Control of smaller organisations than governments, e.g. charities.
Organization and management of businesses and nonprofits is, if not exactly a well-understood problem, then at least the subject of a large body of expertise, and more importantly, of constant real-life tests in the marketplace. If there existed a way to reach useful insight there by theorizing from first principles, I would guess that someone would have already found it (and used it to great practical success).
Seasteading
Setting aside the questions about the practical viability of seasteading, it can be viewed as a special case of colonizing an uninhabited territory. While this may seem as an opportunity to design institutions from scratch, in reality it’s naive to ignore the culture that the colonists will bring with them, and the constraints this imposes on the way the colony’s institutions can work. As de Maistre wrote, “Sovereigns command effectively and in a lasting way only within the circle of things acknowledged by opinion, and they are not the ones who trace the circle of opinion.” How would your abstract model capture that?
If the political systems were seen to be better in these smaller situations, they might very slowly move into the larger states (probably multi-century timescales).
Even a casual glance at the history of the last two centuries shows that transplanting political institutions from one culture to another doesn’t work in practice. Attempts to do so occasionally work by sheer luck, but more often fail miserably, and it’s not at all rare to see them blow up spectacularly.
Control of smaller organisations than governments, e.g. charities.
Organization and management of businesses and nonprofits is, if not exactly a well-understood problem, then at least the subject of a large body of expertise, and more importantly, of constant real-life tests in the marketplace. If there existed a way to reach useful insight there by theorizing from first principles, I would guess that someone would have already found it (and used it to great practical success).
Organisation is different to control. I’m interested in changes to things like how the trustees are selected, rather than specific business practices. There is no incentive for the trustees to experiment with how the trustees are selected. So markets have little to work with.
Even a casual glance at the history of the last two centuries shows that transplanting political institutions from one culture to another doesn’t work in practice. Attempts to do so occasionally work by sheer luck, but more often fail miserably, and it’s not at all rare to see them blow up spectacularly.
And a casual glance another couple of centuries back shows political change springing up in a number of places due to the zeitgeist. Fairly violently, but we were probably better off for it (fewer religious purges and that kind of thing).
Organization and management of businesses and nonprofits is, if not exactly a well-understood problem, then at least the subject of a large body of expertise, and more importantly, of constant real-life tests in the marketplace. If there existed a way to reach useful insight there by theorizing from first principles, I would guess that someone would have already found it (and used it to great practical success).
Setting aside the questions about the practical viability of seasteading, it can be viewed as a special case of colonizing an uninhabited territory. While this may seem as an opportunity to design institutions from scratch, in reality it’s naive to ignore the culture that the colonists will bring with them, and the constraints this imposes on the way the colony’s institutions can work. As de Maistre wrote, “Sovereigns command effectively and in a lasting way only within the circle of things acknowledged by opinion, and they are not the ones who trace the circle of opinion.” How would your abstract model capture that?
Even a casual glance at the history of the last two centuries shows that transplanting political institutions from one culture to another doesn’t work in practice. Attempts to do so occasionally work by sheer luck, but more often fail miserably, and it’s not at all rare to see them blow up spectacularly.
Organisation is different to control. I’m interested in changes to things like how the trustees are selected, rather than specific business practices. There is no incentive for the trustees to experiment with how the trustees are selected. So markets have little to work with.
And a casual glance another couple of centuries back shows political change springing up in a number of places due to the zeitgeist. Fairly violently, but we were probably better off for it (fewer religious purges and that kind of thing).