Illustration: Matt Golding Credit: But his was the sickest burn. “This is my first time at Davos and I find it quite a bewildering experience to be honest,” he said. “I mean, 1500 private jets flown in to hear David Attenborough speak about how we’re wrecking the planet. “I hear people talking the language of participation and justice and equality and transparency. “But then almost no one raises the real issue of tax avoidance, right, and of the rich just not paying their fair share.

“It feels like I’m at a firefighters conference and no-one's allowed to speak about water.” Bregman was speaking at the end of the Forum in a session on 'The Cost of Inequality'. Loading Replay Replay video Play video Play video The theme of the whole WEF had been “shaping a global architecture in the age of the fourth industrial revolution”, a comfortable topic for high-flyers who want to publicly talk about philanthropy and corporate conscience, but privately want to know how many of their workforce they can replace with AI and robots. But this panel asked whether the wave of inequality sweeping the world was leading to a dangerous backlash, which could be exacerbated by corporate plans for the next few decades.

Loading It discussed a new Oxfam report, timed to coincide with the 2019 Davos meeting, revealing 26 billionaires had the same wealth as the poorest 3.8 billion people combined, and about half the world’s population lives off less than US$6 per day. And it drew the link with growing unrest in the West: riots in France, populists in power, Brexit in Britain. Bregman said the link was clear. And the answer was to raise taxes – for the very rich. “Something needs to change here,” he said.

“Ten years ago the WEF asked the question what must industry do to prevent a broad social backlash. The answer is very simple: just stop talking about philanthropy and start talking about taxes. Taxes, taxes. “Just two days ago there was a billionaire in here, Michael Dell and he asked a question like ‘name me one country where a top marginal tax rate of 70 per cent has actually worked'. “I’m a historian. The United States. That’s where it has actually worked, in the 1950s during Republican president Eisenhower, the war veteran, the top marginal tax rate in the US was 91 per cent for people like Michael Dell. The top estate tax for people like Michael Dell was more than 70 per cent. “This is not rocket science. We can talk for a very long time about all these stupid philanthropy schemes, we can invite Bono once more, but come on - we’ve got to be talking about taxes. “That’s it, taxes taxes taxes.