LGT Journal on Wealth Culture Power | XIX 2014
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CREDO LGT JOURNAL ON WEAltH CUltURE POWER | XIX 2014 Contents | CREDO XIX 2014 Credits Picture credits Publisher Cover: Nikolai Ignatiev/Alamy H.S.H. Prince Philipp von und zu Liechtenstein, Chairman LGT Content: Bisson-Orban/Corbis/Dukas, Benjamin Hofer, Raphael Zubler Advisory board Pages 2–3: Gianni Giansanti/Corbis/Dukas Thomas Piske, CEO LGT Private Banking Pages 4, 8: Peter Turnley/Corbis/Dukas Norbert Biedermann, CEO LGT Bank Ltd. Page 5: Bettmann/Corbis/Dukas 02 Heinrich Henckel, CEO LGT Bank (Switzerland) Ltd. Page 6: Robert Maass/Corbis/Dukas, Micheline Pelletier/Corbis/Dukas Page 7: Eastblockworld.com Power Editorial office, Layout Page 9: Peter Endig/Keystone/dpa Sidi Staub (executive editor) Pages 10–11: Istockphoto/Koloniales Bildarchiv, Universitätsbibliothek LGT Marketing & Communications Frankfurt/Main Pages 12–13: Courtesy Donald Lombardi and Pierogi Gallery. 02 Portrait | Mikhail Gorbachev Picture editor Photo credit: John Berens There was once a time when he was the leader of a super Lilo Killer, Zurich Pages 14–17: Julian Salinas power and opened up the Iron Curtain. Today he’s regarded Page 20: Illustration Markus Roost at best as a tragic hero. Design concept, Coordination Page 22: Courtesy Project Syndicate Thomas von Ah, Zurich Pages 23–29: Raphael Zubler Chris Gothuey, Zurich Page 31: LIECHTENSTEIN. The Princely Collections, Vaduz–Vienna 10 Portfolio | Status symbols Page 32: Christian Breitler Power also makes itself manifest in outward display. We Translation Page 33: Tom Wolfe/Ari Seth Cohen offer a small selection of its symbols, from Classical times Syntax Translations Ltd., Thalwil Page 34: Bowie Verschuuren to the present day. Page 35: Benjamin Hofer Printer BVD Druck+Verlag AG, Schaan E-mail for correspondence 12 Portfolio | Networks of power [email protected] Mark Lombardi drew beautiful sociograms. They show Lithographer alarming interrelations between politics, business and Prepair Druckvorstufen AG, Schaan Subscriptions the underworld. Are you interested in receiving future editions of CREDO? We will Energy efficient and CO2 compensated print. be happy to send you CREDO free of charge. Subscribe online at www.lgt.com/credo. 14 Interview | Gabriele Euchner This former manager has interviewed executives who’ve The “LGT Bank app” provides editions of the LGT client journal CREDO been fired, and now she’s written a book about it. A con as well as further LGT publications which can be downloaded to tab- versation about the levers of power. lets free of charge. 20 Essay | A failure of power Poor countries don’t just have too little money, says the economist Angus Deaton. It’s functioning power structures Internet that they lack. www.lgt.com/credo 23 Report | King Bansah Can you be a mechanic in Ludwigshafen and at the same time a king in Ghana? You can. Céphas Bansah manages this 34 30 balancing act with ease. 30 Masterpieces | Hans Mielich Ladislaus von Fraunberg died without leaving any heirs. In any case, they would have inherited little except for a leopard. 32 Literary choice | Tom Wolfe The rise and fall of a bond trader. No one had ever before 23 written such fastpaced prose about Wall Street. 34 Carte Blanche | Giovanni Netzer LGT Bank Ltd. LGT Bank (Switzerland) Ltd. LGT Bank (Singapore) Ltd. LGT Bank (Hong Kong) Herrengasse 12 He left the big city of Munich to return to his mountains in the Lange Gasse 15 3 Temasek Avenue 4203 Two Exchange Square FL-9490 Vaduz CH-4002 Basel #30-01 Centennial Tower 8 Connaught Place Central Grisons. He brought with him the idea for a theater festival – Phone +423 235 11 22 Phone +41 61 277 56 00 Singapore 039190 G.P.O. Box 13398 Hong Kong at 4100 feet above sea level. Fax +423 235 15 22 Fax +41 61 277 55 88 Phone +65 6415 3800 Phone +852 2868 0201 [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] www.lgt.com CREDO is now also available online: www.lgt.com/credo LGT is represented in more than 20 locations in Europe, Asia and the Middle East. A complete address list can be seen at www.lgt.com 1.6T BVD 0914 50319en Editorial Dear Readers, Power is a many-sided phenomenon. We can condemn it, we can be addicted to it, we can win it, and we can lose it just as quickly. If we look at it quite im- partially, then we can see that it’s indispensable if we want to reach our goals. But there are moral and ethical questions to answer when power is used to at- tain the wrong goals, and when it is misused. That is why power has to be con- trolled and limited. And that is why people in power have to act responsibly. In this issue of CREDO, the Hungarian author György Dalos depicts the former Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev as a tragic hero. At the high point of his power, Gorbachev brought about political change in the Eastern Bloc – change that ultimately turned against him. In our interview we talk with the manage- ment consultant Gabriele Euchner. She has interviewed executives who’ve been fired and thus felt the full brunt of their own bosses’ power – and she has written a moving book about it. Crown and regalia adorn King Bansah from Ghana, but in order to fulfill his office as leader of the Ewe people of Gbi from his home in Ludwigshafen in Germany he uses fax and Skype. “We Africans can switch back and forth easily,” he explains to the reporter Margrit Sprecher when she visits him in his auto repair shop. Power can also unfold in the arts, as Giovanni Netzer relates. He is the director of the Origen Festival of Cul- ture in Riom in the canton of the Grisons, and one of the most imaginative personalities on the Swiss cultural scene. I wish you a fascinating reading experience! H.S.H. Prince Philipp von und zu Liechtenstein Chairman LGT CREDO | 01 2 | CREDO Portrait | Mikhail Gorbachev Under the spell of power Text: György Dalos With his calls for perestroika, glasnost and a new way of thinking, Mikhail Gorbachev had a decisive impact on world events. The western world has remained fas cinated by this pioneer of democratic processes in the former Eastern Bloc. But in his own country he has many enemies, who to the present day still blame him for the collapse of the Soviet empire. The prizewinning Hungarian author György Dalos offers a portrait of Mikhail Gorbachev in semicloseup. CREDO | 03 Portrait | Mikhail Gorbachev Assessing the achievements of a politician – judging just how Others, especially his western adherents, celebrate him as the much he was a success or a failure – confronts the historian statesman who destroyed the “evil empire”: the man who gave with a major difficulty in the case of Mikhail Gorbachev. When freedom back to the peoples of Eastern Europe, and who not the then 54-year-old Gorbachev was elected General Secretary least made German reunification possible. Both perspectives fail of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in March 1985, he to consider the real issues. found himself at the helm of a superpower that was in military terms very much the equal of the USA, and whose achievements “We can’t carry on like this” in culture and science enjoyed worldwide recognition, indeed Viewed objectively, perestroika originally had a dual intention. admiration. Even the CIA reports commissioned by the White The first was to curtail the arms race, which was at an economi- House were complimentary: “According to the most modern cally unsustainable level; the second was to withdraw from the standards, the Soviet Union is a very stable country.” military conflict zones on different continents, from Ethiopia to Afghanistan, that had also become immensely expensive. The When Gorbachev announced his resignation six years later, Soviet Union was keen to reach a modus vivendi with the West the multiethnic Soviet Union had collapsed beyond repair. The in order to procure from it the technology that was necessary to Warsaw Pact had been dissolved, and “real socialism” had im- crank up its own stagnating, ailing economy. In parallel to this, ploded. Many enemies of the “father of perestroika” blame him the state leadership wanted to make its system of government to this day for this catastrophic process. It was the result of his more modern and more transparent, and to defuse potential alleged inability, his weakness or even his “betrayal,” they say. national and social tensions. Companies and line ministries April 3, 1989, Cuba: During Mikhail Gorbachev’s three-day visit, he and Fidel Castro signed a friendship treaty. But relations between the two countries had already cooled. 04 | CREDO were to be given greater independence, and bureaucratic pressure was to be eased on the cultural scene and on the gen eral public. The shortterm agenda included battles against the corruption that had been fostered by shortages and mismanage ment, and against the alcoholism that had in the meantime become widespread. In ideological terms, the leadership of both party and state retained the Leninist orthodoxy. Not even a renewed critical en gagement with Stalinism was on the order of the day. Moreover, the personality of the new boss in the Kremlin had been molded by his decades of activity within the Soviet party machine. What was new about his arrival on the scene, however, was the reali zation shared by many at the time – especially younger function aries and intellectuals – that “we can’t carry on like this.” There was also a new determination to clean out the Augean stables that the stagnation of the Brezhnev era had left behind.