Those of the Catholic persuasion (not to mention the just-as-numerous Catholic-watchers) have had an interesting month leading up to Holy Week. A papal resignation - the first in a gazoodle years - followed by the election of a successor from - gasp! - Argentina.
In between these two events, The Economist's Schumpeter produced a column full of advice for the as-yet-unknown successor to Benedict in his role as CEO of a very large multinational enterprise. It is full of the kind of advice (in the inimitable Schumpeterian style) that one might expect to be given to an incoming CEO of, say Cisco Intl. Things like:
etc., etc.
The first two questions this puts on the table are: One, if the Church indeed followed each of these advisories from Schumpeter, what do we think would happen, and two, is there any reason to expect that the new CEO, now that we know who he is, will try to do so (and will he succeed if he does try)?
But wait, that's not all.
In his very next column, now aware (presumably) of the identity of Benedict's successor, Schumpeter wrote a column not on Francis, but on a thesis in a book by one Moises Naim claiming that the modern world is fundamentally different (yea, again) than it was even 50 years ago, due to a phenomenon prosaically referred to as - transience....or if you prefer, churning.
That is, it's a lot harder than it used to be to stay at the top - of anything. Political power, market share.....or, mayhaps, religious adherency.
As Schumpeter makes clear, the empirical (ok, anecdotal) evidence for this idea is mixed. The global auto and oil industries are surely less concentrated than in the 60s, but banking? bookselling?
And what about religion? The Catholic Church's membership trend across regions can usefully be described as depending negatively on how long the Church has operated in each region. This is surely one of CEO Francis's biggest headaches; what CEO wants his company's services known for being less demanded the longer consumers know them?
New questions, then - Is there anything to Naim's 'modern churning' idea? At minimum, is it possible to identify sectors where being on top has gotten more transient and those where it has gotten less so, and then identifying a factor or two that might explain the difference? And to come full circle; in which category is religion, generally, and is there anything in Naim that might be useful for Francis, if he is going to try to implement some of Schumpeter's advice?
See you @ the FUBar.
