Bob said:
> Let us assume that economies have two basic dimensions of
>internal order: one is organic and relates to functional and structural
>properties, which have their analogue in other living systems like
>ecosystems; and the other is cognitive, meaning that a broad
>perspective of the world that human agents hold streamlines collective
>behavior and economic activities. Both dimensions of order are
>maintained by dissipating the fabric of the natural environment. These
>dimensions are dynamic and the change in their internal parameters
>reflects on the scale and intensity of the interference with natural
>structures and processes.
>
> On the organic side we propose that dynamics in industrial
>market economies are essentially autocatalytic (Matutinovic, 2005).
>Autocatalysis refers to "any cyclical concatenation of processes
>wherein each member has the propensity to accelerate the activity of
>the succeeding link" (Ulanowicz 1999, pp.41-55). Through competition
>and selection autocatalysis imparts organization to a system, which can
>be recognized, among other things, in the asymmetric distribution of
>flows among its members. It appears that industrialized economies have
>reached a high level of internal organization (ascendency),
>characterized by (truncated) power-law distributions across different
>structural and dynamical variables (size of firms, size of cities,
>degree distribution of business links, business cycle fluctuations
>etc.). (Matutinovic, 2002; 2005)
>
> Because of their inner dynamics and openness to the wider
>system, economic autocatalytic assemblages, like their counterparts
>elsewhere in the living realm, exhibit growth and centripetality in
>that they amass material and energy from their environment.
>Additionally, as a consequence of competition and selection,
>autocatalysis tends to ratchet all participants towards higher levels
>of performance (Ulanowicz 1997, p.46[*NOTE]. This process is not confined
to
>a single loop but transfers its influence to the wider systemic
>environment via connections that exist among assemblages of different
>autocatalytic loops. One example of autocatalytic process in economy,
>which comprises all of the above mentioned properties, is the formation
>of industrial clusters. Centripetal process of amassing material and
>energy can also be seen on the global scale, where the G7 (economic
>system level) and multinational companies (agent level) appropriate
>disproportionate chunks of natural sources and sinks. Modern market
>economies are probably much more efficient in their resource
>consumption than the early industrial or pre industrial societies. The
>problem is, clearly, that the scale of their dissipative processes has
>increased markedly with respect to those of natural sources and sinks,
>a situation that is generally regarded as unsustainable.
SS: All of this, so far, entails increasing entropy production.
> Another aspect of "organic" in socioeconomic systems is related
>to diversity. Ecological economists generally agree that functional and
>structural aspects of biodiversity have their analogue in socioeconomic
>systems, especially when we regard the global economy and the
>biosphere. Socioeconomic diversity is functionally related to
>thermodynamic efficiency in energy/resources exploitation, adaptation
>to local environments, avoiding of head to head competition over
>resources and preserving resilience to yet unknown shocks and boundary
>conditions (Matutinovic, 2001).
SS: This "thermodynamic efficiency" I presume, has two
aspects
brought about by increasing bearinginformation:
(a) recycling of waste products (bottles, plastics) from one activity into
another
(b) Decreasing energy throughput (per some unit) in each enterprise.
Both of these, however, increase the gross energy throughput in the
system as a whole (maximizing power).
>The issue of loss of socioeconomic
>diversity is closely related to that of scale of dissipative processes:
>as the number of industrialized economies increases (maximum power
>efficiency increases)
SS: "efficiency"? What is this efficiency?
STAN
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Received on Sat Apr 30 16:50:07 2005
