The simulation of social system evolution with spiral loops

Excerpt from The Simulation of Social System Evolution With Spiral Loops: July 1986
Abstract
Social system evolution is taken to be the result of the interaction of autonomous social systems for the purposes of this paper. An autonomous social system is understood to be a multi-level decision making system which basically uses two types of rules in order to maintain its goals: nile-setting strategies and rule-fulfilling policies.The article gives an introduction to a recently developed methodology which makes it possible to represent rule-setting and rule-fulfilling decision making processes in social systems with their structural and behavioral differences. This new methodology also allows us to simulate evolutionary processes in social systems based on these two forms of decision making. The new methodology combines the servo-mechanistic feedback loop concept of system dynamics with intelligent logical loops, which we call spiral loops. The spiral loop concept, which is based on new developments in evolutionary theory and in the field of artificial intelligence, is used to represent the rule-setting strategic decisions which generate qualitative changes and evolution. The servo-mechanistic feedback loop concept is used to model the rule-fulfilling policy decisions of social systems which can generate quantitative changes in interaction processes. The potential of this new approach is demonstrated with two important social system application: (1) "The portfolo simulation model" which helps us to explain and to design the evolution of multibusiness firms in duopoly markets, and (2) the know-how transfer model which explains the evolution of multinational corporations in less developed countries and which helps to improve the simultaneously ongoing process of know-how transfer.
Introduction
During the last few years we have witnessed the development of two main system simulation approaches to explain and design social system evolution- the system dynamics approach and the approach of the Brussels School (for a more complete overview of existing system approaches see Jantsch 1979, 80).The system dynamics methodology originally developed by Jay Forrester at the Massachusetts Insitute of Technology is based on the assumption that social systems generally are stable and insensitive to parameter variations, and allows us to represent the phenomenon of structural change in two ways. First, with the concept of shifting loop dominance which allows structural changes in social systems to be modelled in a continous and quantitative way. Second, structural changes are introduced into system dynamics models by policy making. New policies (new structures) are formulated by the model builder and built into a system dynamics model in order to improve the problematic behavior of a system.
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