The Path to a Sustainable World: A 2020 Davos Reader

Capitalism Jan 16, 2020 Snapshot

Capitalism Must Reform to Survive

The only way to save capitalism is to return to the stakeholder model we discovered, and then forgot, decades ago.

Klaus Schwab

The New York Stock Exchange, December 2018

The Best of 2019 January/February 2019 Comment

How a World Order Ends

Just because an order is in irreversible decline does not mean that chaos or calamity is inevitable. But if the deterioration is managed poorly, catastrophe could well...

Richard Haass

Concert crashers: British officers during the Crimean War, 1855.

Capitalism January/February 2020 Essay

The Clash of Capitalisms

Capitalism has no rival, but its two variants—led by the United States and by China, respectively—offer significantly different ways of structuring political and...

Branko Milanovic

China January/February 2019 Comment

The Age of Uneasy Peace

Yan Xuetong lays out China’s foreign policy goals and considers what they will mean in a world increasingly shaped by U.S.-Chinese competition.

Yan Xuetong

Xi and Trump in Buenos Aires, Argentina, November 2018.

Authoritarianism July/August 2019 Essay

A World Safe for Autocracy?

China’s Rise and the Future of Global Politics

Jessica Chen Weiss

The view from Beijing: a Chinese-built bridge in Maputo, Mozambique, May 2018

Demography July/August 2019 Essay

With Great Demographics Comes Great Power

America's rise as a global superpower was predicated on favorable demographic trends—something the United States will have to actively maintain if it wants to maintain...

Nicholas Eberstadt

Keep ’em coming: at a daycare center in New York City, May 2010

The Best of 2019 November/December 2019 Essay

War Is Not Over

The idea that humanity is past the era of war is based on flawed measures of war and peace. If anything, the opposite is true.

Tanisha M. Fazal and Paul Poast

U.S. soldiers in Kandahar Province, Afghanistan, December 2010

The Best of 2019 September/October 2019 Essay

Trump’s Assault on the Global Trading System

The Trump administration is bent on severing, not fixing, Sino-American ties. Although many of these policies can be reversed, both Washington and Beijing have taken...

Chad P. Bown and Douglas A. Irwin

Tariff Man: an anti-Trump billboard in Guangzhou, China, August 2018

Capitalism January/February 2020 Essay

The Starving State

Nothing less than a bold new regime of domestic and international taxes will save wealthy democracies and economies from the distortions and dangers of rampant...

Joseph E. Stiglitz, Todd N. Tucker, and Gabriel Zucman

Climate Change Sep 23, 2019 Snapshot

Climate Change Is Already Killing Us

The health effects of climate change are worse than anticipated—and they’re already being felt.

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus

Criminal Law January/February 2019 Essay

Deepfakes and the New Disinformation War

Thanks to the rise of “deepfakes”—highly realistic and difficult-to-detect digital manipulations of audio or video—it is becoming easier than ever to portray someone...

Robert Chesney and Danielle Citron

Artificial Intelligence May/June 2019 Essay

Killer Apps

The real danger of an AI arms race isn't that another country would win; it's that unsafe technologies would make everyone lose.

Paul Scharre

Seeing like a state: a SenseTime surveillance software demo in Beijing, October 2017

Economics September/October 2019 Review Essay

The Population Bust

Zachary Karabell reviews two new books on population decline, arguing that the world is headed toward a population bust that could destroy capitalism as we know it.

Reviewed by Zachary Karabell

U.S. Foreign Policy March/April 2019 Essay

The Future of the Liberal Order Is Conservative

America doesn't have to choose between retrenchment and ambition; conservatism can keep what has been won and forestall a backlash.

Jennifer Lind and William C. Wohlforth

The USS Carl Vinson conducts an exercise with the Japanese Navy in the Philippine Sea, April 2017.

Capitalism January/February 2020 Comment

How Poverty Ends

In the absence of a magic potion for development, the best way for a country to profoundly transform millions of lives is not to try in vain to boost growth. It is to...

Abhijit V. Banerjee and Esther Duflo

Trade November/December 2019 Essay

The Progressive Case Against Protectionism

Restrictions on trade and immigration ultimately hurt Americans.

Kimberly Clausing

The price is right: in a supermarket in Baltimore, Maryland, July 2018

Globalization July/August 2019 Essay

The Global Economy’s Next Winners

International trade long favored those who could provide ample and cheap labor—but the tide is turning, and it is highly developed economies with skilled workers who...

Susan Lund, James Manyika, and Michael Spence

Back in business: at an Amazon warehouse in Florence, New Jersey, August 2017

Politics & Society March/April 2016 Comment

Middle-Class Heroes

History suggests that a large and secure middle class is a solid foundation on which to build and sustain an effective, democratic state. In a slow-growth global...

Nancy Birdsall

Energy January/February 2020 Essay

Adapt or Perish

The United States must build up resilience to climate change.

Alice Hill and Leonardo Martinez-Diaz

It’s getting hot in here: a fire in Windsor, California, October 2019

Europe Jan 2, 2020 Snapshot

The New Nordic Model

Nordic patriotism centers on a commitment to a socioeconomic model that fosters trust among citizens, the private sector, and the government, and incentivizes...

Børge Brende

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Foreign Affairs Anthology Series

The Path to a Sustainable World

A 2020 Davos Reader

Table of Contents

Introduction

The World in 2020

Disruption

Adaptation

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