Yes, Andrew, I was being too general, as well as carefully self-
deprecating. Some parts of many governments are really pretty
efficient, and it's the leadership or direction that let them down.
I suppose therefore you have outed me: I meant the US Government,
given that it's so massive. The British Government is still quite
small and efficient, although lacking good or coherent direction. And
yes, I have met some really foolish organisations in the private
sector, but again it comes down to the leadership and direction. It's
also important to look at the ethos of an organisation, whether its
constituent parts are properly trained for everything they are
expected to do, indeed whether they even know they are expected to do.
However, it could be that your academic was charmed into admiration by
the organisations that he researched. And finance houses are
different the world over. You might observe that the Anglo-Saxon
model (US/UK) is more flexible and able to deal with the unexpected
(notwithstanding the appalling state of the banking sector at present)
and that the Germans, for instance, were more stuck in their ways.
But the former model is less likely to plan more than 1 year ahead,
whereas the latter plans many years ahead.
Chris
On 26 Dec 2007, at 22:46, Andrew Fildes wrote:
>
> I mentioned reading Nick Taleb's book, 'Black Swan' recently. His
> experience as an academic was that the most creative minds he met
> were in the military. Real strategic thinkers who were trained to
> deal with the unexpected.
> He was not kind about the senior echelons of the private sector,
> particularly in finance.
> Does that hearsay fallacy trump your 'Private-Public' Fallacy?
> (Sorry - I'm amassing a list of fallacies for students at present - I
> think you actually committed the Ad Populum. 'Most people believe
> that the private sector is more efficient so it must be true').
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