| Why Massive Efforts to Help Communities So Often Don’t Last “Effort matters, but structure determines whether progress lasts.” Frustration As someone who cares deeply about farmers in developing economies, I have spent many years observing large, well-intentioned efforts to reduce rural poverty through coordinated action. Much of this exposure comes from regular participation in meetings, conferences, seminars, and professional forums that bring together NGOs, agrotech companies, service providers, business leaders, government agencies, and philanthropists, where ambitious, carefully designed programs are intended to operate across regions and over many years. Among the most prominent of these efforts is the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), which has been active since 2006 across more than twenty countries, working with tens of millions of farmers and supported by governments, experts, private companies, and annual budgets measured in billions of dollars. Programs of this kind appear strong by any conventional measure, as they mobilize technology, agronomic knowledge, inputs, financing, and market access at a scale no single actor could achieve alone, while relying on professionals whose intentions are sincere and whose commitment is rarely in doubt. Yet when one looks back over two decades and compares farmers, villages, regions, and even countries operating under such programs with those outside them, a deep and persistent frustration begins to surface, because the gains achieved rarely endure once external support fades. It is often difficult to say who has benefited more in any lasting sense, since in some cases the long-term condition of farmers participating in these programs is no better, and occasionally worse, than that of farmers who were never part of them. This observation is not intended as a moral judgment, nor as a dismissal of effort or expertise, because the issue is rarely a lack of talent, funding, technology, protocols, or commitment. Instead, it reflects a recurring gap between the expectation that intensive investment, whether concentrated over a short period or sustained across many years, will permanently change reality, and the repeated experience that progress remains fragile and is often followed by a return to earlier conditions once the program ends. During these programs, meaningful change frequently occurs at the level of individuals, as farmers adopt new practices, expand their knowledge, improve their skills, and adjust their expectations, often leading to higher productivity and income for as long as external support remains in place. Yet the broader social and economic structures within which these individuals operate often remain largely unchanged, so when subsidies, coordination, training, and enforcement are reduced or withdrawn, the system tends to revert to the level its underlying structure can sustain. In this way, gains achieved at the individual level fail to stabilize at the level of the system, and this structural gap becomes a primary source of frustration for everyone involved. I have encountered the same frustration in conversations with African students who studied agriculture in Israel and later returned home with advanced knowledge and strong motivation to contribute. Many describe the difficulty of translating what they learned into lasting change within their communities, not because their education was inadequate, but because the surrounding social, economic, and institutional structures were unable to absorb and sustain the new capabilities they brought. Even after decades of such students receiving top-tier education, the cumulative impact on their home communities remains limited, reinforcing the same underlying pattern. This pattern is not confined to agriculture but appears across companies, national reform efforts, and international programs where financing, access to knowledge, advanced technology, and even guaranteed markets are provided with the expectation of durable transformation. When such efforts are examined over time, the overall improvement is often far smaller than anticipated, and the system's baseline condition remains essentially unchanged. Across domains, interactions are intensified, capabilities are upgraded, and resources are injected, while the underlying structure that must carry these changes remains largely intact. How Physics Offers Clarity into Human Systems To examine this limitation more clearly, it helps to turn to a domain in which explanation is largely free of politics, ideology, and moral disagreement. The limitation in question is the repeated failure of interaction-focused approaches to explain why systems do not stabilize at a higher level once external support is withdrawn. Physics provides such a domain, because its explanations are judged not only by how well they describe motion but also by how well they account for persistence. In physics, explanations are expected to do more than describe local changes as conditions change. They are expected to remain valid across scales, to hold under stress, and to reveal why certain patterns endure while others fade. For this reason, physics offers a uniquely disciplined environment in which the limits of explanation become visible without being obscured by competing values, narratives, or institutional interests. As we will see, physics itself reveals a boundary between explanations grounded in interaction and those concerned with structure. This boundary does not signal a failure of physics but rather a limit on what interaction-based explanation can account for on its own. Precisely because physics has been so successful in describing behavior in an already unfolding universe, it provides a clear and reliable lens for understanding why so many human efforts, despite their scale and sincerity, struggle to produce lasting improvement. Why Interaction-Based Explanations Feel So Powerful Modern physics has achieved much of its explanatory success by describing reality in terms of interactions, understood as the ways entities influence one another within an already unfolding universe. In this mode of explanation, forces account for attraction and repulsion, influences propagate across distances, and systems respond predictably when conditions change, allowing behavior to be described locally and with high precision. This approach aligns naturally with human intuition, because we tend to experience the world as a sequence of causes and effects in which actions produce reactions and change appears to arise from contact, pressure, or influence. When physics explains phenomena in these terms, it resonates with this familiar way of understanding the world, reinforcing the sense that interaction is not only sufficient for explanation but also foundational, so long as space, time, and motion are taken for granted. The strength of interaction-based explanation lies in its relational focus. Rather than asking what an entity is in isolation, it asks how that entity behaves when influenced by others. This shift allows physics to describe complex systems as networks of influence, in which observable behavior emerges from the interplay among components rather than from their isolated properties. Within this scope, interaction-based explanations are not approximations but accurate accounts of how reality behaves once it is already in motion. Because of this success, it is tempting to assume that every physical phenomenon should ultimately submit to the same explanatory logic. If interactions account so effectively for motion, stability, and response across scales, it seems reasonable to expect that further refinement will eventually close any remaining gaps. This expectation is not naive. It is grounded in the genuine achievements of interaction-based physics and in the remarkable consistency with which this mode of explanation has worked. Yet embedded within this success is an underlying assumption, namely that there already exists a structure in which interactions occur, that space and time are already defined, and that motion is already present. As long as these conditions remain implicit, interaction-based explanations appear both complete and sufficient, even though they depend on conditions they do not themselves explain. Gravity as a Signal of an Explanatory Boundary Gravity becomes significant in this discussion not because it resists explanation, but because it consistently forces physics to shift explanatory modes. Across different theoretical frameworks, gravity appears less as an interaction between entities and more as a description of the structure within which entities move. Whether expressed in force-like terms or geometrically, gravity repeatedly refers to the organization of the arena itself rather than to exchanges occurring solely within it. This recurring shift is neither an accident of theory nor a temporary limitation awaiting resolution. It reflects a deeper distinction between explaining how entities influence one another and how the space of possible motion is organized. In the case of gravity, physics finds that describing influence alone is insufficient and that attention must instead be directed toward the structure that simultaneously constrains all interactions. This does not mean that gravity is more fundamental in a reductionist sense, nor does it imply that force-based descriptions are incorrect or incomplete. Instead, it shows that certain phenomena cannot be fully captured by interaction-based explanations because they operate at a level where the system's overall organization becomes relevant. Gravity points not to a stronger interaction but to a different category of explanation. What gravity makes visible is an architectural boundary: when physics addresses questions that concern not only how things move but also how motion itself is structured and constrained, interaction-based language begins to lose its explanatory power. At this boundary, physics does not break down but adapts by shifting from descriptions of influence within a structure to descriptions of the structure itself. This shift shows that, for all their power, interaction-based explanations are not designed to operate at every level of explanation. They excel at describing behavior within an existing reality, but they necessarily presuppose the very conditions whose persistence they cannot explain. Gravity marks the point at which this presupposition becomes explicit, revealing the need for an additional explanatory layer concerned with structure rather than interaction. What Interaction and Geometry Cannot Explain At this stage, the boundary revealed by gravity can be stated directly because the preceding discussion has already prepared its logic. Interaction-based explanations describe how entities influence one another once a system is active, whereas structural descriptions, whether expressed geometrically or architecturally, describe how the arena of motion itself is organized and constrained. Both forms of explanation are powerful, accurate, and indispensable within their proper scope. What neither form of explanation accounts for is something more basic, namely why motion persists at all and why reality as a whole does not settle into a final, stable equilibrium. Forces explain how things move relative to one another, and geometry explains how that movement is shaped and constrained. Yet both approaches presuppose that ongoing motion already exists and continues, without asking why this persistence is present in the first place. This is not a missing piece in physics, nor a problem awaiting resolution by a future theory, but a boundary in explanatory depth rather than a gap in knowledge. Just as chemistry explains reactions rather than the existence of matter, and biology explains life processes rather than the origin of life itself, physics explains behavior within an already unfolding reality rather than why that reality remains active rather than static. Once interaction-based explanations have fully described influence and once geometry has fully described structure, the persistence of motion itself lies beyond their explanatory reach. Seen side by side, this boundary becomes clearer. In physics, interaction explains how objects influence one another, and structure explains how motion is constrained, yet persistence is assumed rather than explained. In human systems, effort, incentives, skills, and coordination shape individual behavior, while institutions and organizations shape collective outcomes. Yet long-term prosperity remains equally unaccounted for at this level. In both domains, explanatory frameworks succeed precisely where they are designed to operate and stop precisely where persistence would need to be explained. Where Interaction-Based Explanations Reach Their Limit |
| What becomes clear at this boundary is that persistence is neither produced by interaction nor generated by structure, but is a condition both require to operate. Forces act only as long as motion continues, and structures shape motion only insofar as motion does not come to rest. Neither interaction nor geometry explains why the universe does not exhaust its possibilities and settle into stillness. Recognizing this distinction does not weaken physics but clarifies the domain within which its explanations properly apply. Recognizing this boundary allows physics to remain complete and successful on its own terms while making room for a deeper layer of explanation focused on persistence rather than behavior. Interaction explains influence, and geometry explains structure, but neither explains why change continues rather than ceases. Clarifying this distinction prepares the ground for addressing persistence directly, without confusion or competition among explanatory layers. Change, Persistence, and the Architectural Answer The boundary identified above leads to a straightforward conclusion in principle, yet is often overlooked in practice. If interaction explains how influence is transmitted within a system, and structure explains how the arena of motion is organized and constrained, while neither explains why motion persists at all, then persistence must belong to a deeper level of explanation that both forms already assume rather than derive. Change, understood at this level, is neither an event within reality nor a force acting upon it, but the condition that prevents reality from settling into stillness. Forces operate only as long as change continues to unfold, and structures matter only insofar as change does not come to rest. Once this is recognized, the persistence of motion is no longer a missing explanation or an unresolved mystery, but an architectural condition that makes all other explanations possible. This is the level at which the Universal Law of Increasing Complexity operates. The law does not compete with physics, nor does it describe physical mechanisms or interactions. Instead, it explains why energy continues to circulate through structure and direction rather than dissipating into equilibrium, and why systems that maintain internal tension without collapsing tend to develop greater functional capability over time. Wherever change is contained by structure and oriented by direction, complexity increases, regardless of whether the system in question is physical, biological, or social. Seen through this lens, the frustration described at the beginning of this column is easier to understand. Programs that focus primarily on interaction, by adding incentives, training, technology, coordination, or enforcement, can generate movement and even impressive short-term results, yet they rarely produce persistence unless the underlying structure is redesigned to sustain change over time. When external support is reduced or removed, systems tend to revert to the level their structure can sustain, not because participants failed or intentions were insufficient, but because persistence was never secured at the architectural level. History offers clear socioeconomic confirmation of this pattern. The shift from older organizational forms to the limited liability company was driven less by new technologies or changes in motivation than by a structural redesign that aligned risk, responsibility, and continuity. The same people, operating in the same markets with the same skills, began to behave differently almost immediately because the new structure allowed economic activity to persist, scale, and compound over time, producing a global economic impact that followed structure rather than interaction. A similar divergence emerged in the early-twentieth-century in the geography of Israel, when farmers shifted from village organization to the Kibbutz. Technology, agronomic knowledge, market access, and environmental conditions remained largely unchanged, yet outcomes diverged sharply and often rapidly. Where structure aligned work, responsibility, and shared direction, communities developed a far greater capacity to absorb hardship and sustain collective effort over time. However, where such alignment was absent, progress remained fragile and easily reversed, again demonstrating that structure determines persistence. These examples do not prescribe a single model, nor do they reduce complex histories to simple formulas. Instead, they illustrate a general architectural principle in which change drives reality forward, interaction shapes behavior within that reality, and structure determines whether change can be sustained long enough to become a lasting capability. Why Effort Alone Cannot Secure Persistence The question that opened this column can now be answered with clarity and without emotional tension. Physics explains how entities influence one another and how motion is shaped in an already unfolding universe, while gravity resists a purely interaction-based framing because it operates at the level of structure itself. Neither interaction nor geometry explains why motion persists globally rather than settling into equilibrium, since both presuppose persistence rather than account for it. What fails across physics, development, and governance is not effort or intelligence but the assumption that persistence emerges automatically rather than being designed. This places change at a prior architectural level, where it makes ongoing transformation possible without competing with physical explanation. Physics is therefore not incomplete but layered, describing behavior within reality with extraordinary success, while architectural laws explain why reality and the systems we build within it cannot stop unfolding. Seen in this way, lasting progress, in nature as well as in human life, depends less on doing more and more on designing structures that can hold change over time. |
