On Purpose

I’ve never actively tracked this or cared to, but if I were to nominate my favourite and most cited quote of the year, it would have to be: “The purpose of a system is what it does (not what it claims to do).” — Stafford Beer I’m obsessed with this quote, and people have started to get that here he goes again look on their face when I say it. My obsession is due to how that statement informs my thinking and how I increasingly view the world around me. Broken or built that way? Before coming across this quote and understanding the thinking behind it, I used to think and say, “x system is broken.” The housing system is broken. The youth justice system is broken. The immigration system is broken. But as I’ve grappled with that quote, what I’ve come to understand is that a system is only broken for the people who are marginalised and excluded by it. For everyone else, the people it was built to serve, the people who benefit from its outputs, it’s working as intended. That shift in…