For the past few quarters, it has been clear that challenging times lie ahead for production sites. New US tariffs, as well as the weakness of our German neighbor, are weighing on the Swiss economy. A feeling of disorientation prevails. The reflex to intervene immediately when problems arise is understandable, but risky. The economy is not a well-tended garden where each plant is carefully cultivated by hand. It is a wild ecosystem. And before intervening in such an environment, four principles must be respected.
1. Complete understanding is impossible
First, the bad news for all fans of simple solutions: “the economy” is extremely complex. The economist Milton Friedman once illustrated this with a pencil. An object that seems ordinary reveals vast interconnections: wood from Sweden, graphite from Brazil, varnish from India, maybe even a spring from Switzerland for the sharpening machine. Thousands of people are involved in producing one pencil, often without knowing what the result will be.
Just like behind every visible tree lies an intricate hidden network of roots, fungi, and microbes. A full understanding remains forever out of reach. In that light, the next principle is less surprising.
2. Seemingly targeted interventions often yield unintended consequences
One example: rent controls. They aim to make accommodation more affordable. That may sound reasonable at first glance. But international experience, and experiments in Basel and Geneva, show that if you severely limit landlords’ flexibility, the number of new housing units falls and the willingness to modernize existing ones declines. For tenants, this ultimately means long lines to view apartments and worsening living conditions.
Targeted actions may appear to have short-term benefits, but in the long run they often bring a host of unforeseen side effects, and those who suffer most are precisely the people one intended to protect. Just like spreading fish food into a pond with good intentions: the balance quickly tilts, algae blooms, and the fish begin to suffer.
3. Companies often interact symbiotically
“Eat or be eaten”: who doesn’t recall this saying from biology class? Yet in nature there are as many symbioses as there are rivalries. Clownfish, for example, live safely among sea anemones, immune to their toxins. The fish get protection, the anemone gets cleaned and oxygenated. Both benefit from the situation.
In economics, many first think of fierce competition: one gains market share at someone else’s expense. But countless symbiotic relationships exist here too. In the startup world, we speak of a “startup ecosystem”: startups, venture funds, law firms, and niche service providers all interact, learn, and improve their performance. This applies to established industries too: SMEs and large corporations alike benefit from supplier–client relationships. The economy thus creates sustainable added value, the sum is greater than the parts.
4. Only a dead ecosystem never changes
Anyone who walks the same trail year after year knows: the natural world is constantly evolving. That’s a sign of a healthy ecosystem. The same goes for the economy. Switzerland once had a large textile industry; now new biotech clusters have emerged. Often, the old gives way to the new. One example is Switzerland’s pharmaceutical sector, which grew out of its chemical industry.
Jobs transform too: there used to be nearly 7,000 telephone operators. In 2023, just over 1,000 remained, while the number of software developers more than tripled to around 70,000. Thus, change signals not crisis, but a healthy ecosystem.
And what does that mean for politics? That for all measures, one simple rule applies: it is better to be general than specific. It is often the most “sophisticated” interventions that cause the most damage. Favoring or disadvantaging specific industries, companies, or startups disturbs existing symbioses and jeopardizes the value they create. The economy is and remains a highly complex ecosystem.
Of course, in crises, policy must cushion individual struggles with a social safety net. But as in every ecosystem: long-term stability is ultimately only guaranteed by constant adjustments, based on thousands of individual decisions.
This article was published (in German) in the “NZZ am Sonntag” on October 5, 2025.
