Dealing with entropic complexity

John Robb over at Global Guerrillas has an interesting post on the root problem in dealing with entropic complexity (entropic because of the inevitability of collapse) – influenced by the work of Quigley and Tainter. As he narrates it, the key issue is the uniqueness of each system at the level of its smallest nodes – the entities/actors enacting the system. In other words, whether it is the international wheat market, the English Premier League, or the Australian banking system, while there are certain structural similarities once the systems reach a certain level of complexity (network power laws, etc) at the most local level each system is absolutely unique, and differs even from ‘similar’ systems next door. Furthermore, the local level is the fastest changing part of a system, in that it is the closest to the inputs (of course all levels are local as actor network theory argues, but that is all too often not understood), and consequently when viewed over time there grows a chasm between the fluidity of the local and the structural integrity of the wider system. As Robb words it:

The need for evolutionary advances at the local level will always outstrip the pace of evolutionary change at the center.  When the mismatch grows too large, the entire system collapses.

Of course, Robb forgets that every system is always local at every layer of its network, the center and the periphery are equally situated in a local setting, and the problem he describes is not one of miscommunication between local and global, but of breakdown of translation between equally local layers. The solution Robb proposes is one of resilient local communities existing in some sort of semi-autonomy from a wider system. This of course has been an old political dream of both the far left and the far right. Interestingly though, the Austrian economic school and Murray Rothbard in particular have long argued for the independent city-state as the optimal politico-economic entity on a global scale – I don’t think Robb is aware of that though.