Davos Man: How the Billionaires Devoured the World

by Peter S. Goodman

A San Francisco Chronicle Bestseller

The history of the last half century in America, Europe, and other major economies is in large part the story of wealth flowing upward. The most affluent people emerged from capitalism's triumph in the Cold War to loot the peace, depriving governments of the resources needed to serve their people, and leaving them tragically unprepared for the worst pandemic in a century.

Drawing on decades of experience covering the global economy, award-winning journalist Peter S. Goodman profiles five representative Davos Men-members of the billionaire class-chronicling how their shocking exploitation of the global pandemic has hastened a fifty-year trend of wealth centralization. Alongside this reporting, Goodman delivers textured portraits of those caught in Davos Man's wake, including a former steelworker in the American Midwest, a Bangladeshi migrant in Qatar, a Seattle doctor on the front lines of the fight against COVID, blue-collar workers in the tenements of Buenos Aires, an African immigrant in Sweden, a textile manufacturer in Italy, an Amazon warehouse employee in New York City, and more.

Goodman's rollicking and revelatory exposé of the global billionaire class reveals their hidden impact on nearly every aspect of modern society: widening wealth inequality, the rise of anti-democratic nationalism, the shrinking opportunity to earn a livable wage, the vulnerabilities of our health-care systems, access to affordable housing, unequal taxation, and even the quality of the shirt on your back. Meticulously reported yet compulsively readable, Davos Man is an essential read for anyone concerned about economic justice, the capacity of societies to grapple with their greatest challenges, and the sanctity of representative government.

The New York Times's Global Economics Correspondent masterfully reveals how billionaires' systematic plunder of the world--brazenly accelerated during the pandemic--has transformed 21st-century life and dangerously destabilized democracy.

Davos Man will be read a hundred years from now as a warning. --EVAN OSNOS

"Excellent. A powerful, fiery book, and it could well be an essential one. --NPR.org

Genres: Nonfiction, Politics, Economics, Business, History, Finance, Audiobook

480 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2022

Reviews

[Zack Fraga · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a good book. It’s a little preachy and by the end, the message is fairly one dimensional. However, this book is very important because it details how exactly global financial interests have come to control power in ways that suit their interests. The level of detail and sourcing is phenomenal, and he weaves a fairly interesting story by the anecdotes he chooses. I would definitely recommend for all to read.

The one area he doesn’t seem to consider is how much influence institutions like his namesake NYT have on these problems. Weeks after publication, NYT was ironically buying back its own stock. He rightly goes after right-wing trickle down lies and the phenomenon of Trumpism, but what is missing is the critical flip of the Democratic Party to abandon its workers and abandon labor in favor of global finance and social justice campaigns. Moreover, this was propelled by the very media interests who were all but blinding the public to the dramatic changes in left wing policy. In essence, its disappointing that he mostly just goes after the Right. This story should include legacy media and left wing social policy as tools of Davos’ agenda.

[Emily Hewitt · Rating 4 out of 5]

I won an uncorrected proof version of this book through Goodreads Giveaways. I liked it and found it to be very interesting and timely/current, but I don’t know if I am the most qualified person to rate and review it. I grasped all the themes and messages of the book and understood the author’s overall arguments, but I feel like I wasn’t fully comprehending important details and stories. I honestly don’t have a strong understanding of economics and even though I pay my taxes every year and put money into my 401K, I don’t really know anything about bonds, shares, investments, or the stock market. What I did take away from this book though is that over the past 60-70 years the rich have only gotten richer while the middle class and lower income classes have struggled to achieve the American Dream and live debt-free.

I also have to admit that the author is very left wing and doesn’t attempt to hide his liberal political beliefs. While this biased viewpoint will probably annoy some readers, it didn’t personally bother me. I still found the book to be factual and well-researched.

I really liked how the book was divided into three parts. Essentially the first part is an introduction to Davos Man and explains how so many billionaires have attained their wealth and managed to exploit others in the process. The second part focuses on the pandemic and emphasizes how even though thousands of people have died from COVID over the past 2 years, many billionaires have managed to double their net worth. The third part is about possible solutions to the extreme income equalities across the world and discusses ways that local governments and politicians are currently trying to fix it. The author ultimately argues that billionaires will always try to exploit the system no matter what, but governments and citizens can (and should) do more to stop them.

[Sherrie · Rating 3 out of 5]

***I won this book in a Goodreads Giveaway***

If you think the title is forceful, you should see the rest of the book. The author pulls no punches and does not even attempt to hide his disdain for the billionaire class and their shenanigans. This would have ruined the book for me had it not been so well researched with every section backed up by facts, figures, and first hand accounts.

Peter Goodman has been attending he Davos Economic Forum for years now and writing about international economics for even longer. He knows his stuff. Every tidbit that felt too ridiculous to be true, I fact checked and...he was right. Every time. I don't always agree with his opinions, but I will give him all the credit for stating the facts.

I appreciated the final section of the book which focused heavily on what can be done. He breaks down different tax approaches, universal basic income, changes to welfare programs, and other options. They all boil down to this...assume the billionaires are going to cheat and lie and pressure them anyway. They'll still pull shenanigans but we can try to minimize it.

[William Schrecengost · Rating 2 out of 5]

There's honestly too much to go into indepth with this book. I think, generally, his criticisms of the billionaires is just, but I don't have a way to double check them. I think he pushes it too far and blames the billionaires for everything and he fails to place sufficient blame on the governments enabling the lobbying and other nonsense that the corporations engage in these days.

The problems are all the fruit of a really bad worldview. He definitely has a Marxist sort of view of society with the billionaires being the bourgeoisie/oppressors and the average person being the proletariat/oppressed with the government as the savior. He also holds to a Marxist/Hegelian view of the evolution of history. My primary reason for concluding this is his idea that UBI is a good thing. He is really oddly inconsistent regarding globalization. He characterizes the billionaires as globalists, but blames Trump for everything while admitting he was a nationalist. He says that the globalistic billionaires came to accept Trump as their hero, which means the author must've had his head in a box this whole time. The author also displayed his own globalist views when complaining of the Covid response and saying that we are evil for not donating more too 3rd world countries and share our vaccines more. He held a really high standard to the billionaires thinking that they're supposed to solve all the world problems because of their "social responsibility". He also was upset that companies would move out of states or countries that raise taxes on them claiming that they owe taxes as their "fair share". He definitely thought the government was supposed to get bigger and bigger and redistribute the wealth of these men, taxing them as high as 70%.

This whole book was frankly quite ridiculous. The only purpose in this is to make the working class mad at the wealthy. Highly recommend you pass on this trash

[✨ Anna ✨ | ReadAllNight · Rating 3 out of 5]

Recommended by Sirota.

Not sure the author has the courage of his convictions. Well researched. A bit overwhelmed by the numbers of important political and financial texts published over the past few years.

[Joshua · Rating 1 out of 5]

A liberal tirade. Almost no investigative journalism. Read Matt Taibbi for real research into the awfulness of bankers and billionaires

[Mal Warwick · Rating 4 out of 5]

In the prologue to his new book, Peter S. Goodman explains that “the term Davos Man was coined in 2004 by the political scientist Samuel Huntington. He used it to describe those so enriched by globalization, so native to its workings, that they were effectively stateless, their interests and wealth flowing across borders, their estates and yachts sprinkled across continents, their arsenal of lobbyists and accountants straddling jurisdictions, eliminating loyalty to any particular nation.” Sitting in judgment on his subjects, Goodman elaborates on this thesis and updates it for the third decade of the 21st century. He explains the widening economic inequality in today’s world by examining the work of five billionaires.

THE LIE BEHIND THE WORLD’S WIDENING ECONOMIC INEQUALITY
Goodman proceeds to explain that the label as used by the political scientist “referred directly to anyone who regularly made the journey to Davos” to attend the annual World Economic Forum. But, like many others, Goodman uses it “as shorthand for those who occupy the stratosphere of the globe-trotting class, the billionaires—predominantly white and male—who wield unsurpassed influence over the political realm while promoting a notion that has captured decisive force across major economies: when the rules are organized around greater prosperity for those who already enjoy most of it, everyone’s a winner.”

FIVE MEN, AND FIVE COUNTRIES, IN THE SPOTLIGHT
To illustrate how this tiny, often anonymous group of billionaires has managed to amass such riches while impoverishing untold millions of the rest of us, Goodman develops his narrative around five individual men and explores their impact in five countries. The five men are Internet entrepreneurs Jeff Bezos (Amazon) and Mark Benioff (Salesforce), banker Jamie Dimon (JPMorgan Chase), private equity investor Stephen Schwartzman (Blackstone), and investment manager Larry Fink (BlackRock). The five countries Goodman most closely examines are the United States, the United Kingdom, Italy, France, and Sweden. As he makes clear, the overwhelming majority of people in all five countries have suffered enormously as a result of the business practices of those five men—above all, their unceasing effort to avoid paying taxes.

A THESIS MARRED BY THREE FLAWS
While I concur with almost every charge Goodman hurls at “Davos Man,” it’s hard for me to see how much of what he writes applies as broadly as he suggests. In the final analysis, Davos Man comes across as the story of a vast global conspiracy led by a few thousand billionaires to plunder the planet and consign the rest of us to penury. Some of these men are called “vulture capitalists.” Goodman seems to imply that they all merit the label. To be specific, the book strikes me as flawed in at least three significant ways.

COMPETING FACTIONS
“Davos Man” is a concept rather than a term that applies precisely to a well-defined group or class of people. Throughout the text, Goodman implies that they’re all billionaires, although he wavers on the point from time to time. Others, such as Bill Clinton and Emanuel Macron, who also frequently attend the World Economic Forum, are “Davos collaborators” who help carry out the billionaires’ agenda. But surely this oversimplifies the reality, at best.

The world’s nearly 3,000 billionaires, and the 3,000 people from nearly 110 countries who attend the Davos conference, are in no way a monolithic group. There are competing factions among them. For example, some favor resolute action to combat the climate crisis; others oppose it. Some strenuously denounce the would-be autocrats who have emerged in the West in recent years; others support them. And the attendees, even those who are billionaires, may even fund shooting wars against one another. However, it’s true enough that they seem to agree on one central theme: they all work overtime to avoid paying taxes. In that respect alone, the “Davos Man” concept holds water.

IDEOLOGY
Goodman seems to imply that the people who qualify as “Davos Men” act purely out of self-interest which translates easily into greed. But many of these folks actually believe the nonsense they espouse—the approach to economic policymaking Goodman sums up as the “Cosmic Lie.” That’s the proposition that cutting taxes on rich people and corporations will trickle down to the rest of us and be good for society in short order. Of course, four decades of experience in the United States have shown uncontrovertibly that this is ridiculous. Trickle-down economics simply doesn’t work. Despite the abundant evidence that the theory is flat-out wrong, many people believe it. Just because they’re rich doesn’t mean they’re smart. Clever in most cases, yes. But not necessarily capable of parsing economic data without focusing exclusively on what’s in it for them.

STAKEHOLDER CAPITALISM
The author reserves a large measure of his venom for stakeholder capitalism—an approach to corporate management that seeks to share a company’s gains among all its stakeholders. Which means that shareholders are considered merely one of several groups to benefit—contrary to the prevailing mode in business which revolves around shareholder primacy. Goodman rails against the declaration on August 19, 2019, by the Business Roundtable redefining the “purpose of a corporation.” Overturning its 22-year-old policy that held maximizing shareholder return as a company’s highest purpose, they asserted that “companies should serve not only their shareholders, but also deliver value to their customers, invest in employees, deal fairly with suppliers and support the communities in which they operate.” All five billionaires Goodman singles out signed this declaration.

As Goodman points out with undisguised animus, “you could call hotel maids ‘stakeholders’ or ‘highly valued associates’ or whatever you pleased, but when the bottom line was under attack, they became costs to be ruthlessly eliminated.” He goes on to note that “hardly any of the signatories to the Business Roundtable’s statement gained approval from their governing boards for committing to stakeholder capitalism. That fact alone laid bare that the document was really a ploy.” Without question, Goodman’s on solid ground to challenge the hypocrisy of most of the giant corporations that constitute the Global Roundtable. The signatories to the statement include such predatory employers as Amazon and Walmart. For them, a commitment to stakeholder capitalism is a species of greenwashing. But he’s dead wrong to reject stakeholder capitalism as practiced by Salesforce, whose Mark Benioff also signed the declaration—and by many thousands of other, smaller corporations.

A PERSONAL PERSPECTIVE
Stakeholder capitalism represents a huge step beyond the ruthless corporate practices that have driven a wedge between rich and poor in our society and made life more challenging for us all. Goodman describes those practices in gleeful detail in the pages of Davos Man. He is either unaware, or simply chooses to ignore, how companies large and small have rejected shareholder primacy. I’ve been involved in the movement for socially responsible business since 1990 and know a great deal about this subject. To learn how thousands of companies around the world—including my own firm, Mal Warwick Donordigital—are undertaking earnest efforts to implement stakeholder capitalism, check out the growing number of B Corps you can find here. And to see how the principles we’ve elaborated are now becoming embedded in corporate law, take a look at the 21st century innovation called the benefit corporation.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Peter S. Goodman is the European economics correspondent for the New York Times. Previously, he worked for the Washington Post and the Huffington Post and served as editor of the International Business Times. He is a graduate of Reed College. Davos Man is his second book.

[Joe Stack · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is an expose of how national economies are being manipulated to favor the rich and powerful, including the favorable sounding euphanisms to gain public support. The author does not focus solely on the U.S. He also provides examples from Italy, Britain, France, Norway, & Finland.

Very readable, clearly presented, this is a troubling book. Troubling because of the author’s expose. Troubling because the corrective fixes are not complicated, just goes against the current thinking of those in power and the leading think tanks. Troubling because critics who do not subscribe to the author’s views can easily turn readers away from this book by saying the author’s analysis and his interpretation of current economic philosophy and associated legislative policies is misinformed and biased.

This reader believes the accumulation of wealth is not inherently a bad thing. When the accumulation is done unfairly, at the expense of others, then there’s a problem needing fixing. With some history, some economics, interviews, the author lays out how and why there is a problem needing fixing.

Readers who believe corporations and the wealthy deserve economic policies that enrich them and that the benefits will trickle down will likely not like this book. Readers who believe otherwise will not be surprised with what they’ll read. They may be surprised with the immensity of the benefits to the wealthy from the manipulation of the economies of the different nations the author discusses.

The author keeps this book current with chapters explaining how the wealthy made money off the COVID pandemic. He even shows a connection between the money made by the wealthy and the shortages of protective gear and the supply chain issues.

I think this is an important book and should be read by any one who is concerned by the increasing income & wealth gap. As troubling the book may be, the author does provide examples of corrective measures. The concluding two chapters are important because of the glimmer of hope the author presents.

If you’re not sure about reading this book, here are some of the author’s observations that may pique your interest into reading it:

“The shape of our economies is not the product of happenstance. It is the result of deliberative engineering by the people who constructed the system in the service of their own interests.” . . . Davos Man has “sold austerity as a virtue . . . deregulated banking, boosting their compensation, while triggering a global financial crises. Then they bailed themselves out and sent the bill to ordinary citizens.” . . . Trump’s tax cut, “artfully entitled the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act” was “economic redistribution—from the bottom up . . . With the wealthiest 1 percent of households capturing the largest gains. . . . By 2027, Americans earning between $40,000 and $50,000 per year would find themselves paying a collective $5.3 billion more in taxes, while people earning $1 million and more would still be savoring cuts reaching $5.8 billion.” . . . “Over the last four decades, the wealthiest 1 percent of all Americans has gained a collective $22 trillion in wealth. Over the same period, households in the bottom half have seen their fortunes diminish by $900 billion. . . . Since 1978, corporate executive compensation exploded by more than 900 percent, while wages of typical Americans rose less than 12 percent.” . . . Between 2006 and 2015, 18 American pharmaceutical companies spent 99% of their profits on dividends to shareholders and buying back their own shares, increasing the value of shares. $516 billion went to shareholders while $465 billion was spent on R&D. . . . While laying off workers (during the pandemic), “Marriott paid out $160 million in dividends, an amount that could have paid more than 5,000 maids for 6 months.” . . . “By 2000, wages throughout American retail had been reduced by $14.5 billion a year as a result of Walmart driving down pay and decimating competitors. This was a neat transfer of wealth from working people to shareholders—one justified by the benefits for the consumer.” . . . “A year into the pandemic, COVID had killed more than HSA a million Americans, while more than 78 million had lost jobs. Over the same period, American billionaires - a group fewer than 700 people - had gained a collective $1.3 trillion in wealth.” . . . “The billionaires had mastered a recipe for moral alchemy, passing off what was lucrative for them as beneficial for society, even as the evidence mounted that they were accumulating their wealth at the direct expense of the rest of the populace. “ . . . “The Davos Man has rendered efforts to share the wealth as attacks on freedom,” employing “the mechanisms of democracy to sabotage democratic ideals.”

These excerpts just give an idea about the book, and you may think the author is anti-capitalism, but he isn’t. In his “Conclusion,” he writes, “Global capitalism is indeed the most advanced form of economic organization. It promotes the inspiration and exchange of groundbreaking ideas that have extended and improved life. It produces more wealth, which is a hell of a lot better than the alternative.
What capitalism lacks is an inherent mechanism that justly distributes the gains. That is the responsibility of government, operating under a democratic mandate.”

[Amy · Rating 3 out of 5]

A few nights before opening this book, I rewatched an episode of Veep where VP Selina Meyers goes to Silicon Valley to meet with Craig, the head of a fictional tech company called Clovis. Craig is 26 years old, keeps her waiting for what seems like hours, ignores reminders that he should address her as "Madam Vice President" instead of by her first name, and while she's talking with him takes interruptions about some business in Indonesia.

Finally they sit down at a table together. He says he doesn't follow politics, but then demands that the WH "open a conversation" about a very specific change in corporate tax policy that would of course benefit Clovis. To drag the VP into that conversation, Craig offers thousands of tablets/laptops for her signature education initiative. His assistant jots down the number of toys, and he smugly says, "See? Done! That's how fast we can get things done here."

This book explains how that episode is a documentary, not a satire (like most of Veep). Also like Veep, it's a bit repetitive, but the writing is sharp and fun.

Even after reading the author's pretty moving concluding chapter, the GenXer in me refuses to get my hopes up that anything will change. So I just enjoyed the mockery. Particularly of the peripheral characters, like the author's former boss, Arianna Huffington. She may or may not deserve it, and there's probably nothing new in the crusading journalist willing to burn even people in his own industry. It's a whole book of "fight me!" if you're in the mood for that.

[Jonathan · Rating 3 out of 5]

5/10

More vitriol than veracity, Davos Man is what you read before you eat the rich, or perhaps during the meal.

Goodman despises billionaires, and he wants you to feel the same. I get it, most of their rhetoric tends to be self-serving aggrandizement of themselves and their efforts to change the world while pesky governments get in the way of fixing all humanities problems. Bull***t basically, but what's new? Apparently, this is new to Goodman however, as he seems constantly surprised by the efforts of the wealthy to remain, well, wealthy while giving token donations to appear philanthropic. Unfortunately, Goodman funnels his rage into a smear campaign, rather than a more convincing and less emotional treatise or argument. Basically, if you already have an issue with the rich, you still will after reading this, and if you don't, Goodman isn't trying to convince you (at least not with facts and figures). No, Goodman is much more a fan of pathos rather than logos, that's ok to an extant, but it's to a fault here. Still, there were some good portions, and most of it is cathartic, as who doesn't enjoy hearing that billionaires are self obsessed, greedy children?

“(In 2016) Wallstreet paid out a collective 27.5 billion dollars in bonuses, a sum more than triple the yearly earnings of every full-time minimum wageworker in the US.”

“Forcing Bezos to pay higher taxes than his secretary is not communism.”

“We do not have a free market; we have a market controlled by Davos Man.”

[Saara · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is probably about 100 pages longer than it needs to be - the author got a bit mired down in the middle, while telling about the pandemic response, but otherwise, I feel like this is definitely an eye-opening and worthwhile read. Tax the rich!

[Nick Ratti · Rating 1 out of 5]

If you want a real book on Monopoly Power, the growth of billionaire corporations, etc. I'd highly recommend you spend your time and money reading Monopolized vs. this drivel.

Where to even start. I started reading this book in combination with San-Fran-Sicko to try and get two different ideological takes on two different topics. The contrast couldn't be starker. Davos man creates the straw man that the global billionaire class has ravaged the world while putting on the facade of "stakeholder capitalism". Pretty easy concept to get behind and it's the concept that got me to read this book. Stakeholder capitalism is clearly corporate babble designed to both obfuscate and make the people in the system feel better about themselves.

Unfortunately, this book was created in the same NYT progressive left echo chamber as Shawn Hannity exists in the far-right echo chamber. It's obvious that the narrative that was written wasn't really researched and presents no actionable steps as to what actually should be done and how to do it (suggesting a wealth tax is great but how do you actually do it??).

The entire book is riddled with personal and individual stories which are frequently used when data doesn't support a case. It's much easier to find a single case and present it than provide the entire data set. I'd personally love data suggesting the points being made but instead, you get individual story after individual story about relative inequality that seems picked exclusively for their sensationalist tone. So essentially I am supposed to buy your argument with a sample size of one that you presented and then just trust that your arguments extrapolating this out to everyone are correct. Good luck with that.

On a wealth tax, setting aside whether you believe in it or not, Goodman cites that it would raise 65bn a year just a few pages after suggesting that we implement both UBI (which he cites would cost 3T) along with the existing social safety net which costs around 3T each year. Now again whether you agree we should have both or not, it's important to provide explanations. Even more comical is he properly calls out the Tax Cut and Job's Act's ridiculous growth-based accounting but fails to see that he does the exact same thing mere chapters later on UBI. In addition to that, there is no mention of how to actually implement something like a wealth tax. What are the constitutional implications? How do you solve the inevitable court case that would arise from that? Again nothing.

Finally, I find the funniest thing about this whole book is the philosophical conundrum that I doubt he recognizes or simply refuses to answer. To solve these problems Goodman posits that we need to give new and broader powers to the government but in the same breath talks about how the government is corrupted by Davos Men over the past 30 years, and as such, it has been a willful co-conspirator of Davos Man's ascendancy to full global dominance. How are these opposing thoughts reconciled? How do you avoid the fundamental issue of human nature that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely? How do you square the fact that if you are making the argument that elected officials are corruptable you can't make a subsequent argument that we need to give these people (which you yourself have argued are corrupted) more power to stop corruption. Greater power and influence in the hands of corrupt people only leads to greater and more expansive corruption.

Addressing all of these would have made a much more compelling book and one that would stand up to scrutiny if you were to present these ideas to anyone not sitting at a dinner party in the Upper East Side of Manhattan (see groupthink).

Overall a massive disappointment from what I was hoping for.

[Martin, I stand with ISRAEL · Rating 5 out of 5]

Who or what are Davos Man? The top 1% of Americans who own 42.5% of the country’s assets. Their names include Jeff Bezos(Amazon), Jamie Dimon (Chase) and Marc Benioff (salesforce). These people use their power, money and influence to further enrich themselves at the expense of the rest of the 57.5% of America.

Tax cuts are their main goal. They believe in the false premise of trickle down economics. This theory says, give the wealthy more tax cuts and they will build more factories and therefore increase total jobs.

This is false. Tax cuts go straight to the wealthy’’s pocket. They increase dividends and stock buybacks of the companies they run. They enrich themselves and the shareholders of the companies they run.

Tax cuts do damage to our country. Medicaid or Medicare gets cut. Roads do not get fixed. Schools do not have the materials to teach our future citizens.

Devos Man sucks money from the rest of America to satisfy their own greed..

In a way they are chipping away at our democracy. Slowly, but surely.

This is an incredible book

[Alexandre Castilho · Rating 1 out of 5]

When someone is so biased they can’t even realize their own bias

Reading the book felt like watching CNN and MSNBC at the height of their hate peddling against Trump. All the same talking points, the same continued lies, the high levels of hypocrisy.

The main theme of the book is actually quite good, the explanation of how Davos man took control of society, aided and abetted by politicians and academics, was well researched, but the extreme bias of the author again and again led him to present absurd conclusions.

Unfortunately, it is not possible to take seriously something written by someone so blinded with hatred for those that have a different political orientation, and specially for Trump himself. A behavior no different from those demented antifa and blm mobs running a-mock and destroying everything in its path.

Unless you really believe that Trump is the antichrist and CNN is the guardian of the truth… you might prefer to spend your cash on some other book.

[Daniel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Davos man are billionaires who are super rich and not shy to use their power to lobby government to cut taxes for themselves and bail them out, pay for economic scholars to preach really wrong stuff (tax cut will pay for themselves), support think tanks like the Americans Enterprise Institute which gave this book a bad review on WSJ. After this talk about Stakeholder capitalism when they put most of their money into share buyback, enriching shareholders but squeezing their staff. Take over management of Swedish subsidised housing with the intent to push our tenants. Move their money to tax havens.

Jeff Bezos, Schwarzman and Jamie Dimon were all extensively mentioned in the book, their crimes of inequality detailed.

Solution?
1. Universal basic income
2. Raise the tax rate
3. Plus tax loopholes and ostracise tax havens

The pitchforks are coming!

[James Kennedy · Rating 1 out of 5]

If you think of yourself as being among the “choir” in the “church” of anti-capitalism, then “Davos Man” by Peter Goodman is very likely a sermon for you. The book’s over-the- top subtitle (“How Billionaires Devoured the World,) pretty much says what the author, Peter Goodman, thinks of today’s billionaires and the book’s cover (depicting a corporate jet flying away from planet Earth in flames ) confirms this. Mr. Goodman obviously believes that billionaires are too greedy for anyone’s good, and their wealth should be taxed away and used for better things. The annual gathering of the wealthy and powerful at Switzerland’s Davos, is, according to the author, solely for the purpose of permitting billionaires to give lip-service to “doing good,” while continuing to act like greedy bastards.

After singling out eight billionaires (Including Mark Benioff and Jeff Bezos) and going into what Mr. Goodman believes are their shortcomings, the book implies that all billionaires’ philanthropic efforts are too insignificant to be of any importance and that their wealth should be taken by government and put to better use. Except for one-out-of -place chapter, Mr. Goodman repeatedly chants his mantra of billionaire wealth redistribution. This is perhaps most evident in the chapter entitled “Taxes, Taxes, Taxes, The Rest Is Bullshit ”, Mr. Goodman goes on to say that the time may have come for governments to implement a wealth tax and provide Universal Basic Income to everyone.

If you are independent- minded, or if you like to see both sides before jumping in, or if you might be something of a capitalist, then Davos Man is probably not for you. The book overlooks that capitalism has delivered more value, and pulled more out of poverty than any other system. It overlooks that each billionaire criticized by Davos Man, created a business that delivers far more value to the world than the smaller compensation that person received for doing so. Consider, for example, what would have happened during the Covid pandemic if there had been no Amazon to deliver so many necessities to so many doorsteps? Given the widespread civil unrest that we did see, even with government unemployment payments to almost everyone , the thought of how much worse it would have been without businesses delivering things, should be alarming. Although we might rankle at someone having that much money, when we consider the good that was done in order to earn that, the world got a very good deal.

As one might expect, Davos Man also fails to mention the “Giving Pledge” in which an increasing number of the world’s billionaires pledge to give at least ½ of their wealth to charity. Beyond this, The book neglects to mention that, unlike the US government, most worthy charities are much better financial stewards who routinely manage to live within their budgets. Finally, Davos Man overlooks the negative impact of universal basic income upon individual incentive and the fact that world progress would likely be retarded without the driven and talented people who take enormous risks in order to create the kind of value needed to make someone a billionaire.

Perhaps the most disappointing part about Davos Man is what it could have been. Everyone knows that capitalism isn’t perfect, and (whether we call it “conscious capitalism” or stakeholder capitalism”) our system is a work in progress in which even the most successful capitalists are ever more influenced to consider the bigger picture. Consider the long standing corporate trend for corporations to be ever more mindful of the company’s societal function, as well as the effects upon it employees and the environment and everything else involved.

It’s also no secret that no two people are alike, and that some billionaires (perhaps like Benioff) are surely having a positive influence upon those less evolved. It would have been better if Davos Man had not presumed that all billionaires were all evil and instead viewed them in their historical context as different individuals and works in progress. One of America’s earliest and most notoriously profit- oriented tycoons, Commodore Vanderbilt, would surely have ridiculed the very idea of a do-good -while- doing- well, gathering such as Davos. So in that sense a meeting like Davos in an indication of improvement.

Instead of viewing our most successful businesspeople as belonging to a species that needs to be exterminated, why not acknowledge some of the better capitalists like Warren Buffett (a billionaire who eschews outsized salaries in return for his leadership ) and ask whether more billionaires should follow his lead?

Beyond this, it would have been nice for Davos Man to acknowledge that wealth is but one form of power and that corruption and greed are not limited to capitalists..

Given the corruptive nature of power, it’s self-evident that there must be checks and balances for excessive economic power as well as for government, and it would have been nice for this book to have at least examined what checks and balances might be needed for today’s billionaires, while inquiring what might also be done (perhaps on the local,state and national levels) to make sure that our government spends tax dollars with an efficiency thst is similar to our better businesses.

The one chapter that is out of place ( because it didn’t try to solve problems by blaming others and then proposing to take their money) is “The Money Is Right There In the Community Now”. This unusual chapter discusses local measures (including an innovative vocational training and jobs program for felons) that show a level of individual initiative, personal responsibility and self-reliance that I found inspiring. As I read what local organizers and key leaders had managed to do with no outside help, I found myself wishing that Mr. Goodman had made this chapter the heart of a completely different book and with a different message. Perhaps that message could be that when people are doing all they reasonably can to help themselves, instead of blaming someone else, it is easier for others to understand where they truly need help. When help is given in this manner, it no longer divides the contributor and the recipient, it unifies them.

Full disclosure, due to shoddy binding, my copy of Davos Man started to fall apart when I reached the middle of the book. As I continued to read Mr. Goodman’s diatribe, I found myself thinking of failed socialist countries in which mediocre quality (like that of Davos Man’s binding) was a normal thing.

[Scott · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent breakdown of how the wealthiest are diverting wealth to themselves, bragging about their philanthropy (typically donating less than 1% of their income), while shirking taxes, taxes which would have greatly helped fund what is crumbling from neglect: — public health, schooling, job training, childcare, pensions, infrastructure repairs, affordable housing, police & fire departments, climate related projects. Their not having paid taxes, has created the neglect that they project with their rant that government is the problem.

~~~

“I mean 10 years ago the world economic forum asked the question: what must industry do to prevent a broad social backlash,” Bregman continued. (Rutger Bergman, historian from the Netherlands.) “It’s very simple: just stop talking about philanthropy and start talking about taxes.”

A couple days earlier Michael Dell the technology billionaire and another signatory to the business round table stakeholder capitalism pledge, had been asked at another Davis panel whether he supported attempts to lift the top tax rate in the United States from 37% to 70%. He had argued against an increase by pointing to his philanthropic efforts.

“I feel much more comfortable with our ability as a private foundation to allocate those funds than I do giving them to the government,” Dell said.

This was Davos man’s standard evasive maneuver in the face of a predatory challenge to his wealth the hell was arguing that philanthropy all created the need for taxes.

The previous year, 2018, the 20 wealthiest Americans had collectively contributed $8.7 billion, which was both a large amount of money, and a mere 0.81% of their wealth.

Politicians like Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders were proposing wealth taxes as a means of securing revenue to finance ideas like universal healthcare and subsidized childcare. A 6% wealth tax applied to fortunes larger than $1 billion would have netted $63 billion from the 20 richest people, more than seven times their reported philanthropic contributions. Not even the most generous, Warren Buffett and Bill Gates, approach the 6% mark. Dell had given less than the average—$158 million, or 0.6% of his $27.6 billion fortune.

Not content to exaggerate his altruism, Dell indulged a corollary to the Cosmic Lie: he was against taxes reaching 70% not because he preferred to keep his money but out of social concern.

“I don’t think it would help the growth of the U.S. economy,” Del said. Name a country where that’s worked. Ever.”

This was clearly intended as a rhetorical question, but the panel seated to his left, the economist Eric Brynjollfson, immediately blurted out an answer.

“The United States,” he said, “from about the 1930s through about the 1960s, the tax rate averaged about 70%. At times it was as high as 95%. And those were actually pretty good years for growth.”

In his own panel, Bergman recounted this anecdote as proof that the billionaires were pontificating about economic inequality, while refusing to do anything to address it.

“This is not rocket science,” he said. We can talk for a very long time about all these stupid philanthropy schemes, we can invite Bono once more, but, come on ,we’ve got to be talking about taxes and that’s it. Taxes, taxes, taxes. All the rest is bullshit.”

[Pablo Podhorzer · Rating 2 out of 5]

Goodman's incredibly innacurate account of Argentina's 20th Century history puts the entire book in perspective. He accuses Peronism of being the main government in the past century and guilty of "populist" overspending when in the real world right wing American backed conservative dictatorships shaped the country and destroyed its economy time and again. He depicts neocon Macri as an educated technocrat, in the real world Macri is the son of a dictatorship favored family who can barely read a straight sentence.

If these basic known facts are wrong, what else has he fabricated? Is this only a hit job between two factions of global oligarchs?

[MR S · Rating 2 out of 5]

So fucking preachy. Gross oversimplifications containing factual inaccuracies with the same villain every time. Here, I’ll save you all some time - billionaires are evil and are the root cause of everything that is wrong with the modern world. The End.

[Andy]

DNF. Inside baseball on billionaires' badness.
"Davos man's greatest triumph has been insinuating into public discourse the notion that anyone who opposes his monopolization of weakth is antibusiness, as if forcing ... Bezos to pay higher tax rates than his secretary would be akin to turning suburban subdivisions into people's communes."

[Carolyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is extremely well researched and written, and I have no doubt it is fact-filled and that everyone should educate themselves on this topic. I am not well versed in the field of economics so my mind occasionally wandered as I listened but I learned a lot - whether I’ll remember it all is an open question ha! There are some excellent reviews here so I will keep it short and sweet: the billionaires of the world will do ANYTHING to keep getting richer, and democracy will suffer for it. It’s a cautionary tale and we should all be paying attention. 4+ stars

[Adam Bricker · Rating 4 out of 5]

*received as part of a First-reads giveaway*

Basically the point of this book is really "how much is enough?" If you pay any attention at all, you've likely seen the economy and society in general experiencing inequality increasing with leaps and bounds...this book delves into some of the whys. From tax breaks to tax loopholes to lining pockets to just flat out exploitation, we can see why, what used to be the middle class, really doesn't exist anymore. I thought I was ready to be angered and frustrated, but to see the actual numbers, while when talking in hundreds of millions/billions of dollars is really incomprehensible, it surpassed my expectations.

As long as you can accept critiques of various governments (individuals at the head of them) and the way they mishandle various situations with the guise of doing the best for their nations while really trying to increase their own power, status and wealth...give this book a go!

[Zach · Rating 2 out of 5]

Because I heard Peter Goodman speak on a podcast. On podcast his ideas were interesting and I wanted to hear more so I read his book.

Unfortunately the book suffered from the lack of moderation from one of my favorite podcast hosts... The book was fine, but strongly opinionated and failed to sufficiently justify the stance as he was taking. I'm not necessarily saying I disagreeed, just that I didn't feel like I had enough information to effectively evaluate his claims.

The parts of this book that were most interesting were the parts that I was already most familiar with nominally healthcare and universal basic income. In those areas I knew enough to engage with the content. Global finance and supply chain issues though, I know much less about.

All in all moderately interesting, good for sparking your righteous liberal anger, but there are better books from other authors vand better content from this author to engage with.

[Ilona Isaacs · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a hard book to read. Not just because it is chock full of ideas and data and vocabulary that I’m not as familiar with, but hard because it is highlighting a problem that seems beyond fixing. It feels like the beginning of a movie where the protagonist is so far down and out that the situation feels hopeless. It was also a bit shocking to me to see how much this is a world-wide phenomenon.

But, and this is a big but, so many of those ideas and bits of information in the book are out in the world and have been for a while. This book connects the dots on the current red/blue/right/left dysfunction and overall rise in hatefulness.The author does an excellent job putting it all together to make a very simple and powerful point; a strong participatory democracy like ours in the USA can be the remedy and an antidote for the depredations of the billionaire class.

The book is not a screed for socialism or communism and is not anti capitalism.

Worth reading!

[Karen Ross · Rating 5 out of 5]

Not much scares me but this book did. Often heralded for their antics and the size of their success this book clinically documents how this group of men, and those who gather in Davos annually to worship at the feet of financial success use the world and economic systems and countries budgets as their playthings.

I read this book slowly as it was fascnating and full of information and facts. At the same time it made me sick and disappointed of man's attiyude to man.

We need to know about all this stuff, but we don;t need to wordhip at the feet of these savages. I choose that world as they dont't honour decorum, human decency, just how much money is enough?

You need to read this and somehow, somewhere along to line hopefully these men, and they are men will be made accountable

[Paula · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book probably deserves more stars than I am giving it. Goodman just wore me down. I was already aware of the fact that our government is under the thumb of big business. I know that it is the billionaires who are dictating which candidates we are given to vote for. They own the media, so that we are fed their propaganda daily. Listening to Goodman drone on about this billionaire, and that big business, and the nefarious deeds they have done, wore me out. I found myself getting angrier each time I spent time with this book. It is one of the most depressing books I've ever encountered. If you aren't already aware of how ubiquitous the influence of money is, then you should probably read this book. If you are already aware, maybe you can save yourself some grief.

[Thaj (TJ) · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.8/5.0

'Tis but a scratch.
- Black Knight, Monty Python.

Most of what mentioned in the book are in the public domain though not widely known. This book as a standalone would only give you glimpses of how influential people operate. It is not realistic to expect a single book to address all the injustice in the world. This book is basically a small step-ladder to take a peek at what's happening in the world of "Davos Man"

'Tis but a scratch...

[Renny Thomas · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an incredible read that I think every single person should read. The unhinged greed of the billionaire class reported in this book is breathtaking and honestly, pretty anger inducing. There were moments I had to walk away from it, just to absorb the depravity (specifically the chapter with the interview of the doctor on the frontlines of the pandemic who detailed the priorities of the private equity firm during the early days of March 2020 in Seattle).

[Connor McGauley · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book is just rage and rhetoric with no solutions offered. The sad thing, is that it is a missed opportunity to actually talk about Davos Man that is a problem in the world. But the author ends up pandering to the left wing with fiery statements and no real critical analysis to try and sell copies. It’s a real shame and hopefully another author takes up the topic in earnest.

[Elisabeth Young · Rating 1 out of 5]

dnf. It doesn't fulfill the title premise and isn't a journalistic or historical account but it does serve it's purpose as a moralizing liberal polemic and therefore he jumps right into Trump and Russiagating. It's not surprising that this book doesn't have a substantive critique of capitalism.