general systems theory - the promise that could not be kept

8/13/2019 General Systems Theory - The Promise That Could Not Be Kept

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General Syftemfs Theory

The Promise ThatCould Not Be Kept

FREDERICK THAYERUniversity of Pittsburgh

General System(s) Theory (GS T) hasfailed to deliver because of its own basicassumptions. Hierarchy compels us toimpersonalize all social interaction, thusmaking it impossible to realize our-selves. Concreteness overemphasizes

Ihe single organization and determinismas well. Competition returns us to themechanistic tradition GST initially soughtto escape. Finally, G ST remains tied to laws of growth which promise onlyour destruction. Am erican Indians knew etter

Few concepts ever burst on the intellectual scene with so much promiseas General System(s) Theory (GST). Holding out the hope that for the firsttime we could discover a truly general theory of organization, GST promiseddeliverance from the despised mechanistic tradition which had reducedindividual human beings to atoms which fly aimlessly from one randomoccurrence to another and, along the way, have no meaningful relationshipswith each other. The classic notion of mechanism implied that the "whole"was only the sum of its parts, nothing more, and would "behave in exactlyIdentical fashion no matter how often those parts were disassembled andput together again" [2, p. 27]. The parts never were modified by each othernor by their own past, so mechanistic models had nothing to say of growth'


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482 cademy of Management Journal December

evolution, or purpose; all they offered was static equilibrium. GST seemed

ready to overcome these problems.Words such as wholeness, ho listic, organism ic, and gestalt,

were given renewed prominence by GST, as were notions of interdependenceand mutual interaction [15, p. 45]. The organ ism was something whichhad both a significant past and a purposeful future-one in which the indi-vidual human being could be fully accommodated. General Systems Theory'scontributions to modern organization theory have been immense; beginningwith the human relations schoo l, the notion that organizations were social systems became paramount, and at least a generation of theoristspromised to transform organizations into warm and friendly communities[11, p. 52]. From Mayo's researchers at Western Electric to Philip Selznick,Warren Bennis, and countless others, we seemed to have an alternativeto the mechanistic thinking of Taylor and Simon. GST has not delivered,however, and we must seek out explanations for its failure to do so.

One way to begin is by looking at the so-called universals, whichGST adherents assumed to apply to all organized systems. The biologicalheritage of GST, as opposed to the derivation of mechanistic thinking from

physics, produced the organic laws of growth, differen tiation, hierarchicalorder, dominance, control, and competition. Over time, so it was thought,these' could be translated into mathematical terms. Furthermore, so wentthe argument, GST easily could deal with associated, but somewhat dichot-omous, concepts; maintenance and change could be incorporated, andso could prese rvation of the system and internal con flict [15, p. 196]. Tobe sure, these had to be balanced or reconciled; neither cha nge nor internal con flict could be permitted to destroy the system. From all thiswe cou ld search out go als on a system-by-system basis, and the principal

one turned out to be su rviva l. This biological thinking led us to believwe could discover wholeness by comparing what happened in one systemwith what occurred in others, without considering how entire systems mighaffect each other. We could compare, in other words, a system of bacterialcells to a system of human beings (e.g., a formal organization), but withoutworrying all that much about how cells and humans affected each other.GST assumed, then, an infinite number of relatively c lose d systemseven while trumpeting its ability to deal with ope n ones. This led to series of anomalies which are the focus of this essay and which have had

the effect of pointing us backwards instead of providing us with a visioof the future.


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9 General System s) Theory: The Promise That Could Not Be Kept 483

Ships With each other, thus making it impossibie for us to realize our selves

or beings. Concreteness, the notion that any given system can be defined'generally m terms of itself, encourages us to focus on the single organiza-tion and, m the bargain, forces us to accept a deterministic outlook whichleaves little room fcr the individual. Competition, an assumption derivedm seme measure frcm the mechanistic outlook of Adam Smith, returnsus to the despised tradition we sought to escape. Finally, GST has been tiedto laws of exponential growth which premise only the destruction of usall If we do not seek alternatives to it. The arguments follow in order.

Hferorchy, Post-Feudalism, and AlienationGiven the assumption, or organic law, of hierarchy, GST advocates

(and most of the rest of us) failed to notice that the earlier change ofWestern society from feudalism to post-feudalism made it impossible forus to avoid mechanistic concepts. Indeed, I argue here that the combinationof post-feudalism and what we term democracy only reinforced themechanistic tradition. It is not significant to decide when the shift fromfeudalism to post-feudalism occurred, aside from noting that it was afternation-states had been organized by monarchs who viewed their realmsas private businesses and themselves as agents of the Almighty.^ ThomasHobbes attempted to sever this connection between government and reli-gion by arguing, in the seventeenth century, that the sovereign should bean absolute, impartial, impersonal, and artificial one (an individual or anassembly) which could maintain the peace by preventing humans fromconstantly warring with each other. If he said nothing about elections aswe think of them now, his concept was secular and very modern- the sovereign was comprised of citizens acting out roles as rulers, not servingas agents of God.^ His notions of impersonality and artificiality were im-portant ingredients of the shift to post-feudalism, and they are the guidingnotions of contemporary organizations.

In feudal systems, superior-subordinate relationships were personalrelationships; despite the degrading nature of these social ties, they in-cluded the notion that persons were mutually responsible to each other(lords should help serfs in need). Hobbes' artificial sovereign, while

Louis XIV and Frederick the Great, the issue being how much of the original premise remlfns?


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eliminate its usefulness as an operational theory of organizations. The social

systems we know cannot become communities unless we abandon hier-archy or, alternatively, design an updated version of feudalism. We havecome closer to the latter than we are prone to think; everyday jargon isfull of phrases such as the old man and the organizational family,which imply patriarchy. Sometimes we think about using conventionalmodels of democracy in organizations to get around this, as in workerself-management schemes. But, if workers are to ele ct their managers,this can only reinforce ro le and mechanistic concepts. Thus, even repre-sentative government as we knew it seems incompatible with GST, but the

attempt to reconcile the irreconcilable goes on. When we turn to concrete-ness and survival, things get worse.

oncreteness and System Survival

GST advocates have sought to make the wholeness of the individualcompatible with organizational wholeness ; among others, Bertalanffy hasmade much of the active personality system as a new model of man[15, pp. 192-193]. However, organizational survival tends to emphasize theintegrity of the single organization, and it introduces a determinism whichinevitably reduces the individual to a position of lesser importance. Giventheir addiction to the hierarchical ordering of systems, GST proponentsalmost inadvertently have sacrificed the individual for the sake of the largersystem, something that is clearest cf all where nation-states are concerned.

The nation-state stands virtually alcne as the human organization whichhas the wherewithal to bring to bear every conceivable instrument of vio-lence to insure its own survival and growth. Bertrand Russell, noting thatany organization is an organism, with a life of its own, and a tendency togrowth and decay, added that the nation-state had an instinc t for self-preservation [10, pp. 157-158]. Others, concerned with the future of theUnited States, have observed that Am erica is not exempted from thehistorical imperatives, the laws of life and decay [12, p. 52). Those seekinga general theory of international politics (only another general theory oforganizations) concluded that it is only empirically realistic that individualsof different philosophies (Acheson and Dulles, Churchill, and Bevin) pursuedthe same foreign policies [14]. Despite the gloomy Hcbbesian (Theory X)view of human nature, there is reason to think the violence used to insurenation-state survival is not a reflection of natural man at all, but is learned

behavior which the larger system forces upon him. * For this reason, it


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86 Academy of Managem ent Journal December

seems to me, students of international politics (and some GST adherents

as well) have shied away from GST implications.

Scholars who lived through the Hitler years in Europe, especiallythose who came to the United States and exerted a profound influence onintellectual trends here, came to fear that organismic thinking had provideda normative conceptual framework for Germanic notions of nationalism,patriotism, and Lebensraum the doctrine that the 1000-year Reich inevi-tably was destined to spread across the heartland of Eurasia. One exampleis Hans Morgenthau's theory of international politics, based on clear defi-nitions of such phenomena as national interest and national cha racter.Having flirted with essentially organismic concepts, Morgenthau then dis-avowed organicism, arguing that power itself was a purely psychologicalrelationship between the minds of individuai men [5]. Bertalanffy himselfraised the same problem, arguing that to view the nation-state as an or-ganism on a superordinate level was to provide the foundation for atotalitarian state, within which the human individual appears to be aninsignificant cell in an organism or an unimportant worker in a beehive

[15, p. 35]. This problem hardly is limited to the nation-state.

To echo Sheldon Wolin's complaint of 12 years ago, huge formalorganizations such as General Motors, the Pentagon, and public univer-sities, engage themselves in forms of violence which are only less obvious,not less threatening, to their members and to others affected by them [16].Philip Selznick remains the most articulate of organismic theorists, and hisapproach to institutional survival and cohesion places those values well

above all ethers. For the individual corporation, the economic concept of externalities has played a major part in permitting us to avoid the impli-cations of organismic thinking. Any costs, social costs in particular, thatcan be transferred to some other organization or to society as a whole,are perceived to be cf no concern tc the corporation. Those of us assignedto universities should be more aware than we are of how this works; thosedenied tenure, often because of budgetary restrictions alone, are for prac-tical purposes being declared unemployable fcr life because the entiremarket is tight. Those cf us whc remain inside accept cur incremental payraises each year while remaining largely unconcerned about the fate cfthese newly defined externalities. Everyday determinism is inccrpcrated


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1972 Generai System s) Theory: The Promise That Couid Not Be Kept 487

Th e Mec hanistic Trad ition of conomics

In the classical mechanistic worldview, all phenomena in the worldwere perceived as the products of chance, of the aimless play of atomsgoverned by inexorable laws cf causality [15, p. 45]. Adam Smith was indeedone of the classic thinkers in this tradition, although we have given this lessattention than we should. The equilibrium model of the unseen handremains as good an example as we have of the nonrational mechanisticsystem. While few wculd argue that perfect competition ever has beenachieved anywhere, it remains a driving ideal cf eccncmics; many of usstill assume that as a theory, it is logically coherent. It is not, and that iswhy it never has delivered on its premises, cannot new deliver, and neverwill deliver. Tc examine the logic cf competition is to understand why.

In a perfectly competitive market, all companies have an interest in ahigher price, but no company can set prices higher than its competitors.Each company also wants tc sell as much as it can, and it increases itsoutput as long as the cost of producing each new unit is less than themarket price. Increasing cutput dees net represent a cemmen interest, fcrthe mere units ether cempanies sell, the lewer the price and inceme ferany given firm. Yet each company continues te preduce because, by defi-nitien, its eutput alone has ne effect en the market. If ene cempany, cerrectlyestimating that the eutput ef all firms cannet be seld at a price which willyield prefits fer all, acts te reduce its eutput, this enly makes things wersefor that cempany; its ewn inceme falls aleng with all the ethers. What thismeans is that the equilib rium ef classic cem petitien cannet eccur in anysituatien ether than ene ef censtantly and infinitely increasing demand.Unless this is present, in the ferm ef custemers willing and able te buy theeutput, prices fall until preducers cannot recever their cests. The dewnwardspiral and the accempanying sccial chaes are arrested only by gevernmentassistance in the ferm ef price supperts, tariffs, or quotas [8, pp. 9-10]. Perfect cem petitien, in ether words, is a legical impessibility.

The typical example is agriculturewe have plewed creps under,stered eur overpreducticn, paid farmers net te farm, and previded pricesupperts. The typical sequence cempleted its cycle in the egg industry in1972. High prices in 1969 and 1970 enceuraged farmers te steck up en hensin anticipation ef high prefits; the market was glutted 2 years later, eggs

ceuld net be seld fer what it cest te preduce them, and the gevernmentfaced a choice ameng undesirable alternatives. One ef them, the widespread


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88 Academy of Managem ent Journal December

To put it mildly, this poses a problem for organization theorists who

count themselves as followers of GST. The individual organization searchesfor its own purpose, presumably through some form of ra tion al analysis,but within a larger system which must remain nonrational by definition.The organic system (corporation) is part of a mechanistic supersystem(market); we can effect an overall outcome in the larger system (by stimu-lating purchasing power), but what happens to a single producer c nnotbe the outcome of conscious planning. And so it is; we invent explanationsof efficiency and inefficiency to distinguish between companies which succeed and others that fail, but this inherent systemic tendency

toward overproduction and social chaos makes the failure of an individualcompany an essentially random event. It is only a little better in marketsystems dominated by a few companies, the oligopolies; while they manageto restrain production to what can be sold, with the aid of governmentstimulation, their market systems are not explicitly planned ones, for wehave a network of public policies and conceptual thinking which definesthe planning of production (by companies producing the same thing) asconspiracy.

We may be on the verge of discovering why it is that the eq uilibriumpostulated by theories of perfect competition always has been impossibleto realize. Economists have tended not to analyze market systems (micro-economics, the subfield which deals with markets, concentrates on thesingle firm because that is the only planning unit), and GST proponents,usually renaissance men who range widely in many fields, have tendedto follow this lead (while not questioning the conventional wisdom of theiroriginal field). This has been comfortable up to now, because the anomaliesof economic competition have been obscured by the presumed success

of continued growth. But, what if growth must cease or be severely curtailed?

Systems Growth and the Future

Growth stands on the threshold of becoming the greatest global issuein at least a century; the forthcoming dialogue will make it clear that nocountry will be affected more than this one, and few theories will be affectedmore than GST as we have known it up to now with respect to social sys-tems. A Secretary of the Treasury, President Nixon's chief administratorof our massively revised economic policies, found it necessary early in 1972to use the forum of a White House Conference to reject the concept ofzero net gro wth for the President's program required growth especially


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1972 Generai System s) Theory: The Promise That Couid Not Be Kept 489

certain (as this is written in August 1972) is that beth Presidential candidates

will avoid the issue during the campaign. Net enly is it unmanageable at atime when many worry about unempleyment figures, but we have ne con-ceptual framewerk for dealing with it. Yet, it seems likely that the victorieuscandidate will have to deal with the issue in 1973 and probably will set inmeticn by 1974 policies designed te restrain grewthand all this afterhaving wen the election partly en the basis ef premises te increase grewth.

There is no space here to survey the burgeoning literature on theproblems ef grewth; suffice it to note that pelitical scientists and econo-mists, not to mention organization theorists, have been avoiding the issuebecause their cenventional wisdoms cannet cope with it. While GST casuallyhas mentiened growth, maturity, and decay for years, little more thanthat has been done; the implicit assumption usually is that these let goby one system (e.g., the university) will be accommodated by growth of thelarger system. The best summary statement of the problem facing us hasbeen produced by a distinguished group of British intellectuals [13]:

The principal defect of the industrial way of life with its ethos of expansion isthat it is not sustainable. Its termination within the lifetime of someone born todayis lnevitable-;-unless it continues to be sustained for a while longer by anentrenched minority at the cost of imposing great suffering upon the rest of man-

kind. We can be certain, however, that sooner or later it will end (only theprecise time and circumstances are in doubt), and that it will do so in one of twoways: either against our will, in a succession of famines, epidemics, social crisesand wars; or because we want it tobecause we wish to create a society whichwill not impose hardship and cruelty upon our childrenin a succession ofthoughtful, humane, and measured changes. We believe that a growing numberof people are aware of this choice, and are more interested in our proposalsfor creating a sustainable society than in yet another recitation of the reasonswhy this should not be done.

There will indeed be a sys tems debate, but it will turn en the questionof whether the planet Earth can be cenceptualized as a cle se d or op ensystem. Advocates ef the latter approach will attempt te keep our attentionriveted en outer space; they will lure us with the newest version of thefrontier philosophy which will tempt us te anticipate celenizatien ef otherplanets. The cles ed system prepenents will respend that even if otherplanets er galaxies are inhabitable, the ecenemic grewth on Earth requiredte make the voyages weuld have the effect ef destroying us while our ownspace vehicles are enreute te new destinatiens. It is net immediately neces-sary te take a pesitien en the questien ef Earth as a cle se d er op ensystem. We prebably must cenceptualize seme degree ef epenness if weare te take into acceunt the probability that seme ef eur internal techno-logical activities might damage the na ture ef the universe, quite asidefrom the questien ef celenizing space. The peint is that in narrewing the


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9 cademy of Managem ent Journai December

recognition that larger view. Te seme extent this is the eutceme ef academic

specializatien, fer mest ef us spend our lifetimes looking at things whichby any cemmen-sense definitien are enly parts ef seme larger whole. Whenwe examine interdependence within these parts (as GST enceurages us tede within fermal crganizatiens), we everleek the interdependence betweenthe partscenceptualized as the interdependencies within the larger sys-tem. Seme ef eur weightiest thinkers have contributed te this reductienismbecause, I think, they have placed tee high a value en mathematical pre-cisien. Fer example, Karl Deutsch, seeking te rise abeve the limitatiens efclassic models ef mechanism and erganism, nevertheless cemplains thatthe wide-ranging pre cess thinkers (Kant, Hegel, Marx, Teynbee) haveprevided us with medels lacking inner structure and quantitative predict-ab ility [2, p. 79]. However this is disceunted by probabilities, it remainsa lenging fer seme ferm ef determinism. Yet, it seems te me that precessmedels are the enly enes Vi/hich offer the hepe ef identifying the wheleand, while it may seem difficult te believe at first, ene ef the classic precessthinkers belengs te the medern histery ef erganizatien theeryMary ParkerFellett.

In her clearest example ef interdependence and precess thinking,Fellett described the interactien ef a tennis game. When ene player servesand the ether returns, the third stroke is determined net only by the secondbut, at least in part, by the nature ef the original serve. Each new strekebecemes a cempesite histery ef all previeus enes, in the fermula shedescribed as l-plus-the-interweaving-between-yeu-and-me, meeting yeu-plus-the-interweaving-between-ycu-and-me, etc., and she censtantly in-vented werds in the attempt te describe what she had in mind. Amengthese werds were the terms interweaving, interpenetrating, interlacing, inter-

knitting, interm ingling, reciprecal respense, and activity-between.*^ I aman individual, she argued, ne t se far as I am apart frem , but as far as Iam a part ef ether men [3, p. 62]. This led her te define leyalty as seme-thing net given by ene persen te anether, but as semething beth give tethe whele, the situatien, the relation which includes the twe. Au-the rity in any greup precess was semething inherent enly te the precess,situatien, er relatien, net an individual [3, p. 59]. Everything, in ether werds,is part ef semething else.

Te leek at things rela tienally is te return te a line ef thinking men-tiened semetimes, but net eften, in GSTf it is mere traceable te Hegel,

^F f F ll tt' thi ki g hi h i l d th t i l Elli t M


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1S72 General System(s) Theory: The Promise That Could Not Be Kept 491

Leibniz, and Spinoza. If, in Hegel's words, knowledge can be only set

forth fully . . . in the form of a system, and if Spinoza built upon Aristotle'sdefinition of substance as that which is capable of independent existence,then the only definable who le is something on the order of substance,nature, or God. This worldview requires an observer to change from

perceiving relatively independent factors or organisms related to eachother to perceiving the particular way in which all these factors or organismsare related to each other within each one cf them; to conceive of thingsas 'relations' is simply to interiorize this interdependence in the thingitself. ^ If this seems at first glance a monumental task, it need not be, but

it requires an abrupt departure from the almost inadvertent reductionismof GST. Organismic theorists tend to use the system-environmentdichotomy in ways which ove rconcre tize the single system (organization)while overgeneralizing its relations with other systems, and without takinginto account how those other systems actually function within the singlesystem. Some relatively simple examples are in order.

1. As implied earlier, GST advocates are wide-ranging and inter-disciplinary, but only up to a point. They tend not to question thepremises of the several disciplines with which they attempt towork and, as Harold Sprout once said in my presence, they donot meet the full requirements of interdisciplinary activity. Todo that, he said, one must get fully inside the mind of another.GST thinkers have yet to challenge, confront, and come com-pletely to grips with the assumptions of all the disciplines theyuse, including their individual disciplines. For example, among systems thinkers , Deutsch does not really question at lengththe premises of conventional politics, nor does Boulding ques-tion those of conventional economics.

2. Biologists, and all those concerned with the environment forthat matter, are learning that food-cha in conceptualizationsare far more significant than patterns within any single species.The catch phrase, you are what you eat may be intellectuallysignificant, and economists and environmentalists may discovertogether that the threatened extinction of whales (an inter-national scandal) is traceable to the systemic nature of com-petitive economics.

3. All of us in adm inistration, especially public adm inistration,are well aware of the interagency comm ittee, the task force,or the temporary organization for that matter. What we failto conceptualize is that if, say, five individuals come togetherfrom five agencies to form such a group, each individual actually

functions within six organizational systems; he is a member ofhis permanent organization, the committee, etc., as well as theother four permanent systems On a global scale, for example,


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From an organization theery perspective, then, the beginning points

are not all that difficult to describe. We should proceed with the explicitarticulation of what might be termed transorganizational systems; thisamounts to extrapolating the organizational diagrams of, say, RensisLikert, to the larger universe of which they are parts, and beginning tocenceptualize the innumerable interactions within and between systems.*It is as if we visualized a map ef the werld which contained none of thenation-state boundaries with which we are familiar, or for that matter noneof the pyramidal organizational charts within which we live (and are re-pressed). We then would draw on the globe all of the systems we could

discover. We might find ourselves viewing millions of cobwebs over-lapping and penetrating each other, each system describable as a clusterot relations between syst ms [1, pp. 8, 15, and 45). This is emerging in thestudy of international politics as the concept of transnationalism and,without something like it, we cannot even begin to deal with such phe-nomena as multinational corporations. In this far-reaching enterprise, GSTcannot helpat least not in its present form.

I do not suggest for a moment that all those who consider themselves

to be general system(s) theorists would acknowledge this assessment ofwhat they do a valid one. They form too disparate a group to be labeled assubscribing to a monolithic point of view. Yet, their search for universalshas led them all too quickly to adopt a somewhat deterministic outlookwhich, combined with their acceptance of such notions as hierarchy andcom petition as law s, can be dangerous. Seme of them recognize asmuch; Ervin Laszio worries that the development ef higher level super-systems in the sociocu ltural sphere may, if it leads to a single unit wor ld,leave individuals more and more deeply imbedded in complex hierarchical

structures. He rejects this outcome, of course, on grounds that man can-not be na tural (in the way Laszio would prefer man to be na tura l ) insuch circumstances. So, insists Laszio, correlations between inputs andoutputs cannot be conceptualized as de terministic ones. While certainfunctions will have to be carried out, it will be left te volun teers to fu lfthem; the system as a who le is determinate, but the relationships of theparts is not [4, pp. 111-113]. Thus, the fatal flaws of GST stand clearlyoutlined.

In organizational terms, nothing could be more familiar. Vo lunteersare free to participate in carrying out the decisions made by others. Itsimply is assumed that every individual's choice will add up to some form


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tradition from which it promised us escape. Indeed, Laszlo's prescription

is nothing more than a shorthand version of market economics, the mostmechanistic model of all. Yet the growth crisis will be resolvable only byconceptualizing and then operationalizing global market systems, and notcompetitive ones, on a product-by-product basis. The objective is the sur-vival of all, not merely some, and all must share in that undertaking. Afterall, the GST approach offers usin the final analysisthe grim pursuitof our own death, and some ef the "laws" it has accepted up te new seemguaranteed te make that predictien ceme true. Even the old mechanisticapproach is better than that, and so we must continue the search for the

humanism we cannot find except, perhaps, in process thinking. For thoseof us in the United States, it is worth pondering that from this perspective,our "advanced" culture is more primitive than that of the Indians wedisplaced. There is a systems approach

REFERENCES

1 . Burton, J. W., Systems, States, Diplomacy, and Rules (Cambridge, Mass.: UniversityPress, 1968).

2. Deutsch, Karl W., The Nerves of Governmen t (New York: Free Press, 1963).3. Follett, M ary Parke r, The New State: Group Organization the Solution of Popular

Government. 5th ed . (New Yo rk: Longm ans G reen, 1 926).4 . Laszio, Ervin, The Systems View of the World (New York: George Braziller, 1972 .5. Morgenthau, Hans J. , Politics Among Nations (New Yo rk: Knopf, 1 956).6. New York Times (9 February 1972).7. New York Times (30 March 1972).

8. Olson, Jr., Mancur, The Logic of Coilective Action (New York: Schocken Books, 1968 .9. Parade (16 July 1 972), Ch. 1 .

1 0. Russell , Bertrand, Power A New Social Analysis (New Yo rk: W. W. Norton, 1938 .1 1 . Scott , William G., and Terence R. Mitche ll , Organization Theory: A Structural and

Behaviorai Analysis (Ho me wo od, III.: Rich ard D. l?win, 1 972).

1 2. Sti l lman, Edmund, and Wiliiam Pfaff, America and the End of the Postwar World (NewYork: Coward McC ann, 1952) . ^

1 3. The Ecologist (Lond on: January 1972).

1 4. Thompson, Kenneth W., "Toward a Theory of International Polit ics," American PoliticalScience Review, XLIX (September 1955).

1 5. von B ertalanffy, Lud wig, General System Theory (New York: George Braziller, 1962).1 6. Wolin , Sheldon, Politics and Vision (Boston: Litt le, Brown, 1960), Ch. 10.


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general systems theory - the promise that could not be kept

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