Stepping back to see the system

Q: “What’s one paragraph you wrote this week that surprised you when you reread it — and can you point at the specific move it made that you didn’t plan going in?”

I was discussing double-standards with Claude. Economists argue against UBI or sovereign wealth funds saying “people won’t want to work.” But those same economists don’t complain about nepo babies “not wanting to work”. That’s because poverty is built into the system. The economy needs unemployment. Full employment makes labor a scarce resource, which leads to widespread inflation. Thus a pool of unused labor is maintained in order to keep wages depressed. But nobody wants to say the system is rigged, so we characterize the poor as being lazy.

Ultimately, though, I surprised myself by taking a step back and applying systems thinking.

The meta-lesson I’m taking from this is that no system is perfect. But, since changes to a system are hard to predict, we stabilize and maintain the status quo despite its structural deficiencies.

Dystopias are built using the blueprints of utopia. The road to paradise sometimes veers into the graveyard. Being idealistic, I could be rushing headlong into disaster.

But the alternative might be hiding in a closet while disaster stalks me.

I find this is a move I make more and more often. What are the systems that people are operating within? Rather than blame the individual – both the underworked poor and the dismissive economist – what systems have trapped them?