davos, Switzerland: world leaders, titans of industry, Hollywood celebrities. It all started in 1971, thanks to Klaus Schwab—a German economist and business professor who launched what was then called the European Economic Forum as a place to discuss best business practices and promote a theory he'd developed called "stakeholder capitalism," the tenets of which Schwab laid out in the original "The Davos Manifesto." It insists that a company's CEO must serve not only shareholders but entire "societies" and "assume the role of a trustee of the material universe for future generations."
While critics have for years lampooned Davos for its brigade of private jets dropping billionaires in an idyllic Swiss mountain town to lecture us about climate change, the WEF and Schwab himself attracted unprecedented attention amid the lockdowns of the COVID-19 pandemic following the July 2020 publication of his ominously titled book The Great Reset. Countless articles, podcasts, and videos theorizing on the real meaning of the Great Reset followed, including one produced by the co-host of this podcast. But you might notice there's another name underneath Schwab's. Thierry Malleret was his co-author on The Great Reset, and again on the follow-up The Great Narrative, and he joins us on the show today.
Malleret is an economist who's worked as an adviser for major investment banks and governments. He conceived of—and planned—the program at Davos for several years before parting ways with Klaus Schwab. And he's also an author, most recently of a very interesting book we're going to discuss at length called Deaths at Davos, a dark satire of what's going on within the WEF.
Sources referenced:
- Zach Weissmueller: Forget the Great Reset. Embrace the Great Escape
- Davos and Beyond: A Timeline of the Highlights (1973 "The Davos Manifesto")
- Deaths at Davos by Thierry Malleret
- COVID-19: The Great Reset by Klaus Schwab and Thierry Malleret
- The Guardian: Mutiny Erupts Among WEF Staff Over Role of "Mr Davos"
- Leadership and Governance | World Economic Forum
- Lowest Number of S&P 500 Companies Citing "ESG" on Earnings Calls Since Q2 2020
- Principles for Responsible Investment signatories, 2006–2023 2022–23 ANNUAL REPORT
- The SEC: Green Regs and Spam: Statement on the Enhancement and Standardization of Climate-Related Disclosures for Investors
- Davos Manifesto 2020: The Universal Purpose of a Company in the Fourth Industrial Revolution | World Economic Forum
- The New York Times: A Friedman doctrine—The Social Responsibility of Business Is to Increase Its Profits
- Reason's Ron Bailey: The Limits of The Limits to Growth
- UN: World Population Prospects (2024 Revision)
- Just Asking Questions w/ Johan Norberg: The Truth about Sweden's COVID policy
Chapters:
- 00:00 "coming up…"
- 00:58 Introduction
- 03:27 The point of Deaths at Davos
- 04:50 What did Klaus Schwab think?
- 05:40 Others are meant to continue the story
- 07:46 What's the future of WEF-like organizations?
- 12:10 Is the WEF vision of the West dying?
- 13:51 Debating "Stakeholder Capitalism"
- 30:16 Malleret's critique of libertarianism
- 45:40 Will stakeholder capitalism lead to corporatism?
- 51:26 A disagreement about Sweden and COVID
- 54:16 Reacting to "Great Reset" conspiracies
- 01:01:26 The final question
- Producer: John Osterhoudt
Editor's Note: As of February 29, 2024, commenting privileges on reason.com posts are limited to Reason Plus subscribers. Past commenters are grandfathered in for a temporary period. Subscribe here to preserve your ability to comment. Your Reason Plus subscription also gives you an ad-free version of reason.com, along with full access to the digital edition and archives of Reason magazine. We request that comments be civil and on-topic. We do not moderate or assume any responsibility for comments, which are owned by the readers who post them. Comments do not represent the views of reason.com or Reason Foundation. We reserve the right to delete any comment and ban commenters for any reason at any time. Comments may only be edited within 5 minutes of posting. Report abuses.
Please
to post comments
Cripes, Reason!
Will be posting my favorite recipes for bugs here.
Get back in your pod, denier.
Is it really a conspiracy theory if they write what they want to do to the rest of us in books? Ones sold on Amazon?
It’s like how could anyone be surprised by Hitler after reading Mein Kampf
If you are going to conspire you have to communicate with your co-consiprators, so yes.
Okay, shameless re-post here:
THE MAN IN THE ZLUUBEN
The Players:
Klautzen Schtuppen - Evil Globalist who is definitely NOT the leader of the WEF
Kahla-LAH Hamass - An unscrupulous brownish woman who is definitely NOT running for POTUS
Yoo Ching - An elder Manchurian who is the top aide and consultant to Schtuppen.
SCENE: A cavernous chamber in an underground super-bunker, a secret number of miles below Munich. Its walls are dark and embedded with many thousands diamonds and precious stones, though it is otherwise sparsely decorated. On the far wall is a huge fireplace of polished black stonework, adorned with a thousand human skulls. A flame fills the fireplace, casting a red glow about the chamber. Klautzen Schtuppen and Yoo Ching enter stage right (house left). An automatic door slides shut behind them. Schtuppen, in uncomfortable looking brown leather pants, sports a wide-ribbed charcoal-gray leather jacket with exaggerated shoulders, giving him the look one might find on the cover a science fiction paperback from the nineteen-fifties. Yoo Ching wears a plain white tuxedo.
SCHTUPPEN: It's kind of hot down here. Do we need the fireplace?
YOO CHING: Flame give off no heat. It is fakery. Hologram, you see. Problem is, we are so close to earth core it require enough power to run a small city just to keep it cool.
SCHTUPPEN: Why is that?
YOO CHING: Is because you insisted that your ZLUUBEN be located far enough below surface that you could foment nuclear war and survive it in stupendous luxury.
SCHTUPPEN: Did I? Hmmm... Does that include ALL OUT Nuclear war?
YOO CHING: Of course. And Global Famine, Pandemic, Total Economic Collapse, World War Three... Whatever is on the Menu.
SCHTUPPEN: Excellent! And ZLUUBEN? What is that again?
YOO CHING: It stand for Ztupendously Luxurious Underground Uber Bunker. You made acronym up yourself.
SCHTUPPEN: Did I? I zeem to have forgotten... Oh, of course. It is zomething I planned long ago... Yes! Now I remember. I added the extra E-N at the end to make it zound more Germanic.
YOO CHING: Correct.
SCHTUPPEN (looking around): I like the red glow. Nice effect. It reminds me of zomething...
YOO CHING: Zhoe Biden televised address to American public.
SCHTUPPEN: That's it! Thank you, Yoo.
At that moment a chime is heard. They both look toward the door.
YOO CHING: That will be your mistress. She has only just arrived from District of Columbia, United States.
SCHTUPPEN: Ah, yummy! You may leave now, Yoo.
Yoo Ching bows, then turns to exit the chamber. Moments later Kahla-LAH Hamass enters, wearing a light trench coat. Once fully inside the chamber she drops the trench coat to the floor, revealing a crimson negligee. She takes another step forward and does a turn, showing off her curves.
SCHTUPPEN: Kah-la-la-la-LAH! You look ravishing!
Schtuppen produces a cell phone and taps it a few times. A huge black oaken bed floats down from above and settles in the middle of the chamber. The door to the chamber slides shut and a heavy bolt is heard slamming into place. Kahla-LAH walks up to Schtuppen and they embrace.
SCHTUPPEN: I have a zurprise for you, my dear.
He walks to a side table and opens a twenty-four inch square envelope and removes a large black, translucent ring. He then positions it over his head and it floats there, suspended like the rings of Saturn, girding his gleaming, bald head about an inch above his pointy ears. It maintains its position automatically as he moves about, and has lit up to display a dramatic rendering of the zodiac.
KAHLA-LAH: Oh Joy, Klautzen! That is so... you!
SCHTUPPEN (beaming): Does it make me look extra diabolical?
KAHLA-LAH: Oh my darling! Uber, UBER diabolical! How does it stay in place?
SCHTUPPEN: I had magnetic studs embedded in my skull so it hovers in place. Nice effect, eh?
KAHLA-LAH: Very. But won't it get in the way when we make love?
SCHTUPPEN: Not at all. I can position it at any angle with a special app on my phone. It can be tilted up so we can kiss, if that is your conzern.
A small, round table rises from beneath the floor, upon which a bottle of red wine and two glasses are set. Schtuppen pours two glasses and hands one to Kahla-LAH. They move to the edge of the bed to make a toast.
SCHTUPPEN: To Evil.
They clink their glasses and sip.
SCHTUPPEN: So Kahla-LAH, how was your descent?
KAHLA-LAH: Quite pleasant, actually. I was so exhausted from the flight over that I slept for nearly three hours. I spent the rest of the six-and-a-half-hour descent between the spa and the video game room. You amaze me, Klautzen. Only you could have thought of an elevator with bedrooms and a spa and...
SCHTUPPEN: Wait till you see what we have planned for the new shaft we'll be opening up under Den Haag. That one will have all the amenities of the one here plus a swimming pool.
KAHLA-LAH: It must cost a fortune. It seems it would take all the money in the world to build such collosal things. Not to mention the energy.
SCHTUPPEN: Well my dear, you must consider all our sources. The UN, the Federal Reserve, the compounded interest on the US national debt, the graft from all the subsidized green energy, trillions in new taxes from our climate crisis fear mongering, leftover monies printed for the pandemic, kickbacks from all the dictators we have installed worldwide. Wall Street, London... do you have any idea how much capital is run through London? Switzerland? Offshore banks? We get an increasingly large piece of it all. Now consider the huge, unaccounted-for military and intelligence budgets. And thanks to the pandemic we were able to destroy thousands of small businesses and prop up our partners in warehousing and shipping with billions and billions in added revenues. In short, we DO own "all the money in the world."
KAHLA-LAH: It's... it's just so...
SCHTUPPEN: Evil?
KAHLA-LAH: Yes, but...
SCHTUPPEN: Meanwhile the world is being systematically destroyed. All according to plan. Chaotic migration, crime, terror, war, climate hysteria, pandemic fears, you name it. We will soon manipulate the weather... It's all in the playbook.
KAHLA-LAH: So it really IS a conspiracy...
SCHTUPPEN: Well, yes and no. Some conspiracies are necessary, of course. But the majority of our agreements are pure conniving. You see, conspiracies are messy and involve very careful vetting. You must trust your co-conspirators one hundred percent and take immense precautions so that you never get caught. Think of all the known conspiracies of the past where large numbers of the conspirators and hapless witnesses had to be eliminated. That's a lot of wet work. But when you are practiced in the art of conniving those stresses are eliminated. It's actually more evil, to be sure. But highly effective.
KAHLA-LAH: How so?
SCHTUPPEN: Well, when you conspire you join with others for specific, selfish goals. You hatch your plot, and your success depends upon how well you execute, and of course you are screwed if you get caught. But when you connive there is no residue. Conniving is... well, it's just more vile. There's a level of vileness to it that conspiracy cannot even approach. One: In a conspiracy you may be indifferent to your enemies; but when you are conniving, you truly despise them. Two: You rely on the same entrenched depravity and corruption shared among your co-connivers. You make no explicit deals with them because you already know "the deal", so to speak. Thus you deny your enemies an even playing field, and though they can clearly point out what you're up to, they have no proof of conspiracy. Three: Then you laugh in their faces, and all your co-connivers - the media, your propagandists, celebrities, shameless politicians, judges, lawyers - all of them can pile on with no fear of repercussions. You've seen this play out thousands of times I'm sure. And finally, Number Four: Fools smell blood in the water and join the feeding frenzy, elated with the ease with which they can join the winning side and torment the opposition. Conniving on this scale is the height of the black art, and we have mastered it.
KAHLA-LAH (giggles): Can we actually drink blood sometime?
SCHTUPPEN: Um, perhaps... But listen! Our tentacles are everywhere. We have even managed to corrupt the Libertarians via some high-placed moles in their organization. It dawned upon Yoo Ching one day that the Libertarians had the potential to attract millions of people with their simple, appealing message. He said that the message was powerful enough and their numbers zignificant enough that if they overcame some minor divisions within their ranks that appeal could snowball, and no candidate for high office would have a chance without their blessing. We could not abide that, so we set about exacerbating those differences, ultimately sowing confusion among them. It was quite simple when you look at it. We infiltrated their upper ranks and got them bickering amongst themselves over minutia. Distinctions between immigration, illegal immigration, migration and so on. They could have shrugged it all off and threw their support to a sensible policy but instead they were cowed into open borders, even going so far as to turn a blind eye to welfare for illegals at the expense of the taxpayer! Then we corralled them into some nonsensical positions in which many of them were actually SUPPORTING our censorship efforts. So, in essence, their libertarian center was kaput. We denied them the ability to define their own essence. Their membership suffered, and we zwooped in. And on top of it they never realized how abzurd it was for them to be running candidates for POTUS, which only diluted opportunities to align with any libertarian seeds within the major parties. We saw to their impotence. They never realized the strength they could have had. They wavered, and we are the victors!
KAHLA-LAH: The authors of confusion! And now we are poised, dare I say, to rule the world!
SCHTUPPEN: Yes! For a thousand years. And yet that is nothing compared to what might soon come to pass. Yoo Ching has explained to me wonders I could never have imagined. We will one day open a shaft right underneath CERN in Switzerland.
KAHLA-LAH: You mean the Super Duper Collider?
SCHTUPPEN: It's just Zuper Collider, I think. Anyway, when we have full control of CERN, Yoo Ching informs me that we can harness the energy to destroy the whole universe.
KAHLA-LAH (giggles): Wow, I never imagined... but what happens then?
SCHTUPPEN: Quite simply, we transition to an ALTERNATE universe. One where, say, I can be the ruler of the galaxy.
KAHLA-LAH: And I, perhaps the first Evil Woman President of the United States?
SCHTUPPEN (hesitates): Well, it pains me to disappoint you but, that is not possible. You see, according to Yoo Ching there already has been an alternate universe in which the first Evil Woman POTUS was elected.
KAHLA-LAH (frowns): That's just not fair.
SCHTUPPEN: Just be thankful you weren't born there. Yes, she was beyond evil; her wickedness was exponential... But it was not to last. It seems she gave a huge celebration after she took the election. It entailed the biggest fireworks display ever in Nova York City. And when it was all over, and all the sparks of the grand finale had zettled to the river, and all the peons and useful idiots were shouting and applauding and blowing their horns, then all of a sudden a zuper bright streak of blinding light went clear across the sky and well, the whole earth was blown to zmithereens. KA-BOOM! Gone in an instant.
KAHLA-LAH (her eyes widen and she starts giggling): Oh, that's SO unfair! How...
SCHTUPPEN: Yoo Ching has explained. Most likely a very large asteroid slammed into the earth at that moment. Yoo has posited that there are rare, unstable universes in which the inhabitants can create a situation that is so obscene and unthinkable that the planet itself simply has an obligation to zelf-destruct.
KAHLA-LAH (sighs): Yoo Ching is very smart.
SCHTUPPEN: Yes, he is. It is good to have him around.
Momentarily the intercom comes alive, filling the chamber with the sound of crickets chirping. Kahla-LAH looks about the chamber for the source of the sound.
SCHTUPPEN: Ah! Dinner is zerved!
KAHLA-LAH (visiby recoils): Hey, wait a minute lover boy...
SCHTUPPEN (laughing heartily): Don't worry my dear. I set that up just to see your reaction. I'm sorry - I just couldn't resist playing a little joke on you. Of course your meal will be ztupendous! Anything you could possibly desire. I have enlisted the finest chefs in Europe.
Kahla-LAH breathes a sigh of relief and looks askance at Schtuppen. Schtuppen then starts laughing again, a sonorous, diabolical tone. Kahla-LAH starts giggling, which soon becomes uncontrollable. Their laughter continues to rise to an other-worldly cacophony, echoing throughout the chamber as the curtain falls.
END
"SCHTUPPEN: To Evil.
They clink their glasses and sip."
This is how I imagine KMWs editorial meetings end.
First, have a transcript easily available. Some of us read, too.
Second, there is a reset underway in America. The disconnection between those who govern in DC, and the governed, has never been more obvious and apparent than now. Nobody is accountable for anything, and everything gets fucked up (ex: Afghanistan withdrawal, the border), the people suffer and pay for it via taxes to boot! This has been happening in slow motion for over a decade. It is about to blow up.
Amd should it blow up, it will be time to cleanse the Marxist infestation.
Hello.
Speaking of Davos, did you know that 2024 is the 100th anniversary of The Magic Mountain, Thomas Mann's masterpiece set entirely in Davos and environs? Easily it's one of the best novels of the 20th century. I can't recommend it highly enough.
http://library.lol/fiction/B8D45019957BB5EF59D9079AA33826D4
Just a new skin on the same old Marxist pig.
Zach N Liz are my favorites. Here’s the “Degrowth” conspiracy theory in real time EU style:
https://multimedia.europarl.europa.eu/en/video/beyond-growth-2023-conference-opening-plenary-limits-to-growth-opening-statement-by-ursula-von-der-leyen-president-of-the-ec_I241129
I'm not quite as black helicopter as most of the comment brigade, but...this motherfucker needs to be put into a woodchipper. TODAY.
What an evil fucking liar. "Sweden had a much worse mortality outcome from their COVID policies." Not only not true, but straight up "misinformation" from a guy who definitely thinks that should be a crime. I'm glad Liz (and only Liz) pushed back hard on this piece of shit. Die, fucker.