You claim that, in politics, rules with high cost of compliance are introduced to keep the fixed pool of resources from being divided between too many people. Is there an example of that? I think that this is mostly done not through laws, but through social affiliations. Those with the best connections get the job or the resources.
I like the idea of a do-ocracy. It’s like saying “The only rule is that don’t look for rules to do what needs doing”. But the crux is that this seeming anti-rule is actually a rule that needs to be followed. If there were absolutely no rule, and everyone were allowed to do what they wanted, nothing would get done. So, for this to work, first, a consensus has to be established that no consensus needs to be established!
If there were absolutely no rule, and everyone were allowed to do what they wanted, nothing would get done.
Wait. If everyone does what they want, and nothing gets done, that implies that everyone wants nothing done, doesn’t it? What if doing what they want actually is DOING what they want? In that case, what they want gets done.
Let me clarify. If a group decides that it wants X, this does not imply that the individual member of that group wants X. What they usually want is to avoid work and let other’s do it or be told what to do. But if they agree upon the strategy “To achieve X, we agree that every member has to want X and, if he is capable, do X” (rather than “To achieve X, one leader tells everyone what to do”), then things would get done!
Ah, I think we need a more detailed model of what it means to want something. What a person says they want, what they think they want, and what they actually want at any given moment may differ. As verbal manipulators, humans tend to focus on what is said, but it’s hard to see how that’s actually the correct one.
If a group decided that it wants X, and the individual member doesn’t want X enough to actually do it, the definition of “decided” seems to be in question. Maybe some members want X more than others.
(yes, I’m being a bit intentionally obtuse. I do want to be explicit when we’re talking about coercion of others in order to meet your goals, as opposed to examining our own goals and beliefs. )
In do-ocracies, generally the ‘revealed preferences’ of the group members is pretty obvious. The things the ‘group wants’ are readily revealed to be those things that the group members actually act to achieve or acquire.
And, as a matter of how do-ocracies form initially, they typically ‘accrete’ around a single person or a small group of people that are already actively working on something. Think of a small open source programming project. Usually the project is started by a single person and whatever they actually work on is what they ‘want’ to work on. Often, when other people suggest changes, the initial person (who is likely still the ‘project leader’) will respond along the lines of “Pull requests welcome!”, which is basically equivalent to “Feel free to work on the changes yourself and send them to me to review.”. And, sometimes, a new contributor will work on the changes first, before even discussing the possibility. And then, after submitting the changes to review, the project leader or other participants might object to the changes, but, by default, anyone is free to make changes themselves (tho typically not anyone can actually make changes directly to the ‘authoritative version’).
...rules with high cost of compliance are introduced to keep the fixed pool of resources from being divided between too many people. Is there an example of that?
I think tax codes fall under this category. You can keep the money you earned if you are already part of the economic elite—you already have enough money to have things like offshore bank accounts (worth it only if you can afford to squirrel away large sums) and high-yield investments (which have a good deal of risk attached to them, so are a potentially very costly way of investing; if you can’t afford to lose the cash you shouldn’t buy these, but they can be very lucrative for those who can afford to lose on occasion), or to hire an expert who can help you manage large swaths of your cash flow. Without that initial capital, you are unable to take advantage of tax laws (and other economic systems) in the same way as those who have more to work with in the first place. This kind of system tends to encourage economic resources to accumulate with those few who already control a lot.
Another example may be found in business law. I don’t own a business, so can’t get get very specific I’m afraid, but I gather that licensing and payroll and (again) tax concerns (among other issues) are often legally tuned in such a way that larger corporations have an easier time achieving compliance than smaller businesses. Laws designed, for example, to protect the environment from the waste output of a large factory could easily be written to except the local shop engaging in a similar process but at many orders less magnitude. Instead, I routinely encounter news articles (publication bias alert) highlighting the plight of local businesses as they struggle to keep financially afloat and stay legal. This kind of system tends to encourage business resources to accumulate with those businesses that already control a lot.
It’s usually not so much that payroll or taxes are “legally tuned” to the benefit of larger corporations but that complying with all of the relevant laws and regulations is a relatively large ‘fixed cost’ that can be more easily born by a larger organization. Even something like initially selecting a payroll company, or monitoring (and potentially switching to another) payroll company is something more easily, and less costly, performed by a dedicated HR professional, let alone a group of professionals in an HR department, whereas lots of small businesses don’t even have a full-time, dedicated HR person.
An example of a (relatively) high cost of compliance is the recentish EU GDPR. Large companies will be able to comply (relatively) more easily than small companies so the effect of the regulation is to privilege large companies over small (or smaller) ones , i.e. “keep the fixed pool of resources from being divided between too many people”, where the pool of resources in this case are potential customers of online businesses (or even just users of online sites or services).
And more generally, for almost every law and regulation, it’s easier for larger companies or organizations to ‘pay compliance costs’ so every new law or regulation effectively penalizes smaller companies or organizations.
Note that this is basically never considered, let alone advertised, as a deliberate effect of any law or regulation.
You’re right that social affiliation is often used, in effect anyways, to mediate access to resources, but I’ve never encountered anyone describing the initiation or maintenance of affiliation as being a ‘compliance cost’, tho it’s not an inapt analogy and might operate pretty similarly. I think it’s relatively uncommon for social affiliation to involve explicit rules tho, which distinguishes it from what is typically described as ‘compliance’.
You claim that, in politics, rules with high cost of compliance are introduced to keep the fixed pool of resources from being divided between too many people. Is there an example of that? I think that this is mostly done not through laws, but through social affiliations. Those with the best connections get the job or the resources.
I like the idea of a do-ocracy. It’s like saying “The only rule is that don’t look for rules to do what needs doing”. But the crux is that this seeming anti-rule is actually a rule that needs to be followed. If there were absolutely no rule, and everyone were allowed to do what they wanted, nothing would get done. So, for this to work, first, a consensus has to be established that no consensus needs to be established!
Wait. If everyone does what they want, and nothing gets done, that implies that everyone wants nothing done, doesn’t it? What if doing what they want actually is DOING what they want? In that case, what they want gets done.
Let me clarify. If a group decides that it wants X, this does not imply that the individual member of that group wants X. What they usually want is to avoid work and let other’s do it or be told what to do. But if they agree upon the strategy “To achieve X, we agree that every member has to want X and, if he is capable, do X” (rather than “To achieve X, one leader tells everyone what to do”), then things would get done!
Ah, I think we need a more detailed model of what it means to want something. What a person says they want, what they think they want, and what they actually want at any given moment may differ. As verbal manipulators, humans tend to focus on what is said, but it’s hard to see how that’s actually the correct one.
If a group decided that it wants X, and the individual member doesn’t want X enough to actually do it, the definition of “decided” seems to be in question. Maybe some members want X more than others.
(yes, I’m being a bit intentionally obtuse. I do want to be explicit when we’re talking about coercion of others in order to meet your goals, as opposed to examining our own goals and beliefs. )
In do-ocracies, generally the ‘revealed preferences’ of the group members is pretty obvious. The things the ‘group wants’ are readily revealed to be those things that the group members actually act to achieve or acquire.
And, as a matter of how do-ocracies form initially, they typically ‘accrete’ around a single person or a small group of people that are already actively working on something. Think of a small open source programming project. Usually the project is started by a single person and whatever they actually work on is what they ‘want’ to work on. Often, when other people suggest changes, the initial person (who is likely still the ‘project leader’) will respond along the lines of “Pull requests welcome!”, which is basically equivalent to “Feel free to work on the changes yourself and send them to me to review.”. And, sometimes, a new contributor will work on the changes first, before even discussing the possibility. And then, after submitting the changes to review, the project leader or other participants might object to the changes, but, by default, anyone is free to make changes themselves (tho typically not anyone can actually make changes directly to the ‘authoritative version’).
I think tax codes fall under this category. You can keep the money you earned if you are already part of the economic elite—you already have enough money to have things like offshore bank accounts (worth it only if you can afford to squirrel away large sums) and high-yield investments (which have a good deal of risk attached to them, so are a potentially very costly way of investing; if you can’t afford to lose the cash you shouldn’t buy these, but they can be very lucrative for those who can afford to lose on occasion), or to hire an expert who can help you manage large swaths of your cash flow. Without that initial capital, you are unable to take advantage of tax laws (and other economic systems) in the same way as those who have more to work with in the first place. This kind of system tends to encourage economic resources to accumulate with those few who already control a lot.
Another example may be found in business law. I don’t own a business, so can’t get get very specific I’m afraid, but I gather that licensing and payroll and (again) tax concerns (among other issues) are often legally tuned in such a way that larger corporations have an easier time achieving compliance than smaller businesses. Laws designed, for example, to protect the environment from the waste output of a large factory could easily be written to except the local shop engaging in a similar process but at many orders less magnitude. Instead, I routinely encounter news articles (publication bias alert) highlighting the plight of local businesses as they struggle to keep financially afloat and stay legal. This kind of system tends to encourage business resources to accumulate with those businesses that already control a lot.
It’s usually not so much that payroll or taxes are “legally tuned” to the benefit of larger corporations but that complying with all of the relevant laws and regulations is a relatively large ‘fixed cost’ that can be more easily born by a larger organization. Even something like initially selecting a payroll company, or monitoring (and potentially switching to another) payroll company is something more easily, and less costly, performed by a dedicated HR professional, let alone a group of professionals in an HR department, whereas lots of small businesses don’t even have a full-time, dedicated HR person.
An example of a (relatively) high cost of compliance is the recentish EU GDPR. Large companies will be able to comply (relatively) more easily than small companies so the effect of the regulation is to privilege large companies over small (or smaller) ones , i.e. “keep the fixed pool of resources from being divided between too many people”, where the pool of resources in this case are potential customers of online businesses (or even just users of online sites or services).
And more generally, for almost every law and regulation, it’s easier for larger companies or organizations to ‘pay compliance costs’ so every new law or regulation effectively penalizes smaller companies or organizations.
Note that this is basically never considered, let alone advertised, as a deliberate effect of any law or regulation.
You’re right that social affiliation is often used, in effect anyways, to mediate access to resources, but I’ve never encountered anyone describing the initiation or maintenance of affiliation as being a ‘compliance cost’, tho it’s not an inapt analogy and might operate pretty similarly. I think it’s relatively uncommon for social affiliation to involve explicit rules tho, which distinguishes it from what is typically described as ‘compliance’.