The Henley Centre was playfully called 'Planning for uncertainty'. The greater aversion to risk is an expression of an economic world where nothing seems to work as it is supposed to. What used to be taken for granted is no more. One major reason is that the growing concern about uncertainty and risk has broadly parallelled the deepening sense of economic crisis since the end of the 'golden age' of the postwar boom in 1973. The slowdown in output, productivity and profitability growth over the past quarter century has had a cumulative negative impact upon the mind of the businessman.
Businessmen experience economic stagnation at the level of the capitalist enterprise.
They find profit-making more problematic, and, when it comes to dealing with their difficulties, they find that the traditional levers of control and intervention do not work any more. Economic recoveries which never seem to arrive reinforce the sense of unease and the fear that capitalism is not working properly. But this is only part of the story. Economic crises do not always create such an acute perception of uncertainty as we see today. Of course, capitalists never enjoy an economic slowdown.