Applications
Recognize early signs of regulatory capture: regulators spending more time with industry than public, regulations that favor incumbents over newcomers, revolving door between agency and industry. These patterns indicate capture in progress.
Design institutions with structural safeguards against capture. Term limits prevent long-term relationships from forming. Diverse oversight prevents iron triangles. Transparency makes capture visible. But all safeguards decay over time—renewal requires constant vigilance.
Understand that institutional decay is natural process requiring active maintenance. Like entropy in physical systems, organizations naturally trend toward disorder and self-service unless energy gets expended maintaining mission focus. This isn't moral failing—it's organizational physics.
Balance efficiency of stable institutions against risk of capture. Young institutions are mission-driven but inefficient. Mature institutions are efficient but captured. The art is periodically disrupting and renewing institutions before capture becomes entrenched.