Business leaders, by far the forum's dominant cohort, as well as some academics and nonprofit leaders who attended, said the quality of the discussions made the event worthwhile.
The forum also allowed for those random moments when Michael Dell, the Dell Inc. founder, was suddenly standing next to you at the urinals; when Craig O. McCaw, the cell phone service pioneer, gently sidled up next to you at a reception; or when the currency speculator George Soros and the political guru David Gergen were at your shoulder, deep in conversation.
"Obviously, I see value in the conference," said N.R. Narayana Murthy, chairman of Infosys Technologies of India and co-chairman of this year's forum. "I don't know of any other conference that brings together politicians, artists, brilliant physicists, Nobel laureate winners and spiritual leaders.
"At Infosys we have a saying: `You can disagree with me as long as you're not disagreeable.' And to me, Davos represents that. If you are open-minded you listen to others, and if you listen to others you become more open-minded."
But some of the forum's critics say that the reasons for attendance are less lofty. Activists have zeroed in on the forum in recent years, saying that the meeting's emphasis on free markets and free trade amount to camp counseling for money-grubbers. Others say that most participants jockey hard for invitations so that they can have access to one-of-a-kind networking opportunities or lucrative business deals, not because they want to promote social change.
"It's rich and powerful folks licking each other from top to toe and feeling good about it," said Andrew Hilton, director of the Center for the Study of Financial Innovation, a London organization that analyzes financial risks and opportunities. "Davos used to be good, but now it's overstuffed and postprandial because it's protecting privilege rather than finding new opportunities. It doesn't have that hunger anymore."
Conceding with a chuckle that his critique may stem from "sour grapes because I've never been invited," Hilton also said the forum was more than a retreat for the high and mighty. "It gets sort of slogged off as a gabfest, but it's terribly intense," he said. "Klaus Schwab is a genius and he's the Bill Gates of symposiums because he's invented Davos Man and Davos Man rules the world; it's capitalism without frontiers."
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