¶ Summary
- Traditional institutions tend to be structured as pyramid-shaped hierarchies.
- The position of each member in the institutional hierarchy corresponds to their level of power and authority.
- The member(s) at the top of the institutional hierarchy have the most power and authority.
- The member(s) at the bottom of the hierarchy have the least power and authority.
¶ Examples
- The traditional education system is an example of a traditional institution.
¶ Criticisms
¶ Structure
¶ Pyramid Scheme
- Peter Thiel criticised law firms for being structured like pyramid schemes.
- The same pyramidal structure is used in Ponzi schemes or multi-level marketing schemes.
- In law firms, a partner aims to hire associates, each associate wants to become a partner and hire their own associates and so on.
- [Eric Weinstein] pointed out that universities have the same pyramidal structure: every professor is trying to train graduate students to become professors, who will then in turn go on to train their own graduate students to become professors and so on.
- The process is similar to that of infinite recursion in programming.
¶ Embedded Growth Obligation
- The only way to prevent the collapse of the pyramidal structure is to continue growing.
- EricWeinstein terms this dependency on continued growth for survival the embedded growth obligation of the institutions.