The Failure Argument Is Conditional

The argument that directive governance fails in software is conditional, not universal like Hayek’s. Hayek claims central planning always fails because knowledge is always distributed and tacit. The directive governance argument is narrower: it fails in software because three specific preconditions do not hold (information cannot be compressed without losing signal, metrics are not good proxies for outcomes, execution is not separable from decision-making). Directive governance works in industries where those preconditions hold. This is a structural diagnosis, not a universal principle about the superiority of decentralization.