Complexity, Trust and Policy Making

Abstract

Case-studies throw light on old arguments and illuminate new ones. Therein lies both their strength and weakness: the light of a single study shines brightly, but its beam is always narrow. Case-studies work best when they are exemplary, displaying in an especially clear way characteristics common elsewhere. The examination of banking policy and politics conducted in the preceding chapters has this exemplary quality. Even a fleeting acquaintance with policy making shows that the problems encountered in banking are not unique: the battle with complexity fought in financial markets is part of a continuing war waged whenever policy is made and applied. The following pages therefore extend beyond banking into the wider politics of complexity. They begin by recalling and extending my argument about its nature. Opportunism — an aspect of social complexity — is identified as the heart of the policy problem. In ‘Capitalism and Complexity’ (2 below) two radical ways of coping with opportunism are examined and rejected. The concluding section describes some less ambitious solutions.

In political activity … men sail a boundless and bottomless sea; there is neither harbour for shelter nor floor for anchorage, neither starting-place nor appointed destination. The enterprise is to keep afloat on an even keel.¹