The Purpose of a System Is What It Does

Government bears no relationship to the efficiency we associate with well-run companies or well-designed computer networks. Government has its functions and aims, but almost no one thinks of the word “efficient” in trying to describe it.

Government is political, messy, uncertain, and expensive – all characteristics we think of as the opposite of efficient. But if we put aside efficiency and focus on systems analysis, we see that government consists of systems (thousands of them in layers aka The Deep State) and they do things. When you apply systems analysis to government, you’re in the realm of cybernetics or the science of what guides a system.

One of the most famous cybernetics analysts and philosophers of the twentieth century was Stafford Beer (1926-2002). He came up with an insightful expression used widely today: “The purpose of a system is what it does.”

In other words, put aside the goals of the developers, the claims of the sellers and the press releases and ask yourself a commonsense question: What does the system actually do?

If you can answer that, your insight into the system will exceed that of the engineers, politicians and the media. So, let’s apply Beer’s test to the Secret Service.

Did they fail in the case of the attempted assassination or was the purpose of the system to kill Trump? What about the southern border? Was this a failure of DHS to secure the border or was the purpose of the system to allow as many illegal aliens into the U.S. as possible?

Once you start framing questions in this manner, the operations of government can be seen in an entirely new light. Much of the chaos and dysfunction around us suddenly seems like a model of efficiency because the government is designed to produce exactly that result.

This article applies the Beer test to a range of policy issues including assassination, the border, fentanyl, DEI, and more. It is an eye-opening kind of analysis.

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