From 23ac9f57b9b4c761cb8edc5bfa0c0de77ec89326 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Silvio Rhatto Date: Sat, 30 Sep 2017 14:06:22 -0300 Subject: Change extension to .md --- books/tecnopolitica/cybersyn.mdwn | 901 -------------------------------------- 1 file changed, 901 deletions(-) delete mode 100644 books/tecnopolitica/cybersyn.mdwn (limited to 'books/tecnopolitica/cybersyn.mdwn') diff --git a/books/tecnopolitica/cybersyn.mdwn b/books/tecnopolitica/cybersyn.mdwn deleted file mode 100644 index 4d39522..0000000 --- a/books/tecnopolitica/cybersyn.mdwn +++ /dev/null @@ -1,901 +0,0 @@ -[[!meta title="Cybernetic Revolutionaries"]] - -* [Cybernetic Revolutionaries | Technology and Politics in Allende's Chile](http://www.cyberneticrevolutionaries.com/). -* [Cybernetic Revolutionaries | The MIT Press](https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/cybernetic-revolutionaries). -* Further references [here](https://links.fluxo.info/tags/cybersyn). - -## General - -* Diagram of The Class War as a homeostatic system, 200. - -## Control and descentralization - - Beer’s writings on management cybernetics differed from the contemporaneous - work taking place in the U.S. military and think tanks such as RAND that led to the de- - velopment of computer systems for top- down command and control. From the 1950s - onward, Beer had drawn from his understanding of the human nervous system to - propose a form of management that allowed businesses to adapt quickly to a changing - environment. A major theme in Beer’s writings was finding a balance between central- - ized and decentralized control, and in particular how to ensure the stability of the - entire firm without sacrificing the autonomy of its component parts. - - Similarly, the Popular Unity government confronted the challenge of how to imple- - ment substantial social, political, and economic changes without sacrificing Chile’s - preexisting constitutional framework of democracy. A distinguishing feature of Chile’s - socialist process was the determination to expand the reach of the state without sac- - rificing the nation’s existing civil liberties and democratic institutions. Both Beer and - Popular Unity were thus deeply interested in ways of maintaining organizational - stability in the context of change and finding a balance between autonomy and - cohesion. - - -- 16 - -## Adaptive Control - - The idea of control is commonly associated with domination. Beer offered a different - definition: he defined control as self- regulation, or the ability of a system to adapt to - internal and external changes and survive. This alternative approach to control re- - sulted in multiple misunderstandings of Beer’s work, and he was repeatedly criticized - for using computers to create top- down control systems that his detractors equated - with authoritarianism and the loss of individual freedom. Such criticisms extended to - the design of Project Cybersyn, but, as this book illustrates, they were to some extent - ill- informed. To fully grasp how Beer approached the control problem requires a brief - introduction to his cybernetic vocabulary. - - Beer was primarily concerned with the study of “exceedingly complex systems,” - or “systems so involved that they are indescribable in detail.” 52 He contrasted exceed- - ingly complex systems with simple but dynamic systems such as a window catch, - which has few components and interconnections, and complex systems, which have a - greater number of components and connections but can be described in considerable - detail - - [...] - - In Beer’s opinion, traditional science did a good job of handling simple and complex - systems but fell short in its ability to describe, let alone regulate, exceedingly complex - systems. Cybernetics, Beer argued, could provide tools for understanding and control- - ling these exceedingly complex systems and help these systems adapt to problems - yet unknown. The trick was to “black- box” parts of the system without losing the key - characteristics of the original. 53 - - The idea of the black box originated in electrical engineering and referred to a sealed - box whose contents are hidden but that can receive an electrical input and whose - output the engineer can observe. By varying the input and observing the output, the - engineer can discern something about the contents of the box without ever seeing its - inner workings. Black- boxing parts of an exceedingly complex system preserved the - behavior of the original but did not require the observer to create an exact representa- - tion of how the system worked. Beer believed that it is possible to regulate exceedingly - complex systems without fully understanding their inner workings, asserting, “It is not - necessary to enter the black box to understand the nature of the function it performs” - or to grasp the range of the subsystem’s behaviors. 54 In other words, it is more impor- - tant to grasp what things do than to understand fully how they work. To regulate the - behavior of such a system requires a regulator that has as much flexibility as the system - it wishes to control and that can respond to and regulate all behaviors of subsystems - that have been black- boxed. - - [...] - - Controlling an exceedingly complex system with high variety therefore requires a - regulator that can react to and govern every one of these potential states, or, to put - it another way, respond to the variety of the system. “Often one hears the optimistic - demand: ‘give me a simple control system; one that cannot go wrong,’ ” Beer writes. - “The trouble with such ‘simple’ controls is that they have insufficient variety to cope - with the variety in the environment. . . . Only variety in the control mechanism can - deal successfully with variety in the system controlled.” 56 This last observation—that - only variety can control variety—is the essence of Ashby’s Law of Requisite Variety and - a fundamental principle in Beer’s cybernetic work. 57 - - The Law of Requisite Variety makes intuitive sense: it is impossible to truly control - another unless you can respond to all attempts at subversion. This makes it extremely - difficult, if not impossible, to control an exceedingly complex system if control is de- - fined as domination. History is filled with instances of human beings’ trying to exert - control over nature, biology, and other human beings—efforts that have failed because - of their limited variety. Many of the most powerful medicines cannot adapt to all per- - mutations of a disease. Recent work in the sociology of science has positioned Beer’s - idea of control in contrast to the modernist ethos of many science and engineering - endeavors, which have sought to govern ecosystems, bodily functions, and natural - topographies. Despite the many successes associated with such projects, these efforts - at control still have unexpected, and sometimes undesirable, results. 58 - - Beer challenged the common definition of control as domination, which he viewed - as authoritarian and oppressive and therefore undesirable. It was also “naïve, primi- - tive and ridden with an almost retributive idea of causality.” What people viewed as - control, Beer continued, was nothing more than “a crude process of coercion,” an - observation that emphasized the individual agency of the entity being controlled. 59 - Instead of using science to dominate the outside world, scientists should focus on - identifying the equilibrium conditions among subsystems and developing regulators - to help the overall system reach its natural state of stability. Beer emphasized creating - lateral communication channels among the different subsystems so that the changes in - one subsystem could be absorbed by changes in the others. 60 This approach, he argued, - took advantage of the flexibility of each subsystem. Instead of creating a regulator to fix - the behavior of each subsystem, he found ways to couple subsystems together so that - they could respond to each other and adapt. Such adaptive couplings helped maintain - the stability of the overall system. - - Beer called the natural state of system stability homeostasis . 61 The term refers to the - ability of a system to withstand disturbances in its external environment through its - own dynamic self- regulation, such as that achieved by coupling subsystems to one - another. Beer argued that reaching homeostasis is crucial to the survival of any system, - whether it is mechanical, biological, or social. Control through homeostasis rather - than through domination gives the system greater flexibility and facilitated adaptation, - Beer argued. He therefore proposed an alternative idea of control, which he defined - as “a homeostatic machine for regulating itself.” 62 In a 1969 speech before the United - Nations Educational, Social, and Cultural Organization, Beer stated that the “sensible - course for the manager is not to try to change the system’s internal behavior . . . but to - change its structure —so that its natural systemic behavior becomes different. All of this - says that management is not so much part of the system managed as it is the system’s - own designer.” 63 In other words, cybernetic management as described by Beer looked - for ways to redesign the structure of a company or state enterprise so that it would - naturally tend toward stability and the desired behavior. - - In addition, cybernetic management sought to create a balance between horizontal - and vertical forms of communication and control. Because changes in one subsystem - could be absorbed and adapted to by changes in others (via lateral communication), - each subsystem retained the ability to change its behavior, within certain limits, with- - out threatening the overall stability of the system and could do so without direction - from the vertical chain of command. To look at it another way, cybernetic manage- - ment approached the control problem in a way that preserved a degree of freedom and - autonomy for the parts without sacrificing the stability of the whole. - The first edition of Beer’s 1959 book Cybernetics and Management did not make many - - -- 26-29 - -## The Liberty Machine - - The Liberty Machine modeled a sociotechnical system that functioned as a dis- - seminated network, not a hierarchy; it treated information, not authority, as the basis - for action, and operated in close to real time to facilitate instant decision making and - eschew bureaucratic protocols. Beer contended that this design promoted action over - bureaucratic practice and prevented top- down tyranny by creating a distributed net- - work of shared information. The Liberty Machine distributed decision making across - different government offices, but it also required all subordinate offices to limit their - actions so as not to threaten the survival of the overall organization, in this case, a gov- - ernment. The Liberty Machine thus achieved the balance between centralized control - and individual freedom that had characterized Beer’s earlier work. - - [...] - - Beer posited that such a Liberty Machine could create a government where “com- - petent information is free to act,” meaning that once government officials become - aware of a problem, they could address it quickly; expert knowledge, not bureaucratic - politics, would guide policy. However, Beer did not critically explore what constitutes - “competent information” or how cybernetics might resolve disagreements within the - scientific community or within other communities of expertise. Moreover, it is not - clear how he separated bureaucracy from a system of checks and balances that might - slow action but prevent abuse. - - -- 33 - -## Viable System Model - - The Viable System Model offered a management structure for the regulation of ex- - ceedingly complex systems. It was based on Beer’s understanding of how the human - nervous system functioned, and it applied these insights more generally to the behav- - ior of organizations such as a company, government, or factory. 81 - - [...] - - Beer maintained that the abstraction of the structure could be applied in numerous - contexts, including the firm, the body, and the state. In keeping with Beer’s emphasis - on performance rather than representation, it was not a model that accurately repre- - sented what these systems were; rather, it was a model that described how these sys- - tems behaved. The Viable System Model functioned recursively: the parts of a viable - system were also viable, and their behavior could be described using the Viable System - Model. Beer explains: “The whole is always encapsulated in each part. . . . This is a les- - son learned from biology where we find the genetic blue- print of the whole organism - in every cell.” 83 Thus, Beer maintained that the state, the company, the worker, and the - cell all exhibit the same series of structural relationships. - - The Viable System Model devised ways to promote vertical and lateral communica- - tion. It offered a balance between centralized and decentralized control that prevented - both the tyranny of authoritarianism and the chaos of total freedom. Beer considered - viable systems to be largely self- organizing. Therefore, the model sought to maximize - the autonomy of its component parts so that they could organize themselves as they - saw fit. At the same time, it retained channels for vertical control to maintain the stabil- - ity of the whole system. These aspects of the Viable System Model shaped the design of - Project Cybersyn and provide another illustration of how Beer and Popular Unity were - exploring similar approaches to the problem of control. - - [...] - - The Viable System Model did not impose a hierarchical form of management in a - traditional sense. The dynamic communication between System One and System Two - enabled a form of adaptive man- - - [...] - - The Viable System Model draws a distinction between the bottom three levels of the - system, which govern daily operations, and the upper two levels of management, which - determine future development and the overall direction of the enterprise. Because the - lower three levels manage day- to- day activities and filter upward only the most impor- - tant information, the upper two levels are free to think about larger questions. In this - sense, Beer’s model tackled the idea of information overload long before the Internet - required us to wade into and make sense of an expanding sea of information. - - -- 35-38 - -## Management Cybernetics and Revolution - - The tension inherent in Beer’s model between individual autonomy and the welfare - of the collective organism mirrors the struggle between competing ideologies found in - Allende’s democratic socialism. Allende’s interpretation of Marx’s writings emphasized - the importance of respecting Chile’s existing democratic processes in bringing about - socialist reform, a possibility that Marx alluded to but never realized. 91 In contrast to - the centralized planning found in the Soviet Union, Allende’s articulation of socialism - stressed a commitment to decentralized governance with worker participation in man- - agement, reinforcing his professed belief in individual freedoms. Yet he also acknowl- - edged that in the face of political plurality the government would favor the “interest of - those who made their living by their own work” and that revolution should be brought - about from above with a “firm guiding hand.” 92 - - [...] - - In October 1970, nine months before Beer heard from Flores, the cybernetician de- - livered an address in London titled “This Runaway World—Can Man Gain Control?” - In this lecture Beer unknowingly foretold his coming involvement with the Allende - government. Commenting that government in its present form could not adequately - handle the complex challenges of modern society, Beer concluded: “What is needed is - structural change. Nothing else will do. . . . The more I reflect on these facts, the more - I perceive that the evolutionary approach to adaptation in social systems simply will - not work any more. . . . It has therefore become clear to me over the years that I am - advocating revolution.” 94 Beer added, “Do not let us have our revolution the hard way, - whereby all that mankind has successfully built may be destroyed. We do not need to - embark on the revolutionary process, with bombs and fire. But we must start with a - genuinely revolutionary intention: to devise wholly new methods for handling our - problems.” 95 Less than one year later, Beer would be in Chile helping a government - accomplish exactly this. - - -- 39-40 - -## Cyberfolk - - Thus Beer proposed building a new form of real- time communication, one that - would allow the people to communicate their feelings directly to the government. He - called this system Project Cyberfolk. In a handwritten report Beer describes how to - build a series of “algedonic meters” capable of measuring how happy Chileans were - with their government at any given time. 72 As noted in chapter 1, Beer used the word - algedonic to describe a signal of pleasure or pain. An algedonic meter would allow the - public to express its pleasure or pain, or its satisfaction or dissatisfaction with govern- - ment actions. - - -- 89 - -## Constructing the Liberty Machine - - As scientific director Beer created a work culture closer to the startup culture of the - 1990s than to the chain- of- command bureaucracy that flourished in the 1960s and - 1970s and was characteristic of Chilean government agencies. He viewed his position - as scientific director more as that of a “free agent” than a micromanager. After establish- - ing offices at the State Technology Institute (INTEC) and the Sheraton, he informed the - team that he would work at either location at his discretion and call on project team - members as required. Moreover, he refused to stick to a traditional nine- to- five work - schedule. Team members often found themselves working alongside the bearded cyber- - netician into the wee hours of the morning. This schedule enabled them to attend to - other projects at their regular jobs during the day and helped create an informal cama- - raderie among team members that bolstered their enthusiasm for the project. - - [...] - - In a memo to the Cybersyn team, Beer explains that he broke Cybersyn into clearly de- - fined subprojects that small teams could address intensively. This arrangement allowed - for a “meeting of the minds” within the smaller group, and because the small team - did not need approval from the larger group, it could progress quickly. At the same - time Beer insisted that each team keep the others informed of its progress. He arranged - large brainstorming sessions that brought together the members of different subteams. - In these sessions, he instructed, “sniping and bickering are OUT. Brain- storming is es- - sentially CREATIVE. . . . At least everyone gets to know everyone else, and how their - minds work. This activity is essentially FUN: fun generates friendship, and drags us all - out of our personal holes- in- the- ground.” Project leaders could then take ideas from - the brainstorming sessions and use them to improve their part of the project, thus in- - corporating the suggestions of others. Beer contrasted this “fun” style of management - with the more common practice of bringing all interested parties together to make - project decisions. That approach, he felt, eventually led to bickering, sniping, or sleep- - ing. It “masquerades as ‘democratic,’ [but] is very wasteful,” he observed. 12 In addition, - he required all project leaders to write a progress report at the end of each month and - distribute it to the other team leaders. Beer viewed the brainstorming sessions and - the written project reports as serving a function similar to the signals passed between - the different organs of the body: they kept members of the team aware of activities - elsewhere. They also allowed the different subteams to adapt to progress or setbacks - elsewhere and helped Cybersyn maintain its viability as a coordinated project while it - advanced toward completion. - - -- 97-99 - -## The October Strike - - Flores proposed setting up a central command center in the presidential palace that - would bring together the president, the cabinet, the heads of the political parties in - the Popular Unity coalition, and representatives from the National Labor Federation— - approximately thirty- five people by Grandi’s estimation. Once these key people were - brought together in one place and apprised of the national situation, Flores reasoned, - they could then reach out to the networks of decision makers in their home institu- - tions and get things done. This human network would help the government make - decisions quickly and thus allow it to adapt to a rapidly changing situation. “Forget - technology,” Flores said—this network consisted of “normal people,” a point that is - well taken but also oversimplistic. 21 The solution he proposed was social and technical, - as it configured machines and human beings in a way that could help the government - adapt and survive. - - In addition to the central command hub in the presidential palace, Flores estab- - lished a number of specialized command centers dedicated to transportation, industry, - energy, banking, agriculture, health, and the supply of goods. Telex machines, many - of which were already in place for Project Cybersyn, connected these specialized com- - mand centers to the presidential palace. 22 Flores also created a secret telephone network - consisting of eighty- four numbers and linking some of the most important people in - the government, including members of the Popular Unity coalition and the National - Labor Federation. According to Grandi, this phone network remained active through- - out the remainder of Allende’s presidency. 23 - - Both the telex and the telephone network allowed the command centers to re- - ceive upward flows of current information from across the country and to disseminate - government orders back down, bypassing the bureaucracy. Flores assembled a team at - the presidential palace that would analyze the data sent over the network and compile - these data into reports. High- ranking members of government used these reports to - inform their decisions, which Flores’s team then communicated using the telex and - telephone networks. This arrangement gave the government the ability to make more - dynamic decisions. - - The Project Cybersyn telex room, housed in the State Development Corporation - (CORFO), served as the industrial command center during the strike. In addition to - transmitting the daily production data needed for the Cyberstride software, the CORFO - telex machines now carried urgent messages about factory production. “There were - enterprises that reported shortages of fuel,” Espejo recalled. Using the network, those - in the industrial command center could “distribute this message to the enterprises that - could help.” 24 The network also enabled the government to address distribution prob- - lems, such as locating trucks that were available to carry the raw materials and spare - parts needed to maintain production in Chilean factories, or determining which roads - remained clear of obstructionist strike activity. Espejo recalled, “The sector committees - were able to ask the enterprises to send raw materials, transport vehicles, or whatever - to another enterprise” that needed them. At the same time, enterprises could send re- - quests to the sector committees and have these requests addressed immediately. “It was - a very practical thing,” Espejo continued, referring in particular to the state- appointed - managers known as interventors. “You are the interventor of an enterprise, you are run- - ning out of fuel, you ask the corresponding sector committee. . . . Or [the interventors] - know that the raw materials they need are available in Valparaíso and that they need a - truck to go and get it. With bureaucratic procedures it would have been more difficult - to resolve these situations.” 25 - - [...] - - After the strike, Silva said, “two concepts stayed in our mind: that - information helps you make decisions and, above all, that it [the telex - machine] helps you keep a record of this information, which is different from - making a telephone call. [Having this record] lets you correct your mistakes - and see why things happened.” Silva added that the energy command center relied - primarily on the telex network because it gave up- to- - - [...] - - The telex network thus extended the reach of the social network that Flores had - assembled in the presidential command center and created a sociotechnical network - in the most literal sense. Moreover, the network connected the vertical command - of the government to the horizontal activities that were taking place on the shop - floor. To put it another way, the network offered a communications infrastructure - to link the revolution from above, led by Allende, to the revolution from below, led - by Chilean workers and members of grassroots organizations, and helped coordinate - the activities of both in a time of crisis. - - -- 148-150 - -## Automation, autonomy and worker participation - - Beer was spinning ideas in “One Year of (Relative) Solitude,” but he was aiming for - a new technological approach to the worker participation question that would create a - more democratic and less stratified workplace. And he concluded that giving workers - control of technology, both its use and its design, could constitute a new form of - worker empowerment. - - This assertion differed substantially from how other industrial studies of the day - approached the relationship of computer technology and labor in twentieth- century - production. Such studies, especially those inspired by Marxist analysis, often presented - computers and computer- controlled machinery as tools of capital that automated la- - bor, led to worker deskilling, and gave management greater control of the shop floor. - In Labor and Monopoly Capital (1974), Harry Braverman credits such machinery “as the - prime means whereby production may be controlled not by the direct producer but by the owner - and representatives of capital ” and cites computer technology as routinizing even highly - skilled professions such as engineering. 53 - - [...] - - In the 1950s Norbert Wiener, author of Cybernetics , believed computers would - usher in a second industrial revolution and lead to the creation of an - automatic factory. In The Human Use of Human Beings (1954), he worries that - auto- mated machinery “is the precise economic equivalent of slave labor. Any - labor which competes with slave labor must accept the economic conditions of - slave labor.” 56 - - -- 159-160 - - Two factors explain the difference between Beer and Braverman, who were writing - at about the same time. First, the computer system Beer designed did not automate - labor. Given the Popular Unity commitment to raising employment levels, automating - labor would not have made political sense. Second, Beer was writing and working in a - different political context than Braverman. The context of Chilean socialism inspired - Beer and gave him the freedom to envision new forms of worker participation that were - more substantial than what Braverman saw in the United States. It also allowed Beer - to see computer technology as something other than an abusive capitalist tool used by - management to control labor. Beer’s approach also reflected his position as a hired sci- - ence and technology consultant. His use of technology to address worker participation - differed from the contemporaneous efforts of the Allende government on this issue, - efforts that had focused on devising new governing committees within the industrial - sector and electing worker representatives. - - [...] - - Beer’s proposal bears a close resemblance to the work on participatory design that - emerged from the social democratic governments in Scandinavia in the 1970s. The - history of participatory design is often tied to Scandinavian trade union efforts to em- - power workers during that decade, and thus to create a more equitable power relation- - ship between labor and capital in Scandinavian factories. 58 These efforts were either - contemporaneous to Beer’s December report or began several years later, depending on - historical interpretation. Like the aforementioned automation studies, early participa- - tory design work viewed technologies such as computer systems as representing the - interests of management, not labor. However, participatory design used the primacy of - management as a starting point and then tried to change the dynamics of the labor- - capital relationship by changing the social practices surrounding the design and use - of technology. - - -- 161 - - Furthermore, appointing worker representatives to control the use of Cybersyn - would not guarantee that the system would be used in a way that represented the best - interests of the rank and file. Studies of worker participation have shown that worker - representatives often separate themselves from their co- workers on the shop floor and - form a new group of administrators. As Juan Espinosa and Andrew Zimbalist write in - their study of worker participation in Allende’s Chile, “It has been the historical experi- - ence, with a few exceptions, that those interpreting workers’ priorities and needs have - grown apart from the workers they are supposed to represent. . . . [They] become a new - class of privileged administrators.” 63 Simply put, it would be impossible to give “the - workers” control of Cybersyn as Beer suggested, even if Chilean workers possessed the - skills to use the technology or build the factory models. - - Despite these oversights, Beer did realize that the October Strike was a transforma- - tive event for Chilean workers. Their self- organization and improvisation during the - strike played a central role in maintaining production, transportation, and distribu- - tion across the country. During the strike, workers organized to defend their factories - from paramilitary attacks, retooled their machines to perform new tasks, and set up - new community networks to distribute essential goods directly to the Chilean people. - Members of larger industrial belts collaborated with other groups of workers to seize - private- sector enterprises that had stopped production during the strike. Historian Pe- - ter Winn notes that during the strike workers came together regardless of politics, - industrial sector, factory, or status, thus “generating the dynamism, organization, and - will to stalemate the counterrevolutionary offensive and transform it into an opportu- - nity for revolutionary advance.” 64 In short, the strike transformed the mindset of the - Chilean working class and showed that workers could take control of their destiny and - accelerate the revolutionary process. - - -- 162-163 - -## Self-organization - - Despite these oversights, Beer did realize that the October Strike was a transforma- - tive event for Chilean workers. Their self- organization and improvisation during the - strike played a central role in maintaining production, transportation, and distribu- - tion across the country. During the strike, workers organized to defend their factories - from paramilitary attacks, retooled their machines to perform new tasks, and set up - new community networks to distribute essential goods directly to the Chilean people. - Members of larger industrial belts collaborated with other groups of workers to seize - private- sector enterprises that had stopped production during the strike. Historian Pe- - ter Winn notes that during the strike workers came together regardless of politics, - industrial sector, factory, or status, thus “generating the dynamism, organization, and - will to stalemate the counterrevolutionary offensive and transform it into an opportu- - nity for revolutionary advance.” 64 In short, the strike transformed the mindset of the - Chilean working class and showed that workers could take control of their destiny and - accelerate the revolutionary process. - - Although his information was limited, Beer was aware of workers’ activities during - the strike, and was excited by them. In fact, the ideas he presented in his December - report, “One Year of (Relative) Solitude,” were designed to support the “people’s auton- - omy.” Beer wrote, “The new task [outlined in the report] is to try and get all this, plus - the spontaneous things that I know are happening [such as the cordones industriales ] - together.” 65 From his perspective, it looked as if Chilean workers were self- organizing - to keep the larger revolutionary project viable. It is important to stress, especially given - the criticism he would receive in the months that followed, that Beer viewed his role as - using science and technology to help support these bottom- up initiatives. - - Although Beer’s take on participatory design was inspired by the events of the Oc- - tober Strike, it also came from his understandings of cybernetics. “The basic answer of - cybernetics to the question of how the system should be organized is that it ought to - organize itself,” Beer writes in the pages of Decision and Control . 66 In his writings Beer of- - ten cited nature as a complex system that remains viable through its self- organization. - He argued that such systems do not need to be designed because they already exist. To - modify the behavior of such a system, one need not control its every aspect but rather - change one subsystem so that the overall system naturally drifts toward the desired - goal. Perhaps the injection of worker action could drive Chile toward a new point of - homeostatic equilibrium, one that was congruent with the overall goal of socialist - transformation. - - -- 163-164 - -## Cybernetics - - Increasingly, Cybersyn was becoming a technological project divorced from its - cybernetic and political origins. The best- known component of the project, - the telex network, was not even associ- ated with the overall Cybersyn system, - let alone with Beer’s ideas about management cybernetics. - - In contrast, members of the core group had become serious students of cybernetics. - Several months earlier they had formed a small study group known as the Group of - 14 and tasked themselves with learning more about cybernetics and related scientific - work in psychology, biology, computer science, and information theory. They read the - work of Warren Weaver, Claude Shannon, Heinz von Foerster, and Herbert Simon and - invited Chilean biologists Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela to speak to the - group (both accepted). Maturana was arguably the first substantial connection between - Chile and the international cybernetics community. In 1959, while a graduate student - at Harvard, he had coauthored an important paper, “What the Frog’s Eye Tells the - Frog’s Brain,” with Warren McCulloch, Jerome Lettvin, and Walter Pitts, all of whom - were important figures in the growing field of cybernetics. 76 - - -- 166 - -## Cybersyn Goes Public - - These initial press accounts illustrate a finding from science studies research, namely, - that for a technology to be successful it must be taken up by people other than the in- - ventors. What Bruno Latour, a sociologist of science, writes of scientific ideas also holds - true for technologies: “You need them , to make your [scientific] paper a decisive one.” 16 - However, this appropriation creates a dangerous situation. Engineers need others to - support their technologies so that the technology will be successful, but in the process - the engineers lose control of their invention. Latour warns, “The total movement . . . - of a statement, of an artefact, will depend to some extent on your action but to a much - greater extent on that of a crowd over which you have little control.” 17 As Latour ob- - serves, others may decide to accept the technology as it is, but they could also dismiss, - appropriate, or change the technology in fundamental ways. - - -- 177 - -## Simple technologies - - To these criticisms, Beer responded that the system used simple technologies such - as telex machines, drew from excellent programming talent in London and Santiago, - and relied on many “human interfaces,” meaning it was not automated. He also said - that he was tired of hearing the assertion that such a system could be built only in the - United States, and stressed that building the futuristic control room required only “the - managerial acceptance of the idea, plus the will to see it realized.” 18 But, he added, “I - finally found both the acceptance and the will—on the other side of the world.” 19 This - final comment was a not- so- subtle jab at his British compatriots, who over the years - had questioned the legitimacy and feasibility of his cybernetic ideas. - - -- 178 - -## Necessary instability; power and control - - The comments Espejo, Flores, and Schwember telexed to Beer show that they ob- - jected to other facets of the speech as drafted. They wrote that, while they agreed - that cybernetic thinking might help the government increase social stability, they - also wondered whether instability might be an important part of social progress. “His- - torical development is a succession of equilibriums and unequilibriums [ sic ],” Espejo - telexed. Disequilibrium “might be indispensable.” This is an interesting observation, - although it was not raised as an objection to Cybersyn in subsequent press accounts. - The Chileans also challenged Beer’s framing of the Chilean revolution as a control - problem. “The social phenomena goes [ sic ] further than the control problem,” Espejo - wrote; “there is for instance the problem of power.” If cybernetics looked only at con- - trol and ignored power relationships, “there is the danger that cybernetics might be - used for social repression,” Espejo continued, echoing the fears that had already ap- - peared in the press. Beer responded: “I cannot write the next book in this one lec- - ture.” 30 But perhaps Beer would have given greater thought to this issue had he known - that his critics would be most concerned with whether Cybersyn facilitated social - repression. - - [...] - - Beer writes that “the polarity between centralization and - decentralization—one masquerading as oppression and the other as freedom—is a - myth. Even if the homeostatic balance point turns out not to be always - computable, it surely exists. The poles are two absurdities for any viable - system, as our own bodies will tell us.” 31 The algedonic, or warning, signals - that Cybersyn sent to alert higher management constituted a threat to factory - freedom but it was a necessary one, for not alerting higher management might - pose a greater threat to system survival. “The body politic cannot sustain the - risk of autonomic inac- tion any more than we can as human beings,” Beer - observed. 32 In proposing the idea of effective freedom, Beer was arguing (1) - that freedom was something that could be calculated and (2) that freedom should - be quantitatively circumscribed to ensure the stability of the overall system. - For those who had followed Beer’s work over the years, effective freedom was a - new term to describe the balance of centralized and decentral- ized control - that Beer had advocated for more than a decade. It also reflected the same - principles as Allende’s democratic socialism, which increased state power but - preserved civil liberties. But for the uninitiated, the claim that a control - system that explicitly limited freedom actually preserved and promoted freedom - must have seemed like a political slogan straight out of 1984 . 33 - - -- 180-181 - - In fact, Hanlon was not alone in recognizing Cybersyn’s potential for - centralized control. On 1 March Beer telexed to Espejo, “Accusations come from - Britain and the USA. Invitations [to build comparable systems] come from Brazil - and South Africa.” Considering the repressive governments that were in power in - Brazil and South Africa in the early 1970s, it is easy to sympathize with - Beer’s lament: “You can see what a false position I am in.” 46 Beer was - understandably frustrated with these international misinterpretations of his - cybernetic work. - - However, it took little political imagination to see how putting Cybersyn in a differ- - ent social, political, and organizational context could make the system an instrument - of centralized control. Beer had tried to embed political values in Cybersyn’s design, - but he engineered them in the social and organizational aspects of the Cybersyn sys- - tem, in addition to the technology itself. As safeguards, these social and organizational - arrangements were not very strong. Archived telexes from the project team show that if - the Cyberstride software detected a production indicator outside the accepted range of - values, a member of the National Computer Corporation (ECOM) alerted the affected - enterprise, those in the central telex room in CORFO, and Espejo in the CORFO infor- - matics directorate—all at the same time. - - -- 183-184 - -## Feasibility - - Grosch’s letter to the editor underlines the assumption that industrialized nations, - such as the United States and the nations of Western Europe, pioneered modern com- - puter capabilities; nations of the developing world, such as Chile, did not. In his let- - ter Grosch wrote that Project Cybersyn could not be built in a “strange and primitive - hardware and software environment,” such as that found in Chile, and in such a short - time. - - -- 186-187 - - For the system to function, human beings also needed to be disciplined and brought - into line. In the case of Cybersyn, integrating human beings into the system, and thus - changing their behavior, proved just as difficult as building the telex network or pro- - gramming the software—or perhaps even more difficult. While the Cybersyn team could - exert some degree of control over the computer resources, construction of the operations - room, or installation of a telex machine, they had very little control over what was tak- - ing place within the factories, including levels of management participation or whether - Cybersyn would be integrated into existing management practices. Espejo and Benadof - lacked the authority to force the state- run factories to implement Cybersyn, and indus- - trial managers remained unconvinced that it warranted their total compliance. - - -- 190 - -## Conclusions - - This history is a case study for better understanding the multifaceted relationship - of technology and politics. In particular, I have used this history to address (1) how - governments have envisioned using computer and communications technologies to - bring about structural change in society; (2) the ways technologists have tried to em- - bed political values in the design of technical systems; (3) the challenges associated - with such efforts; and (4) how studying the relationship of technology and politics - can reveal the important but often hidden role of technology in history and enhance - our understanding of historical processes. Forty years later, this little- known story also - has much to say about the importance of transnational collaboration, technological - innovation, and the ways in which geopolitics influences technology. - - Computer and communications technologies have often been linked to processes - of political, economic, and social transformation. But claims that these technologies - can bring about structural change in society—like the frequent assertion that comput- - ers will bring democracy or greater social equality—are often made in the absence - of historical analysis. - - -- 212 - - Project Cybersyn is an example of the difficulty of creating a sociotechnical system - designed to change existing social relationships and power configurations and then - enforce the new patterns over time. Scientific techniques may conceal biases with a - veneer of neutrality and thus lead to undesirable results. For example, Allende charged - the Project Cybersyn team with building a system that supported worker participation. - Yet the scientific techniques Chilean engineers used to model the state- controlled fac- - tories resembled Taylorism, a rationalized approach to factory production that disem- - powered workers and gave management greater control over labor. Time analysis, for - example, emerged in the context of capitalist production, prioritizing efficiency and - productivity over other values, such as the quality of shop floor life. By using time- - analysis techniques, Cybersyn engineers could have inadvertently created production - relationships that were counter to the Popular Unity platform and then solidified them - in the form of a computer model. - - Sociotechnical relationships must also remain intact for the system to maintain the - desired configuration of power. Changing these technical, social, and organizational - relationships may also change the distribution of power within the system. As I have - shown, in some cases it is much easier to change a sociotechnical system than to hold it - static. The history of Project Cybersyn suggests that the interpretation of sociotechnical - relationships is especially malleable when a system is new, forms part of a controversial - political project, or requires existing social, technical, and organizational relationships - to change in substantial ways. - - This malleability makes it extremely difficult to marry a sociotechnical system to a - specific set of political values, especially if the goal is to create dramatic changes in the - status quo. In the case of Cybersyn, journalists, scientists, and government officials all - - [...] - - Once separated from the social and organizational relations that Beer imagined, - the technology of Project Cybersyn could support many different forms of - government, including totalitarianism. If Project Cybersyn had been implemented - as Beer imagined, it might have become a system that supported such values as - democracy, participation, and autonomy. But as its critics perceived, it would - have been easy to circumvent the technological and organizational safeguards - the team designed; therefore, it would have been easy for the system to support - a different set of political values, especially in different social, - organizational, and geographic settings. Value- centered design is a - complicated and challenging endeavor. Even if technolo- - - [...] - - Even if technologists attempt to build certain relationships into the design - of a technological system, which itself is a fraught and socially negotiated - process, they have no guarantee that others will adopt the system in the - desired way—or that they will adopt the system at all. - - -- 215-216 - - This history further reveals that different nations have very different experiences - with computer technology and that these experiences are connected to the political, - economic, and geographic contexts of these nations. Chilean democratic socialism - prompted the creation of a computer technology that furthered the specific aims of - the Chilean revolution and would not have made sense in the United States. The Chil- - ean context also differed from that of the Soviet Union in fundamental ways. Because - Chile was significantly smaller than the Soviet Union in its geography, population, and - industrial output, building a computer system to help regulate the Chilean economy - was a more manageable affair. In addition, the Soviet solution used computers for cen- - tralized top- down control and collected a wealth of data about industrial production - activities with the goal of improving state planning. In contrast, the Cybersyn team - used Beer’s view of management cybernetics to create a system that emphasized action - as well as planning; and the system sent limited quantities of information up the gov- - ernment hierarchy, and tried to maximize factory self- management without sacrificing - the health of the entire economy. As this contrast shows, technologies are the product - of the people involved in their creation and the political and economic moments in - which they are built. - - -- 218 - - This particular transnational collaboration sheds light on processes of technologi- - cal innovation in differently situated world contexts. Project Cybersyn, a case study - of technological innovation, was a cutting- edge system using technologies that were - far from the most technologically sophisticated. A network of telex machines trans- - formed a middle- of- the- road mainframe computer into a new form of economic com- - munication. Slide projectors presented new visual representations of economic data. - Hand- drawn graphs showing data collected on a daily basis gave the government a - macroscopic view of economic activity and identified the areas of the economy most - in need of attention. Project Cybersyn thus challenges the assumption that advanced - technologies need to be complex. Sophisticated systems can be built using simple tech- - nologies, provided that particular attention is paid to how humans interact and the - ways that technology can change the dynamics of these interactions. Project Cybersyn - may be a useful example for thinking about sustainable design or the creation of tech- - nologies for regions of the world with limited resources. 3 - - This story of technological innovation also challenges the assumption that innova- - tion results from private- sector competition in an open marketplace. Disconnection - from the global marketplace, as occurred in Chile, can also lead to technological in- - novation and even make it a necessity. This history has shown that the state, as well - as the private sector, can support innovation. The history of technology also backs this - finding; for example, in the United States the state played a central role in funding - high- risk research in important areas such as computing and aviation. However, this - lesson is often forgotten. As we recover from the effects of a financial crisis, brought - on in large part by our extraordinary faith in the logic of the free market, it is a lesson - that is worth remembering. - - -- 219-220 - - Geopolitics also shapes our understandings of technological development and tech- - nological change. If historians, technologists, designers, educators, and policy makers - continue to give substantial and disproportionate attention to the technologies that - triumph, a disproportionate number of which were built in the industrial centers of the - world, they miss seeing the richness of the transnational cross- fertilization that occurs - outside the industrial centers and the complex ways that people, ideas, and artifacts - move and evolve in the course of their travels. Technological innovation is the result - of complex social, political, and economic relationships that span nations and cultures. - To understand the dynamics of technological development—and perhaps thereby do - a better job of encouraging it—we must broaden our view of where technological in- - novation occurs and give greater attention to the areas of the world marginalized by - these studies in the past. - - -- 221 - -## Epilogue - - While on Dawson Island, Flores and the other prisoners reflected on their experi- - ences during the previous three years and, as a group, tried to understand the com- - plexities of Chilean socialism and what had gone wrong. Flores offered the group a - cybernetic interpretation of events, which resonated with Allende’s former minister of - mining, Sergio Bitar. When Bitar published a detailed history of the Allende govern- - ment in 1986, he used cybernetics to explain in part what happened during Allende’s - presidency. Bitar writes, “In the present case [the Allende government], systemic variety - grew because of structural alterations and disturbance of the existing self- regulatory - mechanisms (principally those of the market). But the directing center (the govern- - ment) did not expand its variety controls with the necessary speed; nor could it replace - the existing self- regulatory mechanism with new ones.” Bitar concludes that “when - a complex system [the Chilean nation] is subject to transformation it is essential to - master systemic variety at every moment.” 17 This choice of language, seemingly out of - place in a study of political history, shows that Chile’s encounter with cybernetics not - only led to the creation of Project Cybersyn but also shaped how some members of the - Allende government made sense of the history they had lived. - - -- 229 - - But the more Flores read, the more he began to see the limitations of cybernetic - thinking. While Flores still felt that the Law of Requisite Variety and the Viable System - Model were useful concepts, he believed they were insufficient for the situations he had - encountered while in Allende’s cabinet. “My problem [in Allende’s cabinet] was not - variety; my problem was the configuration of reality, persuading other people,” Flores - said. 20 Understanding the configuration of reality became a driving intellectual pursuit - for Flores, and he found the work of the Chilean biologists Maturana and Varela espe- - cially useful toward this end. In addition to developing the theory of autopoiesis with - Varela, Maturana had conducted extensive work on optics. His 1959 work with Jerry - Lettvin, Warren McCulloch, and Walter Pitts analyzed the frog’s optical system and - concluded that what a frog sees is not reality per se but rather a construction assembled - by the frog’s visual system. What the frog sees is therefore a product of its biological - structure. This distinction formed the foundation for much of Maturana and Varela’s - later work in biology and cognition during the 1960s and 1970s, and later inspired the - two biologists to break with traditional claims of scientific objectivity and emphasize - the role of the observer. One of Maturana’s best- known claims—“Anything said is said - by an observer”—illustrates this point. 21 - - Flores’s dissatisfaction with cybernetics paralleled a similar dissatisfaction within - the cybernetics community. Heinz von Foerster, who had worked with Maturana, Va- - rela, and the Group of 14 in Chile, found it problematic that cybernetics claimed to - create objective representations of real- world phenomena that were independent of - an observer. 22 Von Foerster described this approach as “first- order cybernetics,” which - he defined as “the cybernetics of observed systems.” However, von Foerster was influ- - enced by Maturana’s work and, like Maturana, became convinced that the observer - plays a central role in the construction of cybernetic models. In the fall of 1973 von - Foerester taught a yearlong course at the University of Illinois on the “cybernetics of - cybernetics,” or what became known as second- order cybernetics, “the cybernetics of - observing systems.” 23 Although von Foerster was not the only person involved in the - development of second- order cybernetics, studies of this intellectual transition have - credited von Foerster for bridging the gap between first- order and second- order cyber- - netic thinking. 24 Not surprisingly, Flores also took to the idea of second- order cybernet- - ics, and in his later writing he would cite von Foerster’s edited volume Cybernetics of - Cybernetics . 25 - - [...] - - Flores credits Maturana for leading him to the work of Martin Heidegger. Like Ma- - turana, Heidegger rejected the existence of an objective external world and saw objects/ - texts as coexisting with their observers/interpreters. Heidegger’s idea of “thrownness” - also resonated with Flores—the idea that in everyday life we are thrown into the world - and forced to act without the benefit of reflection, rational planning, or objective as- - sessment. Looking back, Flores saw his time in the Allende cabinet as an example of - thrownness rather than rational decision making. “My job was so demanding that I did - not have the time to perfect [what I was doing]. I only had time to feel it. It was some- - thing I felt.” 29 In the context of emergency, he had no time to study the laws of control - laid down by cybernetics in order to determine how best to resolve government crises. - Flores often had to lead with his gut, and his previous experiences and the traditions of - Chilean society implicitly shaped his decisions. Flores also realized that “when you are - minister and you say something, no matter what you say, it has consequences.” 30 It was - therefore important to use words deliberately. Flores found that management through - variety control did not allow intuitive forms of decision making, nor did it account for - the previous experiences and cultural situation of decision makers or accommodate the - importance of communicating effectively and with intention. - - [...] - - Understanding Computers and Cognition begins by critiquing the rationalist assump- - tion that an objective, external world exists. The critique builds on the ideas of Hei- - degger, Searle, Maturana, J. L. Austin, and Hans- Georg Gadamer to show that knowledge - is the result of interpretation and depends on the past experiences of the interpreter - and his or her situatedness in tradition. Winograd and Flores then argue that because - computers lack such experiences and traditions, they cannot replace human beings as - knowledge makers. “The ideal of an objectively knowledgeable expert must be replaced - with a recognition of the importance of background,” Winograd and Flores write. “This - can lead to the design of tools that facilitate a dialog of evolving understanding among - a knowledgeable community.” 32 Building on this observation, the authors propose that - computers should not make decisions for us but rather should assist human actions, - especially human “communicative acts that create requests and commitments that - serve to link us to others.” 33 Moreover, computer designers should not focus on creating - an artifact but should view their labors as a form of “ontological design.” Computers - should reflect who we are and how we interact in the world, as well as shape what we - can do and who we will become. The American Society for Information Science named - - -- 230-231 - - To some he was brusque, intimidating, direct to the point of rudeness, and off- - putting. Yet his message and his success in both the academic and business - communities transformed him into a cult figure for others. - - [...] - - “A civil democracy with a market economy is the best political construction so - far because it allows people to be history makers,” the authors declare. 41 - Flores’s transformation from socialist minister was now complete: he had wholly - remade himself in the image of neoliberalism. - - Thus, by the end of the 1990s, Flores and Beer had switched places. Flores had - morphed into a wealthy international consultant driven by the conviction that orga- - nization, communication, and action all were central to making businesses successful. - Meanwhile, Beer had become increasingly interested in societal problems and chang- - ing the world for the better. His last book, Beyond Dispute (1994), proposed a new - method for problem solving based on the geometric configurations of the icosahedron, - a polygon with twenty equilateral triangle faces. He called this new method “synteg- - rity” and argued that it could serve as a new approach to conflict resolution in areas of - the world such as the Middle East. - - -- 232-233 -- cgit v1.2.3