Ladies and Gentlemen,
Welcome to Davos!

Davos used to be a small mountain village. Without people who believed in Utopian ideals, it would probably have remained so: Then along came Alexander Spengler. He wanted to realise his political and social dreams, had got involved in the March Revolution in southern Germany and therefore had to flee to Switzerland. Here he found political asylum and a job. There weren't many takers for doctor's positions in remote mountain valleys like Davos. From this enforced hardship, Spengler developed a treatment for sufferers of tuberculosis and provided inspiration for Thomas Mann's "Zauberberg" (The Magic Mountain). Along with tuberculosis patients, political ideas also made their way to Davos and made it a spa resort, which today seeks new treatments for global problems.

The name Spengler also served as an impetus in other fields. His son Carl believed that sport was a means to promote peace and so founded the Spengler Cup, the other major event in Davos' calendar. This international ice hockey tournament is a tough competition in which men in full body armour armed with sticks race across the ice and plough into each other at full speed in order to win the trophy.

Does the WEF Annual Meeting exist then because Alexander Spengler had revolutionary ideas for which he was banished? Or is there a connection between the asylum practices of this young, revolutionary Alpine republic and the present day protection that Switzerland affords the WEF? Or is there a connection between the sporting pacifists and the WEF, the competition of the world's biggest players?

We all know though that the logic of cause and effect is not that straightforward. Not every puck that we strike ends up being the winning goal that we wish for. The young Alexander Spengler couldn't have known that as a political freedom fighter he would find refuge in a mountain village where he would spark off innovations. Just as he couldn't have known that a hundred and fifty years later those freedoms in which he believed would form the focus of global debate in this village. It was not much different for the Annual Meeting. From being an informal gathering of business leaders, to being a globally-criticised epitome of ice-cold corporate egoism, to becoming a meeting point for figures from politics, business and culture from north, south, east and west. But the WEF has also given rise to a good deal outside of Davos. Protests have developed into creative alternative e events around the world. In his younger years, Alexander Spengler would probably have mounted the barricades against the WEF. But later on he might have discussed the progression of radical ideas to liberal and democratic values with the German Chancellor at the Open Forum.

Despite unpredictability, it is still possible to state that:

there is a need for creative, radical - and at times even revolutionary ideas – which can be adopted by politicians and business and made acceptable to the majority;
there is a need for the state in order to protect this creative space from internal and external threats;
there is also a need in business, as in ice hockey, for a referee to ensure the match or in this case competition functions properly not least for the benefit of business itself.

It is only in this way that man can develop the creativity with which to repeatedly find new answers to existential challenges. There are examples of this:

The mountains that we so admire used to induce fear. Avalanches presented a permanent threat to the local population. Today, thanks to man's inventive nature and the political efforts of the community, the risk can largely be controlled and calculated.
A tsunami, an earthquake or a flood is not an act of divine punishment, nor is it an act of fate that we meekly have to accept. Mankind is capable of learning and of accepting responsibility. It has developed early-warning systems with which many natural disasters can be detected in good time. If these systems should fail, international emergency relief must be provided efficiently in order to relieve human suffering.
At the beginning of the 20th century there were anarchistic extremists who were not afraid to die for their cause. The breeding ground for their ideas was withdrawn through a long political process for social justice and equal opportunities. This political process required – and indeed still requires! - an organised community with functioning institutions and political will.

The problems of this world cry out for creative solutions. Some believe that in the battle of ideas, the best solutions come about on their own with the famous "invisible hand of the market economy". However, in order for creativity to be able to flourish and show results, there also needs to be a framework. That cannot be created by competition alone.

Hungry people are not capable of being creative because they use all their strength to concentrate on their own survival. That's why the state needs to have a social net.

The repressed can't be creative because they use all their energy trying not to get caught for their forbidden thoughts and deeds. That's why the state has to guarantee and nurture freedom of opinion and the rule of law.
Without enlightenment people are barely capable of being creative because they lack the necessary foundations. That's why there needs to be a state to organise education for all.
And the state also has to put in place a framework for the market. If only the laws of supply and demand were to apply, there would be no-one to ensure that future generations also had the opportunity to find new solutions through creative approaches.

We all know that the high consumption of fossil fuels is changing the climate and that this is also a cause of environmental disasters. There are many creative proposals for the development of alternatives such as wind power and geothermal energy). But they can't compete on the market because for the time being they are too expensive. If the state doesn't create the right framework for their further development, e.g. by increasing the cost of fossil fuels, we risk having an energy gap. The entire global economy would suffer as a result. Threshold countries would be blocked from having access to affordable and clean sources of energy with all the consequences that would have for our earth's climate.

So in the same way that a hockey match is no battlefield, but instead a game with complex rules that needs to have a referee, competition also needs a regulator in order for it to function properly and not degenerate into a senseless fight between competitors to supplant one another. This referee has many faces: it is the state with its laws at different levels, the international community with its binding environmental agreements on climate protection, or the prohibition of torture and new institutions such as the International Criminal Court. It is incredibly dangerous, for the hockey players or a superpower, to discredit the referee. We must all give him our support!

Just what happens when the state or the international community fails to exercise this referee and balancing function can be seen in many crisis zones with plentiful supplies of raw materials: Despite their wealth the people live in bitter poverty and demand their share of the pie. Some tap pipelines, kidnap oil company workers, and often force them to halt their activities. He who would only see in the state a blocker of business, forgets that without guarantees of ownership, contract protection, and above all social justice/equalisation, there are no markets or wealth to be had. It sends its own system to the scaffold.

States are dependent on the creative competition of ideas. That is why they guarantee the necessary freedom for creativity to flourish – with or without ties. But connected to that is the responsibility of every individual to use these freedoms for the public good and to also put the results to good use.

Without creativity it is not possible to earn much credit for the future. But this credit can only be redeemed through the power of deeds. Thanks to the deeds of one Alexander Spengler, the small mountain village has become a global centre of creativity. Each of us has the means to convert this creative exchange of thoughts here in Davos into deeds.

From Fantasy to Deeds!