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. It's because they want the credit so that they can add it to their list of accomplishments. 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.