If Holonic Manufacturing then perhaps a Holonic Economy or Holonic Politics? Might this be a useful metaphor to explore? Consider this example which is taken, with liberal modifications, from the Holonic Manufacturing source given below: Practical requirements for holonic political organization: (First, a definition: Arthur Koestler defines a holarchy as a hierarchy of self-regulating holons which function (a) as autonomous wholes in supraordination to their parts, (b) as dependent parts in sub-ordination to controls on higher levels, (c) in co-ordination with their local environment. In the political context holons might be communities (contiguous or non-contiguous).) As reasoning on autonomy, co-operation and complex adaptive systems may seem quite abstract, work on holonic politics has considered from the beginning how these concepts lead to specific requirements for political systems. >From the outset, the prevalent software technology to implement the concepts of holonic politics appears to be intelligent co-operating agents, also called multi-agent systems. Multi-agent systems are also used in heterarchical control, and provide the software with opportunities for taking the initiative to take autonomous decisions. (Aside: Each human voter will have his/her own agent - perhaps several?) Secondly, the hope to combine the best of hierarchical and heterarchical control forms a practical inspiration source for the research on holonic politics. Holonic political systems shall combine the high and predictable performance promised by hierarchical systems with the robustness against disturbances and the agility of heterarchical systems. Thirdly, holonic politics shall address the problem of rising costs for the development and maintenance of complex software. It shall avoid the rigidity of hierarchical systems and shall fully support the system evolution to comply with changing requirements (e.g. new legislation, new or evolving technologies, unpredictable demands). Reuse of legislative modules shall reduce development costs, improve software quality and ease the migration towards a new paradigm like holonic politics. Consequently, reconfigurability of the HPS is an important aspect. Fourthly, to ease the operation of a holonic political system, this latter needs to be self-configuring, learning and self-organising. The increased flexibility resulting from an agile and reconfigurable political system may put a high load on the voters, such that the holons in a HPS shall assist the operator to control the system: holons shall autonomously select appropriate parameters settings, find their own strategies and build their own structure. Fifthly, holonic politics shall preserve a place for the human in the system, since he/she is the most flexible, and intelligent component in the system. Sixthly, holonic politics shall consider an evolutionary approach to implement all the above requirements. Since the requirements are quite ambitious, it is more pragmatic to plan intermediate steps towards the fully intelligent political system. This provides a smoother migration path towards holonic politics and ensures the ability of the system to support continuous adaptation, migration and evolution. (Aside: One might imagine a continuous self-reflective simulation, perhaps based on David Gelernter's, "Mirror Worlds". Such might be analogous to quality control technology in manufacturing systems.) Source: <http://www.mech.kuleuven.ac.be/pma/project/goa/concepts.htm> There may also emerge a "new geopolitics" wherein citizens in one jurisdiction may opt for legislation pertaining to health, business, education, or whatever, in another jurisdiction which they believe meets their needs better than that of the particular nation-state (or subnational entity) in which they reside. Minorities in different jurisdictions may unite in cyberspace to enjoy the rights difficult to acquire in terraspace. New taxation formulae would have to be developed to fund such novel practices. Source: <http://www.business2.com/content/sneakpreview/magazine/2000/09/15/18868?page=3> One cannot predict the future but, as Dennis Gabor observed, one can invent it. Or, if invention is out of the question, one may try a mind-experiment: a scenario. The following link takes you to an animated gif which illustrates one such scenario (rather Eurocentric, I'm afraid): <http://publish.uwo.ca/~mcdaniel/futcommap/PolEvoln.gif"> The above is offered in the spirit of the following quotation from Edmund Carpenter: "If you address yourself to an audience, you accept at the outset the basic premlses that unite the audience ... But artists don't address themselves to audiences; they create audiences. The artist talks to himself out loud. If what he has to say is significant, others hear and are affected. "The trouble with knowing what to say and saying it clearly and fully, is that clear speaking is generally obsolete thinking. Clear statement is like an art object: it is the after-life of the process which called it into being. The process itself is the significant step and, especially at the beginning, is often incomplete and uncertain. Columbus' maps were vague and sketchy, but showed the right continent. "The problem with full statement is that it doesn't involve: it leaves no room for participation; it's addressed to consumer, not co-producer." Besides, what do I know? Bob -- http://publish.uwo.ca/~mcdaniel/
