This year’s World Economic Forum in Davos was not always peaceful. Nor was it always the friendly, constructive meeting to which Klaus Schwab, the forum’s founder, aspires. But it served a purpose. The forum fell close to the end of a tumultuous year for the global economy, during which several Wall Street banks either collapsed or had to be taken over by others, most economies took a nosedive from growth to recession and the world faced the worst financial conditions for several decades.

Under the circumstances, it would have been hard for the 2,600 attendees of the forum simply to turn up in the Swiss Alps and have a gentle week of discussing subjects from environmental change to scientific progress, as they have come to expect. It was never going to be that sort of year.