Is the WEF the Headquarters of Evil?

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This article is printed with permission of the Brownstone Institute

BY PAUL FRIJTERS, GIGI FOSTER, MICHAEL BAKER JUNE 15, 2022 ECONOMICS, POLICY

Back in 1983, Ronald Reagan colorfully described the Soviet Union as “the focus of evil in the modern world.” Today, it seems we have a new candidate for the headquarters of all evil: the World Economic Forum headed by Klaus Schwab.

The WEF has no borders, includes all nationalities, embraces governments, NGOs and big business, has no military, nuclear arsenal, flag or anthem, and purports to solve all the world’s problems at its annual conference each year while delegates down champagne and caviar. It sponsors a leadership training program that boasts such covid cultists as Emmanuel Macron, Jacinda Ardern and Justin Trudeau. Is Klaus Schwab the first honest-to-goodness Bond villain, bent on taking over (or depopulating) the world?

Professor Schwab certainly looks the part with his German accent and his prize place on top of the Swiss mountains. He also certainly pretends to run the world. In fact, he has been pretending to run the world since the 1970s, when he started his yearly conferences, hoping to get noticed. Getting noticed took decades. Many of the WEF Young Leaders program graduates presently in power around the world only entered his ‘classes’ 30 years after the WEF started. For decades Klaus has lived the ‘fake it till you make it’ adage. Has he finally made it?

The title of Klaus’ 2020 book “The Great Reset”, coauthored with Thierry Malleret, was catchy enough to be taken on as a slogan during 2020-21 by a slew of political leaders wanting to communicate for myriad local political reasons that the pandemic has opened up some kind of grand reinitialization opportunity in global politics.

Few of these leaders will have read the book though, because if they had, they would have been taken aback by some of its contents. For example: “First and foremost, the post-pandemic era will usher in a period of massive wealth redistribution, from the rich to the poor and from capital to labour.”

Such a view is not commonly spouted by the über-rich barons running global corporations or the governments they influence, for the obvious reason that it constitutes a direct attack on their stash. Certainly they might publicly express the wish for less inequality – who wouldn’t? – but many would baulk at a “massive wealth redistribution,” Robin-Hood style, to labourers and away from capitalists like themselves.

In fact, over the last two years the exact opposite has happened: the world now contains more billionaires and more poor people. “You will own nothing and be happy,” another oft-quoted and much-maligned Schwabism, also describes the opposite of what has actually happened, which can be summarized instead as “the rich own lots more while the poor own nothing and are miserable.”

This year, the WEF meeting in Davos, Switzerland held from May 22-26 triggered the usual outpouring of hatred on Twitter and other platforms. The gossip implies that the WEF is secretly plotting to take over the world by means of a secret collaboration between government and big business, as if rich and powerful people needed a vehicle like the WEF for that. It feels satisfying to those wronged by covid policy to think they have identified the head of the snake responsible for the mess.

The WEF, they claim, is the coordinating platform for all the secret deals that make the rich richer and the entrenched heads of government more powerful, while national and local sovereignty is being clandestinely forfeited, leaving the ordinary person to rot away slowly with neither resources nor rights.

These accusations against the WEF are accompanied by misrepresentation and outright fakery. Photos were recently circulated on social media of hundreds of private planes lined up on an airfield, claimed to be those of attendees at Davos 2022 who were (for shame!) flouting their own pretensions to reduce carbon emissions. According to Reuters, one of the two widely circulated photos was in fact taken years ago at Las Vegas Airport around the time of a boxing title fight between Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Manny Pacquiao, while another was taken in January 2016 at a Swiss air force base that is often used by Davos attendees and was probably associated with the event that year.

None of us was able personally to fly to Davos this year (though some of us have attended such events in the past), but no matter: every session of the 2022 meeting from May 22-26 was posted online. This included the opening address, via video link, by none other than Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky, resplendent in his trademark brown tee and staring down the camera with unblinking intensity. Invigorated by the President’s defiant address, attendees turned their attention to the remaining 220 or so sessions that covered every weighty and worldly topic under the sun.

We took the time to watch a few, and found them to share a few characteristics. First, those involved expressed overblown expectations of what would be achieved during the discussions. Second, the discussions themselves were intelligent and informative. Third, the discussions all led to no particular kind of action.

The basic model of a WEF conference session is to subsidize smart people (the presenters) to say smart things to rich people (the audience), who themselves pay the exorbitant conference registration fees in order to network with each other and have smart people pretend to take them seriously for a few days.

In a word, Klaus Schwab is a glorified and very talented conference planner selling flattery. He pretends that $60,000 provides the attending customer with access to crucial world decisions, all made in 4 days. The hordes paying the entry fee schmooze together, down vast quantities of wine and canapes, and participate in panel discussions that purport to solve problems associated with the world’s economy, environment, and society in end-on-end blocks of 45 minutes each. (Actually, it is closer to 35 minutes, because of 10 minutes of Q&A from the audience squeezed in at the end of each session. Given the price tag of attendance, the organizers rightly expect some delegates to feel justified in having their moment on the mic.)

Typical of the level of ambition evident in WEF conference sessions, in his introduction to this year’s session on global taxation, host Geoff Cutmore announced that the incipient panel discussion was about getting to a point where “we all feel comfortable about what we’re paying, and we feel comfortable about what other people are paying and we feel comfortable about what corporations are paying and we all feel comfortable about where that tax revenue is ultimately going.”

Whoa. He might have added, “And if we have a few minutes left over at the end, we’ll work out how to restore the Amazonian rain forest.” The panel consisted of the heads of both Oxfam and the OECD, plus a heavily masked economics professor from Harvard. Imagine what the head of Oxfam would have thought about Cutmore’s pronouncements, given how critical Oxfam has been of the tax evasion and self-enrichment of elites, particularly in the last 2 years. If only he could get the conference delegates to pay their taxes and stop robbing poor people, he could axe Oxfam altogether!

Some sessions do make the stomach turn. For example, in one, Pfizer announced an “Accord for a Healthier World,” with its CEO sitting alongside Bill Gates and two African potentates. Announcements like this are made at the WEF, but would they really not exist if not for the WEF? Unlikely. By providing a platform for such announcements, however, it becomes a lightning rod for suspicion. The WEF styles itself an “International Organization for Public-Private Cooperation,” and like any large entity of its kind, it wants to get even bigger and more influential. But at heart, this is business. Klaus Schwab’s business.

The WEF claims serious positive impacts. For example, its ‘First Movers Coalition’ consists of 50 companies that have committed to investing in green technologies and removing carbon. Sounds great, right? The snag, of course, is that they have set up the measurement in such a way that they are able to decide themselves what is meant by ‘green’ or by ‘removing’ carbon. You can count caretaking a forest today as ‘removing’ carbon, and as long as the audience doesn’t know that you cut down and burned a mature forest in the same place last year, they will applaud!

Similarly, the WEF champions a system of reporting called ‘Stakeholder Capitalism Metrics’ (containing environmental, social, and governance, or “ESG,” measures), developed in a cooperative effort with major accounting firms and adopted by 70 companies. Paying a reasonable amount of taxes is not in those KPIs. Nor is free speech. Metrics, but not as you know them.

But what about the smoking gun represented in the many top politicians of today’s world who graduated from the WEF’s Young Leaders program? What about the creepy 2019 WEF conference about what to do in a pandemic?

On the Young Leaders program, it is undoubtedly true that the WEF has become a very successful job networking organization. But it did not invent networking. Networking societies for the rich and powerful have existed for centuries. Think of the Freemasons, the Rotary society, Chatham House, private high schools, Oxbridge, or the Ivy League. The rich and powerful will network with each other, come hell or high water, WEF or no WEF.

Perhaps those who met at the WEF have gelled together on an evil ideology that is bad for the world, but that ideology is clearly not the “Great Reset” ideology articulated by Schwab, since they are not following it in the slightest. Why then does Schwab not protest at how politicians are pretending to enact a Great Reset that is the very opposite of what he advocated in his book? Because he does not really care about his own ideas. A puffed-up conference organizer, Schwab follows his flock of customers rather than leading them. He is being used as a stooge.

OK, but what about that 2019 pandemic simulation conference? Again, you can read all about it online, a level of publicity for their plans that is surely not what you would expect of Bond villains. In these simulations, the WEF folks came to the conclusion that during a pandemic, movement and trade should not be disrupted because of the high costs to society. Yes, you read that right. Once again, this is the very opposite of what was actually done.

The WEF pandemic conference was just one of the many ‘war games’ simulations that entertain people continuously all around the world. Pandemic simulations this week, asteroid simulations next week, killer bee simulations after that. Rather a lot of problems can be covered off in 220 sessions, and one of them is bound to be tomorrow’s news.

The total disconnect between what his pandemic conference said should be done and what actually happened during covid times is once again proof that Klaus is not led by his principles. If he were, he would have been loudly protesting what has gone on over the past two years. Instead, he is merely riding his “good luck” that the leaders who came to drink champagne at his events have now embraced him as their supposed figurehead.

Since he is well into his 80s, Klaus probably figures that if an angry world population came to believe that he was responsible for the disaster that has befallen them, he’d be dead long before they came for justice. Thierry Malleret, his younger co-author on “The Great Reset,” has more to worry about in that regard!

The WEF, in sum, is hot air all the way. It is led by a man who epitomizes pomp, which is nothing new in the circles of the rich and powerful. WEF-approved hot air is no different to the regular variety.

Sure, it’s a place where schmoozing and coordination happen, but the WEF invented neither schmoozing nor the idea of an old-boys club. It is simply the current clubhouse. The real culprits will find another venue the day after the WEF’s shingle is taken down.

Paul Frijters

Paul Frijters is a Professor of Wellbeing Economics at the London School of Economics: from 2016 through November 2019 at the Center for Economic Performance, thereafter at the Department of Social Policy

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Gigi Foster

Gigi Foster, senior scholar of Brownstone Institute, is a Professor with the School of Economics at the University of New South Wales, having joined UNSW in 2009 after six years at the University of South Australia.

READ MORE
Michael Baker

Michael Baker has a BA (Economics) from the University of Western Australia. He is an independent economic consultant and freelance journalist with a background in policy research.

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The War on Commonsense Nicotine Regulation

Addictions

The War on Commonsense Nicotine Regulation

Published on November 3, 2025

Todayville

From the Brownstone Institute

Roger Bate

Cigarettes kill nearly half a million Americans each year. Everyone knows it, including the Food and Drug Administration. Yet while the most lethal nicotine product remains on sale in every gas station, the FDA continues to block or delay far safer alternatives.

Nicotine pouches—small, smokeless packets tucked under the lip—deliver nicotine without burning tobacco. They eliminate the tar, carbon monoxide, and carcinogens that make cigarettes so deadly. The logic of harm reduction couldn’t be clearer: if smokers can get nicotine without smoke, millions of lives could be saved.

Sweden has already proven the point. Through widespread use of snus and nicotine pouches, the country has cut daily smoking to about 5 percent, the lowest rate in Europe. Lung-cancer deaths are less than half the continental average. This “Swedish Experience” shows that when adults are given safer options, they switch voluntarily—no prohibition required.

In the United States, however, the FDA’s tobacco division has turned this logic on its head. Since Congress gave it sweeping authority in 2009, the agency has demanded that every new product undergo a Premarket Tobacco Product Application, or PMTA, proving it is “appropriate for the protection of public health.” That sounds reasonable until you see how the process works.

Manufacturers must spend millions on speculative modeling about how their products might affect every segment of society—smokers, nonsmokers, youth, and future generations—before they can even reach the market. Unsurprisingly, almost all PMTAs have been denied or shelved. Reduced-risk products sit in limbo while Marlboros and Newports remain untouched.

Only this January did the agency relent slightly, authorizing 20 ZYN nicotine-pouch products made by Swedish Match, now owned by Philip Morris. The FDA admitted the obvious: “The data show that these specific products are appropriate for the protection of public health.” The toxic-chemical levels were far lower than in cigarettes, and adult smokers were more likely to switch than teens were to start.

The decision should have been a turning point. Instead, it exposed the double standard. Other pouch makers—especially smaller firms from Sweden and the US, such as NOAT—remain locked out of the legal market even when their products meet the same technical standards.

The FDA’s inaction has created a black market dominated by unregulated imports, many from China. According to my own research, roughly 85 percent of pouches now sold in convenience stores are technically illegal.

The agency claims that this heavy-handed approach protects kids. But youth pouch use in the US remains very low—about 1.5 percent of high-school students according to the latest National Youth Tobacco Survey—while nearly 30 million American adults still smoke. Denying safer products to millions of addicted adults because a tiny fraction of teens might experiment is the opposite of public-health logic.

There’s a better path. The FDA should base its decisions on science, not fear. If a product dramatically reduces exposure to harmful chemicals, meets strict packaging and marketing standards, and enforces Tobacco 21 age verification, it should be allowed on the market. Population-level effects can be monitored afterward through real-world data on switching and youth use. That’s how drug and vaccine regulation already works.

Sweden’s evidence shows the results of a pragmatic approach: a near-smoke-free society achieved through consumer choice, not coercion. The FDA’s own approval of ZYN proves that such products can meet its legal standard for protecting public health. The next step is consistency—apply the same rules to everyone.

Combustion, not nicotine, is the killer. Until the FDA acts on that simple truth, it will keep protecting the cigarette industry it was supposed to regulate.

Author

Roger Bate

Roger Bate is a Brownstone Fellow, Senior Fellow at the International Center for Law and Economics (Jan 2023-present), Board member of Africa Fighting Malaria (September 2000-present), and Fellow at the Institute of Economic Affairs (January 2000-present).

Brownstone Institute

The Doctor Will Kill You Now

Published on October 21, 2025

Todayville

From the Brownstone Institute

Clayton J. Baker, MD

Way back in the B.C. era (Before Covid), I taught Medical Humanities and Bioethics at an American medical school. One of my older colleagues – I’ll call him Dr. Quinlan – was a prominent member of the faculty and a nationally recognized proponent of physician-assisted suicide.

Dr. Quinlan was a very nice man. He was soft-spoken, friendly, and intelligent. He had originally become involved in the subject of physician-assisted suicide by accident, while trying to help a patient near the end of her life who was suffering terribly.

That particular clinical case, which Dr. Quinlan wrote up and published in a major medical journal, launched a second career of sorts for him, as he became a leading figure in the physician-assisted suicide movement. In fact, he was lead plaintiff in a challenge of New York’s then-prohibition against physician-assisted suicide.

The case eventually went all the way to the US Supreme Court, which added to his fame. As it happened, SCOTUS ruled 9-0 against him, definitively establishing that there is no “right to die” enshrined in the Constitution, and affirming that the state has a compelling interest to protect the vulnerable.

SCOTUS’s unanimous decision against Dr. Quinlan meant that his side had somehow pulled off the impressive feat of uniting Antonin Scalia, Ruth Bader Ginsberg, and all points in between against their cause. (I never quite saw how that added to his luster, but such is the Academy.)

At any rate, I once had a conversation with Dr. Quinlan about physician-assisted suicide. I told him that I opposed it ever becoming legal. I recall he calmly, pleasantly asked me why I felt that way.

First, I acknowledged that his formative case must have been very tough, and allowed that maybe, just maybe, he had done right in that exceptionally difficult situation. But as the legal saying goes, hard cases make bad law.

Second, as a clinical physician, I felt strongly that no patient should ever see their doctor and have to wonder if he was coming to help keep them alive or to kill them.

Finally, perhaps most importantly, there’s this thing called the slippery slope.

As I recall, he replied that he couldn’t imagine the slippery slope becoming a problem in a matter so profound as causing a patient’s death.

Well, maybe not with you personally, Dr. Quinlan, I thought. I said no more.

But having done my residency at a major liver transplant center in Boston, I had had more than enough experience with the rather slapdash ethics of the organ transplantation world. The opaque shuffling of patients up and down the transplant list, the endless and rather macabre scrounging for donors, and the nebulous, vaguely sinister concept of brain death had all unsettled me.

Prior to residency, I had attended medical school in Canada. In those days, the McGill University Faculty of Medicine was still almost Victorian in its ways: an old-school, stiff-upper-lip, Workaholics-Anonymous-chapter-house sort of place. The ethic was hard work, personal accountability for mistakes, and above all primum non nocere – first, do no harm.

Fast forward to today’s soft-core totalitarian state of Canada, the land of debanking and convicting peaceful protesters, persecuting honest physicians for speaking obvious truth, fining people $25,000 for hiking on their own property, and spitefully seeking to slaughter harmless animals precisely because they may hold unique medical and scientific value.

To all those offenses against liberty, morality, and basic decency, we must add Canada’s aggressive policy of legalizing, and, in fact, encouraging industrial-scale physician-assisted suicide. Under Canada’s Medical Assistance In Dying (MAiD) program, which has been in place only since 2016, physician-assisted suicide now accounts for a terrifying 4.7 percent of all deaths in Canada.

MAiD will be permitted for patients suffering from mental illness in Canada in 2027, putting it on par with the Netherlands, Belgium, and Switzerland.

To its credit, and unlike the Netherlands and Belgium, Canada does not allow minors to access MAiD. Not yet.

However, patients scheduled to be terminated via MAiD in Canada are actively recruited to have their organs harvested. In fact, MAiD accounts for 6 percent of all deceased organ donors in Canada.

In summary, in Canada, in less than 10 years, physician-assisted suicide has gone from illegal to both an epidemic cause of death and a highly successful organ-harvesting source for the organ transplantation industry.

Physician-assisted suicide has not slid down the slippery slope in Canada. It has thrown itself off the face of El Capitan.

And now, at long last, physician-assisted suicide may be coming to New York. It has passed the House and Senate, and just awaits the Governor’s signature. It seems that the 9-0 Supreme Court shellacking back in the day was just a bump in the road. The long march through the institutions, indeed.

For a brief period in Western history, roughly from the introduction of antibiotics until Covid, hospitals ceased to be a place one entered fully expecting to die. It appears that era is coming to an end.

Covid demonstrated that Western allopathic medicine has a dark, sadistic, anti-human side – fueled by 20th-century scientism and 21st-century technocratic globalism – to which it is increasingly turning. Physician-assisted suicide is a growing part of this death cult transformation. It should be fought at every step.

I have not seen Dr. Quinlan in years. I do not know how he might feel about my slippery slope argument today.

I still believe I was correct.