So says author of The Black Swan, Nassim Nicholas Taleb, in his new book, Antifragile.
He says that Switzerland is the most antifragile country in the world and defines this as the opposite of fragile - more than robust, something that actually gains from upset, disorder and volatility. The visible effects of this would be wealthy emigrés arriving with their billions and the franc rising when trouble flares in the rest of the world.
Of course Swiss exporters and housebuyers might not agree this was such a good thing.
He reckons the reason for this is down to Switzerland not having much in the way of a central government - as we know, the Cantons (and Gemeinde) have most of the power and there is plenty of direct democracy in the form of citizen-inspired referenda.
His thesis is that all the volatility this brings at the lower levels aggregates to form a very stable whole. Contrast this with the top-down, centralised EU that is forever in crisis and seemingly on the brink of collapse these days.
This is also what seems to make Switzerland so peaceable. As his co-author notes, "Stalin could not have happened in a municipality". :D
As a Brit, I have to say that I like living somewhere where there is no official head of state and presidents serve a one-year term. I just had to check Wikipedia to see who the current one is :p
I think perhaps the rest of the world could learn a lot from Swiss politics...
He says that Switzerland is the most antifragile country in the world and defines this as the opposite of fragile - more than robust, something that actually gains from upset, disorder and volatility. The visible effects of this would be wealthy emigrés arriving with their billions and the franc rising when trouble flares in the rest of the world.
Of course Swiss exporters and housebuyers might not agree this was such a good thing.
He reckons the reason for this is down to Switzerland not having much in the way of a central government - as we know, the Cantons (and Gemeinde) have most of the power and there is plenty of direct democracy in the form of citizen-inspired referenda.
His thesis is that all the volatility this brings at the lower levels aggregates to form a very stable whole. Contrast this with the top-down, centralised EU that is forever in crisis and seemingly on the brink of collapse these days.
This is also what seems to make Switzerland so peaceable. As his co-author notes, "Stalin could not have happened in a municipality". :D
As a Brit, I have to say that I like living somewhere where there is no official head of state and presidents serve a one-year term. I just had to check Wikipedia to see who the current one is :p
I think perhaps the rest of the world could learn a lot from Swiss politics...