Author: Damian Merciar

Damian Merciar is Managing Director of Merciar Business Consulting, http://www.merciar.com, a niche business economics consultancy founded in 1998. He has over twenty years experience in the areas of commercial Business Strategy. He is experienced in the transition environments of nationalized to private sector state utilities and the senior practice of commercial management, advisorial consultancy, and implementation. He has carried out policy advisory work for government ministries and been an adviser to institutional bodies proposing changes to government. He holds an MSc Economics from the University of Surrey’s leading Economics department and an MBA from the University of Kent. Also attending the leading University in the Middle East, studying International Relations and Language, for which he won a competitive international scholarship, and has a BA (Hons) in Economic History and Political Economy from the University of Portsmouth. He is currently based in London.

Anatomy of Maidan. Virtual tour of the protesters’ grounds

Interesting piece…

chornajuravka's avatarEuromaidan PR

00sKyivis relatively calm now, so it’s just the right time to study Maidan in detail. Almost everybody has heard that word, but not everybody imagines how everything works here. Now the protesters occupy Kyiv’s center – Maidan Nezalezhnosti square, almost all of Khreschatyk (the main street), European square and some of the adjacent streets. A few administrative buidings have been captured; in them, heating and medical help centers have been established, as well as stations for accepting and redistributing clothes and other items. There are hundreds of tents on the streets, in which the activists that have come to Kyiv from all over the country live.

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Terrorism

TerrorismAs an economist I have a particularly dim view of terrorism. It simply isn’t pareto efficient. The terrorist gains publicity and an awareness of their”Cause”, but at the cost of destruction to invariably innocent bystanders, who typically have no interest in this Cause. The interest thus sparked, instead of becoming powerful and persuasive in support of this cause, is likely to provoke a backlash, resulting in a worse outcome for the terrorist than had he done nothing. When nothing is better than something, you know you are onto a loser…

There is, of course, the action that defies containment: by continuously and repeatedly engaging in terrorist acts, the terrorist forces the target to succumb to his will and adjust policy accordingly. By its nature though, terrorism is usually ill focused and so the recipients of this terror are themselves disperse (this is a “good outcome” – carnage is equalised across random members of the public. It is of course, only good in a relative way…)

Okay – enough economics…so we resort to diplomacy instead. Is this a useful decision? Is it possible to negotiate with groups for whom your very value system may be subject to distrust and contempt? To negotiate with groups for whom your idea of resolution bares an extraordinarily small resemblance to theirs…? Pursue a resolution when actually their aim may include never ending attacks…

Military outcomes: now we’re talking. Let’s bomb the hell out of them! See how resilient they are after a little justice comes their way…Justice for our fallen; justice for our lost, as we avenge our anguish. Yes, this may bring some respite, even a pause in hostilities, but seldom has history shown this as the way forwards in dealing with terrorism. For every terrorist slain, several more are usually willing to step forwards.

Politics: is this all we have? is this good enough? How do we persuade ourselves that this is where we should start from – rather than return to, after a decade of insurmountable loss? A decade of conflict, an era of asymmetric war..? Nothing is ideal, nothing – all we can aim to do is make our engagement with the process as “efficient” as possible. This is what Pareto would have likely advocated…

The Funeral of Lady Thatcher

In the end there appeared to be relatively few protesters out on the streets of London, far outweighed by supporters keen to express their respect and remembrance for a powerful leader and former Prime Minister.

So many comments have already been made, that it is difficult to say something new. I think though that I would like to add, that coming from a part of the UK where her emphasis on allowing the freer movement of both labour and capital, resulted in a near twenty year decline, I have always felt able to see “both sides” of her impact. It is with this knowledge, indeed – experience – that I say quite categorically her impact, though divisive, was powerfully for the good.

We forget the regular blackouts, resulting from inefficient State control of the Electricity Grid (CEGB). We forget the rampant and fickle destruction of incentive caused by secondary picketing and the overwhelming dread many public sector workers felt in heading to a job where a foreman could call “Strike!” for little apparent reason.

We do not forget the strife of honourable workers, determined to defend their rights, but whose time, whether they were accepting of this or not, was fast being chased down by the rolling waves of globalisation, rendering inefficient business redundant in the face of international competition…and we forget, at our peril, where we would be in that great counter-historical possibility, had we allowed Michael Foot to become our Premier. History has a way of righting itself, but in this instance the price would likely be our place in the twenties or thirties of GDP per head, instead of sixth or seventh – and far above this in the prestige and regard in which our international diplomacy and military prowess is held.

There are winners and losers in all games of participation, let us not lose sight of the significant raising of the board that Baroness Thatcher presided over, and those who followed her seek only to refine.