One aspect of systemic debt that tracks well with technical debt (and most forms of "debt") is that paying down that debt requires you to confront the risk-averse and fearful tendencies of your organization/nation.
The more fearful and risk-averse approach will lock things into a local optimization with tremendous support costs and will accrue debt very fast. The bold approach will break out of the local maximum, but probably upset the apple cart.
The more fearful and risk-averse approach will lock things into a local optimization with tremendous support costs and will accrue debt very fast. The bold approach will break out of the local maximum, but probably upset the apple cart.