Nassim Taleb: Centralization a Negative, Not a Positive

Plenarchist writes:

You might find this talk Nassim Taleb gave at Google interesting. He explains antifragility (from his latest book, which I haven’t read).

His theory with respect to societies argues in favor of small government to reduce societal fragility. It is an argument in favor of competing states theory and even for nullification. (Though I have a hard time believing states can “compete” peacefully…)

Bottom line, the bigger the government the more homogeneous and fragile the society and the greater the risk of a black swan event (a total system shock). He sees the US and the world becoming more fragile as governments become more consolidated and centralized.

devo

was actually JUST watching this guy’s reason interview, couldn’t quite understand him clearly though. this seems much better, thanks for this post! ps states can’t compete peacefully? not buying the 50 laboratories of innovation thing? expand?
devo

pps, that guy rocks (a mix of water block and robert murphy? kk nvm…) , i find this very important for some reason. an actual model showing the inherent problems with over centralization. beautiful.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Paul-Sedkowski/100001467305337 Paul Sedkowski

Counter-intuitive at first, then perfectly “natural” – revealing that our “intuitiveness” is often very tainted by all the preconditioning. Sobering and illuminating. Brilliant find, Tom! I never heard about this guy, but will delve deeper now.
http://plenarchist.wordpress.com/ plenarchist

Taleb is a tough interview given his speaking style and Gillespie kept interrupting him.

Regarding “can states compete peacefully” is a tough proposition. History shows that when equally matched, the respective political classes don’t play nice with each other. When there is a big state on the block, then the smaller ones will be peaceful because they must. But people with power naturally tend to lust for more power.

My position is that we humans need a new political model that equalizes power across society as much as possible and in a sustainable way. But even so there’s no guarantee against political aggression. Ancient Athens – the only actual democracy I’m aware of – distributed power across more people than at any other time and even the Athenian people couldn’t resist the temptation to build empire leading to their downfall. And consider that pre-Hellenist Greece – itself the model of small competing states – was always at war until Philip II came along. I suppose all big modern states are a result of small state conflicts. So just having small states doesn’t guarantee peace.

It would seem that one of the hopes of the federal arrangement of the US was to have best of both worlds – a number of mostly sovereign small states but with a federal gov to maintain the peace. The servant though was allowed to become the master.

Maybe failure of the US republic was in elective gov. If the US Constitution had created a federal authority based on democracy (sortition) and with no domestic law making power, the integrity of the federal gov could have been better maintained. But each state with its own political class would have likely tried to corrupt it.

Bottom line IMO is that so long as there is a political class (which republic will have), that country – big or small – can’t be trusted to remain peaceful for long. The politicians will connive, scheme and conspire to grab more power at every opportunity. That’s what they do.
Anonymous

As a former sailor, I’ve often likened it to how a ship has many compartments with watertight doors that insulate problems in one area of the ship, thus keeping it from affecting the rest of the ship. Except, when speaking of the world, you must also be cognizant of the societal differences, the culture, the social norms, etc.
J Fournier

I LOVE his books, but I think Black Swan is the best. Please have him on your show, or have him on when you guest host for Peter again. Not sure he would go on Peter’s show with Peter as host. I love them both but their personalities might clash. This guy is a very big Hayek fan. It would be interesting to hear you try to figure out if//how he differs with Mises, particularly on epistemology. I think they have some things in common. FYI — I think he pretty much only does interviews when he has a new book out.
http://plenarchist.wordpress.com/ plenarchist

And what Taleb is talking about I think is very consistent with Herbert Spencer’s theory of increasing complexity. What Taleb calls “antifragility” Spencer characterized as “fitness.” Spencer argued that natural systems evolve from homogeneous to heterogeneous states to continue – the implication of “survival of the fittest.” In other words, natural systems (such as human society) become more adaptive through specialization.

The implication for us humans is that as a society evolves, it wants to develop greater and greater heterogeneity and specialization (through division of labor). So Spencer – like Taleb – argued for less gov (basically no gov in Spencer’s case) in order to permit society to develop naturally which in turn he expected would create greater heterogeneity. Such a process leads to less fragility or greater fitness however you choose to describe it. Gov interventions interfere with this natural process.
Anon

Academic type of talk and lectures are not going to get any converts with the masses. Someone who can connect with the common man or those that don’t have a chunk of their life available to devote to such academics is needed to communicate effectively.

Unfortunately, that communicator is missing.

Otherwise, I find all these free market talks to be similar and get nowhere.

Especially, when they really don’t have any solutions, but just pinpoint problems.
Anonymous

Great presentation! Solution to fragility, seek anti-fragility by allowing failure to happen regularly on the small scale, and stability can hide fragility. Failure on the small scale builds up what remains but if a system is so fragile that failure takes everything down with it, then you are setting yourself up for a catastrophic failure.
devo

interesting, do you think that technology could help with peace? i mean , in the EU right now it can hardly be called a “union” , but instead of sending soldiers across lines their sending insults. maybe this greater connection through technology can lead to a better more sustainable peace? but then again if you do have 50 independent states whats stopping mexico or some BIG government to come and wage a war? thats my gripe with anarchy, is that other governments around the world could see that as fish in a barrel.
Jim

The video is down for some reason.
http://www.TomWoods.com Tom Woods

Working for me.
MvL

Too bad he wants to nationalize the banks.
Franklin

Another reason why the Second Amendment, and some similar state arms-bearing rights recognition, are so important. Deterrence isn’t isolated to nukes. Knowing that a majority of residents are “packing” makes an invader think twice about the costs, as well as his own skin.
http://plenarchist.wordpress.com/ plenarchist

I think humanity is in danger now and this condition is worsening at an accelerated rate. Combining a political class with advanced technology, nearly unlimited resources, and able to act with near total impunity is a recipe for any number of horrific events we could see in our lifetime.

Technology acts as a kind of “force multiplier” in the hands of the political class enabling them to extend their reach far beyond their small numbers to affect millions if not billions of people.

Just consider Fukushima. Here we have an event at a single nuclear plant (and there are hundreds) that has and continues to affect a large area of the planet. But the Fukushima plant is based on LWR technology that was known to be unsafe and mostly developed for the sake of building WMD’s in lieu of much safer MSR technology. Why? Because of our corrupt political system – Nixon and his cronies in the case of LWR. Humanity can no longer afford to have traditional (republic, dictatorship, etc) political systems – anywhere.

I feel that unless we humans can develop and implement a political system that has *no* political class (such as plenarchy), then we are doomed to either enslavement, extermination or extinction. As Einstein said, “I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.” And the Universe doesn’t need us.

And stateless anarchy is not the answer. The state may one day become obsolete but as D. Friedman said, “[Stateless] anarchy is a prediction – not a definition.”

We need a transitional state – like the anarchic state of plenarchy or similar. Keep in mind “anarchy” means no rulers – not no state. I envision a political system with laws and no rulers – a nightwatchman state without politicians.

Such a transitional state will be necessary if the state itself is ever to become obsolete. It’s wishful thinking to expect the primal humans we are today to be able to act like fully evolved moral beings the stateless society would require. And we can’t evolve under the current primal political models. It’s a catch-22.

We need law but laws based on an anarchic political arrangement and equal freedom. The Constitution obviously doesn’t do the job nor will any republic or other historical system because power must be evenly distributed across society in order to not have a political class. Classical democracy I think came closest to achieving this ideal but democracy was strangled in its crib by Philip of Macedon.