Theory of Constructed Systems

The umbrella concept that all large-scale human organizations—legal, economic, political, religious—are interlocking sets of constructed rules, roles, and concepts. These systems feel external and coercive ("the system is rigged"), but they are made and maintained by human action and belief. They are the architecture of our shared reality.

Example: "Getting a mortgage involved the constructed system of property law, the constructed system of banking, and the constructed system of credit scores. The Theory of Constructed Systems reveals that my 'dream home' was delivered through a labyrinth of human-made fictions, each depending on the other. The 'real' world is just the most stable and widely agreed-upon layer of construction."

by Abzu Land January 31, 2026

Theory of Constructed Everything

The radical endpoint of social constructionism: the argument that all of human reality—not just social facts like money, but our experience of time, space, the self, and even seemingly brute physical facts—is mediated through and shaped by the conceptual and linguistic systems we collectively build. It's the realization that we are born into a world that is already thickly pre-constructed, and we spend our lives navigating, reinforcing, and sometimes remaking those constructions.

Example: "Looking at a sunset, I see 'beauty' and 'the end of the day'—both constructed concepts. A physicist sees 'Rayleigh scattering' and 'planetary rotation'—other constructed concepts from a different framework. The Theory of Constructed Everything suggests there is no access to the sunset-in-itself; we only ever experience it through the various reality-tunnels our cultures and sciences have built for us. We live in a house of ideas, and mistake it for the sky."

by Abzu Land January 31, 2026

Theory of Constructed Languages

The observation that all human languages are, by definition, constructed social agreements, but this theory specifically highlights deliberately invented languages like Esperanto, Klingon, or programming code. These are not organic evolutions but are built from scratch to fulfill a purpose—whether fostering global peace, enriching a fictional world, or giving unambiguous instructions to a machine. They prove that the core function of language (creating shared meaning) can be engineered, and their success or failure depends entirely on whether a community agrees to use and build upon the construction.

Example: "Esperanto was built on the Theory of Constructed Languages: one guy mashed up Romantic and Germanic roots to create a 'neutral' tongue to unite humanity. It failed to replace natural languages because not enough people bought into the construction. Meanwhile, the constructed language of Python succeeded wildly because the community of programmers agreed to use it, showing that a language's power comes from shared belief in its utility, not its innate logic."

by Abzu Land January 31, 2026

Theory of Constructed Scarcity

The principle that many situations of "scarcity"—not having enough of something—are man-made, not natural. It happens when access to an abundant or sufficiently producible resource is artificially restricted through control, hoarding, legal barriers, or designed obsolescence. The scarcity of the resource is a constructed condition to drive up its value, create competition, and maintain power for those who control the supply. Diamonds aren't rare; their scarcity is carefully constructed by cartels.

Example: "The concert sold out in minutes, but suddenly hundreds of tickets appeared on resale sites at 5x the price. That's the Theory of Constructed Scarcity. The digital tickets weren't physically scarce; their availability was artificially constricted by bots and platform rules to create a desperate market. The 'shortage' was a profitable fiction built by code and scalpers, not by an actual lack of seats."

by Abzu Land January 31, 2026

Theory of Constructed Poverty

The argument that poverty is not just a lack of money but a social status and material condition that is actively produced and maintained by systems. Laws, economic policies, discriminatory practices, and spatial planning (like redlining) construct barriers that prevent groups of people from accessing wealth, trapping them in a condition defined as "poor." Poverty is less an individual failing and more the outcome of a societal blueprint that allocates deprivation.

*Example: "Her neighborhood had no grocery store, bad schools, and predatory lenders—all while being a 10-minute drive from a booming business district. The Theory of Constructed Poverty explains this: it's not an accident. Decades of zoning, disinvestment, and policing policies literally constructed that landscape of need. The poverty was built into the infrastructure, brick by bureaucratic brick."*

by Abzu Land January 31, 2026

Theory of Constructed Wealth

The flip side of constructed poverty: the idea that large-scale, intergenerational wealth is rarely just the fruit of individual genius or hard work, but is built and protected by constructed systems. These include favorable laws (tax codes, inheritance rules), historical advantages (land grants, slavery), and social networks that create exclusive access to opportunity. Wealth is not just accumulated; it is architected within a framework designed to facilitate and preserve its concentration.

Example: "He gave a speech about 'bootstraps,' but his company was built on a state-granted monopoly, his wealth shielded by trust laws his grandfather lobbied for. The Theory of Constructed Wealth shows his fortune wasn't a natural mountain he climbed; it was a valley carefully excavated by policy to funnel riches toward him, which he then called a peak of his own making."

by Abzu Land January 31, 2026

Theory of Constructed Exploitation

The view that exploitation (getting more value from someone's labor than you return) isn't a simple, naked theft, but is often structured and legitimized by constructed systems. The "contract," the "market wage," the "gig economy app," and the concept of "management share" are all social constructions that define what is considered a "fair exchange," often obscuring and enabling the extraction of surplus value. The system is built to make exploitation look like a transaction.

Example: "The delivery app isn't a robber on the road; it's the Theory of Constructed Exploitation in digital form. It builds a system where drivers are 'independent contractors' (a legal construction), pay for their own gas and repairs, and have no benefits, while the app takes a 30% fee and calls it a 'platform service.' The exploitation is baked into the software's very business model."

by Abzu Land January 31, 2026