Open Access Orders Are Hard to Destabilize

Open access orders tend to remain stable and are hard to destabilize because, by definition, everyone has a stake in the system, and reaching such an order requires building up layers of individual norms, cultural beliefs, and formal institutions—where documents like Magna Carta matter not for what they did in 1200 but for the cultural reverence they generate centuries later—so one must be brave to forecast that such an order will degenerate.