> [!tldr] Stalinism failed because a central group tried to control everything. Democracy federates those decisions. This same concept can be applied to running a business. [[The Toyota Way]][^1] talked about "push problem solving to the lowest levels possible - the people closest to the problems". This is, in essence, the exact *opposite* of what Stalinism and autocratic societies do. Stalin created a strong **central** executive body that sought to control everything. The idea was that by centralizing decision making powers, you'd have the ability to move armies and produce factories and optimize everything. The reality is that no central bureaucratic body was capable of processing all the information, let along using it to make the right decisions. By trying to control what farmers grew, the crops yields began to suffer immensely - followed shortly by the people. Distributed models are closer to democracy. Power is driven out to the *people*, and the people closest to the problems can solve the problems more effectively. It is true that there still must be some central body setting [[What is a Strategy|strategy]] and the rules of play - but beyond that a distributed, federated model with well-designed guardrails and [[Feedback Loop]]s are more likely to succeed overall. **** # More ## Source - [[Nexus]] + self [^1]: despite the fact I cannot find the actual note/reference, I'm confident I read this in the whole [[Six Sigma]] / Toyota space.