The divide between the “political elite” and the “working class” is the “number one” risk to modern society, according to the head of Allianz.
Oliver Bäte, who currently serves as the CEO of the German insurance giant Allianz, made the remarks on Tuesday this week during an interview with CNBC news at the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland.
NEW – Allianz CEO: "We have an increasing detachment of the political elite from the working class." pic.twitter.com/KJuFJEXu06
— Disclose.tv (@disclosetv) January 16, 2024
The theme of the WEF conference this year is “rebuilding trust.”
Bäte said that the “biggest problem” in Europe at the moment is populations ceasing “to trust their government.”
“You’ve seen recent elections in the Netherlands, you’ve seen that in France, and societies are polarised, because our leaders are not addressing the needs of the people,” he said.
“We have an increasing detachment of the political elite from the working class and the people that actually go to work every day, and that I see as the number one risk for our societies.”
Bäte went on to reference the fact that there are an unprecedented number of national elections set to take place this year across the world in at least 64 countries, meaning that as much as 49% of the world population will be going to the polls in 2024.
“And remember, this year, a lot of people are going to vote,” he said, adding: “So we need to make sure they, you know, vote for the right things, and they’re not just venting anger.”
Asked how to rebuild trust with populations who feel “disenfranchised” by their governments and climate policies, Bäte replied: “You start by saying the truth.”
“You know, when you say ‘I have to invest hundreds of billions in transforming our economy,’ it means you have to take the money from somewhere else, because there’s a limited amount of that capacity that you’ve mentioned. And we’re not telling the people the truth.
“It’s said that ‘We can have this transformation for free, and everybody keeps the subsidies’ – [but] it doesn’t work.
“So the first thing is to say, the truth – what will be the economic cost, what will be the human cost, and then offer solutions.
“This is also a problem here. We talk a lot about the problems – we talk too little about what are the practical solutions by which we will solve things.”
Bäte went on to say that while it may be politically difficult, governments must start funding infrastructure projects more.
“One of the most important macro themes is we have to stop really stop spending money on consumption,” he said.
“We need to really build invest in infrastructure. And that’s very hard to do for a politician, I know, because you get elected on promising money to people. But you have to say the truth, and say ‘We need to invest, and therefore we cannot fund your hobby anymore.’”
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The flow of power and responsibility between elected politicians/governments and citizens and corporate bodies has been out of kilter for decades and getting progressively worse.
We know deep down that politicians want your vote for their own personal gain, but we trade off that in the expectation we will get at least some gains back. Its at the point now where I feel politicians get the election result and ride off into the sunset laughing at us.
Very interesting to see at approx 46 seconds the interviewer ask him a question about rebuilding trust, but she actually says how do ‘we’ rebuild trust. Just showing that the mainstream media people consider themselves part of the elites.
“Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power.”
— Benito Mussolini
And when it becomes a merger of States plural and corporate power it is collectivism which is even worse than Facism . At least it is theoretically possible to rebel against a facist dictator , as Mussolini found out to his cost , but you can’t rebel against collectivism because the collective is the dictator. Klaus Schwab has been very open that collectivism is the goal. If he gets his way individualism will be a thing of the past .
There always has been a divide between the political elite and the working class and in their hearts everybody knew that . It was just that , for decades there was an unwritten mutual understanding that both sides would not dwell too much on that or over emphasise that divide . There was no great overt animosity either way . The working class realised that the rich and powerful are different and the rich and powerful were careful to avoid showing contempt for the working class . What helped is that most people generally accepted that history had shown that capitalism was probably the best system overall and that democracy was probably the best political system.
Recent events , particularly the migrant crisis , has changed all of that . The mask slipped and the rich and powerful ,along with the political left, under pressure from a working class that suddenly began to question their decision making , lashed back and all of their prejudice and venom came flooding out in a torrent of denigration. Their privilege and hypocrisy was manifestly exposed when it became clear that they did not envisage themselves being adversely affected by events but believed at the same time that the working class should not have the temerity to point out when their lives were being adversely affected.
The rich and powerful and the political left did not acquit themselves well , and showed little sign of good grace , and the working class was left reeling when the full impact of what the rich and powerful and political left really thought of them was exposed in all its ugliness. It was a watershed revelatory moment in history.
What was not a problem before is definitely a problem now and this is an important caveat to Oliver Bates thoughts on the matter.
Fascism in the guise of liberalism is on the rise. It has to be stopped or we will all become slaves. Better to die on your feet than to live on your knees unless it is to God almighty.
Well he should know since its the people behind black rock and vanguard who are driving it and who also control his company . Klaus Schwab yesterday in his speech said that governments need to do more to destroy nationalism and individuality.
You can see the contempt dripping from Varadkar and co. when they have to deal with the peasants.
I have friends telling me to trust Sinn Fein. I tell them, as they were stupid enough to vote Greens last time, they are not in a position to give advice. There is no reason to trust Irish politicians as they serve other masters than the Irish.
SF are a better option if only that we know 100% what FFG in government gets us. FFG have a perfect track record of failed healthcare, immigration, housing, homelessness etc the only thing they excel at is collecting and inventing taxes and telling lies. A vote for FFG is a vote for more of the same. I can only suppose the people who vote for FFG don’t care or are not impacted by the issues mentioned above -or- they are severely mentally ill.
I will not vote for FFG/ Greens, but things could get an awful lot worse under SF. They are ideologues and just look at how bad communism made things in different countries.
Sinn Fein are a full throttle open borders party
With so many people going to vote this year, it would be good to have guidance around our pr system ,so as to avoid the almost unelected gaining positions of great responsibility.If your good selves could advise in an unbiased fashion the mechanism of pr it would be appreciated.
A divide is expected, after all we’re talking about ‘elites’ and the ‘working class’.
The problem today is a total absence of what was called noblesse oblige in the days of monarchs — in fact, the political elite today seem to feel contempt for ordinary people, and do not seem to consider the effect of government policy on working people at all — I think everyone sees what a joke the term ‘public servant’ is today, it usually seems the other way around, i.e. the public exists to serve the interests and bend to the will of politicians as they play to the media.
As an example, I saw something on Twitter/X yesterday (here) showing how the ongoing massive influx of migrants into Canada, which has one of the highest per capita immigration rates in the world, has caused huge increases in rental prices to the point paying for a rental is economically battering Canadians who don’t own property — the amount of their income they must devote to paying for housing is skyrocketing, hence their overall standard of living is falling heavily and a growing number feel and fear they will never be able to escape this trap.
But it appears elites in Canada could not care less — almost all the migrants are non-white, so they contribute to ‘diversity’, which the media applauds.
Fun fact: Sikhs now make up a larger share of the population in Canada (2.1%) than they do in India (1.7%).
Interesting to see the shift in the rhetoric three things occur
They are now in position of seriously hard choices to make one been more unattractive than the next whilst at the same time having more and more of the population turn against prior to this tough decisions been made.
Its going to be a wild ride the next few years seriously wild ride .. end of era wild ride stuff ..
Particularly if the staff/security decide to remove the ‘Elite’! 🙂
Billionaires also don’t realise that, just like ‘Jack Ma’ in China, they would become totally superficial! Just like in Stalinist USSR. What use would Billionaires have in a new World order? If a ‘Jeff’ was intensely disliked… that problem would be solved very very quickly by his fellow Billionaires! As there will be no media… who would know? Each ‘Elite’ with a tyrannical ambition would be removing each other, slowly but surely! Until only one Stalin was left over! Is murder even a crime in such a world?