General obstacles to problem alleviation

People are inclined to despair of the feasibility of structural change because of the cumulative weight of obstacles impeding it. Arguments in favour of this perspective include: structural change is associated with radicalism, and radicalism with violence; local changes do not seem to accumulate into global changes; the world system tends to stifle local change; polls indicate that significant proportions of any population remain conventional and conservative; advocates of change on one topic tend to oppose change on another; strong government initiatives in favour of change tend to lead to that government's loss of power; when change is implement through a strong government, this is often perceived as repressive and achieving more harm than good; collective, nationalized industries tend to be inefficient; people and groups tend to perceive that they will succeed best by cooperating with those having vested interests in the status quo.

Le Chatelier's Principle as applied to social systems: Reformers, critics of institutions, consultants in innovation, people in short who "want to get something done", often fail to see this point. They cannot understand why their strictures, advice or demands do not result in effective change. They expect either to achieve a measure of success in their own terms or to be flung off the premises. But an ultra-stable system (like a social institution)... has no need to react in either of these ways. It specializes in equilibrial readjustment, which is to the observer a secret form of change requiring no actual alteration in the macro-systemic characteristics that he is trying to do something about." (Stafford Beer, The cybernetic cytoblast - management itself, Chairman's Address to the International Cybernetic Congress, September 1969)