Law
Law and its stabilizing influence can been seen in the flourishing of civilization. Comparable to business and information technology, law influences every element of human action. Beginning with the civil code of Ancient Egypt, on to the Roman law and following through to the legal volumes of the modern era, one can see that law adapts as cultures metamorphose. Undergirding human society, law empowers us to envisage and implement new forms of business and governance, even as we maintain the traditional.
We should realize that a city is better off with bad laws, so long as they remain fixed, then with good laws that are constantly being altered, that the lack of learning combined with sound common sense is more helpful than the kind of cleverness that gets out of hand, and that as a general rule, states are better governed by the man in the street than by intellectuals.
These are the sort of people who want to appear wiser than the laws, who want to get their own way in every general discussion, because they feel that they cannot show off their intelligence in matters of greater importance, and who, as a result, very often bring ruin on their country.
-- Cleon, Thucydides, III, 37 translation by Rex Warner