World Economic Forum highlights threats to social order

Global Business

World Economic Forum highlights threats to social order

The World Economic Forum blames income inequality for the wave of populism. The organization thinks that’s the biggest risk to social order.

CGTN’s Richard Bestic reports.

In the U.S., voters defied opinion pollsters and elected the outsider, Donald Trump.

During his campaign, the President-elect made a virtue of never having held public office.

In Britain it was Brexit as angry voters turned away from establishment politicians and the European Union, blaming them for globalization and a dramatic fall in living standards.

The West, according to the WEF, has reached an apparent tipping point, where austerity and inequality has created an army of discontented, calling for de-globalization.

The demand for change claims the WEF should be directed at automated technologies, which said the report, hit employment.

And while the poor blame globalization its traditional politicians who pay the price.

Just weeks after the U.S. intelligence community accused Russia of state sponsored hacking, new technologies are also, according to the WEF, a rapidly rising security risk.

The report said cyber-attacks, cited as a major risk last year only by executives in North America, have now moved to become a top global concern, impacting everyone from governments to households.

The risks contained in the World Economic Forum report will be taken to Davos in Switzerland and put before world leaders of politics and business. The scale of the challenge on the table, gargantuan.