Entropia et Impera – Inefficiency as a Business Model

Divide and rule policy (Latin: divide et impera), or divide and conquer, in politics and sociology is gaining and maintaining power by breaking up larger concentrations of power into pieces that individually have less power than the one implementing the strategy. Historically, this strategy was used in many different ways by empires seeking to expand their territories. This strategy was first introduced in ancient Rome.

A 1615 variation of this policy has been proposed by Francis Bacon – separa et impera. Looks like the first derivative of the original.

A modern adaptation – entropia et impera – is proposed by the author (J. Marczyk, 2022). Where does this concept come from? The ancient Greeks knew that each generation leaves behind more chaos than it had inherited. Today, our society is not only in a state of chaos, it is also decadent and corrupt, morally bankrupt, intentionally wasteful and inefficient, dominated by uncertainty and self-inflicted destabilizing events and crises. The bottom line is that we live in an entropy-heavy society and the resulting inefficiency is so crippling that it appears to be specifically engineered just for that very purpose. Entropy not only epitomizes the salient characteristics of our time; it also appears to be the principal instrument of implementation of the Great Reset. Entropy is a strategy, it is a weapon, a tool, hence the term entropia et impera.

Evidently, the intentional generation of entropy within society is something that belongs to governments, politicians and to those who control them. However, when it comes to corporations, there too one witnesses inefficiency, which is so widespread and deeply rooted that it appears to be not just a business model but actually consolidated corporate culture. For example, it is preferable to create products that break and which require plenty of spare parts and maintenance instead of developing better, more reliable products. A better, more reliable product increases one’s reputation but nowadays reputation no longer bears any value. In a shameless, colluded and corrupt society, reputation is a thing of the past. What counts is maintaining the status quo, even if it means the destruction of a company. In such a context, innovation is seen as the enemy as it requires management to have a roadmap, a vision, to invent new business models, to seek new markets, to risk, and, ultimately, to disrupt the status quo. Pronouncing some a’ la mode words, such as “sustainability”, “social corporate responsibility” or “renewables” will make any mediocre executive look good in the eyes of his yes-men. Inefficiency and the Peter Principle go hand in hand very nicely. Inefficiency is great at masking incompetence and diluting responsibilities. This is why it is often self-inflicted.

Knowing ahead of time that problems may surface in a product or in a production process is not desirable in an entropy-heavy ‘business model’. This is because today it is more profitable to have things break and then to continue fixing them than building high-quality reliable products. Anomaly anticipation – this is what our QCM technology does – means forcing someone to take action and this, in turn, means risk and responsibility. This is why QCM is so scary to the majority and why it is a technology only for the very few, courageous visionaries. So, it is preferable to have a malfunction actually materialize, to have the product breakdown and then to send a repair team with plenty of spare parts. It is remarkable how this approach has, paradoxically, turned entropy into a money-making machine. Money from mediocrity and inefficiency. Amazing.

There are two points to be made. First of all, there is a question of whether such an approach is ethical. With all likelihood, in a society that has set aside ethics, the question is irrelevant. A more practical issue is another. Such a model is not sustainable. Entropy has tremendous erosive power and, in the long run, it will kill. It also leads to fragility, or anti-resilience. So, while many corporations opt for a stagnant, outdated and fragmented, fear-driven and innovation-free strategy, the ones that look forward with courage will eventually be rewarded. Ignorance is bliss, but not for long.