2009 18
Lord Mandelson at Google Zeitgeist talks about the crisis
Published by MartinVarsavsky.net in General with No Comments
At Google Zeitgeist I hear Lord Mandelson say two things about the quality of government that make sense. One is that the better a government in a country the more tolerant people are of globalization. The second one is that the more demanding consumers of a country are the better they are at choosing politicians.
Still listening to the UK Secretary of State for Business I get a sense that top politicians are as much witnesses of this global crisis as top people in business. The only “real” actor in these times is the crisis itself. Everyone else watches the data and tries to cope.
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Hank on May 18, 2009 ·
The top politicians are driving the crisis boat – they aren’t simply passengers. Their function is to obey Keynes at the moment. I think the point about globalization may be a little skewed, but only in the sense of political globalization and not trade. Why would a citizen want to export their leadership if they currently have a good government? A signal of a good government might involve strong affinity to keeping it around, yet weak affinity to protectionism (eg. political protectionism and trade globalization). Many view international norming as the enemy in this country.
If the only real actor in the crisis is the crisis itself, we shouldn’t be throwing money at it. Just let those who screwed up fail and clean up the bodies.