Since the end of the cold war, discussions at the World Economic Forum in Davos have followed a reliable pattern. Everybody agreed that globalisation was a jolly good thing – but it was the delegates from the US and Europe who shaped the debate. It was informally accepted that the flow of ideas – as well as investment and jobs – was from west to east.
The global financial crisis has changed all that. At this year's Davos, the western delegates seemed depressed, defensive or even mildly deranged in the case of Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president. After listening to Mr Sarkozy's passionate attack on financial capitalism, one Russian participant was overheard saying that he had found the experience pleasantly nostalgic. He remembered hearing many similar speeches in the Soviet Union.
That is unfair on the French president, who was careful to argue that he was trying to rescue capitalism from its own excesses. But Mr Sarkozy's keynote address did reflect the ideological confusion among western leaders. Struggling with bulging deficits and high unemployment – and uneasily conscious of a shift of power to the east – western leaders are questioning many of the ideas that underpinned the old Davos consensus. These days, it is the Asian nations and the big emerging economies that are most comfortable with globalisation – and it is they that are urging the westerners not to give up on free trade.