It seems to hold that organisms either remain small, flexible and adaptive, or become relatively strong and invulnerable by growing very large. Denmark vs America, or Iceland vs China. A single-celled animal, such as the slipper animalcule, has a very strong strategy, and although we have run into serious problems worldwide with our large-scale systems worldwide, we humans have been able to survive beyond expectations, precisely because of large and complex systems. This is exactly the paradox: systems are useful and terrible, necessary and dangerous. In this column this is applied to . large organizations that increasingly impose rules and freedom restrictions on their employees – HRO principles, for example – against small SMEs, who sometimes see opportunities to keep their lives together. Both are necessary, but they naturally go very poorly together...