The more people are involved in a given task, the more potential agreements need to be negotiated to do anything, and the greater the transaction costs.
Clay ShirkyAny system described by a power law [...] has several curious effects. The first is that, by definition, most participants are below average.
Clay ShirkyBureaucracies temporarily suspend the Second Law of Thermodynamics. In a bureaucracy, it's easier to make a process more complex than to make it simpler, and easier to create a new burden than kill an old one.
Clay ShirkyFor most of modern life, our strong talents and desires for group effort have been filtered through relatively rigid institutional structures because of the complexity of managing groups. We haven't had all the groups we've wanted, we've simply had the groups we could afford. The old limits of what unmanaged and unpaid groups can do are no longer in operation.
Clay Shirky