Models of Self-organisation and Evolution in Socio-Economic Systems

Peter Allen (), Mark Strathern and James Baldwin ()
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Peter Allen: Cranfield School of Management
Mark Strathern: Complex Systems Management Centre, Cranfield University, Bedford, UK
James Baldwin: Sheffield University Management School

European Journal of Economic and Social Systems, 2005, vol. 18, issue 2, 171-199

Abstract: This paper presents a view of social systems as evolving, multi-scale, spatiotemporal structures with emergent functions, needs and capabilities. Our models will show that the complexity of these structures means that the decisions taken by any particular actor or agent will necessarily be taken under considerable uncertainty, and this uncertainty will be further compounded for everyone by the interacting effects of whatever decisions the actors or agents take. Each individual, group, firm, corporation, shareholder and even observer will experience "path dependent learning", whereby in a given period learning is conditional on the decisions taken, and therefore in the next period the options considered and the problems posed are changed by what happened in the previous period. This gives rise, for the system of multiple agents and actors, to a divergent evolution of multiple "conjectures" and "experiments", which will prove to be fruitful for some and fruitless for others. The spreading patterns of failure and success will therefore be narrowed by this differential selection and, broadly speaking, success will go to those evolutionary trajectories that find selfreinforcement in their environment, instead of either indifference or hostility. Structural attractors are the result of self-organisation and of evolutionary processes in complex systems and our paper allows us to demonstrate their rich, diverse and unpredictable nature. Instead of a single optimal outcome of the "invisible hand" we find multiple, divergent and diverse emergence pathways into the future.

Keywords: Complexity; Evolution; Socio-Economics; Market Dynamics; Organizational Change; Structural Change (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C61 O30 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2005
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