System breaks and positive feedback as sources of catastrophe

Kenneth £. Boulding - 1986


IV. VULNERABILITY IN SOCIAL SYSTEMS

Social systems can exhibit nearly all these different kinds of system breaks
and catastrophes. Positive feedback may be
more common in social systems than it is in other systems. A quarrel is a good example:
A does something that is offensive to B, so B does something that is offensive to A, so A does something more offensive to B, and B something still more offensive to A, and so on, until the situation explodes in a fight, a law suit, or even a murder. The arms race is another very good example: A feels insecure and increases its arms, which makes B feel less secure and therefore it increases its arms, which makes A feel still less secure, so it increases its arms, which makes B feel still less secure, so it increases its arms, and so on. Sometimes these positive feedback processes can reach an equilibrium. Very often, however, they go on until there is a system break. A great many wars indeed are a result of the breakdown of systems of
deterrence that have led into arms races.


In economic systems, we see many examples of positive feedback. Inflation
is often a good example, particularly where it is the result of an inadequate
tax system leading to budget deficits, which are financed in part at least by the
creation of money, which increases the price level, which increases the government
expenditures. Often receipts do not catch up, so that the deficit increases, which
leads to more inflation, which leads to still further deficits, more inflation, and
so on. This process sometimes ends up in hyperinflation, as in Germany in 1923
or Hungary in 1946, in which the price level can double every week or even every
day. This, however, eventually becomes intolerable and the old currency is called
in, a new currency is-estabhshed, with an improved tax system that creates much
greater stability.

The Great Depression of 1929 to 1933 was another very good example of positive feedback. It started with a speculative collapse in the Stock Market, which diminished and also redistributed net worth on a very large scale, driving many people into bankruptcy, which led to widespread pessimism, which diminished investment. This in turn diminished profits, which confirmed the pessimism and led to more pessimism, less investment, lower profits, still less investment, still lower profits, and so on, until by 1932 and 1933 profits were negative, net investment was virtually zero, interest had about doubled as a proportion of the national income, unemployment was 25 percent of the labor force. Then, for some reason that is still not wholly clear, although related in time to the election of President Roosevelt, whose charismatic personality seemed to
cheer many people up, investment recovered, profits recovered, investment recovered
still further, profits still further, until 1937. The process was interrupted by a
small depression in 1938, possibly related to the government cash surplus prod-
uced by the introduction of Social Security. Then, of course, comes rearmament
and the Second World War, which reduced unemployment virtually to zero, but
also severely diminished gross private domestic investment and state and local
government. These processes are very complex and it is often hard to distinguish
between positive and negative feedback. One of the saddest examples of positive
feedback is the development of cultures of violence, such as we see in Northern
Ireland, Lebanon, Sri Lanka, the Sikhs in India, and so on. Here again, violence
produces more violence, which produces more violence, and so on. Sometimes
this stabilizes out at a certain level; sometimes it degenerates into general civil
war.


V. DEVELOPMENT AS POSITIVE FEEDBACK:INTERRUPTIONS AS SYSTEM CHANGE

Economic development is another positive feedback process, much more be-
nign than most social processes. It is a process essentially in human learning and
know-how. There is a level of poverty which can be very stable simply because
no resources can be spared either for human learning or for the accumulation
of physical goods which supplement and express the human learning. Beyond a
certain point, however, resources can be devoted to human learning and to the
accumulation of goods, and the more we know, often the easier it is to learn. The
more goods we have, the easier it is to add to them. This process may eventually
reach some sort of equilibrium in a stationary state, either because with the exi-
sting techniques for adding to knowledge learning becomes increasingly difficult
and the increase in knowledge slows down, or because other factors develop,
such as war, which destroy the capital accumulations, or even because of the
development of widespread unemployment and the failure to utilize resources.
It is often hard to distinguish what turns out to be an interruption in the
system from what turns out to be a fundamental system change. Economic
development is a good example. It is frequently interrupted by wars or by
depressions, yet these have a relatively short lifespan relative to the total process,
and once they are over and peace and prosperity are restored, development begins
again, and very often indeed at an accelerated pace. The ultimate result is then
not very different from what it would have been if the interruption had not
taken place. We see this, for instance, in a country like Japan, which started
on a process of economic development about 1870, interrupted a little by the
Korean Empire, and severely interrupted by the Second World War, which was
utterly devastating. After the war recovery took place at even an accelerated
pace, until by about the 1970s Japan was economically about where it would
have been if it had not been to war and had continued to grow at its pre-war
pace.
The Great Depression likewise can be seen as an interruption in the develop-
ment of most of the countries of the Western world. In the communist countries
likewise we see a similar phenomenon. Stalin and the "First Collectivization"
was a very serious interruption in the development of the Soviet Union, one in-
deed from which they are still not fully recovered. The "Great Leap Forward" in
China turned out to be a leap backward. The "Cultural Revolution" similarly
was an interruption in Chinese development. The growth of human knowledge,
however, on which development depends, is a process of positive feedback that
seems remarkably hard to stop, although there are examples of economic stag-
nation, for instance, in the Islamic world after about 1300, which can only be
explained by political repression of the human learning process.
The "strain-strength" model is of great importance in social systems, which
often suffer very sudden transitions when the strain on the system is greater than
its internal strength. The outbreak of war is almost always such an occasion,
which is one reason why it is so hard to predict and why the concept of the
"causes" of war is a very unsatisfactory one. A revolution is another example.

Just exactly what it is that gives a social system strength to resist a sudden strain
is by no means always clear. Certainly in the case of war the "strength" of the
system is often quite inverse to the amount spent on armaments, which easily
leads to a weakening of the overall system and a diminution in overall security.
Just what it is that makes some marriages survive until the death of one of the
partners, whereas others end in divorce, is, again, often very puzzling. The causes
of marital breakdown are almost as complex as the causes of the breakdown of
international peace. Sometimes it is an almost imperceptible boundary between
the negative feedback processes which lead to stability and the positive feedback
processes which lead into catastrophe. Here again, the structure of systems
is often a very poor guide to their dynamics. All complex systems can get into
patterns that lead to their destabilization and move them into extreme positions,
like Hitler's Germany or Cambodia's Khmer Rouge. It is all the more important,
particularly at the present, that we develop negative feedback processes in the
system of unilateral national defense which can reduce the strain on the system
and diminish the likelihood of catastrophe.

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