Category: Politics and Society
-
The Ant and the Grasshopper
In this classic tale, a hard-working ant labors all summer to store food, while a carefree grasshopper sings and plays. When winter arrives and the grasshopper finds itself starving, it begs the ant for food—but the ant reproaches its idleness and refuses to help. The straightforward moral is that diligent preparation and industry are rewarded,…
-
Eponymous Laws describing Bureaucracy
Pournelle’s Iron Law of Bureaucracy – In any large organization, the faction devoted to protecting the bureaucracy itself eventually gains control, sidelining the people focused on the mission. Parkinson’s Law – “Work expands to fill the time (and resources) available.” Bureaucracies therefore grow even when workloads don’t. Parkinson’s Law of Triviality (the “bike-shed effect”) –…
-
Significant Paradoxes: Social Choice and Politics
79 Condorcet (Voting-Cycle) Paradox Three citizens rank policies A, B, C such that majority prefers A > B, B > C, and C > A, creating a cycle with no clear winner. Individual rankings are rational; the collective ranking is not. The paradox proves that simple majority voting can violate transitivity, foreshadowing complexities in committee…
-
Significant Paradoxes: Economics and Political Economy
61 Jevons Paradox (Rebound Effect) When James W. Jevons studied Britain’s coal industry (1865) he noticed a counter-intuitive cycle: improvements in steam-engine efficiency lowered the cost of using coal-powered machinery, which in turn raised total coal demand nationwide. Efficiency that should have conserved the resource instead accelerated its depletion. Modern energy economics calls this the…