-- When we're talking of a system, "stability" is roughly the property that a small perturbation in the system causes it to return to the position that it was previously in. The pandemic was significant shock but the notable thing we see is that the system.
...where our goods delivery network broke down due to individual rule breaking (as opposed to, say, a global pandemic)?
The individual rule-breaking (working more hours than a person could stand) still allowed day functioning of the system but it created situation it was easy for a lot of people to just quit driving and hard to find more drivers to replace them. Hence, the system was fragile to shock.
> it created situation it was easy for a lot of people to just quit driving and hard to find more drivers to replace them
That situation seems pretty exceptional to me. I think it's fair to call an equilibrium that requires a covid pandemic to disrupt "stable." I think you'd be hard pressed to find an industry that hasn't been disrupted, so I am skeptical that we should understand trucking to be revealed as being unusually weak.
If you just mean that capitalism is inherently unstable, then yes of course, but that doesn't seem closely related to the space for rule breaking as the space varies from place to place and industry to industry.
I think you'd be hard pressed to find an industry that hasn't been disrupted, so I am skeptical that we should understand trucking to be revealed as being unusually weak.
I never said trucking was unusually fragile for the America today. Many other industries follow the paradigm of barely paying enough and relying on a trickle of people willing to put with their framework and all of them are whining but not actually changing [2]. The description of the trucking by duxup in the base of this thread [1] is also a description of how a lot of industries operates. It's fragile, ugly and profitable.
> The description of the trucking by duxup in the base of this thread [1]
Look, are you talking about trucking or are you talking about capitalism writ large? The larger capitalistic structure is both unjust and deeply unstable - but that topic is outside of the specific conditions of trucking and the accuracy of monitoring systems. The limits of the accuracy of surveillance systems are relevant, as far as I know, to all economic systems.
Or, to put it another way, I will ask again: what period do you see this system being unstable over? If it's just the covid pandemic then I see the disruption, but I disagree that the system was not 'stable' before. It's like saying the Dinosaurs' way of life wasn't 'stable' before the meteorite hit.
> It's like saying the Dinosaurs' way of life wasn't 'stable' before the meteorite hit.
It really wasn't, though; IIRC, the current reading of the evidence is that the mass extinction started about 10 million years before the impact delivered the coup de grace.
But I think you were assuming the somewhat popular fiction where things were stable, but then the meteorite wiped them out.
-- When we're talking of a system, "stability" is roughly the property that a small perturbation in the system causes it to return to the position that it was previously in. The pandemic was significant shock but the notable thing we see is that the system.
...where our goods delivery network broke down due to individual rule breaking (as opposed to, say, a global pandemic)?
The individual rule-breaking (working more hours than a person could stand) still allowed day functioning of the system but it created situation it was easy for a lot of people to just quit driving and hard to find more drivers to replace them. Hence, the system was fragile to shock.