Viability, identity and autonomy

Viable = “able to maintain a separate existence” in “a particular sort of environment” (DTS 1985: 1) as “a recognizable identity” (TBYT 2009, “The Will of the People”: 107). Autonomy is self-regulation, not isolation. overview Draft 0.8 — not project canon.

What Beer says

Viable “if it can survive in a particular sort of environment”; “existence is never independent of other existences, even though the individual has a separate identity” (DTS 1985: 1). “A viable system is one sustaining the capability for independent existence as a recognizable identity” (TBYT 2009: 107). The firm “is something organic, which intends to survive — and that is why I call it a viable system” (BOTF 1981: 75).

Identity: principles “that systems cannot violate if they are to maintain their identity” (HOE 1979: 24). Cohesion “governs the question of identity in the viable system” (HOE 1979: 351).

Autonomy: “‘a law unto itself’ […] responsible for its own regulation” (BOTF 1981: 103). “If a division of the firm were really and truly autonomous it would not be part of the firm at all. […] if the heart and liver were not more or less autonomous […] we would be dead in ten minutes” (BOTF 1981: 75–76). Metasystem should “preserve the maximum autonomy for […] System One consistent with preserving the coherence of [the whole] as a viable system itself” (BOTF 1981: 275).

“Freedom is in principle a computable function of systemic purpose as perceived” (HOE 1979: 158). DF: redesign the “‘liberty machine’” to have “liberty as its output” (DF 1974, Lecture 3); “produce freedom as an output” (DF 1974, Lecture 6).

Where it sits in the model

system-five carries identity. system-one needs autonomy; system-three/system-four/Five delimit it. law-of-cohesion is the inter-recursion bargain. Freedom = horizontal/vertical variety (HOE 1979: 145–146).

Textual notes

BOTF: intention to survive (BOTF 1981: 75). DTS: OED separate existence (DTS 1985: 1). TBYT 2009: 107 adds identity. HOE 1979: 158 formal function; DF 1974 political “output”.

Open points

HOE 1979: 158 italics — emphasis or display? (ch. 5). DF 1974 by lecture only; no 1974 print pagination (ch. 17).

Related

stafford-beer · viable-system-model · recursion · pure-vsm-part-ii-the-viable-system-model · pure-vsm-part-iii-applications-and-politics · think-before-you-think