In order to understand the world one has to turn away from it on occasion and become alone, so utterly alone, and withdraw into one’s own innermost self, equating it to the midst of the world, yet undisturbed by its multiplicity. The loneliest moment in someone’s life is meanwhile watching its whole world falling apart, and all what can be done is stare blankly. I hope you’ll never have to think about anything as much as I think about the bitter suffering of knowing how to belong to oneself and being one with all being. Time goes by, and despite all opiates unveils the pain and richness of the self.
Life
Life is simultaneously the best and the worst thing which could ever happen to you.
Not being able to manage the opportunity to live and to live properly or not even trying for fear of failure, is the sin and tragedy of humanity. Imagine what you can achieve when it is you believing in yourself. The whole knowledge of the world is at the disposal of he who is disposed to listen.
Wasting our breath chasing routines and tasks, though it remains a commendable and principled activity, constitutes an opiate diverting from the painful feebleness of our motivations. Even feeling the most authentic tear unplugging from the eye and falling into the emptiness, does not assure that we have in fact understood something from life.
Fragments of god
Were you also taught wars and slaughterings stem from human freedom? Should this allegedly candid god exist, it must be as bold as those perpetuators.
Life is fickle and unstable, untrustworthy and kaleidoscopic, unreliable.
Man after man, man killed in retaliation for having killed a man, killed in retaliation for having killed a man, killed in retaliation for having killed a man.
Generation after generation, generations sliced in the innards of the earth, generations flaunting nations and building monuments from their guts to leave an imprint and capture immortality by treading, trampling, settling, seizing, digging an immortal earth to boast of a dream of a somewhat thickness in an immense universe of casualty, randomness, fortuity, haphazardness.
Life is fickle and unstable, untrustworthy and kaleidoscopic, unreliable… and so damned beautiful.
I have not loved enough. Guilty, Cain! Because you can do, and you do not do. She has not loved enough. Her tears fall the other side, right down the deep well inside her, that full emptiness. For there is nothing worse than not being able to feel anything. I have not loved enough.
Adam and Eve
We always come down to that, Adam and Eve naked in front of each other, taking care of our children and our essential needs, hunting vigorous animals and picking up juicy fruits from thriving trees. And here’s where we live, in a complex capitalistic fucked society.
Pain and responsibility
We do harm not because we harm others, but because we do not prevent harming others as much as we could otherwise do. This is reality, and then there is philosophy.
An der Front
Literaten und Akademien wetteifern in der Überzeugung der Italiener, dass es ‘la fronte’ und nicht ‘il fronte’ heiβt. Weiβ Gott rührend! Sollen sich die Prominenten beeilen und sich einig werden, weil wir recht ungeduldig darauf warten, zu erfahren, ob der Ort, an dem wir krepieren müssen, männlichen oder weiblichen Geschlechts ist.
Italienish Soldat an der Front des Gebirgskrieges, 1917
That small plaster on the Russian bear
My article was published by Global Policy Perspectives on April 22nd: https://www.gpperspectives.org/5718be98e4b08531758f5108/european-affairs/that-small-plaster-on-the-russian-bear
The Malaysia Airline flight MH17 was following its trajectory from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur on 17th July 2014, when it was shot down in the Donetsk Oblast, near Torez, just above a hotspot at the border between Russia and Ukraine. All 283 passengers and 15 crewmembers were killed. Two years on, it is worth taking a sober look at the geopolitical ramifications of this tragic event – and the EU’s heavy-handed response.
In the immediate aftermath of the MH17 crash, politicians, analysts and media commentators were quick to denounce and blame a multitude of possible responsible suspects. The Kremlin, observing that the crash happened within the Ukrainian airspace, condemned Kiev. Conversely, the Ukrainian government attributed responsibility for the missile launch to Russian professionals receiving support from Russia. Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott was the first national leader to condemn Russia, followed soon after by the heads of Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic.
Yet a number of European Union (EU) members were hesitant to take a firm stand against Russia owing to economic ties: Germany imports one third of its natural gas from Russia, and Italy, the UK and France all had close commercial ties with Russian gas giant Gazprom. Piling it on, a Franco-Russian deal involving the sale of two military warships worth €1.2 billion was in process. Despite pressure from the US and EU to send a stronger signal to Moscow, France proceeded with the sale, with then French President Nicolas Sarkozy observing that in case of non-delivery, 1000 jobs in France would be lost and the Élysée would be hit with financial penalties. The signature of the contract is particularly meaningful as it marks Moscow’s biggest foreign arms purchase since the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Each Member State forwarded and adjusted its backlash depending on its individual economic, commercial or political relations with Russia. Notwithstanding the heterogeneity and partiality of European reactions, the EU responded collectively. Among the measures were the imposition of a food embargo, travel and financing restrictions, the freezing of assets, and expression of solidarity. But perhaps the most visible response was the widening sanctions.
But are these measures effective? Evidence suggests that they have done little to weaken Russian leadership. In October 2014 (after the MH17 crash and the EU-US wave of sanctions), domestic support for Russian President Putin rocketed to 86%. According to the Russian polling research organization Levada, the Russian public views the events in Ukraine as a civil war, and not an inter-state confrontation between two countries. This suggests the Kremlin has been able to twist public opinion, using the effect of the sanctions to facilitate governance.
Yet, if we look at the recent history of Russian nationalism, it is unsurprising that EU sanctions are perceived as an unfair punishment and Russia is seen as the victim of a EU-US-NATO coalition. Russian mass media and political declarations are fuelled by nationalistic considerations as they emphasize the past glories of the motherland and recall the pan-Russian concept of Russkyi Mir (in cyrillic Русский мир, literally ‘Russian world’). Reviving the glorious Soviet victory of 7th May 1945 against Nazism, Donbass’ incorporation in Novorossiya and Ukraine’s return to the Motherland, Russkiy Mir’s doctrinal foundation projects the integration of a pan-Soviet consciousness born out of the ruins of the USSR. In placing itself in opposition to the laziness and feebleness of the West, Russkiy Mir synthetizes a distinct and incompatible type of civilization, based on the cultural, linguistic, religious and historical common memories of Eastern Slavic and Orthodox nations. Subject to such nationalist forces, the Russian public opinion is induced to identify the Russian political leadership with the Russian nation as a whole. The Russian citizen is thus brought to associate sanctions intended to target the politico-economic leadership with a burden falling on the population at large.
Considering the steady and progressive decline of the Russian economy in place since 2012, it is reasonable to predict that in the long-term the sanctions will continue to undermine Russia’s economy. Nonetheless, the cost of waiting for the sanctions to take their toll may be too high. Furthermore, parallel to economic considerations, the Ukrainian crisis features a non-negligible rhetorical dimension. The priority emerges for the EU to adopt ‘soft power’ strategies and mechanisms, which the mainstream Russian narratives could not conceal or manipulate into anti-Russian rhetoric.
A non-inimical view of the EU should be promoted among the Russian population by bringing benefits such as easing the access to undergraduate grants and education for Russians in the EU, or liberalizing the visa regime for the Russian population. Simultaneously, travel bans and restrictions should remain imposed on the Russian political élite, and the ‘black lists’ should keep targeting political leaders. Once in place, such measures will bring benefits to the Russian population: by receiving a first-hand impression of life in the EU deprived of the distortion and filters put in place by Russian media, this could help to remove the feeling of exclusion from the West and obsessive aversion to the West which is common among the Russian public. By demonstrating that EU sanctions target the Russian political leadership and not Russian citizens, such policies could help to eradicate the idea that the EU holds the whole of Russia collectively responsible for the events in Ukraine.
References
Kredler, D. (2015). The EU should use more soft power towards Russia. Available at: http://www.euractiv.com/sections/europes-east/eu-should-use-more-soft-power-towards-russia-308313
Dutch Safety Board (2015). Report MH17. Available at: http://www2.onderzoeksraad.nl/en/onderzoek/2049/investigation-crash-mh17-17-july-2014
EEAS (2015). Statement by the High Representative Federica Mogherini on the report of the Dutch Safety Board. Available at: http://eeas.europa.eu/statements-eeas/2015/151013_03_en.htm
Euronews (2015). Ukraine slams Russia as ‘state sponsor of terrorism’. Available at: http://www.euronews.com/2015/10/14/ukraine-slams-russia-as-state-sponsor-of-terrorism/
McLaughlin, L. (2015). The Conflict in Ukraine: a Historical Perspective. Available at: http://www.summer.harvard.edu/blog-news-events/conflict-ukraine-historical-perspective
Weaver, M. (2015). MH17 Crash Report. Available at: http://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2015/oct/13/mh17-crash-report-ukraine-live-updates
Reuters (2014). France Won’t Cancel Warship Deal with Russia. Available at: http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/05/12/us-france-russia-mistral-idUSBREA4B05920140512#m5U8xF6VUBCZOWlb.97
Soeren Kern (2014). EU Leaders Deeply Divided Over Russia. Available at: http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/4464/eu-russia
Wright, C. (2015). Russia Under Sanctions After MH17, Argentina In Default: Should Investors Shun Emerging Markets? Available at: http://www.forbes.com/sites/chriswright/2014/07/30/russia-under-sanctions-after-mh17-argentina-in-default-should-investors-shun-emerging-markets/
Yglesias, M. (2014). How MH17 is affecting Europe’s Russia policy. Available at: http://www.vox.com/2014/7/18/5915385/how-mh17-is-affecting-europes-russia-policy
Black Gold Feeding The Black Flag
My article was published by the London-based think tank The Cemtrum Media on July 17th: http://thecentrummedia.com/content/black-gold-feeding-black-flag
Estimates of ISIS’ oil revenues range between $1m and $1.5m per day, with a cumulative daily production of 30 000 to 40 000 barrels and a price oscillating between $20 and $40 per barrel, below market price. Oil extracted in the war-torn regions in the North and East of Syria maintain a higher price: at the Al-Omar deposit prices reach $45/barrel, whereas oil coming from Al-Tabqa, nearer to Raqqa, is sold at $20/barrel (Harding, Hawramy & Mohammed, 2014).
Unlike the overall organization of the Islamic State – decentralized through cells, the oil business is vertically integrated and centralized in the hands of the shura, the governing council of ISIS. The oil fields are supervised by the Caliphate’s police, called Amniyat. Skilled labour, technicians, engineers and managers are attracted and recruited by the Caliphate either by being offered lucrative payments and wages (which they themselves can often decide) or being threatened in case they refuse to collaborate.
Oil trade irremediably supports the financing of the Islamic State, which functions just as a national oil industry. The oil business not only satisfies the Caliphate’s self-sufficiency, but also provides a source of income for the desperate local population, and a source of revenue through local commerce and exports to neighbouring countries.
Iraq, Syria and Turkey are among the top buyers of ISIS’ oil (Faulconbridge & Saul, 2015). In December 2015 Moscow released images of a Russian satellite claiming to show columns of Turkish trucks filling up in ISIS-controlled areas and then crossing the border into Turkey with no restriction at the Reyhanli checkpoint (Brooks-Pollock, 2015). On its part, Turkey has pointed towards the fact that, by supporting the Assad regime, a core client of ISIS’ oil trade, Russia itself is de facto accomplice.
Although it is true cross-border oil trade constitutes a powerful leverage vis-à-vis neighbouring regional powers, however the ISIS war machine would continue to be fed even without relying on oil exports, the main rationale being that profit is made locally and directly at the extraction site (Bernard, Kwong & Solomon, 2016).
Revenues from the oil business are firstly used by the Islamic State itself as financial backing for recruiting new members, sustaining far-reaching propaganda campaigns, securing arms and local support. Among the biggest oil fields one finds Jisbba in the province of Hassakeh, Ajil and Allas in the province of Kirkuk. A great share of the production is burnt and consumed locally by abusive refineries, black markets, and families. The crude often ends up in rudimentary refineries, and is processed in the form of petrol or mazout, whose lower price than petrol guarantees a large demand in the conflict-affected region. The Caliphate regulates and manages the local oil trade, especially at the Syrian-Iraqi border, in the rebel-controlled Northern part of Syria, as well as in Eastern Syria held by the Syrian Kurdish militia (Faulconbridge & Saul, 2015). Its oil is used not only in the Caliphate’s territory, but also in regions opposed to ISIS’ control, such as the rebel-held Northern part of Syria. Thus, it is not rare that a trader ends up buying ISIS’ oil while his relatives fight in the first row against the Caliphate.
The commercial activities of the Islamic State along the oil business chain are limited to extraction and to initial transactions on the production site – payments are made directly in cash at the moment of the procurement at the deposit. Once profit is made ‘at the pump’, ISIS disengages itself from the final destination. One of the reasons why the Caliphate manages to keep the costs low and profits high relies in the fact that it does not engage in oil transportation, a segment of the energy business which would be costly and risky in the conflict-affected regions. Where the oil is traded and which markets it reaches is the business of intermediaries, the real smugglers who have little or nothing to do with ideology or religious fanaticism, but are rather driven by money or by necessity. It is important to highlight then that buyers of ISIS’ oil are not only states and big energy companies, but also and mainly unconventional clients relying on the Caliphate’s black gold for survival, populations under ISIS-controlled areas, rebels fighting against the Islamic State, and families in desperate need for any source of income. The complex and extensive web of shadow partners in the oil business attracts clients irrespectively their nationality, religion, or regional alliances.
Trucks of intermediaries reach the oil deposit, show a paper documenting their vehicle’s plaque number and the capacity of the tank, and start to queue. The trucks are registered in a database and given a number. Some drivers leave their trucks in the queue for weeks before filling it in with oil. When their turn comes, intermediaries fill the tanks and drive back to distribute crude to nearby refineries, to trade it to local markets, or to sell it to traders who smuggle it across neighbouring states.
This method of making profit directly ‘at the pump’ and localising commercial activities to the oil well was well known to Russian and American, whose airstrikes initially targeted ISIS’ extraction facilities, machineries, pumps, and the long queues of oil trucks. Since the Russian and US-led strikes in the Eastern province of Deir Ezzor in October and November 2015, ISIS’ daily production has considerably fallen. Most wells are now operating manually, a factor which has considerably slowed down the oil production, with the al-Omar and al-Tanak oil fields facing a decrease in production of 30% in December 2015. Moreover, the Islamic State does not possess the advanced technology to fulfil maintenance requirements or sustain a certain level of production in its oil fields, which are generally aging (Bernard, Kwong & Solomon, 2016).
Undermining ISIS’ most profitable and efficient source of income by targeting wells, extraction facilities and machineries, has achieved tangible results and would entail a major drawback for the Caliphate. On the other side, the current strategy might seem disproportionate to the effects achieved. The airstrikes come with a human cost and the broad repercussions of the bombings are double-edged. Bombing ISIS’ oil fields has so far reduced production to a small extent while provoking a high volume of casualties, especially among Iraqi and Syrian civilians living in the ISIS-occupied zones. The aerial bombings contribute to diffusing among the local population the impression that the airstrikes are designed to cut the only available source of income for local and civilian traders and to damage the Syrian economy, which often overlaps with the oil trade and is difficult to distinguish from ISIS’ oil business.
Moreover, in response to the airstrikes, the Caliphate has put in place a new system for distributing crude. When trucks are given their number to line up, they are told a precise day and time to come back and fill up. In such a way, the piling-up of trucks is avoided. This new system has meant nonetheless that ISIS’ profit margin has declined. By collecting oil in large pools, it is not rare for these pits to fire up during strikes or battles. So to partially recover the lost profit, the Islamic State has been offering intermediaries licences to receive privileged treatment by skipping the queue and getting 1 000 oil barrels at once, as long as the entire payment is done up front (Bernard, Kwong & Solomon, 2016).
As a result of many pumps now operating manually and to slower production rate, the oil lucrative business will certainly succumb to drops in production, thus eventually expiring and drying out. Additionally, the declining global price of oil has already impacted on ISIS’ oil business, by reducing the attractiveness and the profitability of it. Nonetheless, it seems likely to say that a permanent damage to the Caliphate’s oil business will manifest at a slow pace, in that production decline in the oil industry can protract for decades and might not achieve the desired disrupting effects on ISIS’ economy.
It would be naïve to think that targeting the truck queues would expose and disintegrate the complex web of the oil business. As a corollary of the nature of the energy market, the oil network is extensive and difficult to track. Most of the business occurs in the black market and cross-border smuggling is often done via jerry cans carried on foot (for instance from Kharbet al-Jawz in rebel-held Syria to Guvecci in Turkey), by donkeys or horses (as it happens in al-Sarmada and al-Rai) (Bernard, Kwong & Solomon, 2016). Identifying isolated traders does not necessarily reveal the sympathizers. Among ISIS’ oil consumers and clients, one finds between 3 and 8 million people who live under ISIS-controlled territory in Syria and Iraq, rebels fighting against ISIS, as well as local workers struggling to find any source of living and who need income from ISIS’ oil business for satisfying basic needs.
It should also be reminded that oil is not the only source of income for the Islamic State. Drug and human trafficking, taxation, hostage-taking, crimes, antiquity trade, private donations also constitute revenues aimed to finance the Islamic State (Harding, Hawramy & Mohammed, 2014).
With Russian-Turkish relations currently performing poorly and with the complex power-relations network in the affected region, there are little short-term prospects for substantially impact on the Caliphate’s oil business.
References
Bernard, S., Kwong, R., & Solomon, E. (2016). Inside Isis Inc: The Journey of a Barrel of Oil. Financial Times [online] Available at http://ig.ft.com/sites/2015/isis-oil/
Brooks-Pollock, T. (2015). Russia Unveils Proof Turkey’s Erdogan is Smuggling ISIS Oil Across Border From Syria. The Independent [online] Available at http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/russia-releases-proof-tur…
Faulconbridge G., & Saul, J. (2015). Islamic State Oil is Going to Assad, Some to Turkey. Reuters [online] Available at http://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-syria-usa-oil-idUSKBN0T…
Harding, L., Hawramy, F., & Mohammed S. (2014). Inside Islamic State’s Oil Empire: How Captures Oil Fields Fuel Isis Insurgency. The Guardian [online] Available at https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/nov/19/-sp-islamic-state-oil-empi…
Voucher privatization in Russia
My article was published by The Paris Globalist on April 13th: http://www.parisglobalist.org/voucher-privatization-russia-nationalistic-capitalistic-policy/
In the aftermath of the collapse of the USSR, a series of reforms were carried out to privatize state-owned assets. The large-scale privatization program, which envisaged the transfer of state assets and shares in the industrial, energy and financial sectors issued to Russian citizens via a voucher scheme, was part of the transition from a planned economy to a market economy. In other Former Soviet Union countries such as the Czech Republic and Lithuania, the marketing and selling of vouchers was outlawed by the government specifically to avoid the concentration of wealth in the hands of the previous communist elite. On the contrary, in Russia, the government legally permitted the marketing of shares. The encouragement of privatization among citizens initially achieved widespread consensus and dispersal of wealth, but soon revealed its darker side as a nationalistic means to promote the concentration of ownership and national wealth into the hands of a few wealthy individuals in the medium-run. As it resulted in an increase of the wealth gap, it earned the name katastroika, often described as one of the most “cataclysmic peacetime economic collapse of an industrial country” throughout history.
Due to lack of time and access to information pertaining to real market value, workers and peasants sold their vouchers to the industrial managerial class at a market price well below the real or nominal market value of the share. These well-informed investors (who would then go on to be called the “new Russians,” alias oligarchs) were eager to exploit such an opportunity. After many Communist years of protectionism and nationalization, the door had finally opened for them to invest in capital and stocks. In such a scenario, businessmen and workers appealed to the same justifications to motivate their preference for voucher privatization, namely, that the selling of vouchers would strengthen the social safety net and protect the population. If it is true that vouchers represented state assets, it is also true that they could be retrieved for cash, thus providing short-term needs at a time of a shortage of basic essentials.
The Russian economy was on its knees in the early 1990s: its size was estimated to be half of its US counterpart, and its performance was lagging in all major fields, from consumer demand to computerization, innovation and social welfare. It might then seem acceptable to excuse voucher privatization on the basis of ignorance of its potential consequences. Nonetheless, these arguments fall short in that what was at stake (the state’s property and management) seems too valuable to merely cede to these explanations. Rather, it seems reasonable to complement these arguments with the explanation that businessmen were driven by the desire to concentrate corporate governance in their hands, and workers lacked the knowledge to understand what was at stake. The ignorance of not understanding the meaning of vouchers was a legacy of 70 years of communist rule, during which ownership was nationalized and the most urgent thought of many Russians was the procurement of bread to satisfy basic needs for the following day.
The political elite behind the voucher privatization program—Chairman of the State Property Committee Chubais—realized that the transfer of shares to employees would have been too costly, both politically and economically. Nonetheless, they observed that this move could serve their medium and long-term interests; the transfer of property rights to rank-and-file workers would not have necessarily meant the transfer of structurally embedded share ownership or corporate management to workers. Moreover, a similar move would have hardly been opposed by the Communist party, and, in enjoying widespread cross-party political support, would have thus been easily and quickly approved. Chubais and his liberal team advanced the requirement that it should remain at the discretion of the worker (deprived of the intermediation of trade unions) to sell or market the vouchers at his or her will. Once again, the emphasis was on leaving open all possibilities for the transfer of vouchers from workers to the ruling economic elite.
As predicted, the transfer of vouchers and employees’ shares to the managerial class did not translate into de facto decision-making control, transfer of governance, or access to the executive board, and was not accompanied by the transfer of ownership rights. A rift was created between distribution of ownership and actual structural control of ownership. Paradoxically, despite their new position as owners, workers could not access decision-making processes and had no influence on their ownership. Workers lacked information on their rights, and often had no means by which to access judicial remedies to challenge their employers legally. Moreover, as a legacy of the Communist ideology, trade unions were still incorporated under the FNPR (Federation of Independent Trade Unions), which embedded in its structure the very industrial managerial classes that had long wielded power over the workers. Intuitively, there was no division of interests between the ruling class and the workers.
All industries in Russia had to liberalize the marketing of their shares. Only a few industrial complexes with governmental connections (including Gazprom) were exempted from this rule so that the movement of shares could be restricted and monitored. For an initial period following the inception of the voucher privatization program, the preference of the managerial and industrial class was indeed for a restriction of voucher sales, leaving them in the hands of the workers. In this way, Russian national wealth could be protected from outside buyers or foreign investors. The managerial class thought of controlling the individual shareholders who owned the shares so as to control the shares themselves. Their initial position changed when Chubais managed to persuade the industrial elite of the desirability of the full transferability of shares.
Chubais certainly knew how to play its cards and insisted on the full transferability of shares from Russian workers to any buyer, because he knew that for outside buyers it would have been difficult to enter the Russian share market; as a result of the strong control that the Russian managerial class was exerting over its workers, the managerial class itself would still have been the final recipient of vouchers sold. In this scenario, managers often cheated and persuaded workers to sell them their vouchers, warning that should they act otherwise, the enterprise would be taken over by foreign firms or, even worse, go bankrupt. Either due to coercion or workers’ free will, managerial ownership increased from 8% to 20% from the initial distribution of vouchers in the first months of the privatization program.
One way to subtly induce the selling of the voucher from the worker to the manager was to set up a pooling resource office in the factory where workers could pool their shares. This way, the worker remained the legal owner of the voucher-share, but could not exercise control over it; technically, the voucher no longer represented a share of the factory, but rather a share of the factory’s fund; hence, there was no way to redeem it. Similarly, another strategy to induce workers to sell their vouchers to the industrial elite was to suspend wage payments, so that workers, desperate to earn any amount of money, would sell their shares directly to the managers rather than to outside buyers. It was hard for workers to resist managers at a time when jobs were scarce, and the factory in which one worked was the only viable option for employment, because it often constituted the only industrial complex in a vast area, or because it provided housing. As a result of these considerations, the prospect of losing their job was daunting.
The Russian government also contributed to the reduction in public morale during the years of privatization. In the Czech Republic, privatization was championed by private companies rather than the government. The Czech government, which was worried about the accumulation of wealth in few hands, phrased public communications in such a way so as to minimize the attractiveness of shares. In such a process, the actual value of shares was diminished via rhetorical means, and private acquisitions were dissuaded. On the contrary, in Russia, the government rhetorically inflated the value of shares and adopted a populist approach, thus leading the public to become disillusioned when it was discovered that the proclaimed value of the shares was unrealistically inflated.
In property rights theory, it is well known that if a property right is protected and restricted in some way, then the value of that property is going to increase; conversely, if the share is fully and tradeable without restriction, then this implies less protection. Regardless of who is to blame for the role that privatization played in fostering wealth concentration, what is interesting to note is that paradoxically, the eventual preference of the managerial class for fully tradeable voucher privatization reveals a nationalistic mood aimed at restricting competition among bidders. Instead of raising privatization revenues by allowing foreign investments into the domestic market, a ban was imposed on competitive ownership at the expense of the public, which resulted in lower privatization prices and decreased efficiency. Especially when dealing with mass privatization programs in post-communist countries, the national wealth within the country is insufficient to assure a high price for the share.
The Great Rationality Debate
It follows from the debate between traditionalists, who seek to explain the ways of God to humans, and the revisionists, who seek to explain the ways of humans to God, that deviations from normative standards, alleged errors and biases should be dramatically attenuated once people are placed in game-theoretic contexts in which their defective choices can be exploited by sophisticated players, or once people have an opportunity to learn from frequency formats and repeated experiences, or once the causal connections between choice and consequences are sufficiently transparent, or once people are given ecologically representative problems that permit deployment of fast-and-frugal heuristics that take advantage of the correlated-cue structure of their environment, or once people can express their opinions in natural response formats.
Should humans be incorrigibly irrational, ancestors never would have survived on the savanna plains of sub-Saharan Africa; even if people had passed the Pleistocene screening tests, they would never have escaped ruin in competitive markets populated with ruthless financial predators; if leaders were that prone to misperception, human societies would long since have been absorbed into more intelligently led collectivities. It is not all that surprising that people are flummoxed by subjective-probability scales (given how historically recent an innovation probability theory is), often out of touch with their own likes and dislikes, poor recorders of past experience and poor forecasters of their future preferences. But some factors become salient only in comparative contexts, where one way of resolving decisional conflicts and constructing preferences is by justifying the latter. Incentives do not operate by magic. They work by focusing attention and by prolonging deliberation. Consequently they are more likely to prevent errors that arise from insufficient attention and effort than errors that arise from misperception or faulty intuition.
Philip E. Tetlock & Barbara A. Mellers ~ The Great Rationality Debate, in Psychological Science 2002 13:94
Marta Cioci 