Hutber's law states that "improvement means deterioration". It is founded on the cynical observation that a stated improvement actually hides a deterioration.
The term has seen wide application in business, engineering, and risk analysis. It was first articulated in the 1970s by
Patrick Hutber
Patrick Hutber (18 May 1928 – 3 January 1980) was a British journalist.''The Times'' (4 January 1980), p. 12.
He was educated at Ealing Grammar School for Boys and New College, Oxford, where he was librarian and secretary of the Union in 1951. ...
, an economist and journalist who was the City Editor for ''
The Sunday Telegraph
''The Sunday Telegraph'' is a British broadsheet newspaper, founded in February 1961 and published by the Telegraph Media Group, a division of Press Holdings.
It is the sister paper of ''The Daily Telegraph
''The Daily Telegraph'', kn ...
'' in
London
London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...
from 1966 to 1979.
See also
*
Law (principle)
A law is a universal principle that describes the fundamental nature of something, the universal properties and the relationships between things, or a description that purports to explain these principles and relationships.
Laws of nature
Fo ...
*
List of eponymous laws
This list of eponymous laws provides links to articles on laws, principles, adages, and other succinct observations or predictions named after a person. In some cases the person named has coined the law – such as Parkinson's law. In other ...
*
Newspeak
Newspeak is the fictional language of Oceania, a totalitarian superstate that is the setting of the 1949 dystopian novel ''Nineteen Eighty-Four'', by George Orwell. In the novel, the Party created Newspeak to meet the ideological requirements ...
*
Parkinson's law
*
Unintended consequence
In the social sciences, unintended consequences (sometimes unanticipated consequences or unforeseen consequences) are outcomes of a purposeful action that are not intended or foreseen. The term was popularised in the twentieth century by Ameri ...
References
Hutber's law quoted in the House of Commons, 1990* "Leading Article: Figuring it Out," ''The Guardian.'' 15 April 1994, p. 21.
* The Scotsman. 13 Sept. 1994.
* Tim Satchell. "Patience is the hardest virtue: Tim Satchell explains why it took two years to secure the money he was owed." ''Daily Telegraph.'' 20 January 2001, p. 06.
* "Pay any price to beat poverty." ''New Statesman.'' 26 November 2001.
{{unintended consequences
Adages
Risk analysis