INVERT! ALWAYS INVERT!

If what bureaucrats and politicians really wanted was prosperity, they could use inversion to see what would bring about misery, then avoid it. Avoiding stupidity is easier than being a genius.

Invert! Always invert! It is often easier to find answers through inversion, per legend Charlie Munger. Inversion is a strategy whereby we can find solutions to complex problems by expressing them in inverse form. For example, instead of asking how you can be successful you can ask how you can be a failure, then avoid doing those things.  It is usually an easier strategy to avoid doing the wrong thing, than doing the right thing. In layman terms, avoiding stupidity is easier than being a genius.

For example, if what you are after in life is economic success and financial freedom, then you could list all things that lead to financial failure: not saving money, not investing, not working, getting into a lot of debt, having no moral principles, complaining and behaving as a victim, not learning new skills and abilities, etc. Do this and you will find yourself staring at a financial abyss. The simplicity about the inversion strategy could even pass as sarcasm, it makes decision taking quite simpler.

Following this strategy could prove quite successful if properly implemented at the political level. A great deal of politicians appear to be incredibly concerned about the wellbeing of its citizens. Yet, the more they intervene in society, the worse those “problems” get. The main issue here is that governments have become mere bureaucracies, which according to legend Nassim Taleb is “a construction by which a person is conveniently separated from the consequences of his or her actions”. Thus, because bureaucrats have no skin in the game and are completely shielded from the consequences of their actions, they implement and mandate policies that not only not solve the issues at stake, but often make them worse.

Take public education in the US, for example. From 1970 to 2010, public spending increased by 180% while scores showed a 0% improvement. According to the OECD from 2000-2022, science scores have increase 10 points, reading scores have remained constant, while math scores have plunged 18 points. Like this, there are dozens of examples in which spending has exploded while results have deteriorated. However, unlike the private sector, where a company with poor results goes bust or its C-suite execs are “retired” (e.g. Nike,Starbucks), bureaucrats seem to always find ways to get more of other people’s money. Failed public policies are almost always attributed to “insufficient funding”. So, when an agency fails to deliver the promised results, they claim it is because of a lack of investment, not because of ineptitude, poor management, corruption, or whatever the case may be. A private company with lackluster results would inevitably be wiped out. After all, the private sector does not have access to unlimited funding that comes from other people’s pockets.

What I believe we have today is an inverted inversion. A situation in which inversion becomes the actual policy, rather than a guide of things to avoid in order to arrive at the right policies. Take for example Universal Basic Income (UBI), which is being floated around as a means to end poverty and to some extent misery. If what bureaucrats and politicians really really wanted was prosperity, they could use inversion to see what would bring about misery. It would go something like: poor education, poor moral and ethical values, unemployment, destruction of the family, lack of motivation, and so on. If you had all of these obvious characteristics, you would have a miserable society. Through inversion (things to be avoided), you arrive at a basic recipe for prosperity. How does this relate to UBI? Well, UBI incentivizes all these things that do not lead to a prosperous society.

What UBI does is promote unemployment and laziness as you will obtain a check regardless, it removes the necessity and motivation to become educated as you have a guaranteed income, it promotes poor moral and ethical standards as you rely on other people’s hard work to make a living, it incentivizes unemployment as it is easier to collect an income than it is to put the effort at work, etc. That said, no consequences is nearly as bad as the inevitable destruction of the soul. Because there is nothing as destructive for humans as the feeling of helplessness, of being useless. Few things are as destructive for the soul as feeling that you cannot contribute to society, that you cannot take care of your family, that you are dependent and reliant on others to get by. Because life is much much more than just survival.

Many of the ideas and policies now being cheered from bureaucrats and so-called intellectuals have the similar destructive incentives at the foundation. These are policies that would fail the inversion strategy to achieve a prosperous society. For example, VP Harris’ proposals to “ban price-gouging”, which inevitably leads to shortages and bankruptcies; to tax unrealized gains, which disincentivizes investmens; increasing corporate taxes, which would harm economic growth and disincentivize entrepreneurship;  and so on. On the “intellectuals” side, proposals such as DEI mandates; which is inverse racism and leads to mediocrity, poor results, and speech control; open borders; which increase crime and negatively impact public finances; net zero, which endangers a nation’s security and destroys livelihoods through high energy prices; the body positivity movement, which destroys health and imposes a burden on society through increased healthcare and insurance costs; and so on.  All of these policies are destructive at its core, which should be obvious. If the desired results were pursued through inversion, the policies implemented to achieve “prosperity” would be much more effective.

As the old adage says, “the road to hell is paved with good intentions”. For the sake of the argument, let’s adopt Hanlon’s razor and assume that these policies were not designed with malice but with stupidity. Perhaps bureaucrats and intellectuals have indeed good intentions. Unfortunately, intentions do not prevent harmful consequences. Going forward, policies should be initially devised through inversion. Once a comprehensive list of what is to be avoided is designed, then policies might actually be efficient and achieve the desired results.