Ratchet effect
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The ratchet effect the commonly observed phenomenon that some processes cannot go backwards once certain things have happened, by analogy with the mechanical ratchet that holds the spring tight as a clock is wound up.
Garrett Hardin, a biologist and environmentalist who also wrote of the 'tragedy of the commons', used the phrase to describe how food aid keeps alive people who would otherwise die in a famine. They live and multiply in better times, making another bigger crisis inevitable, since the supply of food has not been increased.
Austrian school economist Robert Higgs has also used the term to describe the seemingly irreversible expansion of government in times of crisis in his book Crisis and Leviathan.
The ratchet effect is also used as a term for the results of an economic strategy arising in an environment where incentive depends on both current and past production, such as in a competitive industry employing piece rates. The producers observe that since incentive is readjusted based on their production, any increase in production confers only a temporary increase in incentive while requiring a permanent greater expenditure of work, and thus decide not to reveal hidden production capacity unless forced to do so.
The ratchet effect is referred to in many disciplines, from politics to management to evolutionary theory. One of the manifestations of the ratchet effect in mathematics is Parrondo's paradox.
In terms of politics, the "ratchet effect" was used to describe the government's inability to scale back the huge bureaucratic organizations that were once needed. Oftentimes, these machines were created in times of war to fuel the needs of their troops abroad. The "ratchet effect" can also be viewed through the lens of international organizations that have trouble with reforms due to the myriad layers of bureaucracy that were previously created.
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