The Great Reset: What is it?

A post on Facebook makes the following claim: “The Great Reset is not a conspiracy theory. The World Economic Forum website reveals its agenda.”

We’ve fact checked a number of false claims about the World Economic Forum’s ‘Great Reset’ initiative, and it does seem to have formed the basis of a conspiracy theory (essentially an unsubstantiated belief that powerful yet secret actors or organisations are responsible for significant social or political events).

What is the World Economics Forum’s ‘Great Reset’?

The World Economic Forum (WEF) is essentially a global foundation headquartered in Switzerland that seeks to lobby governments and business leaders. It’s known for its annual meeting in Davos, where politicians, business leaders, celebrities and journalists gather at the mountain resort to discuss global issues. 

The Great Reset can refer to a number of things. The WEF’s founder and executive chairman Klaus Schwab, co-authored a book by that name, which discusses how the world’s political, business and social institutions may wish to address pre-existing geopolitical concerns, such as global warming, in the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic. 

The WEF also launched the ‘Great Reset initiative’ in 2020, which it says aims to “urgently build the foundations of our economic and social system for a fairer, sustainable and more resilient post-COVID future”. 

WEF events have been themed around the ‘Great Reset’ and a video featuring Prince Charles was released to mark its launch. The WEF’s website has a whole section about it, and has published numerous articles and podcasts about revamping capitalism to help avoid another depression following the economic downturn due to Covid-19. 

While the Great Reset is a real thing, and faced genuine criticism for what it purports to be, it has also spawned a number of false and unsubstantiated claims which amount to the basis of a conspiracy theory.

For example, since the initiative launched, it’s been claimed that the Great Reset is something that will restrict what you can eat or own.

We previously checked a false claim that the Great Reset book talks about “useless eaters” being eliminated. The line actually came from a 1992 conspiratorial essay about a secret elite group of leaders that control the world. 

More recently we’ve debunked the claim that Ukraine is enacting the Great Reset by setting up a social credit app, when the app in question does no such thing and is used to store official documents and apply for certain grants.

So while it’s true that the Great Reset is mentioned a lot on the WEF website, this isn’t evidence that it’s not the subject of a conspiracy theory, as the many false claims about it we have previously checked demonstrate.

Image courtesy of the Climate Reality Project via Unsplash.