Automating POSIWID

In a separate discussion recently, I was discussing the possibility of automating system governance.

The OECD Principles of Corporate Governance, Draft Revised Text, Jan 2004 indicates that “Shareholders … should be allowed to consult with each other on issues concerning their basic shareholder rights … subject to some possible exceptions regarding inappropriate collusion.”

In other words, collaboration is allowed for some purposes and not for others. In terms of system governance, this is an extremely interesting rule. It calls for discrimination by purpose, which only works if we have some way of objectively determining purpose (other than naively asking people what their purposes are).

So I asked whether it would be possible to produce a formal monitoring system that is sensitive to purpose? Can we automate POSIWID?

My friend Trevor thought it was. See his answer.

Regulation and POSIWID

Regulation often stimulates the very behaviour it is supposed to control. For example, in the Corporate Governance field, precise specification of codes of conduct sometimes seems to positively encourage people to find creative ways of complying with the letter, while being in flagrant breach of the spirit. 

The POSIWID principle suggests that the purpose of regulation systems is to maintain a stable level of something bad, rather than to eliminate it - since this is (at best) what they actually achieve most of the time. 

 

For Aidan's response to this post, see Purpose of Regulation (November 2003)