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Nudge, Nudge ／2017-10-31／Nick Sallnow-Smith I am not a fan of “awards”, where a committee selects what they think is the best movie, novel, song etc. Typically, the choice tells me more about the prejudices and tastes of the members of the awarding committee than it does about the award winner’sContinue reading>

Best Practice is Worst Practice  ／2017-09-27／Nick Sallnow-Smith One common addition to business jargon over recent decades has been the term ‘best practice’. It has also become one of those ‘apple pie’ nostrums to which only the insane would object. Well, let me have a go at some insane objections to it.Continue reading>

THE CONSERVATIVE | June 2017 | Issue 4 | Andrew Pak Man Shuen How Hong Kong’s Bond Villain Keep Invasion at Bay James Bond, my father once told me, made no sense to him. This was more than a quarter of a century ago: it was a lazy Sunday afternoonContinue reading>

Basic Instincts (or – The Wisdom of Crowds, Part 2)   No, my title is not taken from the Michael Douglas/Sharon Stone movie of 1992. (That was singular, “Instinct”!) I’m interested, rather, in a range of instincts that citizens of many societies seem to have, that are increasingly overridden byContinue reading>

(As appeared on our July 2017 Newsletter) I take my title from a 2004 book by James Surowiecki. Its subtitle was “Why the Many are Smarter than the Few”. It is an interesting book focusing on examples where the average result of many relatively untutored opinions can lead to quiteContinue reading>

What are you worth? Nick Sallnow-Smith (As appeared on our June 2017 Newsletter) It is often suggested by those skeptical about the value of free markets, that to contribute to the community you need to be active in the world of charities, NGOs, or what is called “public service”. ByContinue reading>

Society as an Octopus (As appeared on our May 2017 Newsletter) Recent research into the way octopuses behave has shown that their nervous system is quite unlike human beings. Instead of its “brain” being confined to a central location, it is in effect “distributed” through its body and legs. ManyContinue reading>

The Anti-Capitalist Mentality By Nick Sallnow-Smith (As appeared on our April 2017 Newsletter) In 1956 Ludwig von Mises published his short book “The Anti-Capitalist Mentality”. In the immediate post-war era, when the Soviet Union had been an ally of the western powers, socialist thinking was the dominant stream of economicContinue reading>