"Institutions will try to preserve the problem to which they are the solution"
Clay Shirky (2010) crystallized a disturbing pattern: organizations created to solve problems often become dependent on those problems persisting. The tax prep industry lobbies against simpler tax filing. Private prisons lobby for longer sentences. Legacy systems prevent innovation.
🔄 THE PARADOX: The more successful an institution becomes at managing a problem, the more invested it becomes in ensuring that problem never fully goes away.
Choose an industry and see how incentives shape behavior
French colonial officials in Hanoi offered a bounty for each rat tail brought in, hoping to reduce the rodent population. Watch what happened:
Historical Result: Vietnamese residents began breeding rats to collect bounties. The rat population actually INCREASED. The institution (the bounty system) preserved and amplified the very problem it was designed to solve. This is a perfect Shirky Principle example—when your income depends on a problem existing, you have incentive to perpetuate it.
When your revenue depends on a problem existing, solving it completely would be financial suicide. Chronic treatment pays more than cures.
Organizations develop self-preservation instincts. Jobs, reputations, and identities become tied to the continued existence of the problem.
Solutions become increasingly complex, creating dependency. Simple alternatives are actively resisted—TurboTax lobbying against IRS free filing is a prime example.
Always ask: "Who benefits from this problem persisting?" Restructure incentives to reward elimination, not management, of problems.