Tien beginselen van professor Taleb voor een wereld zonder Zwarte Zwanen (Vincent De Roeck)

De theorie van de Zwarte Zwaan, zoals beargumenteerd door Nassim Nicholas Taleb in zijn boek 'The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable' uit 2007, verwijst naar een uitermate zeldzame gebeurtenis ('beyond the realm of normal expectations') die niet te voorspellen valt maar wel een enorme impact heeft. In tegenstelling tot het filosofische zwarte-zwaanprobleem verwijst de theorie van de Zwarte Zwaan enkel naar die gebeurtenissen met grote gevolgen en naar hun dominante rol doorheen de geschiedenis. Professor Taleb was de eerste om deze theorie te beschrijven en uit te breiden naar de praktische sfeer. Volgens Taleb zijn bijna alle wetenschappelijke ontdekkingen in wezen 'Zwarte Zwanen' - allemaal onvoorzien. In Talebs boek komen o.a. het internet, de pc, WO-I en 9-11 aan bod als voorbeelden van zulke 'Zwarte Zwanen'. De theorie ontleent haar naam aan de assumptie dat 'alle zwanen wit zijn' en aan de gevolgtrekking dat een 'zwarte zwaan' de metafoor is van iets dat niet bestaat. Pas wanneer in de 17de eeuw een eerste zwarte zwaan ontdekt werd in Australie werd deze assumptie achterhaald. Ook John Stuart Mill gebreukte deze historie al om zijn falsificatieleer te ondersteunen.

In de 'Financial Times' van vorige week kreegt NYU-professor Nassim Nicholas Taleb een forum op de opiniepagina's om deze theorie opnieuw te ventileren en om tien beginselen naar voren te brengen die garant zouden moeten staan voor een 'Black Swan-proof world'. De theorie van de Zwarte Zwaan is en blijft een populair iets binnen de libertarische intellectuele familie. Zo stond bijvoorbeeld ook het maartnummer van 'The Freeman' deels in het teken van deze theorie.

Ten principles for a Black Swan-proof world
By Prof. Dr. Nassim Nicholas Taleb

1. What is fragile should break early while it is still small. Nothing should ever become too big to fail. Evolution in economic life helps those with the maximum amount of hidden risks – and hence the most fragile – become the biggest.

2. No socialisation of losses and privatisation of gains. Whatever may need to be bailed out should be nationalised; whatever does not need a bail-out should be free, small and risk-bearing. We have managed to combine the worst of capitalism and socialism. In France in the 1980s, the socialists took over the banks. In the US in the 2000s, the banks took over the government. This is surreal.

3. People who were driving a school bus blindfolded (and crashed it) should never be given a new bus. The economics establishment (universities, regulators, central bankers, government officials, various organisations staffed with economists) lost its legitimacy with the failure of the system. It is irresponsible and foolish to put our trust in the ability of such experts to get us out of this mess. Instead, find the smart people whose hands are clean.

4. Do not let someone making an “incentive” bonus manage a nuclear plant – or your financial risks. Odds are he would cut every corner on safety to show “profits” while claiming to be “conservative”. Bonuses do not accommodate the hidden risks of blow-ups. It is the asymmetry of the bonus system that got us here. No incentives without disincentives: capitalism is about rewards and punishments, not just rewards.

5. Counter-balance complexity with simplicity. Complexity from globalisation and highly networked economic life needs to be countered by simplicity in financial products. The complex economy is already a form of leverage: the leverage of efficiency. Such systems survive thanks to slack and redundancy; adding debt produces wild and dangerous gyrations and leaves no room for error. Capitalism cannot avoid fads and bubbles: equity bubbles (as in 2000) have proved to be mild; debt bubbles are vicious.

6. Do not give children sticks of dynamite, even if they come with a warning . Complex derivatives need to be banned because nobody understands them and few are rational enough to know it. Citizens must be protected from themselves, from bankers selling them “hedging” products, and from gullible regulators who listen to economic theorists.

7. Only Ponzi schemes should depend on confidence. Governments should never need to “restore confidence”. Cascading rumours are a product of complex systems. Governments cannot stop the rumours. Simply, we need to be in a position to shrug off rumours, be robust in the face of them.

8. Do not give an addict more drugs if he has withdrawal pains. Using leverage to cure the problems of too much leverage is not homeopathy, it is denial. The debt crisis is not a temporary problem, it is a structural one. We need rehab.

9. Citizens should not depend on financial assets or fallible “expert” advice for their retirement. Economic life should be definancialised. We should learn not to use markets as storehouses of value: they do not harbour the certainties that normal citizens require. Citizens should experience anxiety about their own businesses (which they control), not their investments (which they do not control).

10. Make an omelette with the broken eggs. Finally, this crisis cannot be fixed with makeshift repairs, no more than a boat with a rotten hull can be fixed with ad-hoc patches. We need to rebuild the hull with new (stronger) materials; we will have to remake the system before it does so itself. Let us move voluntarily into Capitalism 2.0 by helping what needs to be broken break on its own, converting debt into equity, marginalising the economics and business school establishments, shutting down the “Nobel” in economics, banning leveraged buyouts, putting bankers where they belong, clawing back the bonuses of those who got us here, and teaching people to navigate a world with fewer certainties.

Then we will see an economic life closer to our biological environment: smaller companies, richer ecology, no leverage. A world in which entrepreneurs, not bankers, take the risks and companies are born and die every day without making the news. In other words, a place more resistant to black swans.

Financial Times
April 7th, 2009