Dull Thinking
On BOFIS — a German disease
A Term Emerges
After 40 years in the German innovation system, I recognized a pattern. I needed a word for it and called it BOFIS:
At first, I used the term for people. "He's a BOFIS," I said. An accusation. A verdict. Final.
But the longer I thought about it, the more something bothered me. The people I called that — were they really born that way? Or had they become that way?
The Realization
Arizmendiarrieta, the founder of Mondragón, knew: People are not naturally solidary — and not naturally selfish. They are what structures make of them.
Then BOFIS is not a character trait. It is a disease. A virus that spreads in certain structures.
People are not BOFIS.
People have BOFIS. And what you have, you can also get rid of.
The Virus
BOFIS spreads through the system. It doesn't infect everyone equally. Some are more susceptible, some more resistant. But no one is immune who lives long enough in the system.
Routes of Infection
- Education: "Don't stand out. Fit in."
- Training: Knowledge without craft, theory without practice
- Career: Those who think dully rise. Those who ask questions are filtered out.
- Fear: Family, mortgage, status — too much to lose
Symptoms
- Dull thinking — muffled where clarity would be possible
- Envy — begrudging others even the smallest success
- TINA belief — the firm conviction that there is no alternative
- Immunity to evidence — facts that don't fit are not seen
Side Effects
- Depression — the unconscious knows something is wrong
- Cynicism — "That's just how it is. Nothing can be done."
- Loneliness — real friendship is not provided for in the system
The Infected
I know many BOFIS patients. Most are not bad people. They are driven. They have families, careers, fears. They have adapted — and become sick in the process.
"I know what your problem is. You're looking for friendship. But there is no such thing in business."
That wasn't wisdom. That was a symptom. An advanced case.
"Yes, that really hurts me."
Another, when his training company finally collapsed. That was the first crack in the disease. Pain is a sign of life. Whoever still feels pain is not yet lost.
The worst cases are those who no longer suffer. Who feel comfortable in the disease. Who enjoy their role as perpetrators. For them, BOFIS may be terminal.
TINA — The Fever
"There Is No Alternative." Margaret Thatcher coined the phrase. Angela Merkel called it "alternativlos."
TINA is the fever of the BOFIS patient. It says: What is, must be. What could be different is utopia, fantasy, not practical.
Whoever has TINA no longer needs to think. The fever almost feels good.
The Proof That Must Not Exist
In 1956, five workers and a Catholic priest founded a cooperative in the Basque Country. Today, Mondragón is the largest cooperative in the world: 80,000 people, its own bank, its own university, its own social system.
69 years of success. Documented, measurable, visitable.
"But can I buy shares there?"
A doctor at an FDP lecture, after calling the success "phenomenal." He understood nothing. That there are no external shareholders is the reason for the success.
BOFIS. Left and right, liberal and conservative — all infected. BOFIS is nonpartisan.
The Inventor as Disturbance
In this system, the inventor is an anomaly. He brings something new. He proves it can be different. He disturbs.
Worse still: He appears immune. He doesn't have BOFIS. Or he has overcome it.
So he must disappear. Not through open violence — that would be too obvious. But through the Valley of Death: the systematic drying out between invention and market.
After 40 years you understand: It's not a failure of the system. It is the system. The virus protects itself.
Is There Immunity?
Yes. But it is rare.
I call it: Weeds in the cracks. People who don't get sick despite everything. Who survive in the cracks of the system.
What Protects Them?
- Manual skill — those who have worked with their hands know that reality is not negotiable
- Independence — those who don't depend on a career don't have to adapt
- Stubbornness — the refusal to not see the obvious
- Sometimes: loneliness — those who don't belong don't have to participate
The Cure
BOFIS is curable. But not through appeals, not through morality, not through persuasion.
Only through different structures.
Mondragón works not because better people live there. Mondragón works because structures exist there that reward cooperation and punish envy:
The Mondragón Structures
- Wage spread maximum 1:9
- One person, one vote
- Solidarity as a rule, not as a feeling
- Education before production
In such structures, BOFIS heals by itself. Not because people change — but because they can.
Conclusion
The question is no longer whether alternatives exist. Mondragón exists — not left, not right, but as what the center could be: pragmatic, liberal in the best sense, humane, successful.
But those who carry their own system before them like a monstrance cannot see what lies directly in front of them. The monstrance blocks the view. The fever clouds the eyes.
BOFIS say: There is no alternative.
The people of Mondragón say: Here we are. For 69 years.
The question is not whether we can.
The question is whether we want to be healed.
This essay is part of the series "Germany's Innovation Desert"
The material will flow into the book "Celestial Mechanics in the Machine Tool."