S.9 System traps and opportunities

Helpful prior learning and learning objectives

Helpful prior learning:


Learning objectives:

In the early 20th century, industrial farming increased food production. Farmers, often with the help of states that provided subsidies, used chemical fertilisers and pesticides, to boost crop yields. But over time, soil lost fertility, requiring even more fertilisers. Pesticides disrupted ecosystems, leading to new pest outbreaks. Farmers became dependent on chemicals, unable to stop without damaging crops.

This is a system trap—when a system’s structure causes persistent problems. Many traps emerge from reinforcing feedback loops, weak or delayed balancing feedback, or flawed system goals. But every trap also contains opportunities for redesigning systems to support social and ecological systems.

A photograph of a large tractor spraying plants with chemicals

Figure 1. Monocultures and excessive chemicals have depleted soil fertility, reduced biodiversity, and made farmers more dependent on agrichemical firms, weakening resilience.

(Credit: Serega, licensed from AdobeStock)

How do reinforcing feedback loops create system traps?

Some traps happen when reinforcing feedback loops make problems worse. A small change strengthens itself over time, pushing the system toward crisis. Common examples include escalation and success to the successful.

Trap 1: Escalation

Escalation happens when competitors keep trying to outdo each other. A reinforcing feedback loop makes each response more extreme. This follows a simple agent-based system rule: "If another increases their effort, I must increase mine."

One example is the race for artificial intelligence (AI). Tech companies compete to develop ever more powerful AI, pushing forward without fully understanding the risks—such as misinformation, job loss, and security threats. Safety checks are ignored because slowing down means falling behind (Section S.6).

Another example is a military arms race. When one country builds more weapons, others do the same. The cycle continues, increasing military spending, but not necessarily security. The same pattern appears in advertising wars and price wars, where businesses cut prices or spend more on advertising to compete, often harming their own profits and leading to unhealthy cost-cutting relationships with stakeholders like employees and suppliers.

A reinforcing feedback loop for escalation and a photograph of Times Square filled with electrified advertising.

Figure 2. Escalation happens when competitors keep trying to outdo each other. This creates a reinforcing feedback loop (a) of intensifying competition, like advertising in city centres (b).

(Credit: Helena Lopes, Pexels license)

If escalation continues, collapse follows. A company in a price war may go bankrupt. A country in an arms race may spend too much on weapons and not enough on other needs. In AI, reckless development could harm societies, economies, and ecosystems. To stop escalation, balancing forces like state regulation or industry cooperation are needed. Without them, the cycle continues until failure.

Trap 2. Success to the successful: The wealth trap

Some systems help those already ahead while making it harder for others to succeed. Over time, resources and power concentrate in fewer hands.

Wealth is an example. Rich families can afford better education, healthcare, and living conditions, creating better opportunities for their children. Meanwhile, poorer families struggle to access the same opportunities. Economic inequality widens over generations.

In business, large companies expand, invest in technology, and lower prices, making it hard for smaller firms to compete. This reduces competition, creating oligopolies and monopolies where just a few or one business controls a market and leading to higher prices (Section 3.2.4). 

This reinforcing loop gets stronger with political capture. The rich and large corporations lobby states to make policies that benefit them—lower taxes, weaker regulations, and barriers to new competitors (Figure 3). According to Oxfam (2025), 60% of billionaire wealth comes from inheritance, monopoly power, or corrupt political influence. This reinforces inequality, leading to social unrest and weakened democracies (Section 5.1.x - coming soon).

Two reinforcing feedback loops showing how larger businesses amplify their power through investments and political capture

Reinforcing feedback loops showing how increases in business size and market power lead to economies of scale and higher profits which lead to further increased market power (right) and political power (left). 

Balancing strategies can prevent this trap. States can ensure universal access to healthcare and education, create and enforce antitrust laws to maintain competition, and limit corporate lobbying. Progressive taxation—where those with higher wealth and incomes pay a higher tax percentage—helps redistribute resources, creating a fairer, more resilient society.

Why do balancing feedback loops fail?

Some balancing feedback exists but it may not be strong enough or work fast enough. doesn’t work fast enough. Two common traps are fixes that fail and overuse of unmanaged open-access resources.

Trap 3: The fix that fails (policy resistance)

A solution to a problem may seem helpful at first, but later make things worse.

A key example is Jevons paradox (Figure 4). In the 19th century, new technologies made steam engines more efficient, reducing the amount of coal used per unit of power. But this also reduced the cost of using coal and businesses had incentives to use even more of it to increase output. Instead of reducing coal use, more efficient technologies increased coal use overall. 

An illustration of the balancing and reinforcing feedback in Jevons paradox

Figure 4. Jevons Paradox – Greater efficiency lowers costs, often driving higher output and reinforcing resource use instead of reducing it.

This trap makes climate action difficult, especially in a system focused on profit maximising and economic growth. When businesses save money through efficiency, they often reinvest the money to expand their output even more, increasing resource use. Today, fuel-efficient cars lower travel costs, so people drive more, keeping fuel use high. More efficient solar panels reduce energy costs, but lower costs of production encourage more output with the result that renewable energies are being added on top of fossil fuels rather than replacing them (Figure 5).

Figure 5. Global primary energy consumption by source since 1800. Renewable energy is added on top of fossil fuels, rather than replacing them.

(Credit: Our World in Data)

To address this system trap, solutions must go beyond technological efficiency. Policies should limit resource extraction, tax resource use and high consumption, and promote repair, sharing, and reuse in the circular economy instead of encouraging endless production. Some cities, like Edinburgh and The Hague, have banned advertising for products with high carbon footprints like cruises, flying and fossil fuels to change social norms on resource use.


Figure 6. Advertising encourages consumption, so cities like Edinburgh, Scotland are banning ads for high CO2 emitting products to change social norms. (Credit: Gail Frederick, CC BY 2.0)

Trap 4: Overuse of unmanaged open-access resources - balancing feedback is too late

Some resources, like fish in the ocean, are open-access—available to anyone. Without rules, people take too much, leading to collapse.

A classic case is the Newfoundland cod fishery. For centuries, cod seemed unlimited. More fishers meant more revenue, encouraging more people to fish and creating a reinforcing loop. But as fish stocks declined, new technologies—radar, larger boats, better nets—helped fishers keep catching more, hiding the balancing feedback of declining fish stocks which should have signaled them to stop. Eventually, cod populations crashed and so did the fish catch (Figure 7). In 1992, Canada banned cod fishing, but far too late. Thousands lost their jobs, and coastal communities suffered.

Figure 7. Five centuries of cod catches in Eastern Canada. By the 1970s cod populations and the cod catch had collapsed. (Credit: Our World in Data)

To prevent this, balancing feedback must come early. Solutions include quotas (catch limits), community management (local agreements on fair use), and protected areas (zones where resource use is restricted to allow recovery). Managing open-access resources can prevent collapse before it's too late.

Trap 5: How can a system deteriorate when it pursues the wrong goal?

A system’s goal shapes decisions (Section S.8). If the goal is flawed, the system produces harmful outcomes.

Imagine a school that wants to improve education. It focuses on test scores, assuming high scores mean good learning. But teachers then ‘teach to the test,’ neglecting creativity, critical thinking, and non-tested subjects. Test scores rise, but real learning suffers.

The same happens in economies. Many governments focus on growing gross domestic product (GDP)—the total value of goods and services produced in an economy. But GDP growth often prioritises output over well-being. Policies favour activities that boost GDP, even if they cause harm. Deforestation increases GDP through timber sales but destroys ecosystems. Factories raise output while polluting communities. Treating all economic activity as positive encourages short-term profits at the cost of long-term health and resilience. Subtopic 5.x (coming soon) discusses the problems with GDP and alternative goals in greater detail.

Businesses also fall into this trap. If profit growth is the goal, they may cut costs in ways that harm workers, communities, and ecosystems. But businesses can be designed differently—changing purpose, networks, ownership, finance, and governance to support regeneration instead of extraction (Subtopic 3.3).

Many countries are exploring alternative postgrowth strategies to focus on improving human wellbeing in ways that may limit economic growth and pressure on ecosystems, such as reducing working hours, providing Universal Basic Services (UBS), supporting relocalisation and bioregionalism. These and other policies are discussed in Subtopic 5.x. - coming soon!

Remember that system traps don’t just happen by accident—they emerge from the way systems are designed and maintained. Some traps persist because they benefit powerful groups, while others continue simply because people don’t realise there’s an alternative. The good news is that once we recognise these patterns, we can challenge them and redesign systems to support human and wider ecological wellbeing and resilience.

Activity S.9

Concept: Systems

Skills: Thinking skills (transfer)

Time: 30-40  minutes

Type: Individuals, pairs, or groups

Option 1: Recognising system traps

Below are five scenarios, each representing a different system trap. Read each one carefully, then answer the following questions either alone, with a partner or in a small group.

Scenarios:






Checking for understanding

Further exploration

Sources

Arellano, J. P. (2025, February 13). Degrowth is popular! Explore Degrowth. https://explore.degrowth.net/degrowth/degrowth-is-popular/

Austin, Duncan. (2024, August). Rethinking Sustainability: Insights from Systems Thinking [Video]. YouTube. https://youtu.be/mk_ceiP7JyE

Economist Intelligence Unit. (2025, February 27). Democracy Index 2024: Age of conflict. The Economist Group. https://www.eiu.com/n/democracy-index-2024/

Igini, M. (2024, September 17). The Hague becomes first city in the world to outlaw fossil fuel advertising, months after UN chief call to stop fueling disinformation. Earth.Org. https://earth.org/the-hague-becomes-first-city-in-the-world-to-outlaw-fossil-fuel-advertising-months-after-un-chief-call-to-stop-fueling-disinformation/

Meadows, D. H. (2008). Thinking in systems: A primer. White River Junction, VT: Chelsea Green Publishing.

Monbiot, G. (2017, May 31). Public luxury for all or private luxury for some: This is the choice we face. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/may/31/private-wealth-labour-common-space

Taneja, A., Kamande, A., Guharay Gomez, C., Abed, D., Lawson, M., & Mukhia, N. (2025, January 20). Takers not makers: The unjust poverty and unearned wealth of colonialism. Oxfam International. https://oi-files-d8-prod.s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/2025-01/English%20-%20Davos%20Full%20Report%202025.pdf

Terminology (in order of appearance)

Coming soon!