The World Economic Forum in Davos is where the rich and powerful go to tell on themselves.
Here's what's most telling: There are conflicts, but very few fistfights. Imagine a Davos for religion, or justice, or sex, or culture, or meaning. The attendees would die on hills rather than politely differing in a valley. But that's not how Davos Man do. A fully financialized human, Davos Man calmly econospeaks into his lavalier mic and sounds... adult.
The econospeak taught in the University of Chicago’s econ department, which John D. Rockefeller bankrolled on the condition it provide post-hoc justifications for unjustifiable wealth, is no further from Orwellian newspeak than “efficiencies” is from “layoffs.” The idea that anyone would root for a native speaker is, frankly, insane. But here we are, countless NYT, WSJ, and FT readers rooting for Davos Man to talk down America’s orange kaiju before he stomps out the global financial system.
Given the choice between technocratic hedging and incoherent roaring, we (educated and credentialed types) invariably run for the hedges. But the danger isn’t Trump alone – it’s the temptation to respond to him by retreating further into the language and mental models that created the wealth inequalities which fuel his brand of populism. Econospeak has been the language of the status quo for a long time, but it plainly isn’t up to the task of describing a better world. If anything, it has created a society full of people whose success can be measured and whose disappointment cannot.3
The choice between cold calculation and hot temper is a trap.
Most oat milk elites learn econospeak in college despite the fact that the college experience – for those fortunate enough to get the Hollywood version – is not best understood in economic terms. College takes place primarily in what Jürgen Habermas calls "lifeworld," a domain of meaning governed by relationships, ideas, and activities rather than metrics. It's fairly easy to make an economic argument that college is a waste of time, but Habermas would counter convincingly that it's a productive waste of time. Not everything can be measured.
The problem – as new grads figure out by mid-August – is those things that can't be measured can't be justified to worried parents demanding a plan and or bosses demanding "transparency.” As soon as we enter the “real world,” we’re incentivized to lean on econospeak in order to sound like adults. After all, it’s hard to secure respect, much less employment talking about your feelings. It is also hard to demonstrate your intelligence to someone in a different field using technical terms endemic to your own. Econospeak provides conceptual common ground. Thus the cultural creep.
After Freakonomics came Planet Money came Margin Call came Moneyball came The Big Short came Succession came Parasite came Industry. These things are fun to talk about because it’s possible to talk about them. You can have an opinion on Moneyball without having ever played catch.
Econospeak is now so culturally prevalent that Kyla Scanlon, the economics writer and TikToker, got a whole press tour out of reframing America's sour national mood as a “vibe recession.” The novel term rendered a lifeworld phenomena in econospeak and would have particularly irked mid-century critics of "Imperial economics," the tendency of economic reasoning to colonize non-economic domains.
One of the most convincing anti-imperialists was Amartya Sen, who gets extra credit for creating an alternative framework for describing the world. Sen, an economist himself, argued that life ought to be understood as a series of possibilities and quality of life ought to be understood as access to those possibilities. He explained his "Capability Approach" by talking about bicycles. Owning a bicycle seems like a good proxy for having a higher quality of life. But if you don't have legs (or live in Brooklyn and value your pre-frontal lobe), it's immaterial. Sen's thinking suggested a way econospeak could reflect the reality of lifeworld. But it wasn’t broadly adopted (though the UNDP did get on board). Instead, lifeworld came to reflect econospeak.
Consider a humble four-bedroom, three-bath suburban manse Zestimated at $2.1M. If a 39-year-old VP of Marketing can afford the down payment and secure a mortgage, she (and the bank) can own it. But if she can't afford to lose money on that investment and therefore can't modify it to suit her particular needs or desires, it's not precisely her house. She's got a commodity, but lacks the capability an economist might infer based solely on ownership. Her relationship with her residence is different than her Boomer parents' relationship with the similar residence they bought decades earlier because the lower initial cost of their house relatively to their income provided them more capability. They could install a sauna (or w/e). Put differently, they had the same stuff but more freedom. (This is a big part of why Millennials don't understand Boomers and Boomers don't understand much.)
The lifeworld word “own” is no longer correct. The econospeak phrase “has home equity” is more relevant.
Now, let’s say this lucky VP of Marketing with family money works at a FAANG company. She has made an economically rational decision to have a stable job and, presumably, a transferable skillset. What she has not done is take advantage of her privilege to pursue a passion or a more meaningful life. This might reflect a deep desire for more money – normal enough – but it's just as likely that it reflects capability-focused thinking. She felt the effects of the 2008 financial crisis. She knows she has a bike, but she's unconvinced she has legs.
Wild as it may sound to those accustomed to econospeak, she doesn't feel particularly free.
Econospeak is really bad at describing feelings and worse at describing freedom. Economics textbooks tend to be devoid of that kind of political language. Anyone who expects Davos Man to speak truth to power is a fool. He lacks the language. Trump, on the other hand, excels at speaking about freedom because he’s fluent in plainspeak, lifeworld language inherently at odds with econospeak. Because his language – "They want to take away your freedom, they want to take away your rights, they want to take away your country" – speaks directly to capability, it's powerful.
In and of itself, plainspeak is a good thing. It can describe the declining quality of life responsible for the vibe recession, which is a critical step toward change. The trouble is not the language, but the source.
Because so many educated people dislike both Trump and the unenlightened self-interest that drives him, many have and will double down on econospeak as he doubles down (then backs off, then doubles down) on various threats aimed at various people. Park Slope dads are going to be wearing vintage rock tees that say "Bretton Woods" before the week is out. But that's a reactionary and self-defeating posture.
The cost of econospeak is unmeasurable, but it’s surely steep. It obscures lost capability. It can't describe freedom. It provides common ground that erodes as soon as power lumbers onto the scene. Plainspeak is better so long as it’s not disingenuous. The trouble is that most liberals can’t speak it – or won’t because they have an overwhelming complexity bias. It’s basically just Bernie and his avuncular approach doesn’t always travel well.
The solution is not to eschew or abandon econospeak – though it is good policy to kick anyone who says “marginal gains” right in the shins4. Understanding markets is important. Understanding aligning incentives helps us help each other. But embracing the language of Davos Man, however tempting, is inherently self-defeating for anyone who actually works for a living.
As tempting as it may be right now to go all in on econospeak, countering outlandish claims about Venezuelan oil production and Greenlandish claims about rare earth mineral extraction with hard talk about supply and demand, it's more accurate to just say what Trump is doing is wrong. Whether or not it decreases the deficit or increases share prices, it will diminish the capability. Any annoyingly moralistic college student would get that.
As Davos Man clashes with the American kaiju, the best course isn't to root for either side, but to run shrieking into the Rhaetian Alps and hope they punch each other out..
