The Good and Bad of
COMPLEX SYSTEMS in their arsenal. These tanks were hopelessly outmatched by modern NATO vehicles, but there was a method to the Soviet madness. The NATO tanks were highly
As is usual, I will begin this article relating facts that seem to have nothing to do with commercial real estate or economics, so please be patient. Once upon a time, the United States and Soviet Union allied to fight socialism’s little brother, fascism. Winning that fight, the Soviet socialists decided to take up the fascist baton and continue spreading the glory of their prison camps, extrajudicial executions and famine to the rest of the world. Thus began the Cold War. The United States and its allies chose the strategy of training and high technology to win that war – i.e. quality. The Soviet Union and its allies went instead for quantity. As an example, even into the 1990’s, the Soviets maintained thousands of old tanks
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complex machines, and were prone to break down frequently. Each tank had to have a long line of maintenance vehicles backing it up to stay in the fight. The Soviets reasoned that even an old tank was a match for a modern tank that was not working, thus the arsenal of old – simple - machines. The Soviets ultimately lost the Cold War, but their reliance on simple machines to perform simple tasks had some merit. We are faced with a similar situation today in our reliance on ever more complex systems that are used to make our economy highly productive. Make no mistake - these complex systems function well – Americans are more prosperous today than even a generation ago, and worldwide poverty has been reduced significantly in the past 50 years. It is worth noting, of course, that many American believe they are poorer than ever, even while ordering food online while sitting on a couch watching a giant flat-screen television hooked up to a global network of computers and satellites. Still, perception is not reality, no matter how many “likes” it gets on social media.
