Weekend wisdom: interview with Martin Wolf

Here’s something that’s worth an hour of anyone’s time: an intelligent(ish) interview with the super-intelligent Martin Wolf, FT, doyen of economics commentators and billed here as the World’s Top Financial Journalist (a title he disowns, BTW, claiming only tangential knowledge of finance). 

Mostly, it’s a case of listen, learn, reflect: Wolf is impressively thoughtful, not least on the matter of what’s genuinely uncertain in our present stressed circumstances.  But there were a couple of things he expresses serious interest in, which I’d push back on:

• Citizen’s assemblies.  Yeah, but who gets to run them?  You know perfectly well that a cleverly framed set-up will get any answer that’s wanted by the establishment that commissions them**.  I mean, seriously, this is bonkers.
• Workers’ representatives on Boards: he thinks Germany has done well with this.  Hmm.  I have some experience, via a lengthy consultancy gig I undertook in Germany, with an archetypal large German co.  The workers’ board member was given a nice office, and frequent, carefully curated ‘briefings’ on all manner of topics.  He was a nice enough cove, completely out of his depth.  Those carefully selected mangers giving him the briefings said he barely understood any but the most basic topics, and was a pushover.  Maybe that was exceptionally helpful to the co in question!  But I doubt it’s what Wolf means.

He also seems to be warming to proportional representation.  Well, too big an issue to dilate upon here, save to note that, barring some political event not even dreamed of right now, the next GE will be conducted in genuinely uncharted electoral waters.

Enjoy.

ND

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** Fair enough, I once reviewed in detail the output of a CA on use of biomass, which was (I consider) fairly well set-up with balanced opening presentations, and which clearly surprised the organisers as to how strongly the majority was against tree-burning (which as not the answer they wanted).  HOWEVER, the official take on it mis-used the actual voting data.  Having failed to rig it, they still tried to bias the one-liner takeways.  And you know they’d have rigged it even more determinedly for a sequel.  You’ll all keep voting until you give the right answer.