A different perspective on The Great Reset

Part 1 of a series.

What fascinates me about The Great Reset is how it fits with what has gone before:

• Is The Great Reset a one-off, or a repeating phenomenon?

• Is it even possible to reliably engineer an economic+political+social change of the kind proposed by The Great Reset’s exponents?

So, my hope is that you’ll find this a different perspective to that which is usually used when writing about the topic.

To begin at the beginning …

Credit for coining the term ‘The Great Reset’ goes to that Marmite character (i.e. seemingly loved or hated with no nuance betwixt and between) Professor Klaus Schwab, founder and executive chairman of the (equally Marmite) World Economic Forum (WEF) for his book, COVID-19: The Great Reset¹, co-written with Thierry Malleret. In the book, the authors argue that, in the aftermath of the pandemic …

‘We are now at a crossroads. One path will take us to a better world: more inclusive, more equitable and more respectful of Mother Nature. The other will take us to a world that resembles the one we just left behind - but worse and constantly dogged by nasty surprises.’²

To be fair to the Prof, he and his co-author do not claim that their preferred pathway in what they are convinced is ‘the right direction’ will necessarily be short, straight and strewn with roses:

‘The global economy is so intricately intertwined that it is impossible to bring globalization to an end. However, it is possible to slow it down and even put it into reverse.’³

Everything is seen in terms of a battle between globalization and national sovereignty. Referencing the work of Harvard economist Dani Rodrik, Messrs Schwab and Malleret explain:

‘Democracy and national sovereignty are only compatible if globalization is contained’ and ‘[I]f both the nation state and globalization flourish, then democracy becomes untenable.’⁴

They conclude that:

'if both democracy and globalization expand, there is no place for the nation state.'

It’s worth noting that all of this was written at a time when it was becoming ever clearer that China might not be wholly on-board with the West’s agenda, and before Russia invaded Ukraine, an act that would seem not to be one of fraternal global love. In fact, Russia appears not to be on side at all. In a slim volume from 2021, Alexander Dugin⁵, apparently sometimes referred to as ‘Putin’s brain’, makes the direct assertion that Russia’s mission ‘is diametrically opposed to the globalist project of the Great Reset.’ And, in case that isn’t clear enough, he goes on …

'After all, the Great Reset was proclaimed by a handful of degenerate and panting old globalist men on the verge of dementia (like Biden himself, the shriveled villain Soros, and the fat burgher Schwab) and a marginal, perverted rabble selected to illustrate the lightning-quick career opportunities for all nonentities.'⁶

It’s a Russian thing, you know: like Dostoyevsky’s narrator in Notes from Underground, except Dostoyevsky was writing wonderful tragedy-satire:

‘I’m a sick man … I’m a spiteful man. I’m an unattractive man. I think there’s something wrong with my liver.’⁷

However, the differences of opinion do not alter the fact that the globalization vs. nation-state tug-of-war has long-since (well, at least since the outsourcing gold-rush of the 1990s and 2000s) resulted in profound changes for Business. Not surprising because, as American author, academic and lawyer Philip Bobbitt has written:

‘[T]he corporation was a nation-state vehicle to improve the welfare of its citizens. Replacing the great trusts and partnerships of the state-nation [the previous iteration of political structure], the corporation bureaucratized the management of business, making it feasible for the State, through regulation, to temper the profit motive with concern for the public welfare, replacing the enterprising if ruthless entrepreneur with the modern manager.'⁸

So, to summarize …

1. As per Bobbit, the business corporation was a creation of the nation-state.

2. Then, when Western elites prioritized globalization over the nation-state, an increasing number of business corporations floated free of the specific political and social freedoms &constraints that their geographical jurisdictions had allowed & imposed.

3. This created a vacuum, and an unprecedented opportunity for businesses to suck in the detached political and social elements. Why do it? Power - it gifts more power to the economic function system. (More about this later in the series.) The narrative used to justify the takeover has been one of caring for all stakeholders and the planet to ensure a sustainable future. After all, who could possibly disagree with such noble aims!

Anyway, the elites’ campaign continued and, by 2018 and 2019, various national and international non-government and lobbying organizations felt able to declare openly that the very purpose of Business had changed. No longer, they asserted, was it acceptable to just focus on products and services and make sufficient profit to grow the business, nor to just ‘create a customer’⁹. Now, business purpose had to be something new. Here’s the American business association, the Business Roundtable:

‘Each of our stakeholders is essential. We commit to deliver value to all of them, for the future success of our companies, our communities and our country.’

And, of course, the WEF pitched in:

‘The purpose of a company is to engage all its stakeholders in shared and sustained value creation. In creating such value, a company serves not only its shareholders, but all its stakeholders - employees, customers, suppliers, local communities and societies at large.’

And, in its Principles for Purposeful Business, The British Academy went the whole nine yards:

The purpose of business is to profitably solve the problems of people and planet, and not profit from causing problems.

All of which is to say, and perhaps at risk of stating the blindingly obvious, that The Great Reset is all about political & social & business re-engineering on a massive scale. Which prompts one to think …

… has this happened before?

Put it another way: should we refer to it as The Great Reset or A Great Reset? I opt for the latter and hope to persuade you that these events do, in fact, recur. Sure, the specifics of any Great Reset are unprecedented, but the set of ingredients (the mise en place, if you will) is predictable. The reason this can come as a surprise is that the Great Reset cycle is a long one, typically spanning several centuries and, obviously, multiple lifetimes. In 1993, Peter Drucker, the leading 20th century management thinker, nailed this point:

'Every few hundred years in Western history there occurs a sharp transformation. ... Within a few short decades, society rearranges itself – its world view; its basic values; its social and political structure; its arts; its key institutions. Fifty years later there is a new world. And the people born then cannot even imagine the world in which their grandparents lived and into which their own parents were born. We are currently living in such a transformation'¹⁰

Drucker’s ‘transformation’ is Schwab’s ‘Great Reset’. Digging deeper, I’ve concluded that each instance comes into being via a Reset Window which typically lasts around 50 to 75 years. On each occasion, three ingredients are tossed in to a chaotic stew:

Ingredient 1: a breakout technology

There has to be a technology that is significantly different to any current tech. It’s important to note that it comes into operation in two distinct stages.

Stage 1: TURBOCHARGE THE EXISTING. At first the new tech is used to do existing things better, faster, cheaper than was previously possible. This is obviously fairly irresistible but can be extremely risky because, by definition, during Stage 1 of a Reset Window, the full potential and implications of the new technology are not understood and, therefore, changes that are implemented may subsequently prove to be, at best, sub-optimal … but may well be irreversible.

Stage 2: EMPOWER THE NEW. Later, once some familiarity has been gained with the new tech, in comes all the new stuff. This is the period when hitherto unthought-of possibilities for use of the new tech reveal themselves and are implemented.

Ingredient 2: a socio-moral concept that challenges the status quo

A breakout technology seems always to be accompanied by demands for a new socio-moral order. It seems, too, that the new order must be different from and incompatible with the existing order. The more antithetical the proposed new order, the better it can then be pursued, in the short-term at least, as a religious or quasi-religious crusade. This phenomenon is analyzed and beautifully described in The New Puritans by Andrew Doyle¹¹.

Why this happens every time there is a Great Reset is complicated. More about it in future posts.

Ingredient 3: censorship

Censoriousness is an inevitable result of the religious or quasi-religious atmosphere created by Ingredient 2. It seems to be important, axiomatic even, that the contrast between the old and the new socio-moral order is so stark that it will inevitably give rise to censoriousness from one side or the other of the argument - usually from the New Order faction.

It’s also the case that a significant level of overt or covert hypocrisy will be in evidence and the lesson of history seems to be that a new ‘tech + socio-moral order’ combo will moderate itself once the initial ‘puritan phase’ has passed.

Here are some concrete examples of Great Resets (GR) of the modern and postmodern periods, to help illustrate some of these points:

GR1. Reset window: 1450-1520, Europe

Breakout tech: Gutenberg’s invention of printing with movable type which took place in 1455 in the Rhineland city of Mainz.

Challenging socio-moral concept: Luther’s Protestant Reformation (1517) which challenged the Roman Catholic church: “For the pope is not above but under the word of God”¹². Plus, invention of the Scientific Method by Copernicus and others.

Censorship: Europe’s first ever censorship office was set up in 1486 and operated jointly by the electorate of Mainz and the city of Frankfurt.

Thus was the world turned upside-down, the result of a combination of a revolutionary technological development, a counter-view to a dominant and formerly successful philosophy, and a liberal helping of illiberal censorship. Ring any bells?

GR2: Reset window: 1775-1850, Europe & U.S.

Then it happened all over again …

Breakout tech: Watt and Boulton’s perfected steam engine (1776) heralded the full arrival of the mechanical-industrial age.

Challenging socio-moral concept: There was a moral panic to reform, for example, the “manners and morals amid the Sodom and Gomorrah of ... Britain.”¹³ Lord Byron labelled it “the age of cant.”¹⁴ The liberality or grossness, depending on your point of view, of the Georgian period was supplanted by the prudish and often hypocritical attitudes that came to personify the Victorians. Think, for example, of Charles Dickens's wonderful and hideous creation of Uriah Heep in the novel David Copperfield¹⁵. Nonetheless, this was the genesis of the morally rigid but commercially productive Victorian period with its Protestant work ethic.

Plus, of course, there were world-changing events that included the American Revolutionary War (1775-1783) and the French Revolution (1789-1794), and even the publication of Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations (1776).

Censorship: the damning of the old order was everywhere, and included some very personal 'cancelling' of individuals. For example, previously adored Shakespearian actor Edmund Kean (1787-1833) latterly was vilified for his sexual excesses. And, in 1838, the year of Victoria’s coronation, a historian of rural customs wrote: “We are become a sober people. England is no longer Merry England, but busy England; England full of wealth and poverty – extravagance and care.”¹⁶

GR3: Reset window: 1970-2025, World

And, now, here we go again …

Breakout tech: it is, of course, Digital which has, for the first time ever, given us global inter-connectivity. Early on in the Digital Revolution businesses underwent the greatest structural change in their history (initially via outsourcing). This led to de-industrialization in the West and the rapid rise of other powers. Some of the changes are good, beneficial … but others are not.

Challenging socio-moral concept: Where to begin! In the West there are moral panics around numerous social justice issues. But, remember, from the earlier examples, it seems that a new order does not mess around - it sets out to completely demolish an existing order. So, self-evidently, capitalism is in the cross-hairs.

Why? Because capitalism is what enabled the success that (primarily) the West achieved over the past 200 years: an extraordinary and continuous array of new products and services that improved living conditions and enabled human life to be extended. And the benefits did not just go to the West - capitalism underpins the eight-fold increase in the global human population since 1800.

So, now, one would expect there to be a vehement anti-capitalist campaign and, sure enough, there is. But it goes much further. The march of globalization has greatly reduced the power and influence of nation-states … but the business corporation is a product of the nation-state. Now, therefore, because many businesses are ‘detached’ from their former nation-states, they experience a power vacuum. In turn, this leads to great confusion about roles and responsibilities.

Censorship: There sure seems to be a lot of censoriousness about, right now. We appear to be in the puritan phase of a handover to a new order. If this Great Reset follows the usual pattern the censorious will ease over the coming years and, however the chips fall, there will be a fair helping of hypocrisy.

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This post has attempted simply to set up an argument and propose the basic point that Great Resets are, in fact, a repeating phenomenon in human societies. The thought is that this may help us spot issues that might cause us long-term difficulties and, indeed, help us spot areas of opportunity that might otherwise be missed.

Those who champion a shift to stakeholder capitalism may do so with the best of intentions and, indeed, no-one is saying that the system that helped lift the human race up over the past 200 years should automatically continue unchanged. But, equally, it would surely be counter-productive to destroy some of the positives simply because they were, so to say, not-invented-here-&-now?

And, last but not least, there are questions around the way we humans respond to change, and whether there are ‘deep currents’ in our societies that it is dangerous to try to swim against. Some thoughts on this coming up in Part 2.

Thanks for reading.

1. Schwab, Klaus & Malleret, Thierry. COVID-19: The Great Reset (2020)

2. Schwab & Malleret (2020)

3. Schwab & Malleret (2020)

4. Schwab & Malleret (2020)

5. Dugin, Alexander. The Great Awakening vs The Great Reset (2021)

6. Dugin (2021)

7. Dostoyevsky, Fyodor. Notes from Underground (1864)

8. Bobbitt, Philip. The Shield of Achilles: War, Peace and the Course of Human History (2002)

9. Drucker, Peter. “There is only one valid definition of business purpose: to create a customer.” Management, Tasks, Responsibilities, Practices (1974)

10. Drucker, Peter. Post-capitalist Society (1993)

11. Doyle, Andrew. The New Puritans: How the Religion of Social Justice Captured the Western World (2022)

12. Luther’s words appear in The Proceedings of Friar Martin Luther. Augustinian, with the Lord Apostolic Legate at Augsburg in Luther’s Works (Minneapolis, 1957-1986) quoted by Tom Holland in Dominion: The Making of the Western Mind (2019)

13. Wilson, Ben. The Making of Victorian Values: Decency & Dissent in Britain - 1789-1837 (2007)

14. Wilson, Ben (2007)

15. Dickens, Charles. David Copperfield (1850)

16. Wilson, Ben (2007)