# kaal:claim:3782192-014

**Claim.** When the letter of the law becomes more important than the spirit of the law, internal competition for power makes the winning strategy to push behavior to the limit of what is acceptable.

**Type.** mechanism  **Support.** argued

**Holds when.**

- formal rule based governance inside a centralized hierarchy
- internal competition for power

**Source quote.**

> When the letter of the law is more important than the spirit of the law, then internal competition for power within the hierarchy reveals the best strategy is to push your behavior to the limit of what is acceptable.

**From.** Craig Calcaterra, Wulf A. Kaal, *Introduction to Decentralization* (2021), Overview & Introduction: The process of organizational development, page 5

**Cite as.** Craig Calcaterra, Wulf A. Kaal, Introduction to Decentralization (2021). SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3782192

**Verify.** sha256 of source PDF `e7eafd56cb8a8bd15b64cf58216bb655f939bdcc296387e362fd9191976d67ae` at https://raw.githubusercontent.com/wulfkaal/Academic-Papers/main/papers/pdf/Calcaterra%20and%20Kaal%20-%202021%20-%20Introduction%20to%20Decentralization.pdf

**Failure mode.** Letter-of-the-law rule gaming  (family: enforcement-gap)

**Topics.** regulatory-failure, governance-design

**Keywords.** letter-of-the-law, spirit-of-the-law, rule-gaming, governance

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