I had a fascinating conversation this week with a friend who had read The Institutional Revolution.

A few riffs from the conversation.

Aristocracy was a very stable system for managing in a low-trust environment with high measurement costs..

Effectively everything was privatized.

Bloodlines were put into positions of power over long-running concerns.

Each person in charge had a lot to lose: they'd be disinherited.

This system was stable… but very hard to evolve (to say nothing of the massive inequality).

When things got easier to measure, it became possible to increase trust and a different system was possible that could evolve much better.

Two ways of looking at politics: Polis and Oikos.

Polis optimizes for the healthy functioning of the state.

Oikos optimizes for people who are more like you.

People who take a more Oikos perspective can agree with even people who are not working in their interest.

"I'd do the same if I were him."

Polis is about following the rules for the good of the overall system.

Only people in the middle follow the rules.

The very poor and the very rich tend to be more about Oikos.