By Klaus Schwab & Thierry Malleret
This book sets out a master plan to radically change every aspect of the world we live in, socially, environmentally, politically and economically by the year 2030! This book has to be taken extremely seriously because its author Klaus Schwab founded the ‘The World Economic Forum’ (WEF for short) in 1971, which over the last few years become the most influential global organisation in human history.
The powerful people regularly coming together under the WEF banner include The Chinese President Xi Jinping, President Putin, the US President, the CEO of Google, the leaders of families such as the Rothschilds who own and control the Central Banks including the FED, the heads of world authorities such as the UN and the WHO, up to a quarter of the 2,158 Billionaires on our planet. If there is a vision and a plan that they are all buying into at some level, you might want to know a little bit more about it, because it will probably impact many areas of your life ….
If you wish to gain insights into the pattens of many current global policies of national governments, key governing bodies and large corporations and media organisations it is essential that you are familiar with the content of this book.
Klaus Schwab is an author, professor and an academic focused on ‘Social Enterprise systems’. The book’s co-author Thierry Malleret a high-profile risk analyst (Founder of The Global Risk Network which is part of The World Economic Forum)
In the 11 years I have conducted monthly book reviews for thought leaders ‘The Great Reset’ has been by far the most difficult for 2 reasons:
- I rarely ‘do politics’ publicly and there is a strong political element to this book, so I will endeavour to be as politically neutral as I find possible.
- This book represents a VERY radical global plan and vision that I am certain will in the coming years directly impact your business, your family, your health and your finances and every aspect of your life.
Maybe the backgrounds and perspectives to the 2 authors is borne out by the fact that the word ‘fear’ appears 37 times in the book and the words ‘risk’ and ‘danger’ appears well over 100 times!
Schwab sees the covid-19 crisis as an opportunity to accelerate towards a more globalised, socialist, economic and environmentally sustainable world. The authors depict a world whose systems need to be more integrated; they use the term globalisation throughout the book. They brilliantly identify and break down the key problems that threaten the future of humanity such as the current unsustainability of our financial systems including unsustainable levels of debt which are linked to unsustainable national currencies. They also identify the unsustainable impact we are having on our environment. They identify 5 systems that need to be reset together in order to create a more sustainable world. They call these the 5 Global Resets;
- Economical
- Societal
- Geopolitical
- Environmental
- Technological
In the context of radical economic changes Schwab cannily recognises that many people and indeed many nations have unsustainable levels of debt, this will not doubt now be magnified greatly by continuing covid lockdown policies, which Schwab (in June of 2020) writes will probably continue well beyond 2021! As governments continue to effectively ‘generate money out of thin air’ there will be consequences! Schwab talks of a debt reset for individuals and countries for which he implies there will be some sort of forfeit or penalty. He also discusses the possibility of the US dollar and indeed other currencies being superseded by a global digital currency, perhaps backed by gold.
It is the radical degree of changes across these system and the radical manner in which the authors suggest these systems are reset and globally integrated that would appear to have earned them so many 1-star reviews on Amazon.
Why so radical? Prince Charles is a regular speaker at Davos. He has been very outspoken about wildlife preservation, the environment and global warming. At the 2019 Davos WEF he made a speech that got glowing comments from many other world leaders. He stated “We have a small window of opportunity, to reverse the damage being done to our planet.” Almost in anticipation of ‘covid-19′ this is Prince Charles’ polite way of saying ‘we need a very radical solution and we need it now!’.
The authors clearly perceive the covid-19 crisis as the perfect catalyst to enable these radical changes in how we live our lives and it is apparent that many global authorities have chosen radical new policies and regulations under the ‘covid-19 umbrella’ that are aligned with many of the WEF philosophies and visions for the future set out in this book and on their website.
The mission of the WEF is stated on its website as
‘Committed to improving the state of the world.’
Every year that the WEF convenes at Davos in Switzerland it is attended by the world’s most influential, powerful and wealthiest leaders who it is fair to assume attend the forum because they buy into ‘The Great Reset’ philosophy of its founder.
Schwab’s ‘Globalized Reset’ philosophy set out in this book was published in July 2020 and was his previously published books and articles over a number of years.
WEF regular attendees include heads of the world’s wealthiest families, royal families, presidents and prime ministers of the world’s leading economies including Russia, China and USA as well as CEOs of most the world’s largest businesses, corporations & media outlets.
Also found in attendance are international NGOs and governing bodies such as the WHO and the UN. Notably, many of the world’s estimated 2,150 Billionaires have attended the WEF at Davos, including regular attendees like Bill Gates, David Rothschild, Warren Buffet, George Soros, Rupert Murdoch etc.
In short, the majority of the world’s financial wealth is controlled by the people who regularly attend the WEF!
Some aspects of Thought Leadership transformation are particularly uncomfortable and difficult, this discomfort is an essential ingredient to your growth as a Thought Leader.
In 11 years of producing my Thought Leadership book reviews, this book has, without question, been my most challenging book review to date. In all honesty the ‘Spiritual Thought Leadership’ book I reviewed last month ‘The Mystery of Being’ felt a hundred times easier to read and review.
As my regular subscribers will be aware, the philosophical premise from which I review all of my books from is that ‘There are truth and lies in everything, including what I say!’. My role here is, as usual is to be as neutral as I can be in this review.
To give you an idea of how polarising this book is, please read some of the reviews on Amazon which vary wildly from readers who think ‘The Great Reset is a great concept that will solve many of the world’s environmental and economic issues!’ to readers who say ‘It sets out a frightening dystopian, Orwellian, Totalitarian and Marxist future!’
I am going to really focus on sticking to the facts and presenting ‘both sides’ in this review and let people make up their own minds.
To give the book some context let us look at the WEF’s published visions, objectives and agendas which can be found on their website and many other on-line sources:
If we look at the WEF website under the heading “Davos Agenda”, it reads as follows:
“The COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated that no institution or individual alone can address the economic, environmental, social and technological challenges of our complex, interdependent world. The pandemic has accelerated systemic changes that were apparent before its inception. The fault lines that emerged in 2020 now appear as critical crossroads in 2021. The time to rebuild trust and to make crucial choices is fast approaching as the need to reset priorities and the urgency to reform systems grow stronger around the world.”
To give ‘The Great Reset’ even more context The WEF have stated the following 8 elements of their 10-year vision for the future back in 2016:
- “You’ll own nothing” — And “you’ll be happy about it.”
- “The U.S. won’t be the world’s leading superpower.”
- “You won’t die waiting for an organ donor” — They will be made by 3D printers
- “You’ll eat much less meat” — Meat will be “an occasional treat, not a staple, for the good of the environment and our health.”
- “A billion people will be displaced by climate change” – Soros’ Open Borders
- “Polluters will have to pay to emit carbon dioxide” – “There will be a global price on carbon. This will help make fossil fuels history”
- “You could be preparing to go to Mars” — Scientists “will have worked out how to keep you healthy in space.”
- “Western values will have been tested to the breaking point.” – “Checks and balances that underpin our democracies must not be forgotten”
The WEF is very much positioning itself as the hero to help bring global powers together to save the world from the impending existential global Economic and Environment Crises! The authors state that Covid-19 is the ideal catalyst to accelerate the global transformation necessary to avoid this impending economic and environmental doom.
Fifteen years of working in the ‘business and personal vision’ thought leadership space has taught me that if your vision is more powerful, more profound and better communicated than anyone else, it will dominate the future. Even if, like the hundreds of 1 star Amazon reviewers, you completely disagree with the philosophies and visions set out in this book and on the WEF website, until there is a better communicated more profound vision of our possible global future that addresses global systems integration and sustainability, the WEF vision will dominate the landscape!
Many global and corporate leaders have a big vision for their nation or their organisation, but they rarely have a powerful well communicated vision for how the entire world will evolve collectively, this is why so many powerful and influential people and organisations have bought into the big vision of the World Economic Forum aka ‘The Big Reset’. Rarely does the Chinese Premier Xi Jinping step out of China for anything, but he does for the WEF, as does Putin and whoever happens to be the current US President, together with former US Presidents. If the founders of Google don’t go, their CEO does. The WEF and the writesr of this book are significantly influencing key aspects of global policies and in turn the policies of every nation from economic, social, business and travel to health policies. You simply can not underestimate the significant potential impact this will have on your everyday life.
This said, big visions rarely if ever, play out exactly as they are initially set out. However, many elements of ‘The Great Reset’ vision set out in this book will emerge and have a significant impact on the future of the world that you live in!
This is because ‘The Great Reset’ is a plan and a vision that has been endorsed to varying degrees by so many of the world’s most economically and politically powerful people and organisations. So, wether you like it or not, if you live on planet earth, you are going to have to deal with some of the radical concepts set out in this book, in your everyday life. There are of course many currently unknown factors that will only emerge in the future, which the authors acknowledge.
These unknown factors together with the actions that you and others like you chose to take, will determine to what degree the ‘Great Reset Vision’ becomes a reality!
The solutions to these crises put forward in the book involve the accelerated growth in power of centralised global government structures such as the UN and the accelerated application of technology to manage the world’s everyday activities, including the massive expansion of AI (Artificial Intelligence).
The book sets out 3 levels of reset
1) ‘Macro Reset’ (5 Global Resets; Economical, Societal, Geopolitical, Environmental, Technological)
2) ‘Micro Reset’
3) ’Individual Reset’
The book must have been written at break-neck speed to be published in July 2020 as it includes a lot of details about the global impact of Covid-19, including many predictions about government economic and social policies that have become a reality in the 6 months.
There is no question that Klaus Schwab’s vision of the world is one of a more environmentally and economically sustainable world.
Let us consider some of points of drastic change and reform in the book that illustrate this:
Debt Reset
All debts will need to be reset as the current debt levels from government to personal debts are completely unsustainable. The implication is that there will be a digital crypto currency potentially backed by gold.
Ownership Reset
Without saying it directly in the book (although it is said on their website) the authors hint that individuals do not need to own anything at all. Ultimately after some sort of undefined transitional period everything can be owned by the state and rented to individuals from houses to transportation and even personal computers. This philosophy opens up more questions than answers about how individual people owning property, businesses and shares will work.
Political
The authors vision is very much of a globalized socialist political system, where the WHO and the UN have been repurposed with greater funding and much greater powers. Without such a globalised centralised government, Schwab believes that the world will unable to effectively manage issues such as global warming. He emphasises ‘the return of big government’.
Technological
Schwab paints a world where robots and artificial intelligence do most of the work and will replace people. The authors rightly point out the important role that technology will have environmentally, however they also see technology as a way of monitoring every aspect of people’s lives.
Societal
A much more controlled world where people are more closely monitored and physically kept apart in the interests of their health .A world where there is a basic social income for the many people that will not have an income because their jobs are taken over by robots and AI. The need to create social contracts between citizens and governments is also prominently mentioned which would involve citizens agreeing to behave in a certain way to qualify for certain privileges or for basic income benefits.
Mental & Emotional??
In view of the RADICAL changes set out in ‘The Great Reset’ the most astonishing omission from the book is the lack of references this will have on people’s mental and emotional well-being and what to do to mitigate this!
The authors are of course ‘an engineer’ and ‘a statistician’ so you would not expect their primary modality to be ’emotional empathy’. However, they predict mass unemployment rates, social unrest and even ‘rebellion’ as part of this reset, yet they make little mention of what should be done theoretically, practically or systemically to address the potential explosion in mental health challenges that this will undoubtedly create!
Environmental
The authors focus a lot on ‘what the world needs to do to reduce carbon emissions to zero by 2030! The short answer to this is ‘Carbon tax!’. They suggest heavily taxing organisations that produce excess amounts of carbon. Potentially, even individual citizens of the world would have to pay a carbon tax if they contributed more than a certain amount of carbon emissions (e.g. by air travel).
Contact Tracing
Many governments have no doubt been heavily influenced by the authors of this book and they have invested significantly in contact tracing. tand greater surveillance of individuals ‘in order to manage the threat of covid-19’. The UK government clearly endorsed this perspective when they invested well in excess of £10 billion in a contact trace scheme that has turned out to be an incredibly expensive failure.
Covid-19
Schwab states that the pandemic will most likely persist throughout much of 2021! He also quotes an epidemiologist who believe that Covid is a completely new threat like no other virus before that will mean social distancing and other ‘covid-19’ measures are here to stay.Whilst Schwab is very well versed in many aspects of world economic systems several of his key assumptions about covid19 are factually and scientifically incorrect:
Schwab states that Covid19 is one of the most deadly pandemics the world has experienced in the last 2000 years, despite the fact that in June 2020 when he wrote the book only 0.006% of the world population had died ‘with covid’ in comparison to the Spanish flu which killed over 3% and plagues in the middle ages that killed up to 40% of the world population.
According to the UN and ONS websites the spike in global death rates (of all causes) for the calendar year 2020 is +0.344% increase in deaths compared to the global overall deaths in 2019. Interestingly, according to the UN and ONS websites the spike in global death rates for 2019 (pretty much pre-covid) was also exactly +0.344% compared to 2018
Scientific Assumptions
Neither author has any medical or public health qualifications and covid-19 had only been around for a matter of months when this book was written yet they are convinced that covid-19 will be around for years to come without referencing any science studies that support this position. They may be correct in their assumption and obviously it would serve their vision if this were correct. However, in the context of balance there are over 50,000 scientists and doctors who signed the Great Barrington Declaration (www.GBDeclaration.org) who clearly disagree with this position. Personally I am a big fan of studying all perspectives of a scientific debate.
As I am married to a professional scientist, I will share with you ‘another scientific perspective’ example. In the book Schwab states that in the USA there are much higher covid-19 case and death rates amongst the black communities because of ‘inequalities’ including healthcare inequalities. However, if Schwab or any of his scientific advisors had studied basic natural health or read the scientific papers of the Nobel Prize winning scientist Linus Pauling, he would realise that vitamin D is critical to a health immune system, so people with darker skin (like myself) need a lot more sunlight to get the same amount of vitamin D as people with fairer skins. So when darker skinned people live in less sunny environments or get less sun light they are often chronically low on vitamin D. As a mixed race darker skinned person myself, I take inexpensive vitamin D supplements daily all the way through the autumn and winter months. Whilst social, healthcare and economic inequality may be a factor, these higher ethnic covid-19 mortality rates (and other diseases) are much more to do with having darker skin than they are to do with racial inequality. I share this one example with you to suggest that you also want question key ‘scientific assumptions’ in any book, even when they are stated as an absolute fact.
Another ‘scientific assumption that I encourage people to study themselves is when Schwab states that “It will be very hard to fight Covid-19 without an effective treatment or vaccine, until then the most effective way to stop transmission of the virus is by widespread testing followed by isolation of cases, contact tracing and the quarantine of contacts exposed to the people infected.”
Neither of the authors are public health scientists and there are no public health scientific references for such sweeping conclusions. Natural herd immunity is not mentioned at all, even though it is how all viruses in history have been quelled. The reliability of the covid-19 PCR test does not get a mention, despite the fact that the inventor of the Polymerase Chain Reaction test Kary Mullis who won the Nobel Prize for its invention stated that “PCR must never be used for testing for viruses and diseases….. with enough amplification ( 24 plus cycles) you can find ANYTHING in anybody!”.
Interestingly, the authors make no mention of inexpensive treatments like hydroxychloroquine, with AZT, zinc and steroids, which after many months the AMA (American Medial Association) have now conceded is a safe, effective and valid treatment for covid-19.
Back to Normal
There are many statements littered throughout the book that imply that the world will NEVER be anything like it was before. One such example is when the authors say “In one form or another social and physical distancing measures are likely to persist after the virus persists, justifying the decisions from many companies to accelerate automation.”
Did I enjoy reading this book? No, it was very challenging!
Do I recommend that people read it? Absolutely, YES! Whilst it was an uncomfortable read, this book represents at least some of ‘the big global plan’ that the most powerful people and organisations in the world have for our global future.
I hope I have maintained a reasonable degree of impartiality in this review and I would like to sign off by quoting Albert Einstein
“Question everything!”