https://civilizatio.org/cases/ We are not a news desk. A problem is stated in a paragraph, as anyone would state it. Then: what happens to that problem when the rules enforce themselves, and, always, what remains unsolved. Cases are the ones everyone has lived; scenarios ask whether a structure permits something, and accuse nobody of having done it. en https://civilizatio.org/cases/the-fund-160864/ https://civilizatio.org/cases/the-fund-160864/ Sat, 01 Aug 2026 09:00:00 GMT Money is raised for one purpose and appears, later, to have gone somewhere else. Before asking whether it happened anywhere in particular, it is worth asking whether the structure permits it at all. https://civilizatio.org/cases/the-donation-671552/ https://civilizatio.org/cases/the-donation-671552/ Tue, 28 Jul 2026 09:00:00 GMT You gave money for a school. What you received back was a photograph and a percentage. Between those two things lies the entire problem of charitable giving. https://civilizatio.org/cases/the-tender-765306/ https://civilizatio.org/cases/the-tender-765306/ Mon, 27 Jul 2026 09:00:00 GMT Everyone knows how it ends before it opens. The bid that wins is the one that saw the others, and the whole apparatus of procurement exists to pretend otherwise. https://civilizatio.org/cases/the-deposit-175188/ https://civilizatio.org/cases/the-deposit-175188/ Sun, 26 Jul 2026 09:00:00 GMT Two months' rent, handed over in cash, held by the person you are least able to compel. The tenancy is the most common contract on earth and one of the least enforceable. https://civilizatio.org/cases/building-fund-271940/ https://civilizatio.org/cases/building-fund-271940/ Sat, 25 Jul 2026 09:00:00 GMT Every apartment block is a small state with a treasury, a budget and an election, run on a notebook nobody is allowed to see. It is the most common institution in the world and the least accountable. https://civilizatio.org/cases/unpaid-invoice-270223/ https://civilizatio.org/cases/unpaid-invoice-270223/ Fri, 24 Jul 2026 09:00:00 GMT The most common property violation on earth has no name and no statistics: work delivered, payment deferred. It is not a moral failure but an ordering error. https://civilizatio.org/cases/monopoly-533711/ https://civilizatio.org/cases/monopoly-533711/ Wed, 22 Jul 2026 09:00:00 GMT The board game everyone has abandoned mid-play is a small, honest model of institutional failure. Here is every complaint about it, and what happens to each when the rules run themselves.