I have been thinking a lot about all of the invisible things around us, important foundational things that we take for granted. Because they don’t immediately manifest themselves to our attention we can forget about them if we are not careful.

There are different layers of “invisible” things or institutions or concepts that make life go on and that undergird our economic, political, and social life. One of the characteristics of these invisible things is that we don’t necessarily need them at the front of our minds to go through life; in fact it would be impossible to do so.

The danger of course is that if we forget about, or fail to realize their importance, we can can eradicate them and find ourselves in profound trouble.

Complexity all around

One way to begin to think about the realm of the invisible is to look around the room we are in and think about all the things that are making your reading this essay possible. Obviously puter and the table it is sitting on. To mention a few others –electricity, an electric grid, people who invented that grid and maintain it. If you are in a house, the architect, builders, etc who made it sturdy; the police and soldiers and political institutions that provide security.

If you are drinking a cup of coffee stop to consider all the people and processes, and tools that made this happen.

This is of course is only a beginning: think about writing and reading and all the cultural elements that have developed over time. If there is a lot going on in a single cup of coffee, it’s hard to imagine all plexity going around us.

as the “institutions of justice” that enable economic development and mercial society.