How much has your own biography taught you about uncertainty?

Not my recent biography, but my heritage. My family worshipped books, and we have done for six generations. Around 1800 my ancestor was a silk trader, who wanted all his progeny to be scholars. Even though my father was a doctor, we were taught to respect the lessons of history not science.

What does the past teach us about the current crisis?

The Romans, the Arabs, the Jews all had an edict against debt. If we had religion with a tacit prohibition of debt, we would probably not have had this problem. But science, or scientism, thinks it knows better.

Is there something in that silk trading heritage that you recognise in yourself?

Commerce in the Mediterranean has always been on a human scale. It is only when you move from an artisan‑style economy to a corporate-style economy that you develop fragilities. Corporations take the humanity out of trade – they take the happiness out and replace it with something that is ugly.

Should anything be too big to fail?

I just wrote a paper explaining why size necessarily brings fragility. You have family-owned businesses that have been around for 500 years. You cannot name a corporation that survives intact for even a few decades. We should not be concerned about wealth; we are rich enough, but we should be very concerned about robustness.