Got to make this short, cause a thunderstorm may be about to hit and I love to
run in the rain.
cybernetics and capitalism -- would you like the one dollar, ten dollar, or ten
pound answer? I think it is kind of interesting that Marx also developed his
ideas in an industrial capitalist society, while quite poor, I understand. As
I think about it, I think the answer is a book.
and bateson clearly wasn't loopy enough. ;-) B&G are pretty loopy though.
I've started marking some of their sentences that demonstrate related causal
thinking.
In my interpretation of B&G, the development of cybernetics and relatedly
system thinking may be one of the contradictory aspects of capitalism, being
that it leads to developments that can potentially challenge its structure,
such as the use of system dynamics (economic) modeling to change the
distribution of wealth. But there is systemic resistance to change, i.e.
witness the high cost of serious SD modeling software, that keeps it out of the
hands of those who could benefit from it most to restructure their budgets.
After all, people will pay good money for this kind of software. ;-)
B&G's framework seems pretty oppressive for a country of people who value their
independence and individuality -- but their point that economic structures and
processes must be accounted for in a psychology of learning, and more
generally, activity, is something i am taking seriously.
And there is agreement with mike's statement as these tools as "restricted
analytic tools for getting work done, with recognition that they are not the
whole story." One thing that system dynamics does not do well at all is to
provide explanatory power for qualitative transformations, what are the
preconditions, how they are enacted, how they percolate through, and influence
events to come.
bb
=====
"One of life's quiet excitements is to stand somewhat apart from yourself and watch yourself softly become the author of something beautiful."
[Norman Maclean in "A river runs through it."]
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This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Wed Aug 01 2001 - 01:01:02 PDT