alt Hacker NewsA healthy organisation can reflect on this tendency and purge some free riders to preserve itself. The fact that it doesn't, to me personally, just means it's not under external pressure.
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What definition of organizational health demonstrates this? Certainly none of the long-lived and powerful US unions have this property. Observationally, it seems that the strongest US unions also exercise their power to protect all within their fold. The worst offenders fail to be protected by the union, but in general, they are not purged. And US unions are quite powerful. The leaders wear Rolexes.
This seems logical. A labor union carries power commensurate with the number of members in it. It is more important for members that they be protected than that they be held to a high standard. If the latter is done, it is in service to the former. That is entirely the purpose of the union after all. No one forms a union so that others can hold them to a high standard of performance.
If there is one thing free riders are generally skilled at, it's hiding the fact they are free riding. There is then an internal decay where as others learn the tricks, they realize that they can start coasting too, and they should, because why would you do extra work if you don't have to.
To defeat this you need intense oversight, but then you yourself become the man with an iron fist.
This is a super common theme whenever you dig into anything socialized. It works great when everyone understands the system and is dedicated to the work, the mission. But as soon as a single atom of "I can get away with not doing my full part" seeps in, it's like a seed crystal that eventually collapses the whole system.