Complexity: The Emerging Science at the Edge of Order and Chaos

by M. Mitchell Waldrop

“Every democratic society has to solve a certain problem,” says Arthur: “If you let people do their own thing, how do you assure the common good? In Germany, that problem is solved by everybody watching everybody else out the windows. People will come right up to you and say, ‘Put a cap on that baby!’” In England, they have this notion of a body of wise people at the top looking after things. “Oh, yes, we’ve had this Royal Commission, chaired by Lord So-and-So. We’ve taken all your interests into account, and there’ll be a nuclear reactor in your backyard tomorrow.” But in the United States, the ideal is maximum individual freedom—or, as Arthur puts it, “letting everybody be their own John Wayne and run around with guns.” However much that ideal is compromised in practice, it still holds mythic power. But increasing returns cut to the heart of that myth. If small chance events can lock you in to any of several possible outcomes, then the outcome that’s actually selected may not be the best. And that means that maximum individual freedom—and the free market—might not produce the best of all possible worlds.