Systems theory

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systems_theory 

 

Systems theory is the interdisciplinary study of systems, which are cohesive groups of interrelated, interdependent parts that can be natural or human-made. Every system is bounded by space and time, influenced by its environment, defined by its structure and purpose, and expressed through its functioning. A system may be more than the sum of its parts if it expresses synergy or emergent behavior.

Changing one part of a system may affect other parts or the whole system. It may be possible to predict these changes in patterns of behavior. For systems that learn and adapt, the growth and the degree of adaptation depend upon how well the system is engaged with its environment. Some systems support other systems, maintaining the other system to prevent failure. The goals of systems theory are to model a system's dynamics, constraints, conditions, and to elucidate principles (such as purpose, measure, methods, tools) that can be discerned and applied to other systems at every level of nesting, and in a wide range of fields for achieving optimized equifinality.

General systems theory is about developing broadly applicable concepts and principles, as opposed to concepts and principles specific to one domain of knowledge. It distinguishes dynamic or active systems from static or passive systems. Active systems are activity structures or components that interact in behaviours and processes. Passive systems are structures and components that are being processed. For example, a program is passive when it is a disc file and active when it runs in memory. The field is related to systems thinking, machine logic, and systems engineering.

Key concepts

• System: a group of interacting, interdependent parts that form a complex whole.
• Boundaries: barriers that define a system and distinguish it from other systems in an environment.
• Homeostasis: the tendency of a system to be resilient with respect to external disruption and to maintain its key characteristics.
• Adaptation: the tendency of a system to make the internal changes to protect itself and keep fulfilling its purpose.
• Reciprocal transactions: circular or cyclical interactions that systems engage in such that they influence one another.
• Feedback loop: the process by which systems self-correct based on reactions from other systems in the environment.
• Throughput: the rate of energy transfer between a system and its environment over time.
• Microsystem: the system closest to the client.
• Mesosystem: relationships among systems in an environment.
• Exosystem: a relationship between two systems that has an indirect effect on a third system.
• Macrosystem: a larger system that influences clients, such as policies, administration of entitlement programs, and culture.
• Equifinality: the way systems can reach the same goal through different paths.
• Open and closed systems
• Chronosystem: a system composed of significant life events affecting adaptation.
• Isomorphism: structural, behavioral, and developmental features that are shared across systems.
• Systems architecture:
• Systems analysis:

Systems thinking

Systems thinking is the ability or skill to perform problem solving in complex systems. In application it has been defined as both a skill and an awareness. A system is an entity with interrelated and interdependent parts; it is defined by its boundaries and is more than the sum of its parts (subsystem). Changing one part of the system affects other parts and the whole system, with predictable patterns of behavior. Furthermore, the individuals working as part of a system are components as well, therefore contributing to its outcome.

Overview

Systems theory is manifest in the work of practitioners in many disciplines, for example the works of biologist Ludwig von Bertalanffy, linguist Béla H. Bánáthy, and sociologist Talcott Parsons; in the study of ecological systems by Howard T. Odum, Eugene Odum; in Fritjof Capra's study of organizational theory; in the study of management by Peter Senge; in interdisciplinary areas such as Human Resource Development in the works of Richard A. Swanson; and in the works of educators Debora Hammond and Alfonso Montuori.

As a transdisciplinary, interdisciplinary, and multiperspectival endeavor, systems theory brings together principles and concepts from ontology, the philosophy of science, physics, computer science, biology, and engineering, as well as geography, sociology, political science, psychotherapy (especially family systems therapy), and economics.

Systems theory promotes dialogue between autonomous areas of study as well as within systems science itself. In this respect, with the possibility of misinterpretations, von Bertalanffy believed a general theory of systems "should be an important regulative device in science," to guard against superficial analogies that "are useless in science and harmful in their practical consequences."

Others remain closer to the direct systems concepts developed by the original systems theorists. For example, Ilya Prigogine, of the Center for Complex Quantum Systems at the University of Texas, has studied emergent properties, suggesting that they offer analogues for living systems. The distinction of autopoiesis as made by Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela represent further developments in this field. Important names in contemporary systems science include Russell Ackoff, Ruzena Bajcsy, Béla H. Bánáthy, Gregory Bateson, Anthony Stafford Beer, Peter Checkland, Barbara Grosz, Brian Wilson, Robert L. Flood, Allenna Leonard, Radhika Nagpal, Fritjof Capra, Warren McCulloch, Kathleen Carley, Michael C. Jackson, Katia Sycara, and Edgar Morin among others.

With the modern foundations for a general theory of systems following World War I, Ervin László, in the preface for Bertalanffy's book, Perspectives on General System Theory, points out that the translation of "general system theory" from German into English has "wrought a certain amount of havoc":

It (General System Theory) was criticized as pseudoscience and said to be nothing more than an admonishment to attend to things in a holistic way. Such criticisms would have lost their point had it been recognized that von Bertalanffy's general system theory is a perspective or paradigm, and that such basic conceptual frameworks play a key role in the development of exact scientific theory. .. Allgemeine Systemtheorie is not directly consistent with an interpretation often put on 'general system theory,' to wit, that it is a (scientific) "theory of general systems." To criticize it as such is to shoot at straw men. Von Bertalanffy opened up something much broader and of much greater significance than a single theory (which, as we now know, can always be falsified and has usually an ephemeral existence): he created a new paradigm for the development of theories.

Theorie (or Lehre) "has a much broader meaning in German than the closest English words 'theory' and 'science'," just as Wissenschaft (or 'Science'). These ideas refer to an organized body of knowledge and "any systematically presented set of concepts, whether empirically, axiomatically, or philosophically" represented, while many associate Lehre with theory and science in the etymology of general systems, though it also does not translate from the German very well; its "closest equivalent" translates to 'teaching', but "sounds dogmatic and off the mark." While the idea of a "general systems theory" might have lost many of its root meanings in the translation, by defining a new way of thinking about science and scientific paradigms, systems theory became a widespread term used for instance to describe the interdependence of relationships created in organizations.

A system in this frame of reference can contain regularly interacting or interrelating groups of activities. For example, in noting the influence in the evolution of "an individually oriented industrial psychology [into] a systems and developmentally oriented organizational psychology," some theorists recognize that organizations have complex social systems; separating the parts from the whole reduces the overall effectiveness of organizations. This difference, from conventional models that center on individuals, structures, departments and units, separates in part from the whole, instead of recognizing the interdependence between groups of individuals, structures and processes that enable an organization to function.

László explains that the new systems view of organized complexity went "one step beyond the Newtonian view of organized simplicity" which reduced the parts from the whole, or understood the whole without relation to the parts. The relationship between organisations and their environments can be seen as the foremost source of complexity and interdependence. In most cases, the whole has properties that cannot be known from analysis of the constituent elements in isolation.

Béla H. Bánáthy, who argued—along with the founders of the systems society—that "the benefit of humankind" is the purpose of science, has made significant and far-reaching contributions to the area of systems theory. For the Primer Group at the International Society for the System Sciences, Bánáthy defines a perspective that iterates this view:

The systems view is a world-view that is based on the discipline of SYSTEM INQUIRY. Central to systems inquiry is the concept of SYSTEM. In the most general sense, system means a configuration of parts connected and joined together by a web of relationships. The Primer Group defines system as a family of relationships among the members acting as a whole. Von Bertalanffy defined system as "elements in standing relationship."

Examples of applications

Marketing operations

Key concepts Benchmarking Best practices Budgeting Business intelligence Business process Change management Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) Customer intelligence Customer lifecycle management Customer lifetime value Data quality Data warehouses Database marketing Demand generation Digital asset management Flowchart Infrastructure Lead generation Marketing accountability Marketing automation Marketing effectiveness Organization development Post-merger integration Predictive analytics Predictive modelling Process optimization Return on marketing investment Strategic planning Systems theory

In biology

Systems biology is a movement that draws on several trends in bioscience research. Proponents describe systems biology as a biology-based interdisciplinary study field that focuses on complex interactions in biological systems, claiming that it uses a new perspective (holism instead of reduction).

Particularly from the year 2000 onwards, the biosciences use the term widely and in a variety of contexts. An often stated ambition of systems biology is the modelling and discovery of emergent properties which represents properties of a system whose theoretical description requires the only possible useful techniques to fall under the remit of systems biology. It is thought that Ludwig von Bertalanffy may have created the term systems biology in 1928.

Subdisciplines of systems biology include:

• Systems neuroscience
• Systems pharmacology

Ecology

Systems ecology is an interdisciplinary field of ecology that takes a holistic approach to the study of ecological systems, especially ecosystems; it can be seen as an application of general systems theory to ecology.

Central to the systems ecology approach is the idea that an ecosystem is a complex system exhibiting emergent properties. Systems ecology focuses on interactions and transactions within and between biological and ecological systems, and is especially concerned with the way the functioning of ecosystems can be influenced by human interventions. It uses and extends concepts from thermodynamics and develops other macroscopic descriptions of complex systems.

In chemistry

Systems chemistry is the science of studying networks of interacting molecules, to create new functions from a set (or library) of molecules with different hierarchical levels and emergent properties. Systems chemistry is also related to the origin of life (abiogenesis).

In engineering

Systems engineering is an interdisciplinary approach and means for enabling the realisation and deployment of successful systems. It can be viewed as the application of engineering techniques to the engineering of systems, as well as the application of a systems approach to engineering efforts. Systems engineering integrates other disciplines and specialty groups into a team effort, forming a structured development process that proceeds from concept to production to operation and disposal. Systems engineering considers both the business and the technical needs of all customers, with the goal of providing a quality product that meets the user's needs.

User-centered design process

Systems thinking is a crucial part of user-centered design processes and is necessary to understand the whole impact of a new human computer interaction (HCI) Information System. Overlooking this and developing software without insights input from the future users (mediated by user experience designers) is a serious design flaw that can lead to complete failure of information systems, increased stress and mental illness for users of information systems leading to increased costs and a huge waste of resources. It is currently surprisingly uncommon for organizations and governments to investigate the project management decisions leading to serious design flaws and lack of usability.

The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers estimates that roughly 15% of the estimated $1 trillion used to develop information systems every year is completely wasted and the produced systems are discarded before implementation by entirely preventable mistakes. According to the CHAOS report published in 2018 by the Standish Group, a vast majority of information systems fail or partly fail according to their survey:

Pure success is the combination of high customer satisfaction with high return on value to the organization. Related figures for the year 2017 are: successful: 14%, challenged: 67%, failed 19%.

In mathematics

System dynamics is an approach to understanding the nonlinear behaviour of complex systems over time using stocks, flows, internal feedback loops, and time delays.

In social sciences and humanities

• Systems theory in anthropology
• Systems theory in archaeology
• Systems theory in political science

Psychology

Systems psychology is a branch of psychology that studies human behaviour and experience in complex systems.

It received inspiration from systems theory and systems thinking, as well as the basics of theoretical work from Roger Barker, Gregory Bateson, Humberto Maturana and others. It makes an approach in psychology in which groups and individuals receive consideration as systems in homeostasis. Systems psychology "includes the domain of engineering psychology, but in addition seems more concerned with societal systems and with the study of motivational, affective, cognitive and group behavior that holds the name engineering psychology."

In systems psychology, characteristics of organizational behaviour (such as individual needs, rewards, expectations, and attributes of the people interacting with the systems) "considers this process in order to create an effective system."

History

Timeline

Predecessors Saint-Simon (1760–1825), Karl Marx (1817–83), Friedrich Engels (1820–95), Herbert Spencer (1820–1903), Rudolf Clausius (1822–88), Vilfredo Pareto (1848–1923), Émile Durkheim (1858–1917), Alexander Bogdanov (1873–1928), Nicolai Hartmann (1882–1950), Robert Maynard Hutchins (1929–51), among others Founders 1946–53: Macy conferences 1948: Norbert Wiener publishes Cybernetics: Or Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine 1951: Talcott Parsons publishes The Social System[29] 1954: The Society for the Advancement of General Systems Theory is established by Ludwig von Bertalanffy, Anatol Rapoport, Ralph W. Gerard, Kenneth Boulding. 1955: W. Ross Ashby publishes Introduction to Cybernetics 1968: Bertalanffy publishes General System Theory: Foundations, Development, Applications Other contributors 1970–80s Second-order cybernetics (Heinz von Foerster, Gregory Bateson, Humberto Maturana, and others) 1971–73 Cybersyn, rudimentary internet and cybernetic system for democratic economic planning developed by Stafford Beer in Chile under the Allende government 1970s: Catastrophe theory (René Thom, E.C. Zeeman) Dynamical systems in mathematics. 1977: Ilya Prigogine received the Nobel Prize for his works on self-organization, conciliating important systems theory concepts with system thermodynamics. 1980s: Chaos theory (David Ruelle, Edward Lorenz, Mitchell Feigenbaum, Steve Smale, James A. Yorke) 1986: Context theory (Anthony Wilden) 1988: International Society for Systems Science is established. 1990: Complex adaptive systems (John H. Holland, Murray Gell-Mann, W. Brian Arthur)

Precursors

Systems thinking can date back to antiquity, whether considering the first systems of written communication with Sumerian cuneiform to Mayan numerals, or the feats of engineering with the Egyptian pyramids. Differentiated from Western rationalist traditions of philosophy, C. West Churchman often identified with the I Ching as a systems approach sharing a frame of reference similar to pre-Socratic philosophy and Heraclitus. Ludwig von Bertalanffy traced systems concepts to the philosophy of G.W. Leibniz and Nicholas of Cusa's coincidentia oppositorum. While modern systems can seem considerably more complicated, they may embed themselves in history.

Figures like James Joule and Sadi Carnot represent an important step to introduce the systems approach into the (rationalist) hard sciences of the 19th century, also known as the energy transformation. Then, the thermodynamics of this century, by Rudolf Clausius, Josiah Gibbs and others, established the system reference model as a formal scientific object.

Similar ideas are found in learning theories that developed from the same fundamental concepts, emphasising how understanding results from knowing concepts both in part and as a whole. In fact, Bertalanffy's organismic psychology paralleled the learning theory of Jean Piaget. Some consider interdisciplinary perspectives critical in breaking away from industrial age models and thinking, wherein history represents history and math represents math, while the arts and sciences specialization remain separate and many treat teaching as behaviorist conditioning.

The contemporary work of Peter Senge provides detailed discussion of the commonplace critique of educational systems grounded in conventional assumptions about learning, including the problems with fragmented knowledge and lack of holistic learning from the "machine-age thinking" that became a "model of school separated from daily life." In this way, some systems theorists attempt to provide alternatives to, and evolved ideation from orthodox theories which have grounds in classical assumptions, including individuals such as Max Weber and Émile Durkheim in sociology and Frederick Winslow Taylor in scientific management. The theorists sought holistic methods by developing systems concepts that could integrate with different areas.

Some may view the contradiction of reductionism in conventional theory (which has as its subject a single part) as simply an example of changing assumptions. The emphasis with systems theory shifts from parts to the organization of parts, recognizing interactions of the parts as not static and constant but dynamic processes. Some questioned the conventional closed systems with the development of open systems perspectives. The shift originated from absolute and universal authoritative principles and knowledge to relative and general conceptual and perceptual knowledge and still remains in the tradition of theorists that sought to provide means to organize human life. In other words, theorists rethought the preceding history of ideas; they did not lose them. Mechanistic thinking was particularly critiqued, especially the industrial-age mechanistic metaphor for the mind from interpretations of Newtonian mechanics by Enlightenment philosophers and later psychologists that laid the foundations of modern organizational theory and management by the late 19th century.

Founding and early development

Where assumptions in Western science from Plato and Aristotle to Isaac Newton's Principia (1687) have historically influenced all areas from the hard to social sciences (see, David Easton's seminal development of the "political system" as an analytical construct), the original systems theorists explored the implications of 20th-century advances in terms of systems.

Between 1929 to 1951, Robert Maynard Hutchins at the University of Chicago had undertaken efforts to encourage innovation and interdisciplinary research in the social sciences, aided by the Ford Foundation with the University's interdisciplinary Division of the Social Sciences established in 1931.

Many early systems theorists aimed at finding a general systems theory that could explain all systems in all fields of science.

"General systems theory" (GST; German: allgemeine Systemlehre) was coined in the 1940s by Ludwig von Bertalanffy, who initially sought to find a new approach to the study of living systems. Bertalanffy first developed the theory via lectures beginning in 1937 and then via publications beginning in 1946. According to Mike C. Jackson (2000), Bertalanffy promoted an embryonic form of GST as early as the 1920s and 1930s, but it was not until the early 1950s that it became more widely known in scientific circles.

Jackson also claimed that Bertalanffy's work was informed by Alexander Bogdanov's three-volume Tectology (1912-1917), providing the conceptual base for GST. A similar position is held by Richard Mattessich (1978) and Capra (1996). Despite this, Bertalanffy never even mentioned Bogdanov in his works.

The systems view was based on several fundamental ideas. First, all phenomena can be viewed as a web of relationships among elements, or a system. Second, all systems, whether electrical, biological, or social, have common patterns, behaviors, and properties that the observer can analyze and use to develop greater insight into the behavior of complex phenomena and to move closer toward a unity of the sciences. System philosophy, methodology and application are complementary to this science.

Cognizant of advances in science that questioned classical assumptions in the organizational sciences, Bertalanffy's idea to develop a theory of systems began as early as the interwar period, publishing "An Outline for General Systems Theory" in the British Journal for the Philosophy of Science by 1950.

In 1954, von Bertalanffy, along with Anatol Rapoport, Ralph W. Gerard, and Kenneth Boulding, came together at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences in Palo Alto to discuss the creation of a "society for the advancement of General Systems Theory." In December that year, a meeting of around 70 people was held in Berkeley to form a society for the exploration and development of GST. The Society for General Systems Research (renamed the International Society for Systems Science in 1988) was established in 1956 thereafter as an affiliate of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), specifically catalyzing systems theory as an area of study. The field developed from the work of Bertalanffy, Rapoport, Gerard, and Boulding, as well as other theorists in the 1950s like William Ross Ashby, Margaret Mead, Gregory Bateson, and C. West Churchman, among others.

Bertalanffy's ideas were adopted by others, working in mathematics, psychology, biology, game theory, and social network analysis. Subjects that were studied included those of complexity, self-organization, connectionism and adaptive systems. In fields like cybernetics, researchers such as Ashby, Norbert Wiener, John von Neumann, and Heinz von Foerster examined complex systems mathematically; Von Neumann discovered cellular automata and self-reproducing systems, again with only pencil and paper. Aleksandr Lyapunov and Jules Henri Poincaré worked on the foundations of chaos theory without any computer at all. At the same time, Howard T. Odum, known as a radiation ecologist, recognized that the study of general systems required a language that could depict energetics, thermodynamics and kinetics at any system scale. To fulfill this role, Odum developed a general system, or universal language, based on the circuit language of electronics, known as the Energy Systems Language.

The Cold War affected the research project for systems theory in ways that sorely disappointed many of the seminal theorists. Some began to recognize that theories defined in association with systems theory had deviated from the initial general systems theory view. Economist Kenneth Boulding, an early researcher in systems theory, had concerns over the manipulation of systems concepts. Boulding concluded from the effects of the Cold War that abuses of power always prove consequential and that systems theory might address such issues. Since the end of the Cold War, a renewed interest in systems theory emerged, combined with efforts to strengthen an ethical view on the subject.

In sociology, systems thinking also began in the 20th century, including Talcott Parsons' action  and Niklas Luhmann's social systems theory. According to Rudolf Stichweh (2011):

Since its beginnings the social sciences were an important part of the establishment of systems theory... [T]he two most influential suggestions were the comprehensive sociological versions of systems theory which were proposed by Talcott Parsons since the 1950s and by Niklas Luhmann since the 1970s.

Elements of systems thinking can also be seen in the work of James Clerk Maxwell, particularly control theory.

General systems research and systems inquiry

Many early systems theorists aimed at finding a general systems theory that could explain all systems in all fields of science. Ludwig von Bertalanffy began developing his 'general systems theory' via lectures in 1937 and then via publications from 1946. The concept was given extensive focus in his 1968 book, General System Theory: Foundations, Development, Applications.

Bertalanffy's objective was to bring together under one heading the organismic science that he had observed in his work as a biologist. His desire was to use the word system for those principles that are common to systems in general. In General System Theory (1968), he wrote:

[T]here exist models, principles, and laws that apply to generalized systems or their subclasses, irrespective of their particular kind, the nature of their component elements, and the relationships or "forces" between them. It seems legitimate to ask for a theory, not of systems of a more or less special kind, but of universal principles applying to systems in general.

In the preface to von Bertalanffy's Perspectives on General System Theory, Ervin László stated:

Thus when von Bertalanffy spoke of Allgemeine Systemtheorie it was consistent with his view that he was proposing a new perspective, a new way of doing science. It was not directly consistent with an interpretation often put on "general system theory", to wit, that it is a (scientific) "theory of general systems." To criticize it as such is to shoot at straw men. Von Bertalanffy opened up something much broader and of much greater significance than a single theory (which, as we now know, can always be falsified and has usually an ephemeral existence): he created a new paradigm for the development of theories.

Bertalanffy outlines systems inquiry into three major domains: Philosophy, Science, and Technology. In his work with the Primer Group, Béla H. Bánáthy generalized the domains into four integratable domains of systemic inquiry.

1. Philosophy: the ontology, epistemology, and axiology of systems
2. Theory: a set of interrelated concepts and principles applying to all systems/
3. Methodology: the set of models, strategies, methods and tools that instrumentalize systems theory and philosophy
4. Application: the application and interaction of the domains

These operate in a recursive relationship, he explained; integrating 'philosophy' and 'theory' as knowledge, and 'method' and 'application' as action, systems inquiry is thus knowledgeable action.

System types and fields

Theoretical fields

• Chaos theory
• Complex system
• Control theory
• Dynamical systems theory
• Earth system science
• Ecological systems theory
• Living systems theory
• Sociotechnical system
• Systemics
• Urban metabolism
• World-systems theory

Cybernetics

Cybernetics is the study of the communication and control of regulatory feedback both in living and lifeless systems (organisms, organizations, machines), and in combinations of those. Its focus is how anything (digital, mechanical or biological) controls its behavior, processes information, reacts to information, and changes or can be changed to better accomplish those three primary tasks.

The terms systems theory and cybernetics have been widely used as synonyms. Some authors use the term cybernetic systems to denote a proper subset of the class of general systems, namely those systems that include feedback loops. However, Gordon Pask's differences of eternal interacting actor loops (that produce finite products) makes general systems a proper subset of cybernetics. In cybernetics, complex systems have been examined mathematically by such researchers as W. Ross Ashby, Norbert Wiener, John von Neumann, and Heinz von Foerster.

Threads of cybernetics began in the late 1800s that led toward the publishing of seminal works (such as Wiener's Cybernetics in 1948 and Bertalanffy's General Systems Theory in 1968). Cybernetics arose more from engineering fields and GST from biology. If anything, it appears that although the two probably mutually influenced each other, cybernetics had the greater influence. Bertalanffy specifically made the point of distinguishing between the areas in noting the influence of cybernetics:

Systems theory is frequently identified with cybernetics and control theory. This again is incorrect. Cybernetics as the theory of control mechanisms in technology and nature is founded on the concepts of information and feedback, but as part of a general theory of systems.... [T]he model is of wide application but should not be identified with 'systems theory' in general ... [and] warning is necessary against its incautious expansion to fields for which its concepts are not made.

Cybernetics, catastrophe theory, chaos theory and complexity theory have the common goal to explain complex systems that consist of a large number of mutually interacting and interrelated parts in terms of those interactions. Cellular automata, neural networks, artificial intelligence, and artificial life are related fields, but do not try to describe general (universal) complex (singular) systems. The best context to compare the different "C"-Theories about complex systems is historical, which emphasizes different tools and methodologies, from pure mathematics in the beginning to pure computer science today. Since the beginning of chaos theory, when Edward Lorenz accidentally discovered a strange attractor with his computer, computers have become an indispensable source of information. One could not imagine the study of complex systems without the use of computers today.

System types

• Biological
  • Anatomical systems
    • Nervous
      • Sensory
  • Ecological systems
  • Living systems
• Complex
  • Complex adaptive system
• Conceptual
  • Coordinate
  • Deterministic (philosophy)
  • Digital ecosystem
  • Experimental
  • Writing
• Coupled human–environment
• Database
• Deterministic (science)
• Mathematical
  • Dynamical system
  • Formal system
• Economic
• Energy
• Holarchical
• Information
• Legal
• Measurement
  • Imperial
  • Metric
• Multi-agent
• Nonlinear
• Operating
• Planetary
• Political
• Social
• Star

Complex adaptive systems

Complex adaptive systems (CAS), coined by John H. Holland, Murray Gell-Mann, and others at the interdisciplinary Santa Fe Institute, are special cases of complex systems: they are complex in that they are diverse and composed of multiple, interconnected elements; they are adaptive in that they have the capacity to change and learn from experience.

In contrast to control systems, in which negative feedback dampens and reverses disequilibria, CAS are often subject to positive feedback, which magnifies and perpetuates changes, converting local irregularities into global features.

Peace economics

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peace_economics 

Peace economics is a branch of conflict economics and focuses on the design of the sociosphere's political, economic, and cultural institutions and their interacting policies and actions with the goal of preventing, mitigating, or resolving violent conflict within and between societies. This violent conflict could be of any type and could involve either latent or actual violence. Recognizing the cost of violence, peace economics focuses on the benefits of (re)constructing societies with a view toward achieving irreversible, stable peace. Along with approaches drawn from other areas of scholarship, peace economics forms part of peace science, an evolving part of peace and conflict studies.

Despite overlaps, peace economics is distinct from war, military, defense, and security economics, all of which are branches of conflict economics. A key difference between peace economics and these related fields is that peace economics emphasizes the study of the presence of or conditions for peace, as distinct from studying the absence or presence of conflict, violence, war, or insecurity.

Other definitions

Peace economics has also been defined as "the use of economics to understand the causes and effects of violent conflict in the international system and the ways that conflict can be avoided, managed, or resolved." This restricts the subject matter to the international realm and leaves out the study of peace itself. Walter Isard defines peace economics as "generally concerned with: (1) resolution, management or reduction of conflict in the economic sphere, or among behaving units in their economic activity; (2) the use of economic measures and policy to cope with and control conflicts whether economic or not; and (3) the impact of conflict on the economic behavior and welfare of firms, consumers organizations, government and society." The notion of violence is absent and peace itself is not studied, but the level of analysis can be other than conflict between states. In a context restricted to international trade, another author writes that "Peace economics studies ways to eradicate and control conflict as well as to assess conflict's impact on society." The notion of violence is not explicit and the benefits of peace are seen only inasmuch as a reduction of conflict may improve opportunities for expanded global trade. Others make a distinction between "productive" and "unproductive" or "appropriative" economic activities their starting point of analysis in peace economics.

Economics Nobelist Jan Tinbergen defines peace economics as "economic science used for [a purpose that] prohibits [war] as an instrument of settling conflicts between nations and [to organize] the world in a way that warfare is punished". Violence is addressed only at the level of sovereigns, not dealing with civil war or debilitating organized or individual-level criminal violence. In related work, Tinbergen writes about a world order that would inhibit violence and permit peace between and among states. In his view, this requires a "world government", a sentiment not now commonly agreed among economists. These definitions of peace economics all share Johan Galtung's characterization of negative peace (the absence of violent conflict) as opposed to positive peace (the presence of peace-enabling structures).

Methods, norms, and context

A number of peace economists are explicit about the use of particular explanatory schema to be applied in peace economics, e.g., rational choice theory. In contrast, the main definition of peace economics is open to a variety of approaches. Virtually all authors acknowledge that peace economics is part of both positive economics and normative economics. While for most contemporary economists, work in positive economics may lead them to lay out a descriptive array or evaluation of policy choices from which one that is most valued is recommended to or chosen by policy makers, in peace economics, in contrast, it is the norm of peace to be achieved that inspires the search for a system design that can reliably deliver on the desired norm.

Peace economics is built on general systems theory exemplified by the work of Kenneth Boulding. Earth may be viewed as a self-regulating (homeostatic) system, consisting of natural and social subsystems. In each, deviation from a set goal is self-corrected through feedback loops. Homeostatic systems are commonly observed in nature, such as in ecology and in the physiology of organisms (e.g., self-regulation of population sizes, self-regulation of body heat). The systems concept has been adopted in the engineering sciences, for example in designing thermostats. The user sets a desired goal state (temperature), the instrument measures the actual state, and for a deviation of sufficient degree a corrective action is taken (heating or cooling).

Relatively new is the insight that social systems designed to achieve certain purposes (e.g., the retirement or pension system) imply a choice architecture that may permit failed or failing social systems to persist. Similarly, choice architecture may facilitate the (re)design of institutions aimed at securing beneficial social outcomes such as peace. This is social engineering applied to the problem of peace (peace engineering) and overlaps with ideas of mechanism design (reverse game theory) in which a solution is stipulated a priori and the structure of the game that would bring about the desired outcome is inferred. In this way, system design links back to normative economics.

Examples

Free trade and peace

Economic ties between the US, EU, China, Russia and India in 2014 (thickness of the lines is proportional to the bilateral trade volume)

The classical English liberals of the 19th century largely believed that free trade promoted peace. This view, attributed to Adam Smith and Edmund Burke, was evident in the advocacy of Richard Cobden and John Bright, and in the writings of the most prominent English economists and political thinkers of the 19th and early 20th centuries, such as John Stuart Mill and Alfred Marshall. John Maynard Keynes said that he was "brought up" on this idea. A prominent 20th century US exponent of this idea was the Secretary of State under President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Cordell Hull.

World War I and the Paris Peace Conference

Upon resigning from the United Kingdom's Treasury team at the Paris Peace Conference in June 1919, John Maynard Keynes penned a small book. Published in 1920, The Economic Consequences of the Peace famously lays out his case for why the allies' Terms of Peace to be imposed on Germany were physically and financially impossible to fulfill and how they would encourage Germany to rise up again. Predicting a coming World War II, Keynes wrote: "... if this view of nations and of their relation to one another (i.e., a Carthaginian Peace) is adopted by the democracies of Western Europe, and is financed by the United States, heaven help us all. If we aim deliberately at the impoverishment of Central Europe, vengeance, I dare predict, will not limp. Nothing can then delay for very long that final civil war between the forces of Reaction and the despairing convulsions of Revolution, before which the horrors of the late German war will fade into nothing, and which will destroy, whoever is victor, the civilisation and the progress of our generation." Although Keynes' effort to change the treaty terms failed, it is a dramatic demonstration of what peace economics is about: the creation of a mutually reinforcing structure of political, economic, and cultural systems to achieve peace such that reversal to violence is unlikely.

Capitalism and war, and managed capitalism

In the 1930s, in the midst of the Great Depression and with the rise of fascist powers, many western socialist and liberal thinkers believed that capitalism caused war. However, Keynes in his General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money in 1936, argued that this need not be so, and that the management of capitalism along the lines he proposed to promote high employment would be more conducive to peace than laissez-faire capitalism with the gold standard had been. This analysis underlay his approach during World War II to the creation of institutions for international economic governance in the post-war world.

World War II, Bretton Woods, and the Marshall Plan

Late in World War II, as Nazi-Germany's eventual defeat appeared clear, Henry Morgenthau, Jr., then-Secretary of the United States Treasury, advocated the partitioning of Germany, stripping it of its most valuable raw materials and industrial assets, and envisioned the complete pastoralization of Germany. Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill agreed to the Morgenthau Plan, in modified form, on 16 September 1944. Following victory, Germany's remaining factories were dismantled, parts, machinery, and equipment shipped abroad, patents expropriated, research forbidden, and useful engineers and scientists transferred out of the country. Despite the negotiation of international treaties at Bretton Woods to create a set of complementary global monetary, trade, and reconstruction and development institutions, namely the International Monetary Fund, the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (today part of the World Bank Group), and, separately, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (incorporated in today's World Trade Organization), Germany's and Europe's other postwar economies collapsed. Keynes' Economic Consequences of the Peace appeared to repeat themselves. However, Roosevelt had died and Harry S. Truman assumed the U.S. American Presidency on 12 April 1945. Even as the deindustrialization of Germany proceeded as planned, Truman's first Secretary of State, James F. Byrnes, by 1947 took a dismal view of its effects on Germany's impoverished population. So did former president Herbert C. Hoover in a series of reports penned in 1947. 

Meanwhile, Joseph Stalin's Soviet Union emerged as a formidable power and the implication seemed clear: An economically strengthened, resurgent Germany could either be part of a new Western political, economic, and cultural alliance or else be incorporated into a Soviet one. Truman thus came to abolish the punitive measures imposed on Germany, and his new Secretary of State, General George C. Marshall, formulated what would become the Marshall Plan, in effect from 1948 to 1952. The new global institutions and the unilateral Marshall Plan action combined to endow new institutions with sufficient resources to result in a somewhat unwitting peace economics: clearly designed toward the purpose of international peace and prosperity, yet skewed toward Western Europe and the incipient Cold War. Moreover, the new social architecture was invested with incentives, such as the United Nations Security Council that provided five of its members with permanent seats and veto powers, that, while keeping superpower peace, threatened peace and prosperity in the post-colonial Third World.

Origins of the European Union

Like Keynes, Jean Monnet participated in the Paris Peace Conference in 1919, in Monnet's case as an assistant to the French delegation. Like Keynes, he envisioned a pan-European economic cooperation zone. Like Keynes, he would be disappointed. Despite this, the French appreciated his good efforts and awarded him with the post of Deputy Secretary-General of the then newly founded League of Nations. Monnet was but 31 years old. He resigned four years later to devote himself to international business and finance in private capacity but resurfaced during the early World War II years in positions of high influence in France, Britain, and the United States, urging Roosevelt to get on with an industrial armaments plan. Following World War II, Monnet, however, at first crafted the Monnet Plan which, similar to Morgenthau's, envisioned the transfer of the German Ruhr and Saarland territories, raw materials, and industries (coal and steel) to France to assist it in its own reconstruction. This was approved by French Prime Minister Charles de Gaulle shortly before his resignation in January 1946. The transfer of the Saar region took place with U.S. help in 1947, while the Ruhr region was placed under an international authority in 1949 that assured France access to German coal at low prices. This led to rising frictions between Germany and the allies, just as Keynes had foretold 30 years earlier.

Monnet changed course and, together with Paul Reuter, Bernard Clappier, Pierre Uri, and Étienne Hirsch, plans were crafted that resulted in the Schuman Declaration of 9 May 1950, celebrated today as Europe Day or Schuman Day. Robert Schuman, the Franco-German-Luxembourgian statesman, French Minister of Finance, Minister of Foreign Affairs and two-time Prime Minister of France, envisioned, first, a Franco-German and, then, a pan-European sharing of crucial coal and steel resources among Italy, France, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg that would make future war "not only unthinkable but materially impossible." By 1951, this resulted in the formation of the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC), the forerunner to today's European Union. In contrast to the negotiations surrounding the founding of the United Nations and a set of associated organizations in 1945, the European idea appears to have been deliberately designed as a kernel with organic growth-potential, the precise development of which would be learned in future. Thus, no institutional structures were put in place that, due to accrued vested interests, would later prove to be too difficult to change.

Current research directions

War at the interstate level has subsided and, to a degree, so have the massive civil wars that took place in the immediate Post-Cold War period (especially in Africa in the 1990s and 2000s). But violent conflict takes place at many levels, from self-directed harm (e.g., self-injury and suicide) and domestic violence between intimate partners and family members to workplace violence and organized criminal violence, all of which are massively costly and ultimately require positive, structural solutions whereby resort to violence becomes "unthinkable," even as it may remain "materially possible."

The Institute for Economics and Peace, a think tank headquartered in Sydney, is "developing metrics to analyse peace and to quantify its economic value. It does this by developing global and national indices, calculating the economic cost of violence, analysing country-level risk and understanding positive peace." More recently, there is a turn towards local implications of economic reforms in conflict-affected societies in an attempt to understand how economies of peace impact on the everyday. This includes the use of qualitative methodologies in a field usually dominated by quantitative approaches.

Journals

Academic journals that publish work by peace economists include the Journal of Conflict Resolution (since 1956), the Journal of Peace Research (since 1964), Conflict Management and Peace Science (since 1973), Defence and Peace Economics (since 1990), Peace Economics, Peace Science, and Public Policy (since 1993), the Economics of Peace and Security Journal (since 2006), the International Journal of Development and Conflict (since 2011), and Business, Peace and Sustainable Development (since 2013).

Neorealism (international relations)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neorealism_(international_relations)

Neorealism or structural realism is a theory of international relations that says power is the most important factor in international relations. It was first outlined by Kenneth Waltz in his 1979 book Theory of International Politics. Alongside neoliberalism, neorealism is one of the two most influential contemporary approaches to international relations; the two perspectives have dominated international relations theory for the last three decades. Neorealism emerged from the North American discipline of political science, and reformulates the classical realist tradition of E. H. Carr, Hans Morgenthau, George Kennan and Reinhold Niebuhr. Neo realism emerged because the earlier tradition suffered a setback due to the emergence of neo liberal thought, particularly the challenge posed by pluralism. State centrism of the traditional realists received a serious jolt as pluralist emphasized on the fact that state may be a significant actor in international relations but it is not the sole actor;this sometimes termed as "inside-out theory" Neorealism is subdivided into defensive and offensive neorealism.

Origins

Neorealism is an ideological departure from Hans Morgenthau's writing on classical realism. Classical realism originally explained the machinations of international politics as being based on human nature, and therefore subject to the ego and emotion of world leaders. Neorealist thinkers instead propose that structural constraints—not strategy, egoism, or motivation—will determine behavior in international relations. John Mearsheimer made significant distinctions between his version of offensive neorealism and Morgenthau in his book titled The Tragedy of Great Power Politics.

Theory

Structural realism holds that the nature of the international structure is defined by its ordering principle (anarchy), units of the system (states), and by the distribution of capabilities (measured by the number of great powers within the international system), with only the last being considered an independent variable with any meaningful change over time. The anarchic ordering principle of the international structure is decentralized, meaning there is no formal central authority; every sovereign state is formally equal in this system. These states act according to the logic of egoism, meaning states seek their own interest and will not subordinate their interest to the interests of other states.

States are assumed at a minimum to want to ensure their own survival as this is a prerequisite to pursue other goals. This driving force of survival is the primary factor influencing their behavior and in turn ensures states develop offensive military capabilities for foreign interventionism and as a means to increase their relative power. Because states can never be certain of other states' future intentions, there is a lack of trust between states which requires them to be on guard against relative losses of power which could enable other states to threaten their survival. This lack of trust, based on uncertainty, is called the security dilemma.

States are deemed similar in terms of needs but not in capabilities for achieving them. The positional placement of states in terms of abilities determines the distribution of capabilities. The structural distribution of capabilities then limits cooperation among states through fears of relative gains made by other states, and the possibility of dependence on other states. The desire and relative abilities of each state to maximize relative power constrain each other, resulting in a 'balance of power', which shapes international relations. It also gives rise to the 'security dilemma' that all nations face. There are two ways in which states balance power: internal balancing and external balancing. Internal balancing occurs as states grow their own capabilities by increasing economic growth and/or increasing military spending. External balancing occurs as states enter into alliances to check the power of more powerful states or alliances.

Neorealists contend that there are essentially three possible systems according to changes in the distribution of capabilities, defined by the number of great powers within the international system. A unipolar system contains only one great power, a bipolar system contains two great powers, and a multipolar system contains more than two great powers. Neorealists conclude that a bipolar system is more stable (less prone to great power war and systemic change) than a multipolar system because balancing can only occur through internal balancing as there are no extra great powers with which to form alliances. Because there is only internal balancing in a bipolar system, rather than external balancing, there is less opportunity for miscalculations and therefore less chance of great power war. That is a simplification and a theoretical ideal.

Neorealist argue that processes of emulation and competition lead states to behave in the aforementioned ways. Emulation leads states to adopt the behaviors of successful states (for example, those victorious in war), whereas competition leads states to vigilantly ensure their security and survival through the best means possible.

For neorealists, social norms are considered largely irrelevant. This is in contrast to some classical realists which did see norms as potentially important.

Defensive realism

Structural realism has become divided into two branches, defensive and offensive realism, following the publication of Mearsheimer's 'The Tragedy of Great Power Politics' in 2001. Waltz's original formulation of neorealism is now sometimes called Defensive Realism, while Mearsheimer's modification of the theory is referred to as Offensive Realism. Both branches agree that the structure of the system is what causes states to compete, but Defensive Realism posits that most states concentrate on maintaining their security (i.e. states are security maximizers), while Offensive Realism claims that all states seek to gain as much power as possible (i.e. states are power maximizers). A foundational study in the area of defensive realism is Robert Jervis' classic 1978 article on the "security dilemma." It examines how uncertainty and the offense-defense balance may heighten or soften the security dilemma. Building on Jervis, Stephen Van Evera explores the causes of war from a defensive realist perspective.

Offensive realism

Offensive realism, developed by Mearsheimer differs in the amount of power that states desire. Mearsheimer proposes that states maximize relative power ultimately aiming for regional hegemony.

In addition to Mearsheimer, a number of other scholars have sought to explain why states expand when opportunities to do so arise. For instance, Randall Schweller refers to states' revisionist agendas to account for their aggressive military action. Eric Labs investigates the expansion of war aims during wartime as an example of offensive behavior. Fareed Zakaria analyzes the history of US foreign relations from 1865 to 1914 and asserts that foreign interventions during this period were not motivated by worries about external threats but by a desire to expand US influence.

Scholarly debate

Within realist thought

While neorealists agree that the structure of the international relations is the primary impetus in seeking security, there is disagreement among neorealist scholars as to whether states merely aim to survive or whether states want to maximize their relative power. The former represents the ideas of Kenneth Waltz, while the latter represents the ideas of John Mearsheimer and offensive realism. Other debates include the extent to which states balance against power (in Waltz's original neorealism and classic realism), versus the extent to which states balance against threats (as introduced in Stephen Walt's 'The Origins of Alliances' (1987)), or balance against competing interests (as introduced in Randall Schweller's 'Deadly Imbalances' (1998)).

With other schools of thought

Neorealists conclude that because war is an effect of the anarchic structure of the international system, it is likely to continue in the future. Indeed, neorealists often argue that the ordering principle of the international system has not fundamentally changed from the time of Thucydides to the advent of nuclear warfare. The view that long-lasting peace is not likely to be achieved is described by other theorists as a largely pessimistic view of international relations. One of the main challenges to neorealist theory is the democratic peace theory and supporting research, such as the book Never at War. Neorealists answer this challenge by arguing that democratic peace theorists tend to pick and choose the definition of democracy to achieve the desired empirical result. For example, the Germany of Kaiser Wilhelm II, the Dominican Republic of Juan Bosch, and the Chile of Salvador Allende are not considered to be "democracies of the right kind" or the conflicts do not qualify as wars according to these theorists. Furthermore, they claim several wars between democratic states have been averted only by causes other than ones covered by democratic peace theory.

Advocates of democratic peace theory see the spreading of democracy as helping to mitigate the effects of anarchy. With enough democracies in the world, Bruce Russett thinks that it "may be possible in part to supersede the 'realist' principles (anarchy, the security dilemma of states) that have dominated practice ... since at least the seventeenth century." John Mueller believes that it is not the spreading of democracy but rather other conditions (e.g., power) that bring about democracy and peace. In consenting with Mueller's argument, Kenneth Waltz notes that "some of the major democracies—Britain in the nineteenth century and the United States in the twentieth century—have been among the most powerful states of their eras."

One of the most notable schools contending with neorealist thought, aside from neoliberalism, is the constructivist school, which is often seen to disagree with the neorealist focus on power and instead emphasises a focus on ideas and identity as an explanatory point for international relations trends. Recently, however, a school of thought called the English School merges neo-realist tradition with the constructivist technique of analyzing social norms to provide an increasing scope of analysis for International Relations.

Taxation as theft

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

 

Loot and Extortion. Statues at Trago Mills (near Liskeard, Cornwall), poking fun at the UK Inland Revenue Service

The position that taxation is theft, and therefore immoral, is found in a number of political philosophies considered radical. It marks a significant departure from conservatism and classical liberalism. This position is often held by anarcho-capitalists, objectivists, most minarchists, right-wing libertarians, and voluntaryists.

Proponents of this position see taxation as a violation of the non-aggression principle. Under this view, government transgresses property rights by enforcing compulsory tax collection, regardless of what the amount may be. Some opponents of taxation, like Michael Huemer, argue that rightful ownership of property should be based on what he calls "natural property rights", not those determined by the law of the state.

Defenders of taxation argue that the notions of both legal private property rights and theft are defined by the legal framework of the state, and thus taxation by the state does not represent a violation of property law, unless the tax itself is illegal. Some defenders of taxation, such as Matt Bruenig, argue that the phrase "taxation is theft" is question-begging, since it relies on presupposing a particular theory of property entitlement.

History

In the 17th century, John Locke takes the position in Second Treatise of Government that government authority arises from the consent of the governed, and not through the accidental birth of rulers. L.K. Samuels asserts in his "Rulers' Paradox" that since the citizenry is the holder of all rights, governmental bodies derive their authority to govern society via elections of government officials. In that vein, Samuels maintains that citizens can only give rights which they have. The Rulers' Paradox comes into play when governmental bodies exercise rights that the citizens do not hold or could not hold. According to Samuels: "If ordinary citizens could assassinate, steal, imprison, torture, kidnap, and wiretap without incrimination, that authority could be transferred to government for its democratic arsenal of policymaking weaponry." Taxation could be viewed as theft since, according to Lockean natural rights doctrine, government authority must obtain their rights from the citizenry.

Lysander Spooner, a 19th-century lawyer and political philosopher, who had argued before the Supreme Court, wrote the essay No Treason: The Constitution of No Authority. In it he stated that a supposed social contract cannot be used to justify governmental actions such as taxation, because government will initiate force against anyone who does not wish to enter into such a contract.

No open, avowed, or responsible association, or body of men, can say this to him; because there is no such association or body of men in existence. If any one should assert that there is such an association, let him prove, if he can, who compose it. Let him produce, if he can, any open, written, or other authentic contract, signed or agreed to by these men; forming themselves into an association; making themselves known as such to the world; appointing him as their agent; and making themselves individually, or as an association, responsible for his acts, done by their authority. Until all this can be shown, no one can say that, in any legitimate sense, there is any such association; or that he is their agent; or that he ever gave his oath to them; or ever pledged his faith to them.

The 19th-century French economist Frédéric Bastiat described taxes as legal plunder. Bastiat held that the state's only legitimate function was to protect the life, liberty, and property of the individual.

Now, legal plunder may be exercised in an infinite multitude of ways. Hence come an infinite multitude of plans for organization; tariffs, protection, perquisites, gratuities, encouragements, progressive taxation, free public education, right to work, right to profit, right to wages, right to assistance, right to instruments of labor, gratuity of credit, etc., etc. And it is all these plans, taken as a whole, with what they have in common, legal plunder, that takes the name of socialism.

Murray Rothbard argued in The Ethics of Liberty in 1982 that taxation is theft and that tax resistance is therefore legitimate: "Just as no one is morally required to answer a robber truthfully when he asks if there are any valuables in one's house, so no one can be morally required to answer truthfully similar questions asked by the state, e.g., when filling out income tax returns."

Andrew Napolitano attempts to justify the position that "taxation is theft" in his book It Is Dangerous to Be Right When the Government Is Wrong where he asks a series of rhetorical questions like "Is it theft if one man steals a car?" and "What if a gang of ten men take a vote (allowing the victim to vote as well) on whether to steal the car before stealing it?", showing what he believes are similarities between theft and taxation.

Response

Liam Murphy and Thomas Nagel assert that since property rights are determined by laws and conventions, of which the state forms an integral part, taxation by the state cannot be considered theft. In their 2002 book, The Myth of Ownership: Taxes and Justice, they argue:

...the emphasis on distributing the tax burden relative to pretax income is a fundamental mistake. Taxation does not take from people what they already own. Property rights are the product of a set of laws and conventions, of which the tax system forms a central part, so the fairness of taxes can’t be evaluated by their impact on preexisting entitlements. Pretax income has no independent moral significance. Standards of justice should be applied not to the distribution of tax burdens but to the operation and results of the entire framework of economic institutions.

Another justification of taxation is contained in social contract theory. Proponents argue that the public has democratically allowed people to accumulate wealth only with the understanding that a portion of that wealth would be allocated for public use. In their view, to accumulate wealth without taxation would be to violate this social understanding. They argue that since public infrastructure provides the foundation for wealth creation, a portion of economic gains should be used to fund basic provisions that provide for infrastructure and enhance economic growth.