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Car accelerators are spring-loaded to shut the engine down to idling speed if pressure is released. Machine tools have panic bars which automatically shut off the motor if somebody leans against them or falls towards the machine. A relay breaks secondary circuits it is holding if the supply to its coil is broken. Engineers have always used such contraptions to ensure that machines will stop unless they are being specifically told to keep going.
One of the greatest challenges came with the advent of computer control. Digital commands can freeze when power fails instead of falling to a safe condition. When I was working on flight simulators in the late 1960s it was vital that commands sent to the powerful hydraulic rams controlling the motion of the aircraft flight deck did not freeze in a dynamic state. Many computer controlled systems of this nature employ a 'heartbeat' sent out continually by the controlling computer program. The mechanism being controlled is designed to drop into a safe state of inactivity if ever it ceases to receive the regular heartbeat signal from the control software.
The whole purpose of these techniques is not to ensure the safety of the machine or system, but to ensure the safety of its human users - they whom it is designed to serve.
Traditionally, an administrative system fulfilled its purpose by those within it, and the individual members of the public who were subject to it, following its rules. The rules were actively enforced. The idea of making them inherently fail-safe seemed irrelevant.
Computers brought engineers and administrators together. As a result, administrators became aware of engineering techniques. They soon realised that making the rules inherently fail-safe could save money. If they failed safe, it would not be necessary to maintain such large agencies of enforcement. Rules which embodied the principle of passive fail-safety would tend to be self-enforcing.
Previously it had been up to the state to find and enforce its claim for taxation upon the individual. Under the new fail-safe rules, the state took automatically, or held back, money from the individual. If the individual was to get back what was due to him, he had to prove his claim and then take positive initiative to get it back from the state what was owed to him. But unlike the state, the individual rarely has access to a legal expert. He is therefore rarely likely to know what he is actually entitled to.
The whole system of government administration is now being deliberately re-designed to fail safe on the side of the state, always leaving the individual short-changed.
An example of where this onus, which was once on the state, has been transferred to the individual is taxation on interest. Once upon a time, the interest I gained on any savings was accounted at the end of each tax year, and the appropriate tax deducted. If in a given year I did not make enough profit to pay tax even when the interest was added, then no tax was deducted on the interest. All neatly calculated after the event so that everything that needed to be known was known, and there was no need for future adjustments or arguments.
Now, unless I can `supply evidence' before the start of a tax year that my income will not exceed the tax threshold during that year, then tax on interest in that year is automatically deducted at source. A bank will only stop deducting tax from the date when I can supply evidence that my income is below the tax threshold. Obviously the self-employed cannot supply such evidence until about 6 months after the close of the year in question, by which time accounts have been ratified by the Inland Revenue. By this time it is too late.
Under the new fail-safe rules, tax gets deducted anyway, and there is nothing within the bounds of practicality that a self-employed individual can do about it. The procedure has been deviously redesigned so that unless the individual is aware, knowledgeable enough, skilled enough and aggressive enough, his money just naturally falls into, and stays in, the government's coffers.
Perhaps the most effective and devious mechanism which the corporates and their puppet governments has foisted upon the individual in recent times is direct debit. I will never again, of my unencumbered free will, sign a direct debit mandate. Direct debit is an experience I never wish to repeat. I know of others who have had even worse experiences with it than I have. Once set up, the individual payer can have the Devil's own job if ever he has cause to terminate a direct debit. It may never happen to the vast majority of people, but to whom it does, it can be catastrophic.
You can tell your bank you want it stopped, but they won't do it. You have to ask the payee organisation to stop taking your money from your bank account. And they simply may not oblige for a whole variety of reasons:
Meanwhile money is regularly and relentlessly disappearing from your bank account.
Driven to desperation, I once tried to stop a direct debit finally by closing my account altogether. However, on the date of the next direct debit event, the bank automatically reopened my account, complete with an unauthorised overdraft. I then got a nasty letter from the bank (which they charged for, thus increasing the overdraft further). They also registered my name with three credit black lists. I am never sure whether or not they ever removed it. I cannot afford to find out.
Many large corporates and other organisations offer absolute guarantees that direct debits will be stopped on request and that you will be reimbursed and compensated promptly in the event of an error. But what do they mean by prompt? A day? A week? A month? Ninety days? To somebody like me on very low income, having an erroneous direct debit running wild for a month could be catastrophic. We would have no money to live on.
But supposing one of these large corporate or official organisations - for whatever reason - simply doesn't sort it out. What is your remedy? Why or course, as they quite rightly say, you have your rights and remedies under the law. But how long would 'due process of law' actually take? A month? Never. Three months? Possibly. A year? More likely. Meanwhile, the money carries on disappearing. With this in mind, how are you going to finance your case? For one on my level of income, by the time reimbursement and compensation came, my family and I would have long since starved to death.
Compare this with the alternative. When you want to stop paying, you simply stop writing the cheques. Totally fail-safe - but for the individual: not for the corporate or official leviathan with whom he is dealing.
Whether trying to re-claim undue tax, or whether claiming a so-called 'benefit', the onus is now always upon the individual to provide `acceptable evidence' of entitlement - acceptable that is to a bureaucracy whose brief is obviously to search with best endeavour for a reason not to pay. Its procedures always `fail safe' or default in favour of the state and against the individual.
The powers-that-be maintain an implacable disregard for the individual, making neither allowance nor dispensation towards the individual, while government passes ever more legislation to ensure that any error or delay places its financial burden squarely on the individual, always `failing safe' on the side of authority.