“When the state was most corrupt, laws were most numerous.”Tacit · Anale · 117 · Cartea III, paragraful 27
Written laws appear exactly where custom and trust have failed.
A more concentrated version of the same observation: the number of laws grows as public morality declines. The mechanism is that a healthy community governs itself through custom and trust, and written laws appear precisely when those collapse. Rome's golden age had few codes; the age of trials and informers had many. Any organization that inflates its rulebook instead of fixing its culture repeats the pattern.
Tacit notices something subtler than a mere correlation: laws do not just accompany decay, they can speed it up. Every new rule creates a new loophole to interpret, a new case to win. Anyone who wants to dodge a rule's spirit will find its letter. Thus the rulebook becomes a manual for abuse. Think of an apartment building where neighbors quarrel: add clauses about noise, gardens, parking, and the disputes move to the letter of the text instead of disappearing. A rule meant to stop one behavior becomes a shield for another. The question that follows: what does a community look like when it manages to repair trust instead of writing yet another page of rules?
Why it matters A practical test: if your team adds new rules every month, the problem is probably culture, not a shortage of rules.