Introduction
When learning about systems, one should never forget that a person always represents an element of a system. To point out a universal example, remember that the universe (pun intended) consists of a system from which we can never escape.
Don’t worry, however, although the small structural changes we make will not affect the universe for eons. But think about it.
The unspoken cure for many systemic diseases consists of death. When faced with that choice, most people choose misery in life rather than certain peace in death. The oppression in many countries reaches that extreme.
Look at Iran, Russia, China…you fill in your own examples.
Worse Cure
Cure can be worse than the disease in systems
When we don’t account for the feedback from changes we make, we sometimes don’t see the full impact of our actions. Our central banking system increases the money supply to stimulate the seemingly slow economy. The misinformation sent by this artificial cure causes malinvestment, which leads to a depression worse than the apparent, but natural, slow down.
Sometimes the easy, familiar, solutions have no effect. Indeed, sometimes they become addictive and dangerous. By misguiding market players, monetary expansion creates an addictive dependence that eats away at healthy productive investment.
Comment
In the world of markets (i.e., economics), government intervention is one of the best examples of a cure worse than the disease. The “Great Depression” provides the most prominent example. Intervention caused the combination of boom and bust. To cure the bust, the government intervened in ways that prolonged the misery for more than a decade.
Government spending, financed in large part by monetary expansion, distorts market prices in a way that causes people to act rationally based on flawed feedback. If you have concerns about income inequality, think about how the cures for this “problem” actually make it worse.
I have one last comment (or question): Why do we consider a house, which continually deteriorates, an investment?
Conclusion
Remember that the structure of a system always has more control over the behavior of that system than any action within the system.
In Peter Senge’s book, The Fifth Discipline, around which I have formed this series of articles, he poses the question: What individual has the most influence on how fast a huge ocean liner can turn?
The answer: the designer.