Flight of the black swan

Nassim Taleb is banging a glass against a table to demonstrate his notion of ‘anti-fragility’. ‘This glass is fragile,’ he says. ‘Vulnerable to nasty surprises.’ The glass survives his test. ‘Now, what’s the opposite of fragile? Not “robust”, because robust things don’t respond to any surprise, nasty or pleasant. To survive shocks and be adaptable means being “anti-fragile”.’ He believes that David Cameron should remake the British economy with this idea in mind. Economists come up with such theories and soundbites all the time, but with Taleb there is a crucial difference. When he speaks, the Prime Minister listens.

Since Taleb published his bestselling Black Swan five years ago, Cameron has been fascinated. A former derivatives trader turned New York University professor, Taleb emphasises the dangers of certainty — how economists, with all their computer models, get it so wrong. No matter how clever the plan, something unexpected — what Taleb calls a ‘black swan’ — can fly on to the scene and upset everything.