Great Reset

"The Great Reset" redirects here. For the 2010 book, see The Great Reset (book). For the 2020 book, see Great Reset § Books.

The Great Reset Initiative is an economic recovery plan drawn up by the World Economic Forum (WEF) in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.[1] The project was launched in June 2020, and a video featuring the then-Prince of Wales Charles was released to mark its launch.[2] The initiative's stated aim is to facilitate rebuilding from the global COVID-19 crisis in a way that prioritizes sustainable development.[3]

WEF chief executive officer Klaus Schwab described three core components of the Great Reset: creating conditions for a "stakeholder economy"; building in a more "resilient, equitable, and sustainable" way, utilising environmental, social, and governance (ESG) metrics; and "harnessing the innovations of the Fourth Industrial Revolution."[4][5] In a speech introducing the initiative, International Monetary Fund director Kristalina Georgieva listed three key aspects of a sustainable response to COVID-19: green growth, smarter growth, and fairer growth.[3][6]

"The Great Reset" was the theme of the 2021 World Economic Forum annual summit in Davos, Switzerland, scheduled for January 2021.[7] Due to disruption from COVID-19, the summit was postponed to May 2021, and again to 2022.[8][9] The Davos 2022 theme was "History at a Turning Point", and the Russian invasion of Ukraine dominated the summit.[10]

The Great Reset Initiative, and the World Economic Forum more generally,[11] have been criticised by some commentators for promoting economic deregulation and a greater role in policy for unrepresentative private businesses, particularly large multinational corporations, at the expense of government institutions.[12][13] Other commentators attacked the scheme for fixating on the concept of education, health and vastly overestimating the ability of a group of decision-makers to bring about global change,[14] or for promoting crony capitalism.[15]

The initiative triggered a range of diverse conspiracy theories spread by conservative commentators on social media such as YouTube, Tumblr, MySpace, Facebook and Twitter. Among the unsupported theories were the assertions that the COVID-19 pandemic was created by a secret group in order to seize control of the global economy,[1] that lockdown restrictions were deliberately designed to induce economic meltdown,[16] or that a global elite was attempting to abolish private property while using COVID-19 to enslave humanity with vaccines.[17][12] Great Reset conspiracy theories increased in intensity when leaders such as U.S. president Joe Biden, New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern and Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau incorporated ideas of a post-COVID-19 "reset" in their speeches.[1][18]

  1. ^ a b c Goodman, Jack; Carmichael, Flora (22 November 2020). "The coronavirus pandemic "great reset" theory and a false vaccine claim debunked". BBC News. Archived from the original on 22 November 2020. Retrieved 22 November 2020.
  2. ^ "The Great Reset: What is it?". Full Fact. 14 April 2022. Archived from the original on 4 August 2022. Retrieved 4 August 2022.
  3. ^ a b Inman, Phillip (3 June 2020). "Pandemic is chance to reset global economy, says Prince Charles". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 17 November 2020. Retrieved 18 November 2020.
  4. ^ Schwab, Klaus (3 June 2020). "Now is the time for a 'great reset'". World Economic Forum. Archived from the original on 30 January 2021. Retrieved 1 February 2021.
  5. ^ Schwab, Klaus; Malleret, Thierry (9 July 2020). COVID-19: The Great Reset. Agentur Schweiz. ISBN 978-2-940631-12-4.
  6. ^ Georgieva, Kristalina (3 June 2020). "Remarks to World Economic Forum". The Great Reset. Archived from the original on 26 January 2021. Retrieved 26 January 2021.
  7. ^ "Event: World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2021". International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD). SDG Knowledge Hub. Archived from the original on 27 January 2021. Retrieved 26 January 2021.
  8. ^ "2021 Davos summit shifted to Lucerne in May". France 24. 7 October 2020. Archived from the original on 1 November 2020. Retrieved 18 November 2020.
  9. ^ "WEF cancels 2021 annual meeting, says next summit in 1st half of 2022". The Economic Times. Archived from the original on 5 August 2021. Retrieved 5 August 2021.
  10. ^ Gayle, Markovitz; Samantha, Sault (3 June 2022). "6 themes at Davos 2022 that will define what happens next". World Economic Forum. Archived from the original on 4 August 2022. Retrieved 4 August 2022.
  11. ^ Martens, Jens (2020). "The Role of Public and Private Actors and Means in Implementing the SDGS: Reclaiming the Public Policy Space for Sustainable Development and Human Rights". Sustainable Development Goals and Human Rights. Interdisciplinary Studies in Human Rights. Vol. 5. pp. 207–220. doi:10.1007/978-3-030-30469-0_12. ISBN 978-3-030-30468-3. S2CID 213580432. Archived from the original on 17 August 2021. Retrieved 17 August 2021.
  12. ^ a b Ivan, Wecke (16 August 2021). "Conspiracy theories aside, there is something fishy about the Great Reset". openDemocracy. Archived from the original on 4 April 2022. Retrieved 4 August 2022.
  13. ^ Klein, Naomi (8 December 2020). "The Great Reset Conspiracy Smoothie". The Intercept. Archived from the original on 13 December 2020. Retrieved 14 December 2020.
  14. ^ Roth, Steffen (22 January 2021). "The Great Reset. Restratification for lives, livelihoods, and the planet". Technological Forecasting & Social Change. 166: 120636. doi:10.1016/j.techfore.2021.120636. ISSN 0040-1625. PMC 9757815. PMID 36569031. Archived from the original on 10 November 2022. Retrieved 10 November 2022.
  15. ^ Foss, Nicolai (27 April 2022). "The economy doesn't need a reset, and neither does management theory". Scandinavian Journal of Management. 38 (3): 101214. doi:10.1016/j.scaman.2022.101214. ISSN 0956-5221. S2CID 248794634.
  16. ^ "What is the Great Reset - and how did it get hijacked by conspiracy theories?". BBC News. 24 June 2021. Archived from the original on 4 August 2022. Retrieved 4 August 2022.
  17. ^ Zimonjic, Peter (3 September 2022). "World Economic Forum official says Canada has bigger issues to discuss than conspiracy theories". CBC News. Archived from the original on 7 September 2022. Retrieved 8 September 2022.
  18. ^ De Rosa, Nicholas (18 November 2020). "Le "Great Reset" n'est pas un complot pour contrôler le monde". Radio-Canada (in French). Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. Archived from the original on 20 November 2020. Retrieved 27 January 2021.