Systemic Friction
Friction as a productive institutional condition — and the costs of its removal.
Theory
Systemic friction reconstructs friction as a productive institutional condition, not simply an obstacle to efficiency. Delay, checkpointing, redundancy, and dispute create the temporal and relational room in which judgment and answerability can be exercised.
Automation frequently succeeds by removing friction; the concept clarifies what is lost in the process and why the resulting system may be faster, cheaper, and less answerable.
The account links to institutional inversion: once frictional practices are removed, the remaining scaffolding often reorganises the institution around what the automated system can do.
Key publications
- Systemic friction (working paper).
- Institutional inversion (working paper).
A continually updated record is available through the publications page.
Current work
- A diagnostic instrument for identifying productive friction in institutional workflows.