When people are free to do as they please, they usually imitate one another.
Hoffer's 1955 observation. It is the counterintuitive half of freedom: released from external constraint, most people converge on each other rather than diverging.
In practice
- A dress code is abolished and within two years everyone is wearing the same thing anyway.
- An open-plan office with no assigned desks settles into assigned desks by the third month, chosen by nobody.