The Great Reset (Klaus Schwab) - PDF File

INTRODUCTION

The worldwide crisis triggered by the coronavirus pandemic has no parallel
in modern history. We cannot be accused of hyperbole when we say it is
plunging our world in its entirety and each of us individually into the most
challenging times we’ve faced in generations. It is our defining moment –
we will be dealing with its fallout for years, and many things will change
forever. It is bringing economic disruption of monumental proportions,
creating a dangerous and volatile period on multiple fronts – politically,
socially, geopolitically – raising deep concerns about the environment and
also extending the reach (pernicious or otherwise) of technology into our
lives. No industry or business will be spared from the impact of these
changes. Millions of companies risk disappearing and many industries face
an uncertain future; a few will thrive. On an individual basis, for many, life
as they’ve always known it is unravelling at alarming speed. But deep,
existential crises also favour introspection and can harbour the potential for
transformation. The fault lines of the world – most notably social divides,
lack of fairness, absence of cooperation, failure of global governance and
leadership – now lie exposed as never before, and people feel the time for
reinvention has come. A new world will emerge, the contours of which are
for us to both imagine and to draw.

At the time of writing (June 2020), the pandemic continues to worsen
globally. Many of us are pondering when things will return to normal. The
short response is: never. Nothing will ever return to the “broken” sense of
normalcy that prevailed prior to the crisis because the coronavirus
pandemic marks a fundamental inflection point in our global trajectory.
Some analysts call it a major bifurcation, others refer to a deep crisis of
“biblical” proportions, but the essence remains the same: the world as we
knew it in the early months of 2020 is no more, dissolved in the context of
the pandemic. Radical changes of such consequence are coming that some
pundits have referred to a “before coronavirus” (BC) and “after
coronavirus” (AC) era. We will continue to be surprised by both the rapidity
and unexpected nature of these changes – as they conflate with each other,
they will provoke second-, third-, fourth- and more-order consequences,
cascading effects and unforeseen outcomes. In so doing, they will shape a
“new normal” radically different from the one we will be progressively
leaving behind. Many of our beliefs and assumptions about what the world
could or should look like will be shattered in the process.