Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann is a security policy expert and Germany’s most outspoken classical liberal; she drew inspiration for her attitude from Pippi Longstocking. In a NZZ interview on the sidelines of Wirtschaftspodium Schweiz, she now calls on politicians to be more willing to compromise – and to think about the future.

Trade agreements exist not because free trade is always self-evident, but because unilateral policies shift costs onto trading partners. The GATT's success rested on reciprocity and non-discrimination; as the WTO extended rules into services, agriculture, subsidies, and intellectual property, the original logic became harder to apply and cooperation more politically fragile.

Reports from the United States and Switzerland point to a growing backlash against artificial intelligence. Could this escalate into violent resistance, echoing the upheavals of the Industrial Revolution? This is the question a recent article in the NZZ am Sonntag explores, drawing on the research of economic historian Joachim Voth, whose work sheds light on the roots of this backlash and the conditions under which technological change can trigger collective unrest.