Deeper Analysis and Possible Solutions to The Limits of The Complexity of Social Systems by Duane Elgin and Robert A. Bushnell

“We are blanketed with large-scale social innovations (e.g., social security, food stamps, medicare) and with large-scale technological innovations (e.g., mass transit, space shuttle). There are many fewer attempts at small-scale technological innovations (e.g., new agricultural technologies, low-cost low-tech water purification technology), and there are extremely few small-scale, diversely conceived, social innovations (ecovillages, community supported agriculture).”

Before we can infer the patterns of problems that might emerge as a system grows in scale, we must first describe the nature of the basic pattern of systems growth itself. Fortunately, there exists a widely used concept in economics that lends itself well to clarifying our understanding of the cycle of growth that may occur as a system grows to extremes of size . . . . One of the few “laws” in economics is the “law of diminishing returns.” One application of this law asserts that, at some size or scale of activity, no further advantages can be derived from further increases in scale; moreover, if scale continues to increase, diseconomies of scale will emerge. In other words, the system can reach a size where efficiency fails to increase as the organization becomes larger.

The difficulty in applying the “law of diminishing returns” to the growth of bureaucracies is that economic theory assumes that the rational organization will recognize when it is growing too large (is experiencing “diseconomies of scale”) and choose to halt its growth at that point. Perhaps business firms, governed by the relatively precise rule of profit, will not intrude too far or for too long into a domain of increasingly severe diseconomies of scale.

However, there are a number of reasons to think that our governmental bureaucracies may grow into this region and persist there for some time. These are called the Ratchet Effect, as follows :

1. Imprecise means of measurement. The “rule of profit” may be harsh, but for business firms it is a relatively certain yardstick against which to measure the efficiency of a given scale of activity. In contrast, governmental bureaucracies and other social systems must attempt to measure efficiency via a number of qualitative, multidimensional, often conflicting, and ambiguous measures and objectives. With virtually no measures of system health, bureaucracies can conceivably grow to excessive scales of social organization.
2. Responding to the needs of a given population. Government bureaucracies are obliged by law and/or by egalitarian principles to attempt to respond to the needs of an entire population or population segment (e.g., all old people, all school-age children, all poor people who are in ill health) . . . . (thus) there may be little choice as to the size of the bureaucracy.
3. Bureaucratic narrow mindedness. If the size of a system or subsystem is considered an important source of status and power to the managers of that system, then systems managers may attempt to foster the growth of a system in order to secure greater benefit for themselves – even at the cost of a decline in overall systems efficiency. This “tragedy of the commons” behavior within a bureaucracy may be prompted by the search for a larger staff, a larger budget, greater responsibility, and so on.
4. Uncritical adoption of technologies. Technology provides the possibility to vastly expand the scale of social systems, and this possibility often seems to be translated into a necessity. Social systems may be designed so as to reap the maximum benefits from potent technologies (ranging from computers to photocopying machines) only to find that the overall system (which includes the human element) now exceeds its most efficient scale. Thus, uncritical adoption of technologies may push a system to excessive scales of social organization.
5. Unconditional belief in “growth is good”. A central value premise in the industrial world view has been that growth is good. This has created a climate in which a concern for the bigness of our social bureaucracies would be less likely to be questioned.
6. The constituency politics of “something for everyone”. Political bureaucracies employ the art of compromise in an attempt to provide “something for everyone” so that no important constituency will be alienated or angered. The bureaucracy defends its own interest group and draws support from the many persons who depend on its continued existence. Intrinsic to democratic political processes, then, is a pattern of expectations and demands which tends to inhibit the reduction of bureaucratic activity which, once instituted, becomes the norm.

Even if a bureaucracy were aware that its size was excessive, the “ratchet effect” could strongly inhibit retreat from that scale of activity. The notorious difficulty in eliminating or restructuring a government agency or program seems a manifestation of the ratchet effect. It seems unlikely, then, that a government bureaucracy would voluntarily shrink in size; rather, it would tend to grow smaller only when forced by the necessities of its own survival or by the superior power of a higher-order system.

By extending the domain of organizational performance considered under the ?glaw of diminishing returns,?h we derived a four-stage life-cycle of the growth of social systems:

1. Stage I: High Growth/Era of Faith.
   In the ?gspringtime?h of growth, the relative level of systems comprehension is high, and the scale, complexity, and interdependence of the bureaucracies are low. There is a strong faith in the efficacy of shared values and goals. This is a period of great vitality, innovation, and energy as economic and sociopolitical entrepreneurs are the agents of creative expression of this social order. The social leaders have considerable legitimacy, and the high performance of the system speaks of unbounded potentials.
2. Stage II: Greatest Efficiency/Era of Reason.
   In the ?gsummertime?h of growth, the relative level of systems comprehension is moderate, and the scale, complexity, and interdependence of the bureaucracies have increased substantially relative to the earlier period. The systems have become sufficiently complicated that their effective functioning is not simply a matter of faith but requires the efforts of a brain trust. Creative, intellectual advisors bring rationality and order into the operations of the systems and become an integral aspect of leadership.
   The level of alienation increases, but this seemingly reflects a consequence of higher geographic and occupational mobility. Rather than a pathological condition, this era seems healthy in comparison to the parochialism of the preceding era. The level of systems performance is still increasing, but the bursts of vitality of Stage I have been replaced by a more methodical planning and implementation process. The costs of coordination and control are beginning to mount but can be kept within tolerable limits by the judicious use of rules and regulations to rationalize, standardize, and simplify operations.
3. Stage III: Severe Diseconomies/Era of Skepticism.
   In the “autumn” of growth, the relative level of systems comprehension is low and dropping rapidly as large, barely comprehensible bureaucracies have grown into largely incomprehensible supersystems. As leaders disavow their responsibility for error and maximize the visibility of their own increasingly modest achievements, the system’s constituency becomes increasingly disillusioned, apathetic, and cynical. Both faith in the basic soundness of the system and trust in rationality to solve the mounting problems are virtually exhausted.
   Leaders are more tolerated than given active support and legitimacy–there seems little alternative than to cynically acquiesce to those leaders who say that they alone have adequate information to truly understand what is happening. Yet, the declining levels of systems performance, the crisis atmosphere that pervades the management of the system, the growing numbers of disturbing events and the loss of allegiance to basic values create a situation in which concensus falls to very low levels. Decision-makers are increasingly unable to cope with complex problems that demand superhuman abilities. Costs and problems of coordination and control are mounting rapidly, and the benefit to the constituency seems to be declining with equal rapidity; consequently, people are less willing to support the actions of the bureaucracy.
   The bureaucracy is becoming increasingly rigid, distant, and dysfunctional and yet insists that its constituency conform to its increasingly rationalized and standardized procedures when interacting with the system–thereby reinforcing the apparent inhumanity of the system and further reducing the system’s legitimacy. Further, the rigidity of the system engenders a loss of resilience and, coupled with growing perturbations (many of which arise from the counter-intuitive and unexpected consequences of ill-considered policy actions), the system seems increasingly vulnerable to disruption.
4. Stage IV: Systems Crisis/Era of Despair, then . . . ?
   In the “winter” of growth, the relative level of systems comprehension is minimal. The systems are on the verge of chaos and collapse. There is a rapid turnover of leaders, prevailing ideology, and policy solutions–yet nothing seems to work. Every attempt at creating order (short of a highly authoritarian structure) seems overwhelmed by growing levels of disorder. The level of systems cohesion is very low which, in turn, exacerbates the problem of system’s leaders who govern virtually without support.
   The rigidified bureaucracy is made somewhat more resilient by the rapid turnover of personnel and policy, but the vulnerability of the system is so high and mounting crises are of such seriousness that whatever additional resiliency has been added to the system is quickly depleted in a grinding downward spiral into bureaucratic confusion and chaos. The situation becomes simply intolerable and untenable. If many social systems enter Stage IV (systems crisis) at about the same time, there may be little resiliency or vigor in the remaining systems for those bureaucracies in difficulty to fall back upon.

From this period of systems crisis, any one of four plausible outcomes may emerge:

1. Successful muddling through the situation (by incremental policy making) if one assumes that the system in crisis is surrounded by other, supportive systems which are relatively healthy, then it is quite conceivable that the strength of the other systems could cushion the transitional period for the system in trouble.
2. A descent into chaos as the size, complexity, and interdependence of the system?fs problems overwhelm decision-makers. Eventhough, the seeming disorder (with accompanying turnover of ideologies, persons in power, and proposed solutions) could be viewed instead as creative chaos that generates a sufficient diversity of alternative innovations to develop new systems with greater “efficiency” and “utility.” In this alternative, then, disorder and chaos could provide the necessary conditions for stimulating the diversity of innovation that allows people to cope with systems crisis.
3. An authoritarian response in an attempt to rationalize and simplify the coordination and control processes. The rigidity of authoritarian systems lowers their resilience and makes them much more vulnerable to extinction. Thus, authoritarian social systems would likely only delay movement into Stage IV, the Systems Crisis.
4. Transformation as the system evolves to a higher level of structure which is more managable, more efficient, more simple, and has higher levels of self-reflective awareness . . . . (furthermore) openness to change (and recognition of the impermanence of all social systems) may be a precondition to dynamic social stability.

In short, the problem of institutional “limits to growth” seems increasingly critical for some bureaucracies at the present time and, if this model has descriptive validity, then it seems likely that these “limits” will become increasingly critical for many bureaucracies in the decades ahead. It is our judgment that the constellation of problems characteristic of the later stages of the cycle of growth will become increasingly critical, long-term, pervasive, and difficult to solve. In turn, if this ballpark estimate of the situation is accurate, then it seems likely that long before we reach resource and environmental “limits to growth,” we will reach institutional “limits to growth” imposed by the malfunctioning of our major social systems. In a sentence, the time available to respond creatively to increasingly severe systems problems seems very short.

Coping with Institutional Limits to Complexity

A number of different strategies could be applied in coping with the problems of large, complex bureaucracies.

• Develop alternative models of the behavior of bureaucracies as they evolve over time to ever greater levels of scale, complexity, and interdependence.
• Conduct surveys to ascertain the present status of key social bureaucracies whose continued vigor seems central to a healthy society. Such a survey could, for example, engage the politician and bureaucrat in the process of describing the behavioral properties and problems of large, complex social bureaucracies.
• Develop a spectrum of systems indicators–patterned after economic and social indicators–that may better in form us as to the state of “health” of our central social bureaucracies.
• Encourage the President to consider the state of the social bureaucracies when examining the state of the nation.
• Fund research on the least understood of the four hypothesized outcomes from a period of “systems crisis” –namely, what the nature and form of transformational change of major social bureaucracies could be.
• Explore new individual learning modes that could increase the rate and richness of our acquisition of knowledge (the internalization of information).
• Develop new group learning processes to enable more effective knowledge aggregation and patterning.
• Fund television programs (such as Nova) that are educational/informational at much higher levels and across a much broader range of topics and thereby attempt to inform the public of major issues of critical national importance–including the problem of the malfunctioning bureaucracies.
• Pursue governmental reorganization designed, where reasonable and possible, to reduce the scale, interdependence, and complexity of social systems.

The foregoing responses to the problems of bureaucracies are primarily restorative–they are intended to help ameliorate the severity of these problems and to help maintain the existing form of these bureaucracies. A different kind of response would be to search for innovative alternative systems whose “performance” surpasses existing bureaucracies. Illustrative of these kinds of activities that may engender responses to surpass rather than merely maintain bureaucracies are the following. For example, we could:

• Fund small-scale social and technological experiments and provide “social space,” relatively free of bureaucratic impingements, within which these innovations can be tested. This might take the form, for example, of a range of different types of small-scale intermediate new communities that employ different technological and social forms to cope with the new scarcity and other problems that beset our larger systems.
• Develop intermediate or appropriate technology that can increase systems resilience by increasing the self-sufficiency of local communities.
• Encourage national opinion leaders to become informed about the role that small-scale, social innovation could play in coping with larger systems problems and begin the process of building greater social legitimacy for action of this kind.

We are blanketed with large-scale social innovations (e.g., social security, food stamps, medicare) and with large-scale technological innovations (e.g., mass transit, space shuttle). There are many fewer attempts at small-scale technological innovations (e.g., new agricultural technologies), and there are extremely few small-scale, diversely conceived, social innovations.

The source of creative social innovations has traditionally been the local government. However, the federal government seems to have preempted many major areas of innovation from the state and local government. In a vicious circle of abdication of responsibility for local vitality, small-scale social innovation is seldom tolerated, let alone encouraged.

There seem to exist two substantial stumbling blocks to small-scale social innovation. First, our cultural “opinion leaders” (in business, government, education, and so on) perhaps do not themselves recognize the crucial role that small-scale social innovation can possibly play in responding to increasingly severe, large-scale systems problems. A second barrier to innovation is that such experimentation can be viewed as a threat to existing institutions (whose participants may not perceive the larger, longer-term threat of a systems crisis). There needs to be sufficient “institutional relaxation”–providing social space relatively free from bureaucratic impingement–to allow these small-scale, social experiments to emerge of their own accord.

The right place to initiate the process of social learning may very well be in a “societal interstice” where there may develop or be preserved a different standard and lifestyle. Thereby, at some later, more propitious time, this enclave or subculture could serve as a model for many other people as our larger society struggles to find its confused and dangerous way.

Evolution is not stasis. Everything alive is impermanent. If our bureaucracies are alive, they will assuredly prove to be impermanent as well. One direct way to recognize the life and vitality of our social systems is by fostering diverse social experimentation so that, in due course, existing social forms may gradually yield to the new forms they have helped to create.

Full report at AwakeningEarth.net

Keywords : complex systems, social systems, complexity, complex theory, systems thinking, bureaucracy, government, democracy, human scale, participatory democracy, appropriate science and technology, social innovation
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