Surprised by the dynamics of the emerging new system

Walter Russell Mead in This Economic Storm Is Something New

I think one of our challenges is the failure to recognize the system dynamics of these different models: mercantilist, consumerist, steered economy and social market. They have their own internal dynamics that are problematic and then on top of that they are complex, non-linear, chaotic and tightly coupled with one another. Ugh!

At the same time, the dynamics of the global economy are different from those of relatively closed national economies or of the old Atlantic world. The interplay between mercantilist Asia, spendthrift America, shell shocked Japan and social market Europe — to say nothing of the rest of the world — is different from anything we have experienced before and economists, investors and policy makers are frequently surprised by the dynamics of the emerging new system.