Thinking in Systems: A Primer

by Donella H. Meadows

“I’ll raise you one” is the decision rule that leads to escalation.

Escalation comes from a reinforcing loop set up by competing actors trying to get ahead of each other.

Escalation is not just keeping up with the Joneses, but keeping slightly ahead of the Joneses.

Negative campaigning is another perverse example of escalation.

Escalation, being a reinforcing feedback loop, builds exponentially.

One way out of the escalation trap is unilateral disarmament

The only other graceful way out of the escalation system is to negotiate a disarmament.

THE TRAP: ESCALATION

When the state of one stock is determined by trying to surpass the state of another stock—and vice versa—then there is a reinforcing feedback loop carrying the system into an arms race, a wealth race, a smear campaign, escalating loudness, escalating violence. The escalation is exponential and can lead to extremes surprisingly quickly. If nothing is done, the spiral will be stopped by someone’s collapse—because exponential growth cannot go on forever. THE WAY OUT The best way out of this trap is to avoid getting in it. If caught in an escalating system, one can refuse to compete

(unilaterally disarm), thereby interrupting the reinforcing loop. Or one can negotiate a new system with balancing loops to control the escalation.

Using accumulated wealth, privilege, special access, or inside information to create more wealth, privilege, access or information are examples of the archetype called “success to the successful.”

This system trap is found whenever the winners of a competition receive, as part of the reward, the means to compete even more effectively in the future.

To him that hath shall be given. The more the winner wins, the more he, she, or it can win in the future.

Success to the successful is a well-known concept in the field of ecology, where it is called “the competitive exclusion principle.”

Species and companies sometimes escape competitive exclusion by diversifying.

Markets tend toward monopoly and ecological niches toward monotony, but they also create offshoots of diversity, new markets, new species, which in the course of time may attract competitors, which then begin to move the system toward competitive exclusion again.

Diversification is not guaranteed, however, especially if the monopolizing firm (or species) has the power to crush all offshoots, or buy them up, or deprive them of the resources they need to stay alive.

(One of the resources very big companies can win by winning, however, is the power to weaken the administration of antitrust laws.)

The most obvious way out of the success-to-the-successful archetype is by periodically “leveling the playing field.”

THE TRAP: SUCCESS TO THE SUCCESSFUL If the winners of a competition are systematically rewarded with the means to win again, a reinforcing feedback loop is created by which, if it is allowed to proceed uninhibited, the winners eventually take all, while the losers are eliminated. THE WAY OUT Diversification, which allows those who are losing the competition to get out of that game and start another one; strict limitation on the fraction of the pie any one winner may win (antitrust laws); policies that level the playing field, removing some of the advantage of the strongest players or increasing the advantage of the weakest; policies that devise rewards for success that do not bias the next round of competition.

This trap is known by many names: addiction, dependence, shifting the burden to the intervenor.

The trouble is that the states created by interventions don’t last. The intoxication wears off. The subsidy is spent. The fertilizer is consumed or washed away.

Addiction is finding a quick and dirty solution to the symptom of the problem, which prevents or distracts one from the harder and longer-term task of solving the real problem.

The problem can be avoided up front by intervening in such a way as to strengthen the ability of the system to shoulder its own burdens.

series of questions. Why are the natural correction mechanisms failing? How can obstacles to their success be removed? How can mechanisms for their success be made more effective?

THE TRAP: SHIFTING THE BURDEN TO THE INTERVENOR Shifting the burden, dependence, and addiction arise when a solution to a systemic problem reduces (or disguises) the symptoms, but does nothing to solve the underlying problem. Whether it is a substance that dulls one’s perception or a policy that hides the underlying trouble, the drug of choice interferes with the actions that could solve the real problem. If the intervention designed to correct the problem causes the self-maintaining capacity of the original system to atrophy or erode, then a destructive reinforcing feedback loop is set in motion. The system deteriorates; more and more of the solution is then required. The system will become more and more dependent on the intervention and less and less able to maintain its own desired state. THE WAY OUT Again, the best way out of this trap is to avoid getting in. Beware of symptom-relieving or signal-denying policies or practices that don’t really address the problem. Take the focus off short-term relief and put it on long-term restructuring.

Rule beating means evasive action to get around the intent of a system’s rules

THE TRAP: RULE BEATING Rules to govern a system can lead to rule beating—perverse behavior that gives the appearance of obeying the rules or achieving the goals, but that actually distorts the system. THE WAY OUT Design, or redesign, rules to release creativity not in the direction of beating the rules, but in the direction of achieving the purpose of the rules.

It could be argued that the best society would be one in which capital stocks can be maintained and used with the lowest possible throughput, rather than the highest.

THE TRAP: SEEKING THE WRONG GOAL System behavior is particularly sensitive to the goals of feedback loops. If the goals—the indicators of satisfaction of the rules—are defined inaccurately or incompletely, the system may obediently work to produce a result that is not really intended or wanted. THE WAY OUT Specify indicators and goals that reflect the real welfare of the system. Be especially careful not to confuse effort with result or you will end up with a system that is producing effort, not result.

The leverage point is in proper design in the first place.

A system just can’t respond to short-term changes when it has long-term delays.

I would list delay length as a high leverage point, except for the fact that delays are not often easily changeable.

There’s more leverage in slowing the system down so technologies and prices can keep up with it, than there is in wishing the delays would go away.

Balancing feedback loops are ubiquitous in systems. Nature evolves them and humans invent them as controls to keep important stocks within safe bounds.

Strengthening and clarifying market signals, such as full-cost accounting, don’t get far these days, because of the weakening of another set of balancing feedback loops—those of democracy. This great system was invented to put self-correcting feedback between the people and their government. The people, informed about what their elected representatives do, respond by voting those representatives in or out of office. The process depends on the free, full, unbiased flow of information back and forth between electorate and leaders. Billions of dollars are spent to limit and bias and dominate that flow of clear information. Give the people who want to distort market-price signals the power to influence government leaders, allow the distributors of information to be self-interested partners, and none of the necessary balancing feedbacks work well. Both market and democracy erode.

The power of big industry calls for the power of big government to hold it in check; a global economy makes global regulations necessary.

system with an unchecked reinforcing loop ultimately will destroy itself.

Missing information flows is one of the most common causes of system malfunction.

Adding or restoring information can be a powerful intervention, usually much easier and cheaper than rebuilding physical infrastructure.

The ability to self-organize is the strongest form of system resilience.

As hundreds of self-organizing computer models have demonstrated, complex and delightful patterns can evolve from quite simple sets of rules.

When you understand the power of system self-organization, you begin to understand why biologists worship biodiversity even more than economists worship technology.

Allowing species to go extinct is a systems crime, just as randomly eliminating all copies of particular science journals or particular kinds of scientists would be.

Unfortunately, people appreciate the precious evolutionary potential of cultures even less than they understand the preciousness of every genetic variation in the world’s ground squirrels.

a system that systematically scorns experimentation and wipes out the raw material of innovation, is doomed over the long term on this highly variable planet.

If the goal is to bring more and more of the world under the control of one particular central planning system (the empire of Genghis Khan, the Church, the People’s Republic of China, Wal-Mart, Disney), then everything further down the list, physical stocks and flows, feedback loops, information flows, even self-organizing behavior, will be twisted to conform to that goal.

The goal of keeping the market competitive has to trump the goal of each individual corporation to eliminate its competitors, just as in ecosystems, the goal of keeping populations in balance and evolving has to trump the goal of each population to reproduce without limit.

The shared idea in the minds of society, the great big unstated assumptions, constitute that society’s paradigm, or deepest set of beliefs about how the world works.

Paradigms are the sources of systems.