Readable atlas · Release 0.35
Requisite inefficiency
The proposal that some slack, redundancy or apparently unused variety is necessary if a system is to retain the capacity to respond and remain viable under conditions not already anticipated.
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Summary
Requisite inefficiency names the possibility that unused capacity, redundancy, variation or slack may be regulatory resource rather than waste.
Implications for practice
Efficiency programmes can remove the very variety needed to absorb disturbance, learn, experiment and respond. The concept forces an explicit question: inefficient relative to which purpose, boundary and timescale?
Key distinctions
- slack vs waste
- short-term utilisation vs long-term viability
- redundancy vs duplication without purpose
- efficiency for one part vs capacity of the whole
Historical development
- Ashby's requisite variety
- management cybernetics
- organisational resilience and slack
Ideas it depends on
- requisite variety
- viability
- adaptation
- timescale
Further developments
- capacity buffers
- experimentation
- resilient organisation
Connections to practice
- resource decisions
- operational excellence
- resilience
- portfolio and workforce design
Common confusions
- all inefficiency is good
- buffers need no purpose
- efficiency and viability are opposites
Further checks
- seek independent applications and criticism
- distinguish related concepts such as slack, redundancy and reserve variety
Recorded connections
Check the wording, direction, scope, sources, and status of a connection before relying on it.
Requisite inefficiency was coined by Ivo Velitchkov
Status: accepted · Relation: coined by
The wording is limited to the named public sources. Bibliographic inclusion and organisational association do not establish wider intellectual influence.
Locator: Release 0.12 public practitioner and publication sources
- Requisite inefficiency (checked)
Requisite inefficiency has explanatory prerequisite Requisite variety
Status: accepted · Relation: explanatory prerequisite
The wording is limited to the named public sources. Bibliographic inclusion and organisational association do not establish wider intellectual influence.
Locator: Release 0.12 public practitioner and publication sources
- Requisite inefficiency (checked)
Requisite inefficiency states an excess-variety condition on Viability
Status: accepted · Relation: constrains
This records Velitchkov's proposal that excess variety may be required for long-run viability; it is not presented as a generally established theorem.
Locator: Resource description, paragraphs beginning “Driven by market forces…” and “Both organisms and the social systems…”
- Requisite inefficiency (checked)
Sources and passage locators
- Requisite inefficiency (checked)
Cite this entry
Taylor, B. P. (2026). Requisite inefficiency. The Necessary Tangle, release 0.35. https://transduction.systems/entries/concept_requisite_inefficiency/
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