Coordination as the constraint, small addendum

April 08, 2020

In my last newsletter, I shared some things I learned about responding to crises.

Namely:

• existing relationships are the most important resource.
• we should find ways of helping one another without waiting on a higher authority to give us permission, assignment, or invitation. We should look for what people need, and if we see a need, we should do what we can to fill it.
• repurposing is better than planning.

I wanted to add that this are not the universally optimal principles. These make sense when we have to improvise to take care of one another because the response and coordinating capacities of institutions fail.

It is much better when state and civic institutions can act as the adequate means through which a community takes care of itself.

Some of the problems of the improvised aid.

• no structured accountability
• since it usually depends on existing relationships. Existing relationships are conditioned by social inequality and segregation. So, improvised aid is likely to be segregated and unequal
• highly inefficient
• lots of opportunity for abuse, fraud, and graft

I realized I kind of take it for granted that American governments and large institutions will never be equal to the crises we will face, because I have never seen them be equal to a crisis.

But, that’s not what we should want.