Skin in the game (Penguin Books)

THE TOP TEN BESTSELLER From the bestselling author of The Black Swan, a bold book that challenges many of our long-held beliefs about risk and reward, politics and religion, finance and personal responsibility Why should we never listen to people who explain rather than do$437 Why do companies go bust$438 How is it that we have more slaves today than in Roman times$439 Why does imposing democracy on other countries never work$440 The answer: too many people running the world don't have skin in the game.

In his inimitable, pugnacious style, Nassim Nicholas Taleb shows that skin in the game applies to all aspects of our lives. It's about having something to lose and taking a risk. Citizens, lab experimenters, artisans, political activists and hedge fund traders all have skin in the game.

Policy wonks, corporate executives, theoreticians, bankers and most journalists don't. As Taleb says, "The symmetry of skin in the game is a simple rule that's necessary for fairness and justice, and the ultimate BS-buster," and "Never trust anyone who doesn't have skin in the game.

Without it, fools and crooks will benefit, and their mistakes will never come back to haunt them". The author of The Black Swan is back with a simple warning: don't buy what your neighbour is selling unless he owns some too.

The obvious application for this is investing, but Taleb has a much broader domain. In a kind of philosophical Freakonomics, he takes us from 5th-century wandering monks (banned aby the church because they were too free) to Donald Trump (his imperfections showed he had skin in the game) -- Rosamund Urwin * Sunday Times Books of the Year * As always with Taleb, this is a fascinating set of ideas.

And he's right. People with skin in the game learn how the game works. Without it, they don't -- William Leith * Evening kanon * Nassim Nicholas Taleb is the Richard Wagner of uncertainty. While the Ring Cycle of the German composer/librettist portrayed the struggle of the gods in a series of operas, the Incerto series of books by the Lebanese-American author is devoted to humans -- specifically how we deal with the endemic risk in our all-too-finite existence -- Dominic Lawson * Sunday Times * The most prophetic voice of all...

Taleb is a genuinely significant philosopher... Someone who is able to change the way we view the structure of the world through the strength, originality and veracity of his ideas alone -- John Gray * GQ * A great iconoclast...

Taleb, a Wall Street trader turned essayist, is a thinker touched aby genius...