The Maintenance Paradox in The Current Economy

[slapper]

There's this thing that happens to every civilization before they collapse: They stop maintaining things. Not like they are unable to afford it. Maintenance is dull. Things like maintenance do not win elections. Maintenance is simply ensuring that things do not break. So they defer it. Now save, and postpone troubles

Except later always costs more

Multiple governments cutting "wasteful spending" on infrastructure, healthcare, education. Naming it fiscal responsibility. Markets applaud. Bond traders get excited. Then bridges start falling. Hospitals overflow. Schools crumble. And all of a sudden the price of repairing all that will be 10 times more than what maintenance would have been

and, needless to say, every one involved is aware of this. It's not hidden knowledge. All engineers, all economists, all individuals who ever owned a home, know that maintenance is not something to put a blind eye on. But they do it anyway

Why?

The political incentive structure is the most backward. You end up with no credit by spending money trying to prevent future problems. The problem does not occur and therefore no one notices. But cutting spending makes you look "tough" and "responsible" now. When it all collapses, you have left office and you accuse your successor

It is logical action in a failed system. We have even constructed an entire economic ideology based on this mode of failure. Austerity will sound like discipline. Like virtue. Like adults who make tough decisions. It is just national-level deferred maintenance. And deferred maintenance always, always proves to be more expensive in the long term

I don't have a solution. I only know that it is difficult to think that one can fix this within the current framework, as one can see the same pattern reproducing over countries and centuries. Maybe that's the point. Maybe systems that can't learn from failure are supposed to collapse


Destruction, Thomas Cole, Oil on Canvas, 1836

[LuwisPK]

I completely agree with you, because if you create something and cannot maintain it, it will not last long, be it your wealth, be it your popularity, be it your married wife, you have worked hard all your life to earn money and wealth, if you cannot maintain it well, then your wealth will gradually be destroyed, if you are a popular person, you have to try to maintain your popularity, and if you cannot fully meet the needs of your wife at home, she will leave you.

[Emjay24]

It's a big shame that the politicians of our time chase media attention over actual good governance and maintenance of assets handed over to them. If the leaders have been maintaining the assets, then lesser allocations would be used to service such assets and it would be least burden on the economy and tax payers. Take for example my country has 4 refineries which aren't functioning and they went ahead to build an extremely new one instead of maintaining the ones already existing and they still explore crude oil and import fuel, what stupidity do they demonstrate in those actions. They always tell us there's no money and borrow from Western and Asian countries.

I've also learned that these actions has to do with personal interests. They are more interested in what comes in for them from projects they embark on and not in the interest of the people, the projects that promises a bigger returns to their selfish pockets gets a higher attention than maintaining available assets that would see the country perform more efficiently.

[tsaroz]

This is a combination of politicians who looks for short term gains, business who prioritize profit than anything else and societies that are divided and crumbling.
It's the bad policies of the government that starts the social decay and when the decay reaches a level, even willingness from political leadership won't be able to save it.
Surely there might be some situation which are unprecedented and difficult to tackle like the fall of population and demand like you see in some parts of Asia and Europe but even with an increasing population and stable economy, some state seems to fail to operate, and the criminals takes over when the law abiding citizens are punished while the criminals gets privileged treatment.

[Agbam]

I’ll speak for where I’m coming from, this might be different from other countries and regions of the World.

In my Country where there are many political parties if an opposing party wins, he abandons the infrastructures started by the previous Government in order not to give glory to his predecessor from another party thereby wasting all the resources that were used  in such projects.

Even sometimes they fail to maintain such good projects and infrastructures that are already in use and choose to start a fresh new one, these politicians are only looking for personal glory and wealth, most don’t really care about the well-being of those they govern.

Sometimes I feel we should just burn everything and start afresh cause this corrupt system has eaten deep into the cores of the political society.

[justinlamode]

I’ll speak for where I’m coming from, this might be different from other countries and regions of the World.

In my Country where there are many political parties if an opposing party wins, he abandons the infrastructures started by the previous Government in order not to give glory to his predecessor from another party thereby wasting all the resources that were used  in such projects.

Even sometimes they fail to maintain such good projects and infrastructures that are already in use and choose to start a fresh new one, these politicians are only looking for personal glory and wealth, most don’t really care about the well-being of those they govern.

Sometimes I feel we should just burn everything and start afresh cause this corrupt system has eaten deep into the cores of the political society.

This sounds the same as my country, perhaps you are Nigerian. This is the biggest problem in my country, no continuity, no synergy as every dispensation want to do things differently because they have no plan for the places they govern. I was thinking it was unique to us but from the post, it seems many places are battling the same problem, but it gets lower when you move from underdeveloped nations to developed nations.

[TypoTonic]

In my Country where there are many political parties if an opposing party wins, he abandons the infrastructures started by the previous Government in order not to give glory to his predecessor from another party thereby wasting all the resources that were used  in such projects.

Even sometimes they fail to maintain such good projects and infrastructures that are already in use and choose to start a fresh new one, these politicians are only looking for personal glory and wealth, most don’t really care about the well-being of those they govern.

There's just more incentives for a politician to build something new, rather than to maintain existing projects. They just want the credit so that they can add it to their list of accomplishments, as it will make their name look good especially during election campaign season. It also opens up windows for corruption, since new projects require new contracts, that usually benefit those with connections to them.

Maybe systems that can't learn from failure are supposed to collapse

It's not that they can't learn, it's just that they refuse to take action despite knowing.

[Maaop7]

There's this thing that happens to every civilization before they collapse: They stop maintaining things. Not like they are unable to afford it. Maintenance is dull. Things like maintenance do not win elections. Maintenance is simply ensuring that things do not break. So they defer it. Now save, and postpone troubles

Except later always costs more

Multiple governments cutting "wasteful spending" on infrastructure, healthcare, education. Naming it fiscal responsibility. Markets applaud. Bond traders get excited. Then bridges start falling. Hospitals overflow. Schools crumble. And all of a sudden the price of repairing all that will be 10 times more than what maintenance would have been

and, needless to say, every one involved is aware of this. It's not hidden knowledge. All engineers, all economists, all individuals who ever owned a home, know that maintenance is not something to put a blind eye on. But they do it anyway

Why?

The political incentive structure is the most backward. You end up with no credit by spending money trying to prevent future problems. The problem does not occur and therefore no one notices. But cutting spending makes you look "tough" and "responsible" now. When it all collapses, you have left office and you accuse your successor

It is logical action in a failed system. We have even constructed an entire economic ideology based on this mode of failure. Austerity will sound like discipline. Like virtue. Like adults who make tough decisions. It is just national-level deferred maintenance. And deferred maintenance always, always proves to be more expensive in the long term

I don't have a solution. I only know that it is difficult to think that one can fix this within the current framework, as one can see the same pattern reproducing over countries and centuries. Maybe that's the point. Maybe systems that can't learn from failure are supposed to collapse

https://www.talkimg.com/images/2025/11/10/U6qGoC.jpeg
Destruction, Thomas Cole, Oil on Canvas, 1836

The criticism of the current political and economic incentive structure is very sharp. Infrastructure maintenance, public services, and long-term investment are often neglected, and it is all for short-term political gain. It is indeed ironic that savings that are considered responsible can ultimately be more expensive. Changing this system is difficult, but awareness and discussion of these problems are important first steps.

[Majestic-milf]

 I see this problem as something that most of these politicians know about but wouldn't want to tackle because in that way there won't be a means to extort money from the masses with the excuse of trying to "fix" something that has gone bad. Like you observed, it's true that if they had attended to the issue while it was in it's infant stages, there'd be no way that the citizens would think that they are working and there won't be an avenue to collect large amount of money so what they do is, they solve a problem or semi fix it so that it won't be all that good so that it can still go bad again.
 As humans, there's the belief that it's wasteful as you put it to start solving a small tear, or mending a tiny gap so the best way is to leave it till it becomes a huge problem but most times they forget that it's the masses that would still get affected in that there won't be much access to good healthcare,education and the lot and also they would have to give out a certain percentage from their salaries as tax to help solve the problem that was ignored by that same government.

[stompix]

There's this thing that happens to every civilization before they collapse: They stop maintaining things. Not like they are unable to afford it. Maintenance is dull. Things like maintenance do not win elections.

Loooooool!
What great civilization collapsed because it wanted to get votes in elections?
Like seriously, how was voting in the Roman Empire, the Ottoman Empire, Ming?

This is a mess of non-sense, pure nonsense!
Even the picture you have shown has nothing to do with "maintenace", "Destruction" is about the fall of empire at the had of the enemies, for god sake there is no crumbling bridges there, there is a fucking catapult firing at them!

Again, I'm really curious of one single example where poor maintenance was the cause of a falling civilization maintenance, not wars, nor pandemics, not a revolt, not bankruptcy, not famine, not .... well, everything else that has made civilizations crumble

[Fortify]

There's this thing that happens to every civilization before they collapse: They stop maintaining things. Not like they are unable to afford it. Maintenance is dull. Things like maintenance do not win elections. Maintenance is simply ensuring that things do not break. So they defer it. Now save, and postpone troubles

Except later always costs more

Multiple governments cutting "wasteful spending" on infrastructure, healthcare, education. Naming it fiscal responsibility. Markets applaud. Bond traders get excited. Then bridges start falling. Hospitals overflow. Schools crumble. And all of a sudden the price of repairing all that will be 10 times more than what maintenance would have been

and, needless to say, every one involved is aware of this. It's not hidden knowledge. All engineers, all economists, all individuals who ever owned a home, know that maintenance is not something to put a blind eye on. But they do it anyway

I agree with the majority of what you say and the main part of the problem in most of the richest countries today is the media capture, all these things are not questioned adequately because the richest people steer the conversation in collaboration with the politicians. Just look at how the biggest entertainment companies in the world are constantly consolidating, so now we have barely a handful of companies from Sinclair, to Disney, to Ubisoft, etc. that control a majority of what people consume for entertainment. On that point, the media is now generally pushing "infotainment" where the information does not even have to be correct yet if you keep repeating the same message people just accept the narrative. I don't have a solution for it either, because money and corporations were always destined to head this direction in a capitalistic system with the weak hope that politicians could keep them in check or act with decency - but we see that failing too. The slight thing I disagree on is your comments about austerity, because boom and bust is part of every economic cycle - tightening the belt is necessary to rein in the party times where people spend like crazy but people just don't like it when they have to pay the bill.

[Bluedrem]

This is called the indifference of those on duty towards the state or civilization. When the people on duty seek their own interests and forget their responsibilities, they do not fulfill any of their responsibilities towards civilization, as a result, everything turns upside down. As you said, schools and colleges are closed, and hospitals are overcrowded. To sustain a civilization, those concerned must play a responsible role. Whenever this is disrupted, there is a possibility of extinction of the civilization. A civilization carries the identity of a nation, so I think it is very important to sustain civilization.

[Ucy]

Addressing anticipated issues or having maintenance mindset are usually under the purview of what people call visionary leaders. But the system is designed to elect puppets. The visionaries often get to the top by accident. And when they get there, they will exert so much influence on the citizens or be convincing enough that the people will hardly disagree with their method unless they (the people) have become so hardened and want the visionaries to fail.

So, nations should find ways to get people with real influence who are passionate about the job into top positions.

[letteredhub]

Maintenance is what keeps everything going and even nature understands this logic that, when you fail to maintain you're giving room for a collapsible situation. There are social necessities that as a government you mustn't downsize or streamline just to show you're good at meticulous spending. We now living in a world where leaders tries to only solve problems that are mainly of interest to their political ideology, consensus doesn't ring a bell for them as they feel they know what's best for the people without seeking the opinions of the people they claim to serve about what they really need. We're in an era in human history where the social contract is rather working and operated in the opposite.

[Cryptohygenic]

Unfortunately the system does not only fails due to lack of maintenance but also lack of keeping updated with the current system just as evolution of technologies and economy evolves and also a failure of the authorities to create amenities that should accommodate the masses welfares as population also increases by childbirth and immigrants.
This is usually caused by unnecessary budgets of public funds in facilitating public infrastructures at the very low standard. So the rich people even have to flee abroad for healthcare and education even while the state financial revenues can actually generate the resources to setup standard and proper infrastructural maintenance.
We know everything that they are game plans of selfish leaderships.

[slapper]

It's a big shame that the politicians of our time chase media attention over actual good governance and maintenance of assets handed over to them. If the leaders have been maintaining the assets, then lesser allocations would be used to service such assets and it would be least burden on the economy and tax payers. Take for example my country has 4 refineries which aren't functioning and they went ahead to build an extremely new one instead of maintaining the ones already existing and they still explore crude oil and import fuel, what stupidity do they demonstrate in those actions. They always tell us there's no money and borrow from Western and Asian countries.

I've also learned that these actions has to do with personal interests. They are more interested in what comes in for them from projects they embark on and not in the interest of the people, the projects that promises a bigger returns to their selfish pockets gets a higher attention than maintaining available assets that would see the country perform more efficiently.

The refineries case strikes right on. Four refineries are broken, construct a fifth one, not repairing any of them. It is so ridiculous that it would be a comedy if it did not ruin the life of people. The same failed incentive structure has the same effect on the corrupt politicians. They are stealing in the most economically devastating manner

Had they been rational thieves only, they would desire the economy to increase in order to have more to rob in future. However, the political cycle compels them to seize everything in the present time, before the next election, before the next coup, before another takes over. That way they decide on projects that have high initial kickbacks instead of maintenance that would actually increase the wealth of the country. They are maximizing short-term extraction and not long-term wealth generation. Their greed is small-minded, too

The Western/Asian debt trap compounded it. Such loans have terms that in most cases halt precisely the type of long term infrastructure investment that would snap the cycle. Use loans to purchase foreign products rather than repair domestic production. Stay dependent. Keep borrowing

This is a combination of politicians who looks for short term gains, business who prioritize profit than anything else and societies that are divided and crumbling.
It's the bad policies of the government that starts the social decay and when the decay reaches a level, even willingness from political leadership won't be able to save it.
Surely there might be some situation which are unprecedented and difficult to tackle like the fall of population and demand like you see in some parts of Asia and Europe but even with an increasing population and stable economy, some state seems to fail to operate, and the criminals takes over when the law abiding citizens are punished while the criminals gets privileged treatment.

They are not only seeking profits. They are actively encouraged to destroy. Reduce expenditure, take credit, retire earlier than the bill is due. Then point the finger to the next man when it all collapses. The business part is more miserable. Corporations have figured out that they can externalize all their cost onto society while privatizing all the profits. Contaminate nature, exploit, evade taxes. Then when things get wrong, demand public bailouts. It is no longer capitalism, it is robbery with additional procedures

This brings about a race to bottom. The fair businesses are not able to compete with those who cut corners. The sincere politicians are not able to compete against the ones who promise the impossible. Thus, the system picks the worst actors

I’ll speak for where I’m coming from, this might be different from other countries and regions of the World.

In my Country where there are many political parties if an opposing party wins, he abandons the infrastructures started by the previous Government in order not to give glory to his predecessor from another party thereby wasting all the resources that were used  in such projects.

Even sometimes they fail to maintain such good projects and infrastructures that are already in use and choose to start a fresh new one, these politicians are only looking for personal glory and wealth, most don’t really care about the well-being of those they govern.

Sometimes I feel we should just burn everything and start afresh cause this corrupt system has eaten deep into the cores of the political society.

And give up infrastructure projects because it will make your predecessor look good? The politician is making a decision against the needs of people in favor of his ego. And God, the sustenance thing. They would prefer to see something good go wrong than to have the former guy do something right. All goes to waste and we all suffer

Even the politicians who do this are not making money out of the unfinished projects. They are simply making sure that nothing good can be passed through a change of power. It's destruction for its own sake, clothed in the language of "new direction" and "fresh start". It is evidence that our political systems are now totally out of sync with what they are meant to do. They do not rule any more. They're performing governance while the actual work of civilization gets sabotaged by their performance

The corruption you are talking about is nearly a secondary one. At least there is some logic to traditional corruption. Someone gets rich. This is worse. It is burning money to ensure that the other person does not get credit of not burning it

[Darker45]

That's one interesting way of looking at it. From that perspective, maintenance is a must. It should receive a fair share of the economic output. To maintain infrastructures is tantamount to maintaining a smooth economy. A major port that needs repair, for example, could cost an economy millions per minute.

But here's a perspective from my country. Networks of roads here, for example, can't be fully utilized because there are always works being done, most of them in the name of periodic maintenance. You'd be surprised waking up one day hearing jackhammers. Workers are already putting holes on your otherwise perfect concrete road. This has been a pattern. Angry, confused citizens have questioned the government. They say it's normal. That's called periodic maintenance.

To a layman, to me, I'd say it's foolish. It's another face of corruption. Why can't we maximize their use until they're worn out? By then, we'll do the necessary replacement.

[iv4n]

I don't think it's a paradox, that's simply the natural course of events... when you put fools/idiots/incompetent people in charge, what do you expect to happen?

“Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.” — Martin Luther King Jr.

The paradox is that people keep believing those who already lied to them, and betrayed them...

[davis196]

Multiple governments cutting "wasteful spending" on infrastructure, healthcare, education. Naming it fiscal responsibility. Markets applaud. Bond traders get excited. Then bridges start falling. Hospitals overflow. Schools crumble. And all of a sudden the price of repairing all that will be 10 times more than what maintenance would have been

Investing in infrastructure, education, healthcare and maintaining fiscal responsibility are both very important. There's no "whether we do this or that" mindset here. Both the infrastructure and the fiscal stability of a country should be well maintained. I hate it when governments are borrowing more and more money to "invest" in infrastructure, because corruption is a major problem and the cost of those highway, bridge, railroad projects is artificially pumped, just because some greedy politicians want big bribes. Everything costs more because of the money printing machines and the inflation, that was generated by the big central banks around the world. You are talking about fiscal responsibility, but we must never forget about the importance of monetary responsibility by the big central banks.