Fragility and Strength

The US government is moving ahead with its latest push for universal vaccine compliance. As of today, unvaccinated people will be fired from their jobs. A game of chicken is under way in which the bureaucracy of the US goes up against sovereigns who refuse to submit to their edicts.

The bureaucrats appear convinced that they will emerge victorious in this battle. Their confidence is likely drawn from their hierarchical model of society. Bureaucrats see themselves as the executive branch of the elite. They direct society from above. They are the rulers. The rest of society is but a collection of interchangeable drones, acting out the will of the elite. However, this is not how the world works. Our society is not a hierarchy, but a network. Things are therefore likely to unfold in unexpected ways.

No two workers in our society are identical. No-one can be fired without consequences, and some cannot be fired without grave consequences. There are mini-hierarchies everywhere. If a central figure in one of these mini-hierarchies disappear, the entire sub-structure is compromised. Only dispensable workers can be replaced without much problem, and such people are rare. Almost everyone has some special skill that others depend on. Hence, today's mass firings are likely to produce a great deal more chaos than what the average bureaucrat expects.

Another thing to keep in mind is that society is self organizing. Bureaucrats are not needed for organizational purposes. Unvaccinated doctors and nurses will find ways to practice their professions outside the system if the system becomes sufficiently corrupted. A consequence of this will be the emergence of parallel structures outside the control of bureaucrats. Doctors and nurses may go private in the real sense of that word. They may decide to provide services against cash payments.

If bureaucrats decide to clamp down on such activities, doctors and nurses will find ways to frame their activities in other ways. They will find ways to skirt the rules or go dark. There's nothing bureaucrats can do to stop this. They can make life difficult for us, but they cannot stop us, and their power to mold society is a great deal less than they imagine.

The only way the bureaucrats can win this battle is if the unvaccinated fold within a few days. If that doesn't happen, there will be chaos, followed by a restructuring of society where a large portion of the population goes private. My guess is that those who haven't taken the vaccine by now are determined to stick it out for the foreseeable future. If so, we may soon see the emergence of parallel structures that operate outside the control of bureaucrats.

Liberty