Public recovery policy should be contingent to public interest, perhaps feeding into a circular bio-economy. Chinese pork: where AI meets agriculture. Good negotiations mean saving face for all players.
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
‘For too long, governments have socialized risks but privatized rewards.” – Mariana Mazzucato
Mariana Mazzucato, Capitalism After the Pandemic
(Foreign Affairs, 2 October 2020)
The economist argues that it is not enough for governments simply to intervene as the spender of last resort when markets fail or crises occur. In her opinion, they should actively shape markets so that they deliver the kind of long-term outcomes that benefit everyone. This means doing the opposite of what was done in 2008 when governments socialized risks but privatized rewards. Instead of handing out no-strings-attached assistance to corporations, they should condition their bailouts on policies that protect the public interest and tackle societal problems (behind a paywall, but 2 free articles should be available).
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Marc Palahi and Justin Adams, Why the world needs a ‘circular bio-economy’ – for jobs, biodiversity, and prosperity
(World Economic Forum, 6 October 2020)
This is an important idea that will inevitably gain traction because over half of the world’s GDP is threatened by nature loss. The Circular Bio-economy Alliance (founded by the Prince of Wales) aims to accelerate the transformation to a climate- and nature-positive economy. It offers a conceptual framework for using renewable natural capital to transform and manage our land, food, health, and industrial systems, with the goal of achieving sustainable wellbeing in harmony with nature (reads in 6-7 min).
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Xiaowei Wang, Behind China’s ‘pork miracle’: how technology is transforming rural hog farming
(The Guardian, 8 October 2020)
We chose this article not to focus on the large and important business of pigs in China, but to help our readers think about how it is becoming first and foremost a tech business. As the demand continually grows, traditional small-scale farms are being replaced by vast, AI-assisted operations “that feel more like smartphone factories than bucolic countryside havens”. Read on to understand how Alibaba aims to use AI to transform agriculture and help boost China’s pork miracle (7-9 min).
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A million deaths from coronavirus: seven experts consider key questions
(The Conversation, 27 September 2020)
Seven scientists from different backgrounds respond to their ‘burning’ question about the coronavirus. Questions and answers range from how it entered the human population and how we can tell if someone is protected from Sars-CoV-2 to explaining the extreme geographical variation in COVID-19 mortality rates and what is the full spectrum of health consequences of COVID-19 infection. Fascinating throughout (reads in 7-8 min).
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Joshua Weiss, To Succeed in a Negotiation, Help Your Counterpart Save Face
(Harvard Business Review, 2 October 2020)
It’s as simple as that! Whatever the kind of negotiation, the concept of ‘face’ (“the public self-image that every member of society wants to claim for himself/herself”) is everything. Two insights: (1) Recognize the critical role face plays in all negotiations; (2) Ask yourself if the solution being proposed will cause a loss of face for any party – if so, that has to be addressed first, or the answer to any proposal will be no (reads in 4-5 min).
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