Accumulating Opportunisms
Thursday, 8. May 2008, 19:35:30
I found this story on the systematic gaming of several important headline-making economic indicators to be a lot more readable and interesting than one might expect, given the dry-sounding subject matter. It is, like everything I seem to read these days, depressing as hell.
But, perhaps oddly, this is the tidbit that sticks in my mind:
"Accumulating opportunisms." What a wonderfully succinct turn of phrase! It's a perfect description of a phenomenon that appears again and again in the friction between all types of human organizations; in governments, in businesses, and even to some extent in churches, clubs, academic departments, etc. It even happens between the subdivisions within each of those things.
Large numbers of actors or agents, each making small, independent opportunistic moves, will re-enforce each other when their interests happen to coincide. The agents might be any size: governments, businesses, committees, the accounting department, or even just Ted from accounting. In any case, arrangements that just so happen to benefit multiple powerful actors become entrenched. An overly-complicated, messy system that benefits the few is built, but by accretion, not design. The system’s very messiness and complexity make it hard to understand, and thus hard to redesign or change. The resulting inflexibility causes other systems that interact with it to yield to its needs, which entrenches the system even further.
This is how all manner of messes seemingly emerge from nowhere and never go away. It’s why our tax system has become so impenetrable that most people turn to expert help. It’s why our medical system has become an expensive, paperwork-choked, error-prone global joke. It’s probably a good part of the reason Microsoft Windows has become a ridiculous behemoth that borders on self-parody.
The results can seem very similar to those of a deliberate conspiracy, but the self-perpetuating mess, the accumulation of opportunisms, is far more common. Sometimes, when people complain that "the system" is stacked against them, they're absolutely right -- no conspiracy necessary.
Based on the criteria in place a quarter century ago, today's U.S. unemployment rate is somewhere between 9 percent and 12 percent; the inflation rate is as high as 7 or even 10 percent; economic growth since the recession of 2001 has been mediocre, despite a huge surge in the wealth and incomes of the superrich, and we are falling back into recession.
-- Numbers racket: Why the economy is worse than we know
But, perhaps oddly, this is the tidbit that sticks in my mind:
Let me stipulate: the deception arose gradually, at no stage stemming from any concerted or cynical scheme. There was no grand conspiracy, just accumulating opportunisms.
"Accumulating opportunisms." What a wonderfully succinct turn of phrase! It's a perfect description of a phenomenon that appears again and again in the friction between all types of human organizations; in governments, in businesses, and even to some extent in churches, clubs, academic departments, etc. It even happens between the subdivisions within each of those things.
Large numbers of actors or agents, each making small, independent opportunistic moves, will re-enforce each other when their interests happen to coincide. The agents might be any size: governments, businesses, committees, the accounting department, or even just Ted from accounting. In any case, arrangements that just so happen to benefit multiple powerful actors become entrenched. An overly-complicated, messy system that benefits the few is built, but by accretion, not design. The system’s very messiness and complexity make it hard to understand, and thus hard to redesign or change. The resulting inflexibility causes other systems that interact with it to yield to its needs, which entrenches the system even further.
This is how all manner of messes seemingly emerge from nowhere and never go away. It’s why our tax system has become so impenetrable that most people turn to expert help. It’s why our medical system has become an expensive, paperwork-choked, error-prone global joke. It’s probably a good part of the reason Microsoft Windows has become a ridiculous behemoth that borders on self-parody.
The results can seem very similar to those of a deliberate conspiracy, but the self-perpetuating mess, the accumulation of opportunisms, is far more common. Sometimes, when people complain that "the system" is stacked against them, they're absolutely right -- no conspiracy necessary.
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