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I believe that this is a problem with western societies at large. The tempting efficiency of infant capitalism was its decentralized and small scale structure.

I believe that this is a problem with western societies at large. The tempting efficiency of infant capitalism was its decentralized and small scale structure. You can’t govern a country top-down, and letting the people at the bottom do their own work is most efficient. But now some companies are larger than most countries and we are back to where we started… but without transparency and democratic regulations. I think we need better ways to deal with large systems and complexity.

xuhu 2y ago
What's the sense in making companies more efficient, harder to disrupt and putting them in a position to create a monopoly as they become larger ?
- calderwoodra 2y ago
  Because some things are only possible at a certain scale, like an effective state run healthcare system.
  - nlitened 2y ago
    Which state is an example of an effective state run healthcare system?
    - paulryanrogers 2y ago
      NHS before the conservatives gutted it?
      - vixen99 2y ago
        True but also the sheer number of people now trying to use it. Other factors include the difficulty of getting an appointment with the first call GP (once known as the family doctor) and the utter madness of many A&E departments. They do a great job but can't cope. 12-hour waits are not unknown. I see no reason to expect a turnaround with the Labour Government.
        paulryanrogers 2y ago
        It would seem building better systems is not enough. We must strive to maintain, continuously improve, and scale them to meet demand. Sadly culture in the US is diluted into believing that profit motive is a silver bullet that fixes all problems. And many are raised in religions that teach one to deny critical thinking, embrace appeals to authority, and love confirmation bias.
    - John23832 2y ago
      The Nordics.
    - DarkNova6 2y ago
      In comparison to the Us? Literally every other state in the world. And I do mean "literally".
- DarkNova6 2y ago
  That's not my point. My point is that overhead increases and efficiency decreases the larger your system is. And companies at the size of states are just as inefficient. Ergo, the idea that the market handles their duties more efficiently is a lie. It has nothing to do with corporate vs state owned enterprise, but a matter of complexity.
John23832 2y ago
Yes and no. There's the Chinese saying "Heaven is high, and the emperor is far away". The idea being that low level bureaucrats are actually the ones running the show. Effectively, that's where China and the CCP sit today. However, that has similar issues to the ones I described above. Top down mandates, the low level feigns to appease them, but marginal progress is actually made. Instead of expanding the timelines as I spoke about, in the CCP(/Soviet) case, the actual accomplishments are made up to keep "going forward". Think of all the ineffective building done to meet bullshit quotas in the China currently. It harkens back to the Soviet era.
- DarkNova6 2y ago
  I completely agree. But the intend I wanted to capture was that if you have complete transparency over your own system, can act independently and are not bound by top-down mandates, this is where you have the highest efficiency. This is identical to the idea of small scale teams working on systems they completely understand and own. This is where you have the most productive teams and it is the same in terms of bureaucracy. And the job of an architect is not to create "a beautiful system", but to lower the complexity of the overall system. I think the topic of complexity and large systems is one of the defining ones of our time. Similar to entropy, you start with a low-state system where you can generate energy from putting entropy into the system. But with a higher state of entropy, your energy gains decrease. We act like you can just pure more and more onto the same pile, but eventually, everything stagnates. And only collapse can create a blank slate.
  - AnthonyMouse 2y ago
    > only collapse can create a blank slate. It seems like the real problem is finding a way to address that. We've seen this play out over and over. Take something like building and zoning codes. They start out doing something worthwhile, like requiring fire exits. But soon you have a bureaucracy micromanaging everything, imposing minimum parking requirements even on a building sitting on top of a subway stop, imposing minimum lot sizes or density restrictions, requiring unnecessarily costly or labor-intensive construction methods at the behest of device makers or trade unions, etc. What you need is a mechanism, something like checks and balances or a challenge process that allows any rule to be repealed if it doesn't still have enough votes to pass in every branch, to inhibit that process of ossification and corruption and clear out the cruft accumulated by its past operation.
J_Shelby_J 2y ago
Adam smith said the same thing when he coined the term. Capitalism without government regulation of monopolies is impossible in the long term.

xuhu 2y ago

What's the sense in making companies more efficient, harder to disrupt and putting them in a position to create a monopoly as they become larger ?

calderwoodra 2y ago
Because some things are only possible at a certain scale, like an effective state run healthcare system.
- nlitened 2y ago
  Which state is an example of an effective state run healthcare system?
  - paulryanrogers 2y ago
    NHS before the conservatives gutted it?
    - vixen99 2y ago
      True but also the sheer number of people now trying to use it. Other factors include the difficulty of getting an appointment with the first call GP (once known as the family doctor) and the utter madness of many A&E departments. They do a great job but can't cope. 12-hour waits are not unknown. I see no reason to expect a turnaround with the Labour Government.
      - paulryanrogers 2y ago
        It would seem building better systems is not enough. We must strive to maintain, continuously improve, and scale them to meet demand. Sadly culture in the US is diluted into believing that profit motive is a silver bullet that fixes all problems. And many are raised in religions that teach one to deny critical thinking, embrace appeals to authority, and love confirmation bias.
  - John23832 2y ago
    The Nordics.
  - DarkNova6 2y ago
    In comparison to the Us? Literally every other state in the world. And I do mean "literally".
DarkNova6 2y ago
That's not my point. My point is that overhead increases and efficiency decreases the larger your system is. And companies at the size of states are just as inefficient. Ergo, the idea that the market handles their duties more efficiently is a lie. It has nothing to do with corporate vs state owned enterprise, but a matter of complexity.

John23832 2y ago

Yes and no. There's the Chinese saying "Heaven is high, and the emperor is far away". The idea being that low level bureaucrats are actually the ones running the show. Effectively, that's where China and the CCP sit today. However, that has similar issues to the ones I described above. Top down mandates, the low level feigns to appease them, but marginal progress is actually made. Instead of expanding the timelines as I spoke about, in the CCP(/Soviet) case, the actual accomplishments are made up to keep "going forward". Think of all the ineffective building done to meet bullshit quotas in the China currently. It harkens back to the Soviet era.

DarkNova6 2y ago
I completely agree. But the intend I wanted to capture was that if you have complete transparency over your own system, can act independently and are not bound by top-down mandates, this is where you have the highest efficiency. This is identical to the idea of small scale teams working on systems they completely understand and own. This is where you have the most productive teams and it is the same in terms of bureaucracy. And the job of an architect is not to create "a beautiful system", but to lower the complexity of the overall system. I think the topic of complexity and large systems is one of the defining ones of our time. Similar to entropy, you start with a low-state system where you can generate energy from putting entropy into the system. But with a higher state of entropy, your energy gains decrease. We act like you can just pure more and more onto the same pile, but eventually, everything stagnates. And only collapse can create a blank slate.
- AnthonyMouse 2y ago
  > only collapse can create a blank slate. It seems like the real problem is finding a way to address that. We've seen this play out over and over. Take something like building and zoning codes. They start out doing something worthwhile, like requiring fire exits. But soon you have a bureaucracy micromanaging everything, imposing minimum parking requirements even on a building sitting on top of a subway stop, imposing minimum lot sizes or density restrictions, requiring unnecessarily costly or labor-intensive construction methods at the behest of device makers or trade unions, etc. What you need is a mechanism, something like checks and balances or a challenge process that allows any rule to be repealed if it doesn't still have enough votes to pass in every branch, to inhibit that process of ossification and corruption and clear out the cruft accumulated by its past operation.

J_Shelby_J 2y ago

Adam smith said the same thing when he coined the term. Capitalism without government regulation of monopolies is impossible in the long term.