Mind · Dynamics
Capacitylag
Expectations or demands increase ahead of the capacity available to meet them
Definition
Mechanism
New demands arrive or grow before the relevant abilities, resources or coordination have developed enough to meet them, and the gap is produced or widened by that difference in timing, even where capacity is improving. A fixed mismatch without that timing is simply insufficient capacity, and a loss of capacity under unchanged demands is not an instance. The comparison is relative to particular demands and conditions, not a judgment of general ability.
Invariants
- Demands arrive or increase over the interval considered.
- The capacity to meet them develops more slowly than they grow.
Risks
Failure modes
Gap read as unwillingness
the gap is taken to show that effort is being withheld.
Output read as catching up
rising output is taken to show that capacity has caught up.
Catching up assumed
closing the gap is assumed to be the only right outcome, when demands can also be reduced or refused.
Relationships
Root pattern: builds on nothing in this library.
Used by
References
Society
Cycles of population growth, elite crowding, state crisis and disorder in agrarian states
Reference