Redefining Economic Viability: Stafford Beer's Viable System Model in Modern Society

The Viable System Model (VSM) often doesn't get the recognition it deserves as a model for emergent organization. Despite society's rapid technological advancements, our lives are becoming increasingly complex. It appears that the more capable our technology becomes, the busier our schedules get.

Stafford Beer's Viable System Model presents a distinctive approach, suggesting that achieving viability involves implementing mechanisms that filter relevant information. These mechanisms aid individuals or systems in achieving increased autonomy and viability.

A society that embraces the organizational philosophy of the VSM, as advocated by Stafford Beer, would adopt a significantly different approach to improving the standard of living for its citizens. Currently, our economy is measured by the productivity of its citizens, but in a VSM-based society, the focus would shift to measuring how productive the economy is for its citizens.

It would structure its economy around the wealth of each citizen, rather than exploiting them to build the economy. To achieve such a system, society would need to develop financial and technological institutions and infrastructure designed to simplify individuals' lives while enhancing their productivity. That’s right,?time and money no longer need to conflict.

The Cybernetic Economic Intelligence Foundation is built upon this perspective. We employ Stafford Beer's Viable System Model as a blueprint for constructing a cyber-physical ecosystem. Within this ecosystem, user-owned autonomous businesses synchronize with Personal Assistants, utilizing data as capital to craft personalized portfolios of income-generating tokenized consumer products. This setup facilitates the establishment of a personal and fully autonomous economy through the exchange of goods and services among peers on a semantically-driven marketplace.

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To learn more about the CEIF and what we’re doing, join us at www.ceif.io or follow us on Twitter @TheCyberneticEI.