The purpose of a system is what it does. But what does this deceptively simply aphorism mean? And how can we use it to explain the Iran war and every other important systemic event in the world? Good questions. Let’s answer them!

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TRANSCRIPT AND SOURCES

JAMES CORBETT: Have you ever heard the phrase, “the purpose of a system is what it does?” Do you know the origin of this phrase? Do you know its meaning? And do you know how it can be used to explain current events?

If so, great! Have a great day. I have nothing to teach you.

If not, you’re in luck. I’m going to tell you about this phrase, where it comes from, what it means, and how to use it. And by the end of today’s episode, you’re going to understand how the purpose of a system is what it does can be used to explain current events, including the Iran war.

Are you ready? Let’s dig in.

CORBETT REPORT THEME

STAFFORD BEER: The important thing to realize about systems is how they are controlled. And we must get rid of any notion straight away that control is something imposed on the system from outside. It has to be built into it.

 

Now you saw me operate this governor just now and noticed how the engine slowed down. Let’s see how the mechanism works.

 

Suppose the engine is racing. Then the governor flies open like that. You see it lifting here, transmitting the message along here, lifting that cam up here and then shutting off a valve there. That is built into the system It’s called feedback. And feedback is ubiquitous in control systems.

 

SOURCE:  Feedback / Stafford Beer

CORBETT: Welcome back, friends. Welcome back to another edition of The Corbett Report. I’m James Corbett of CorbettReport.com, coming to you, as always, from the sunny climes of Western Japan here in April of 2026 with Episode 499 of The Corbett Report podcast, “The Purpose of a System is What It Does.”

So, who was that man in that intriguing little clip that we just saw? Well, that was Stafford Beer, and I imagine there is probably some subsection of the audience who is already familiar with Stafford Beer and his work. But, if not, I will simply intrigue you with the idea that Stafford Beer is certainly someone who would be deserving of his own podcast deep dive—and not because I think his life, life’s work or thought is worthy of veneration, but because it is worthy of dissection.

Namely, because Stafford Beer was a Malthusian limits to growth doomer, he was a technocrat, he was a socialist. More to the point, he was a cybernetician. And his work provides a very interesting insight into the development of the technocratic idea, which, hopefully, my audience is familiar with, and which started in the 1920s/1930s. But the development of that idea in the late 20th century and the form that it took to develop, well, cybernetics, which is probably something that is of relevance to all of us and that we should all know more about.

So, as I say, I will leave my teaser introduction of Stafford Beer there with the promise that I think we will look further into him in the future. And just as one cookie crumb along the trail to get you interested in that, I will provide you—in the spirit of the Solutions Watch on “Magic Words”—the magic words that will unlock at least one intriguing part of the Stafford Beer story. That is “Project Cybersyn.” Cyber S-Y-N. Project Cybersyn. Just start by looking that up and seeing what you find on that cookie crumb trail.

But today, we’re not going to talk about Stafford Beer’s life work. We’re going to talk about one specific aphorism with which he is associated. And that aphorism, from what I understand, came from a number of works that he had written over the years and number of lectures that he has given over the years. But we’ll take this from Diagnosing the System for Organizations, a book that you can get up on archive.org. It is there and available and was published by John Wiley and Sons, copyright 1985.

And if you—well, I mean, read this book to your heart content if you so desire, but let’s cut to the chase and get down to page 99, on which the aphorism appears. So, once we actually get to page 99…

Broc: Jeopardy theme music, please!

*JEOPARDY THEME MUSIC PLAYS

And here we are. Exactly!

So, on page 99 of this book, Stafford Beer writes:

“A GOOD OBSERVER will impute the purpose of the system from its actions and thus from the resultant state.”

So, what is a system? What does it do? Well, let’s look at what it does and then what results from that. And that is what the system actually is about. So:

“Hence, the key aphorism: The purpose of a system is what it does.”

And then that is followed up by this incredibly important point:

“There is, after all, no point in claiming that the purpose of a system is to do what it consistently fails to do.”

That seems so astoundingly obvious that it shouldn’t need to be said, and yet it does. Why is that? It’s because people are naturally inclined—or, at any rate, have certainly been taught—to listen to rhetoric and explanation and excuses about, “Oh, this system has been designed to…” But, “Oh, it kind of failed here. Oh, it didn’t quite live up to that here, and this is what you get.” And unfortunately, that is the way that so many systems tend to work, which is why, as he goes on to observe, this produces a lot of cognitive dissonance. When somebody is telling you the system is actually for this, and yet it produces that, what is going on here?

This might be very abstract for those who are used to dealing with cybernetics and systems research and management of businesses and humans and everything else, you might be already familiar with this language and what it means, but let’s put it in something tangible.

“I have invented this doohickey, this complex doohickey system that, when you press upon the lever so for, say, 10 minutes a day you will, um…balance your neural chakra and unfung your shue. And that will allow you to earn more money, have more power and influence, achieve your dreams and cure your toenail fungus. But only if you press it like this for 10 minutes a day every day.”

“Sure. Sold! How much?”

“$10,000 and you can have this amazing doohickey that I’ve invented!”

Fast forward 10 years later and what has this doohickey and pressing on it actually produced? Well, nothing. It has changed absolutely nothing in my daily life. I haven’t been able to regrow my hair or any of the other things that the snake oil salesman who sold me that doohickey promised. So, what was the actual purpose of this doohickey? What did it actually do? Well, it separated me from my money. And that was the actual purpose of the doohickey all along.

The purpose of the system is what it does. And that is an incredibly simple, yet incredibly powerful observation that we can use to help explain what is actually happening in reality and strip it from all of the rhetoric and political platitudes and pieties that surround systems that are presented to us.

Once again, I think this is probably best demonstrated through concrete examples. So let’s turn from the doohickey example to a very real example with which we are all familiar. Of course, one of the things that the government claims to do for us is to provide us with an education system. In fact, so thoroughly has this been indoctrinated into the population, that we need the education system provided by the state, that it has become almost literally unthinkable for the average person to imagine a world before the government was providing such an “education system” to its citizens. How could education function if it was not being provided to us in this wonderful education system?

And of course, surrounding the education system, we have all of the wonderful rhetoric about how this is going to “develop more responsible citizens” and “equip young adults for the world of tomorrow,” etc., and all of the other things that we are told about the education system. But the purpose of a system is what it does. So what is the actual resultant state of the education system as it exists?

JAMES EVAN PILATO: “A Noticeable Decline” —Teachers Sharing The Everyday Things Students Can’t Do For Themselves Anymore; “They Can’t Read, Write, Or Spell. And Don’t Care.”

 

This is coming from BuzzFeed, who apparently posted up an article, “25 teachers sharing the basic things students apparently can’t do themselves anymore.” And once that story hit, even more people started to pile on in response to that.

 

“I teach 3K, these are 3 and 4-year-olds, and most of our kids cannot put on a jacket at all. They won’t even try…they start throwing tantrums before even attempting, saying they can’t do it, it’s too hard.”

 

“The majority of students struggle to read a clock unless it’s digital.”

 

“Kids know they will pass no matter how unqualified, ill-equipped, and unprepared they are. They come to school with the attitude of ‘I won’t do the work and you can’t make me.’ Sorry to say, we can’t. That’s why I quit teaching. Call me a coward. I blame it on No Child Left Behind.”

 

(It’s always those Republicans!)

 

“I have been shocked by the number of second and third graders who can’t tie their shoes. I also have fourth graders who can’t write their first and last names. Granted, I spend most of my time with the kids who are failing more than one class, but it’s really scary to think that a kid can get to fourth grade without anyone raising an alarm about their inability to write their full name.”

 

“I have been teaching high school English for only seven years now, and the post-COVID/lockdown educational landscape is ROUGH. Students are using AI to think for them, write for them, and summarize any readings for them that are more than a paragraph. We’ve put technology in every classroom, but kids don’t understand how to use it.”

 

SOURCE: Interview 2008 – Ehrlich Contributes to the Depopulation Agenda (NWNW #623)

CORBETT: Now, that—as i hope my listeners are aware—was a clip from New World Next Week Episode 623: “Ehrlich Contributes to the Depopulation Agenda,” in which James Evan Pilato there in New Mexico is reporting on the “failure” of the American education system to actually educate children.

But is it a failure? Think, for example, about the rationalization that—as Pilato, I think, rightly pointed out there—is given in this case: “Oh, yes, the education system is, of course, meant to elevate and educate and enlighten and inspire children, but it’s failing because…” Because why? “Because of insufficient funding or insufficient resources or those resources have been misallocated or applied in the wrong way. No, what we need is better people with good intentions to come along and reform the system in the right way in order to produce the real desired results. Because as we all know, of course, the education system is about educating children!”

But let’s use POSIWID. “The purpose of a system is what it does” (sometimes referred to by its acronym: POSIWID). Well, in this case, let’s strip it of the rhetoric. Let’s strip it of the rationalization. Let’s overcome our cognitive dissonance. And let’s look plainly at what the system does. It is dumbing down children. Therefore, the purpose of the education system, at least the American education system, as it exists today, is to dumb down children.

Now, this will not come as a surprise to those who have, for example, read Charlotte Iserbyt’s The Deliberate Dumbing Down of America, or John Taylor Gatto’s Weapons of Mass Instruction: A Schoolteacher’s Journey Through the Dark World of Compulsory Schooling, or for those who have seen How Big Oil Conquered the World and learned the history of the Rockefeller-funded modern American education system.

But that is the power and the genius of this POSIWID insight. It doesn’t matter what the intentions of anyone in this system are. We can, and I have, pointed to the intentions of these people to deliberately dumb down children in this mis-education system. But there are those suffering from cognitive dissonance who will not be able to understand or accept that the purpose of the system is not what the designers say it is.

So, let’s simply take that criterion. The purpose of a system is what it does. It is dumbing down children. Therefore, the purpose of the education system is to dumb down children.

It’s a very effective and powerful way of cutting through the BS and arriving at the reality underneath. I think this is kind of fun. So let’s do it again.

Let’s take a look at a different example. In this case, any system will do. Let’s take a look at the Norwegian Nobel Prize Committee. What is the purpose of the Norwegian Nobel Prize Committee? What is the purpose of that system?

Well, let’s look specifically at the Peace Prize. We are told that the Nobel Peace Prize is to be an award that is to be given to the person or persons responsible for having done “the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, the abolition or reduction of standing armies, and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses.” And the implication is that the reason for awarding such a prize is to promote such peaceful activities and endeavours and promote peace in the world.

But: POSIWID.

So, let’s ask: what is the real purpose of the Nobel Peace Prize?

[phone ringing]

 

MARIA CARINA MACHADO: Hello?

 

KRISTIAN BERG HARPVIKEN: Hello.

 

MACHADO: Yes? Hello?

 

HARPVIKEN: Yes. Am I talking to María Corina Machado?

 

MACHADO: Yes, this is María Corina.

 

HARPVIKEN: Yes, María Corina. My name is Kristian Berg Harpviken. I am the secretary of the Norwegian Nobel Committee in Oslo, and I’m calling to inform you that in a few minutes it shall be announced here at the Nobel Institute that you will be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for 2025.

 

MACHADO: Oh, my God. Oh, my God. [exhales deeply]

 

SOURCE: Watch the call when María Corina Machado wins Peace Nobel

CARISSA LAWSON: The United States just attacked Venezuela’s capital, hitting military facilities in the country. President Trump ordered this operation. There were multiple explosions in Caracas starting at around 2:00 A.M. local time. You can see the video here coming in. It shows low-flying aircraft in the city. This is the first US military attack within the country.

 

SOURCE: U.S. launches military strikes on Venezuela, sources say | Special Report

CORBETT: POSIWID. The purpose of a system is what it does. Ergo, the purpose of the Nobel Peace Prize is to give political cover to warmongers.

Now, once again, this will not be news to people who are familiar with the history of this subject—people who, for example, remember my work on this subject. Like Episode 484 of the Corbett Report podcast on The Nobel War Prize Strikes Again, in which I documented, for example, how last year’s Nobel Peace Prize and the awarding of that to María Corina Machado was part of a campaign to consolidate public support amongst the peace-loving EU neoliberal jet set for a campaign of demonization of the Maduro government that directly led to the military intervention.

Or how it was used back in 2009, for example, when it was awarded to Barack Obama to give political cover to him for his campaign to not only continue the Bush-era War of Terror, but to greatly expand that campaign, expand the bombing campaign into nine different countries, expand the drone warfare that became an essential part of the War of Terror, normalizing the concept of the presidential kill list, stripping Americans of their civil rights and protections, surging in Afghanistan, fomenting the rise of ISIS, etc., etc.

And other historical examples, like, for example, the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to Henry Kissinger for a war that he did not end and that was still ongoing when the prize was awarded, etc.

But, again, as I say, this will not be news to people who have been paying attention to the subject. But even if you have not been paying attention to the subject, you do not have to think about the rhetoric that surrounds the Nobel Peace Prize and what it is designed to do or what its original creator or its current prize committee members say it is designed to do. No, we look at what it does and we reason from there.

Alright. Again, this is an incredibly valuable heuristic, and I think you understand now the power of POSIWID. So, let’s continue applying it.

But now, let’s start to get into the pressing political matters of our day, things that pertain to systems that have been created in recent times in order to facilitate certain events that are ongoing. And let’s ask a very interesting question: What is the purpose of MAGA?

HARRY ENTEN: Just take a look here. MAGA GOP View of Trump. Approve: 100%. 100%! If you are a member of MAGA in the GOP, you approve of Donald John Trump. 0% say that they disapprove. You don’t have to be a mathematical genius to know you can’t go higher than 100%. He is the 1972 Miami Dolphins.

 

Now, there are some Republicans who disapprove of Donald John Trump, but they are not members of the Make America Great Again movement. The bottom line is this: if you are a member of MAGA, you approve of Donald Trump.

 

SOURCE: 35 minutes of Enten running numbers on Trump, Iran & more

DONALD TRUMP: A short time ago, the United States military began major combat operations in Iran. Our objective is to defend the American people by eliminating eminent threats from the Iranian regime—a vicious group of very hard, terrible people.

 

SOURCE: Watch: Trump’s full statement on U.S. strikes against Iran

CORBETT: There are some people who are just waking up to reality, who are starting to ponder whether or not MAGA is failing. “MAGA has not been successful,” these people think, “because I believed MAGA was this thing, but it has become this other thing.”

However, they have fallen into a trap. They believe that the purpose of a system is what it is called. Or, at best, the purpose of a system is what its progenitor has said that that purpose is. Ergo, MAGA is “Make America Great Again”—whatever one makes of that unwieldy phrase. “Yes, I believe in making America great again, and I interpret that in my own way,” exactly as people in 2008 interpreted hope and change and have believed in it and wished it were so and are starting to wonder how that failed.

But MAGA did not fail. In fact, it has been remarkably successful in doing what MAGA does. The purpose of a system is what it does. So what is the purpose of MAGA? It is to generate support for the war on Iran.

Now, that is not the only purpose of this system because MAGA has done many things. Generating support amongst a portion of the public who even a few months ago would have been vociferously opposed to the idea of foreign intervention and meddling in the Middle East is not something to sneeze at. So that is one of the purposes of MAGA. There are others.

For example, another purpose of MAGA is demonstrably to cover up the Epstein files.

Another purpose of MAGA is to expand American government involvement in the AI industry through things like Project Stargate.

Another purpose of MAGA is to deploy more Pentagon PsyOps warriors on Twitter in order to sway public opinion.

Another purpose of MAGA is to extend warrantless surveillance through the extension of the FISA Act.

Another purpose of MAGA is to increase the military budget to record levels and in so doing to increase the fortunes of Thiel-connected military industrial contractors like Palantir and Anduril.

Etc., etc.

There are a number of things that we could point to as purposes of the system that is MAGA, but it would be an incorrect assessment, given all of the foregoing, to say that MAGA is failing. No, MAGA is doing precisely what MAGA does. It is what it does, and it is generating support for these various things.

So, now that we have this very valuable heuristic, let’s apply it to the pressing political question of the moment. The system that we are all seeing unfolding before our very eyes is the Iran war. Whatever that is, and however it eventuated, and whatever people are saying it is about, how about if we apply this heuristic? The purpose of a system is what it does: POSIWID. So, what is the purpose of the Iran war?

RAF SANCHEZ: It’s being called the world’s most dangerous toll booth. The only tankers passing through the Strait of Hormuz are being forced into a new route controlled by Iran, with some charged millions of dollars to transit.

 

TOMER RANAAN: It’s being dubbed “the Tehran tollbooth.”

 

SANCHEZ: That’s according to data from Lloyd’s List Intelligence, a maritime firm, shared with NBC news. Before the war, around 110 ships passed the strait each day. Now it’s ten ships or fewer.

 

SOURCE: Iran forces some tankers to pay millions to leave Strait of Hormuz

CORBETT: Now, I don’t need to tell you, but I’ll tell you anyway, that, of course, the events that are unfolding in the Strait of Hormuz are still unfolding and nothing has been decided yet. And undoubtedly, there will be twists and turns along the way.

But if we were to take a look at the situation right now and ask, “Well, what is the system doing, the system of the Iran war?” It is producing a toll or a blockade or a disruption of the passage of oil through the Strait of Hormuz. That is what it is doing right now. So we have gone from a state where there was a free flow of traffic through the Strait of Hormuz to a state in which there is a trickle of traffic that is either being blockaded and/or tolled in various ways.

And so we can use POSIWID. The purpose of a system is what it does. The purpose of the Iran war is to create a toll of some sort or disruption of some sort on the flow of oil through the Strait of Hormuz.

Now, once you have determined the actual purpose of a system, there are second order questions that you can then start to take a look at. You could ask the “why” question: “Well, then why? Why would anyone design a system to impose blockades or tolls or otherwise disrupt traffic through the Strait of Hormuz?” one might ask. It doesn’t necessarily, of course, logically follow that because a system is doing that thing, that it was designed to do that thing. In fact, part of the beauty of POSIWID is that we can completely and totally take the intentions out of our analysis of a system because the intentions do not matter. The question is: what does it do?

But in this case, I think that there is intentionality behind this situation. I think that the Iran war has been designed to create this disruption of traffic. And if you want to know why I think that and who stands to benefit from this disruption of traffic, I would exhort you to take a look at some of my recent work on this subject. For example, Episode 495 of the Corbett Report podcast on This is the REAL Endgame in Iran. And also a recent conversation that I had with Ryan Christian on The Last American Vagabond, where we talked about the Great (Iran) Reset and go into more of the question of why such a disruption would be in the interests of certain power players at the geopolitical table and those who are interested in starting a New World Order predicated on a new monetary paradigm and the disruption and/or the extension of the petrodollar, etc. Those are some very valuable questions to be asking and to be looking into right now. And I suggest that those two links, which will be in the transcript for today’s episode, will start to send you along that path.

But, like every good professor, this is the point at which I turn the lesson over to the students and invite your participation in this exercise.

I would like to think I have adequately demonstrated the utility of POSIWID as a heuristic for actually cutting through the BS, cutting through the propaganda, cutting through the rhetoric that surrounds every system. “Oh, well, it’s designed to do this and it should act this way and we intend for it to be like this” does not matter. No, the purpose of a system is what it does. So, now we can evaluate what does the system do in order to understand the purpose of that system. The purpose of the system is predicated on the resultant state of that system. Again, a deceptively simple insight, but one that has power, genuine power, in being able to cut through all of the BS and get to reality underneath.

So, I can, off the top of my head, think of dozens of ways in which this POSIWID heuristic can be applied to various questions that might arise when we look at the world around us and start to contemplate the systems around us.

You might ask, for example: what is the purpose of the war on drugs? Well, clearly the purpose of the war on drugs is to make more people addicted to drugs and to increase the prison incarceration rates and to ensure more people are in the prison system. That is what the system does. That is what it is for.

Alright. What is the purpose of AI and the chatbot takeover? Clearly, again, demonstrably, the purpose of this is to make people stupider, more intellectually lazy, and more dependent on their digital devices. That is happening. That is what it does. That is what it is for.

What is the purpose of processed foods? It is demonstrably not to enrich our lives, not to make us feel better or to make us healthier. No, it is precisely the opposite. The purpose of the processed food industry is to make people fatter, sicker, and lazier.

So, again, it is a great way of really seeing through all of the illusion and getting to the base reality of a thing. And I will invite the participation of all of those in The Corbett Report audience, what are some other ideas that occur to you of how you could apply POSIWID to understand what something is really for, not what people say it is for. I think it’s an interesting and valuable intellectual exercise that I think will sharpen people’s critical faculties, generally speaking. It is good to frame things in this way to gain a more penetrating insight into what things really are.

But I’ll leave you today on this particular note, this question: what is the purpose of the Corbett Report? Or, alternatively, what is the purpose of any particular piece of media that you’re consuming? But let’s ask that in the context of the Corbett Report.

What does the Corbett Report do? Does it inform you? Does it enrich your life in any way? Does it actually produce a better understanding of the world that you can use to better navigate yourself in that world or to understand various events? Does it teach you? Does it enlighten you? Does it inform you about things that you did not know about? If the answer is no, then the purpose of a system is what it does. “I don’t want any part of that!” I would say that at that time, when you come to that conclusion, you should get rid of The Corbett Report or any other piece of media that is similarly not enlightening you, not empowering you, not motivating you, not inspiring you, not informing you, not improving your life in any measurable way.

However, if the answer is yes, if the corporate report does teach you new things, if it does enlighten you in any way, if it does inform you, if it does empower you, motivate you, inspire you, then I would say it is a very good thing—POSIWID!—because that is my intention for The Corbett Report. And it would be very gratifying to hear that that is what it is doing, because that is the purpose of a system, ultimately.

So if The Corbett Report does in any way entertain, inform, enlighten, inspire, motivate, empower you, then I would humbly ask if you could support this work. It wouldn’t exist without people out there supporting this work. So if you are not a Corbett Report member, I would ask if you could become one. I would very much appreciate that support. And if you can’t afford to become one for $3 a month or more, then I would simply ask if you could spread this information to others. I think that would be a very, very productive way to use this information, and I hope that it is valuable to you.

Now, having said all of that, I would like to thank you all for participating in today’s exploration and hopefully—hopefully—learning something new or a different way of looking at the world. And as always, I’m very much interested in and hoping for your feedback at corbettreport.com/posiwid, where you will be able to not only access the full, complete, hyperlinked transcript of today’s podcast, but also converse with others in The Corbett Report audience and share your insights into how the POSIWID heuristic can give you insight into various questions and the question of the purpose of various systems.

But I think we will leave today’s exploration there. Thank you for investing your mind time in today’s episode. I’m James Corbett of corbettreport.com, looking forward to talking to you again in the very near future.

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