Institutions precommit to constrain future temptations.
Ulysses had himself lashed to the mast to hear the sirens and not act on hearing them. Central bank independence, constitutional entrenchment and blind trusts are the institutional versions.
In practice
- A company puts its severance policy in the articles so a future board cannot quietly withdraw it.
- A team agrees a code-freeze date in writing with the customer, precisely so that its own future self cannot be talked out of it.
- Subject
- Law & Politics
- Essay
- Competing accounts of how power works