Posts Tagged ‘5 laws of decline’

The 5 Laws of Decline – (#5) The Law of Inertia

Posted: January 21, 2014 in Economics, Freedom, Leadership
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inertiaWe have seen how the previous 4 laws of decline can bring an organization or a country down. The 5th and final law, of Orrin Woodward‘s Five Laws of Decline, plays a different role in my opinion. This law won’t bring about a decline, but it does keep the current decline from the previous laws in place, which includes the momentum of that decline. If only 10% of leaders are good leaders, as per Sturgeon’s Law, this law will make it difficult to make things better. If everyone has ways to get something for nothing as per Bastiat’s Law, this law makes it extremely difficult to stop the beneficiaries from getting their special deals. If people are being rewarded for doing things that wrong, as per Gresham’s Law, this law will make it very difficult to stop the behavior. And if you have a growing bureaucracy and getting fewer things done due to the law of Diminishing Returns, this law will stop you from reversing that trend, if not decreasing the returns at the same momentum.

The Law of Inertia

This law comes from Newton’s first law, which as Orrin Woodward explains in Resolved ‘Every body remains in a state of rest or uniform motion, unless it is acted upon by an external unbalanced force. In layman’s terms, an object at rest tends to stay at rest, and an object in motion tends to stay in motion unless acted upon by another force.’ (more…)

The 5 Laws of Decline – (#4) The Law of Diminishing Returns

Posted: November 1, 2013 in Economics, Freedom, Leadership
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law of diminishing returnsThe 5 laws of decline detailed by Orrin Woodward & Oliver DeMille continues with law #4. Previously we have seen how 90% of everything is crud, leaving a good possibility of bad people being in the wrong positions of leadership. We have also seen how people will always do the least amount of work possible for the most gains, including outright theft if there were no repercussions. The last law we looked at showed that if bad behaviors get rewarded, there will be more of it, and it will drive out the good.

The first 3 laws from ‘Resolved‘ and ‘LeaderShift‘ all tie together in how one law set in motion leads to another and makes it even worse. The 4th and 5th laws are a little bit different, but still connected in their own way

The Law of Diminishing Returns

I believe most of us know what this one represents, as it’s a basic law of economics and business taught to us in high school. For those of you who weren’t taught, or who may have forgotten, let’s review.

The principle is that when you add more of one good, or one action to a process, each addition unit being added produces less of an output than the previous unit did. As the return on each additional unit decreases, there will come a point where more units will not add any more output, and in fact will start reducing the total output. (more…)

The 5 Laws of Decline – (#1) Sturgeon’s law

Posted: August 9, 2013 in Economics, Freedom, Leadership
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Theodore SturgeonIn ‘Resolved: 13 Resolutions for Life‘, Orrin Woodward first introduced us to his five laws of decline; showing how if we are not aware of them, our life, our organisation, and our country, will suffer the consequences.

In ‘Leadershift: A Call for Americans to Finally Stand Up and Lead‘, Orrin and Oliver DeMille go through these laws more in relation to a country. Although these laws apply to everything, and all business leaders should be aware of them for their companies sake, it’s in relation to our nation they really hit home. You may not mind if a company goes under because of these laws, but you will certainly mind if the country does.

As not everyone will go out and get those books, we will go through some of the key concepts; let’s ensure as many people becomes aware of them as we can.

For some of these laws, left on their own, things might not be too bad, even if it’s still a problem. The real issues come when all of these laws are left unchecked; which is often the case since one usually leads to another.

Today we will take a look at the first law of decline.

Sturgeon’s Law

Theodore Sturgeon was a science fiction writer who defended his genre when it was being criticized for being full of crud; that it didn’t keep up with the times and new technology. Sturgeon’s reply was to point out that 90 percent of it was indeed crud… just as it is in everything.

That is Sturgeon’s law: 90% of everything is crud. (more…)

Should The Government Do Something?

Posted: August 4, 2013 in Economics, Freedom
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This might be one of the most important questions you can ask about a problem.

Do you ever feel that the government is ruining your country with its partisanship and inaction? Don’t you wish they would just stop all the bickering and come together to pass the laws, instead of always in a stalemate and getting salaries for accomplishing nothing?

I would say ‘yes’ to that in some situations, while in others I’m grateful they are arguing with each other and, as would seem to the average individual, accomplishing nothing. In most cases accomplishing nothing is actually a great accomplishment in the end.

The thing is, how can you be sure that when the government does come together, that they are actually accomplishing something good?

I believe in equality. I believe in equal rights and equal opportunity; this means that I don’t believe in complete equality (more…)