See systemicbusiness.org/digests/sabi2002/sabi2002.html

ABSTRACT

It is often suggested that capitalism is an unplanned economic system. In the absence of any overall mechanism for planning productivity, it is only through periodic recession that a market system can shutdown activities which have become obsolete or uncompetitive and redirect labor and capital into thrive upon innovation and the capability to leave the past behind. Thus capitalism can be not only a very powerful constructive force but also a destructive one. This global capitalism that is one of the driving forces of globalization to some extent is a very complex economic system. We do not know fully as yet how it works. It can be assumed that global capitalism is a complex form of economic system which may be a typical nonequilibrium system functioning in the globally turbulent situations among the capitalist nations.

daviding
ezOP
Posts: 36
(7/30/02 5:41:17 pm)
Reply Re: RHEE 2002-013 Chaos and Order through Fluctuation in Glo

Key insights I got from the paper:
Risks are not equally borne by the rich and poor, in the face of upswings and downturns of global capitalism.

How might I apply these concepts:
This is richer than the second law of thermodynamics (entropy), because the "no free lunch" idea isn't uniformly distributed amongst all participants.

Additional ideas I might suggest to the author.
* Do you have a prescription, or is global capitalism inescapable?
I agree with the sentiments of the paper, but am unsure on how to act, or influence senior decision-makers. If I believe Thomas Friedman in The Lexus and the Olive Tree, there's no escaping this trend.

* Decoupling country from globalization?
Is it possible to move towards loosely coupled systems (instead of the tight coupling suggested by globalization) to dampen the large swings? See Charles Perrow, Normal Accidents, Basic Books, 1984, which is deeply cited by Harold A. Linstone (with Ian I. Mitroff), The Challenge of the 21st Century -- Managing Technology and Ourselves in a Shrinking World, State University of New York Press, 1994.