On politics and political programs

All societies function based on the social institutions that they created. These institutions have as a purpose to simplify our decision-making process based on our past and present combined experiences. Institutions represent the society’s combined belief system. Those that affect us on a societal level and are significant to our existence and well-being we enforce with artifacts and we assign guardians to protect them.

While all of them constantly change the degree of change is invertedly analogous to their significance. Change in those is really slow as their guardians are, inevitably, change-averse.

Law-making and Democracy are two characteristic examples of such institutions.

For Democracy and Law to exist a Law-making body should be in place hence we opted to elect people’s representatives.

So, every jurisdiction is electing one to represent them in a “Democratic” way. How do we elect them?

Unfortunately based on the illusion of “knowing” what they “represent”, to what degree they complement our belief system (the institutions we believe in) and how they will act to safeguard our “interests”.

The problem is that every single person’s interests are unique and none of our elected champions of our interests has the “tools” to make all of them come true.

This inability to do so, starting from ancient times, created Politics.

Politics is the art of presenting the statistically improbable as possible.

The reason improbability is present is simple. We do not yet know the governing laws of institutional change in order to calculate the impact on a societal and more importantly on a personal level of every new Law.  Public consultations are a pseudo-democratic way for citizens to express their opinion but on a predefined set of articles, which mathematically cannot be all inclusive.

Have you ever seen a societal impact analysis accompanying any proposed Law? No. of course not. All you see is the previous Laws it will replace and a fuzzy reasoning to justify a wishful thinking of the Lawmaker.

This brings us to political “programs” and the historical failures of every single one of them even in the most advanced societies. Unfortunately, the degree of failure is proportional to the degree of interdependence of a state from all others.

So, if our institutions are failing us what is the solution?

Well, there is no single solution to the problem as change is inevitable, fuelled by the chaotic socioeconomic and technological environments.

But for any given moment and complexity (which is size dependent) we do actually have the maths to calculate the probability of the next moment’s best outcome, and for small periods we can predict based on the degree of influence from the global environment and the potential change of all other institutions, the upper and lower limits of the probable outcome.

This brings us to the following interesting “conclusion”.

If the size of the sample is the factor that introduces complexity resulting in deviation from the intended outcome, then the solution is to divide and concur.

Replace the doomed-to-failure state-wide political “programs” with local community-based ones and “safeguard” their outcome utilising AI in the decision-making process

With the upper and lower limits of the outcome of the community-based programs for a given period mathematically predictable, one can scale up the model (perceiving a community as a unit) into the Municipality level adding closed-loop economic principles and subsequently, into a State one using advance maths (i.e. Nash equilibriums) and AI which will constantly adjust the probability of undesired change and propose solutions.

And there you have it AI-managed Democracy. Anyone who would like to be its Godfather and give it a name?   

2012 in review

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2012 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

600 people reached the top of Mt. Everest in 2012. This blog got about 2,000 views in 2012. If every person who reached the top of Mt. Everest viewed this blog, it would have taken 3 years to get that many views.

Click here to see the complete report.

The 12 Olympian Gods and the Hierarchy of Societal Needs

Mythological stories always fascinated me.  Listening about the gods and the heroes was my favourite hour, in the elementary school, in antithesis with history. Not that initially I was able to distinguish between myth and history. To history’s credit, it had battles heroes and kings and the Greeks were always the winners, but something was lacking. Myths appear to be always so much better as stories, then the “boring” history.

I will return home every afternoon, with my mind full of new stories to tell to my poor mother, who patiently will sit next to me and listen. I thought she could never distinguish the actual story from my “additions”.

I never became the hero I always wanted to and the nearest I came to these gods was be climbing mount Olympus and allowing my fantasy to act as augmented reality, there is no app for that yet.

The study of Christianity that followed in consequent years (compulsory back then) took away all the Olympian glamour and forged into my mind a new belief, that one god is better then twelve. There were no more stories for my relieved mother. There was no glamour anymore just suffering, a very different perspective of life.

It took me another 30 years or so, to realise that there was no so much difference after all between monotheism and polytheism. Both of them were there to cover human existential needs, both of them represented a different but not dissimilar philosophy of life and both of them, theology aside, were social institutions designed subconsciously (primarily) and as such build to order, to serve specific societal needs.

At last I had the answer that was lurking at the back of my mind for so many years, “why one is better the twelve” and I realised that based at least on the third perspective the institutional one, that the Greeks and the rest of the monotheism-bounded humanity got it wrong!

I realised as well how difficult the transition must have been and why even now these old religions still have proponents. Beliefs and spirituality aside, it is the social institutions and what they represent what keeps them alive.

I came across yesterday, while cleaning my folders, an image of the twelve gods and exactly next to it, the jpg file with the Hierarchy of Societal Needs. It did not took long before curiosity overwhelmed rational and “in the name of science”  I started to explore the needs, institutionally wise, the twelve gods were designed to cover if mapped against the Hierarchy of Societal Needs (HoSN).

It was a bizarre, to say the least exercise, but then again something that to my knowledge none attempted before which by itself, as every scientist will tell you, was justification enough.

It did not take long after that to find what every one of the twelve gods was representing to my ancestors and map it against the HoSN.

Having read so, far I bet you will be wondering what was different back then. Well it depends upon your expectations.

For one their gods were there, primarily, to cover for all their uncertainties, all their fears and everything else their science could not explain. (See highlighted in yellow the institutions covered from the 12 Olympians).

The socioeconomic framework was there in all its glory, so it was nationalism. All four basic-needs levels namely survival, coherence, progress and prosperity where to a degree represented.

The interest though, some to my surprise, was that:

• They did not fear about having work or not, they all had!
• They did not care (fear) that much, about money and currencies and the most important was that they show no need for “wealth as a mean” so, no prayer was spared to gods for gold and riches. Harvest yes, “prosperity” yes but riches was not in demand.
• Diplomacy and Politics were totally absent from their fears list
• Banks as well, were absent (as expected?) and so were “Services”
• Immigration was not an issue nor was Social Integration… slavery was doing an excellent job
• They did not have any type of complex civil services so they did not have to create a god to protect them from bureaucracy… lucky people!
•  …
• And the most important they were at ease with war as an integral part of life!

That last one, to be honest, spoiled the whole image because, I have to admit, until then I was tempted to, triumphantly, declare that my ancestors were wiser then us.

As usual, I leave enough for you to conclude on your own.

SM

To get the “truth” in UK you will need at least three news channels. …and the power of mental associations

Association is a synapse-like mental sub-structure, connecting two, recorded (sensed) or pre-existing (genetically imprinted), informational units into one, on a conscious or subconscious level. There are strong indications that associations operate as a membership function of a fuzzy set http://bit.ly/qhKzcQ  varying its strength overtime. It is a fundamental tool within the new synthetic institutionalism proposition but to the average reader means absolutely nothing… until now. You see so far, all research was based on questionnaires and small relatively samples ignoring (due to methodological mainly shortcomings) the subconscious level http://bit.ly/Ibin0. If I ask you to give me your opinion, you employ your rational to do so suppressing subconsciously all information institutionally bounded. It is human nature. If, on the other hand, I never ask you the question but instead I dig through your writings where conscious and subconscious operate in unison your opinion would be crystal clear. What ever you believe for whatever reason will surface. If in addition I combine ALL associations made in writing so far, by all of you, then the probability of accuracy will exceed 97%!  http://bit.ly/19iKDS This is the power of association and that is how we analyse institutions (in case you were curious). As usual, we would leave to your discretion to make any conclusions from the graph, from our part we would make just one. To get the “truth” in UK you will need at least three news channels. Please send us your conclusions and we promise to publish the best.

The Gaianomy T-T

Και όμως το 2012 θα είναι καλύτερο για την Ελλάδα (Apologies to our regular readers but this post is intended for Greeks readers only)

Κάθε οικονομία επηρεάζεται και επηρεάζει τις άλλες, ο βαθμός μόνο διαφέρει. Επί χρόνια η Ελλάδα είχε «έλλειμμα» σε αυτόν τον τομέα και στο άμεσο μέλλον δεν υπάρχουν ενδείξεις ότι αυτό μπορεί να αντιστραφεί, με βάσει τουλάχιστον τα λεγόμενα και γραφόμενα στον Ελληνικό τύπο που επιμελώς παρακολουθώ.

Η εξάρτηση αυτή, σε συνδυασμό με τις επιβαλλόμενες έξωθεν μεθόδους «αναδιάρθρωσης», την ανυπαρξία προτάσεων ουσιαστικού περιεχομένου για την έξοδο της χώρας από την κρίση όπως επίσης και την συνειδητοποιημένη πλέων οικονομική δυσχέρεια του μέσου Έλληνα, τροφοδοτούν ένα κλίμα δικαιολογημένης απαισιοδοξίας.

Σε όλα αυτά έρχεται να προστεθεί και η συνειδητοποίηση, στον μέχρι πρότεινως αδιάφορο πολίτη, των συστηματικών αδυναμιών της οικονομίας, της πολιτικής και της δημόσιας διοίκησης και των ζοφερών αποτελεσμάτων της συνδυασμένης αρνητικής επίδρασης τους στην καθημερινότητα. Αναπόφευκτα η απαισιοδοξία μετατράπηκε σε εθνική κατάθλιψη και τα όποια σενάρια για πιθανά δεινά βρίσκουν πρόσφορο έδαφος ανάπτυξης σαν βακτήρια σε ανοικτές πληγές.

Η μοιρολατρία κερδίζει συνεχώς έδαφος με κίνδυνο να τροφοδοτείσει νέους κύκλους λανθασμένων αποφάσεων από τους διοικούντες, είτε διότι οι ίδιοι έχουν πέσει θύματα του ίδιου καταθλιπτικού συνδρόμου τροφοδοτούμενο από παντελή έλλειψη ιδεών, είτε διότι οι φωνές του πλήθους τους αναγκάζει να πάρουν αποφάσεις που μέχρι πρότινος θα θεωρούνταν από πρόχειρες μέχρι εξωπραγματικές.

Το να βρει ο όποιος αναγνώστης πλέον ένα αισιόδοξο μήνυμα είναι σαν να κερδίζει στο lotto.

Η συνειδητοποίηση του πεπερασμένου της σκέψης και του κίνδυνου της επικείμενης ανταπόδειξης των καταστροφικών προφητειών με οδήγησαν στο να γράψω αυτό το κείμενο σαν προάγγελο της επικείμενης συνολικής πρότασης της ομάδας σκέψης που είμαι μέλος για την έξοδο της Ελλάδος από την κρίση, που θα αποσταλεί σε όλα τα μέσα ενημέρωσης στους πρώτους μήνες του 12.

Η επιστήμη που υπηρετώ έχει την τάση να «βλέπει» τα πράγματα μέσα από ευρύτερα πρίσματα αναδεικνύοντας χώρους χωρίς αδιέξοδα όπου η αλλαγή είναι διαρκής και καλοδεχούμενη. Εάν δεν είχε ήδη όνομα (synthetic institutionalism) θα μπορούσαμε να την μετονομάσουμε σε κάτι που να προσωποποιεί την αισιοδοξία.

Δεν θα σας κουράσω μακρολογώντας περισσότερο επί του αντικειμένου. Όσοι είναι γνώστες της αγγλικής μπορούν να πάρουν μια γεύση στο http://bit.ly/s0Q4hK .

Η ουσία είναι ότι:

·Η οικονομική κατάσταση της Ελλάδας είναι παγκόσμια πρωτοφανές γεγονός και γέννημα ενός συγκεκριμένου οικονομικού συστήματος που δεν είχε ποτέ σχεδιαστεί να λειτουργήσει κάτω από συνθήκες συστημικής αλληλεξάρτησης.

·Λόγω του προηγουμένου τα συστημικά προβλήματα είναι ΑΔΥΝΑΤΟΝ να επιλυθούν με οικονομικά μέτρα μόνον. Η ομοιοπαθητική δεν έχει εφαρμογή στην οικονομία.

·Η όποια στρατηγική ανάπτυξης, που όλοι οι συνάδελφοι οικονομολόγοι επικαλούνται, σαν την μόνη αποδεκτή μακροχρόνια λύση για την Ελληνική οικονομία δεν μπορεί να εφαρμοστεί. Πρώτον για τον λόγο που ανέφερα στην πρώτη παράγραφο αυτού του κειμένου και δεύτερον γιατί κανείς δεν έχει την δυνατότητα να σχεδιάσει μια στρατηγική θεσμικών αλλαγών που αποτελούν την προϋπόθεση επιτυχημένης ανάπτυξης ελλείψει θεωρητικού υπόβαθρου για την ανάλυση τους μέσα στα πλαίσια των σημερινών οικονομικών θεωριών.

·Η ποιο πρόσφατη ανάλυση της οικονομίας (σαν κοινωνικός θεσμός) σε παγκόσμιο επίπεδο (αδημοσίευτη επί του παρόντος πέραν του ιστοχώρου μας http://bit.ly/sZDN90 )  έχει παύσει να υπηρετεί τους πρωταρχικούς λόγους δημιουργίας της, έχοντας μετεξελιχθεί, συν τω χρόνο, σε ένα άγνωστο για τους οικονομολόγους πεδίο συμπεπλεκομένων αλληλεπιδράσεων, τα αποτελέσματα του οποίου βιώνουμε σε παγκόσμιο επίπεδο.

Θα μου πείτε όμως ότι, εμμέσως πλην σαφώς, υποσχέθηκα καλά νέα ενώ το μόνο που κάνω είναι να προσθέτω στην κατάθλιψή σας.

Τα καλά νέα λοιπόν.

·Η θεωρητική σύνδεσης μεταξύ θεσμών και οικονομίας έχει επιτευχθεί ανοίγοντας τον δρόμο στη δυνατότητα στρατηγικού σχεδιασμού της Ελληνικής οικονομίας υπολογίζοντας αυτή την φορά (επιτέλους) τον βαθμό αρνητικού εξωγενούς επηρεασμού

·Η ανάλυσης της οικονομίας σαν θεσμός μας δίνει την δυνατότητα να εκμεταλλευτούμε για πρώτη φορά, βασισμένοι επιτέλους σε ουσιαστικές αναλύσεις, τούς ποιο προσοδοφόρους και συνάμα ασφαλείς δρόμους που μπορούμε να χαράξουμε

Πέραν όμως του θεωρητικού υπόβαθρου υπάρχουν πολλά καλά νέα προερχόμενα μέσα από την Ελληνική κοινωνία που δεν μπορούν να διαφανούν με «γυμνό» μάτι και αναφέρομαι στα εξής:

·Ο Ελληνικός λαός σε επίπεδο μόρφωσης και διαδικτύωσης σε παγκόσμιο επίπεδο έχει ξεπεράσει την δυνατότητα των Ελλήνων πολιτικών να πείθουν με ατεκμηρίωτες υποσχέσεις, υπαγορεύοντας έτσι ένα πλαίσιο ορθολογισμού και τεκμηρίωσης ανήκουστο μέχρι πρόσφατα στην Ελλάδα

·Η Ελληνική κοινωνία πλέον έχει αποδεχθεί το γεγονός ότι πολλά πρέπει να αλλάξουν και συστηματικά αναζητά τις ουσιαστικές λύσεις πέραν της Ελληνικής επικράτειας. Το γεγονός ότι δόθηκε η ευκαιρία στον ΟΟΣΑ να πραγματοποιήσει την ερεύνα για το Ελληνικό δημόσιο και το γεγονός ότι επετράπη η παρουσίασή της κατέρριψε πρακτικές εκατονταετιών.

·Η κατάρριψης θεσμικών «αξιών» δεν αποτελεί πλέον σοκ σε κανένα, δίνοντας το πράσινο φώς σε νέες ιδέες που ίσως είναι αδιανόητες για άλλα κράτη και προσφέροντας έτσι στην Ελλάδα συναγωνιστικό πλεονέκτημα εάν το εκμεταλλευτή κατάλληλα.

·Οι υπάρχοντες πολιτικοί οι πολιτικές που εξυπηρετούν και ο τρόπος με τον οποίον αυτό γίνεται έχουν απαξιωθεί στην συνείδηση του μέσου Έλληνα που αναζητά εναλλακτικές λύσεις μια από τις οποίες είναι και ο διαχωρισμός της πολιτικής από την διαχείριση του κράτους, κάτι που θα ήταν αδιανόητο ακόμη και ένα χρόνο πριν, κάνοντας την αρχή με την επιλογή του κ. Παπαδήμου. Παρεμπιπτόντως όλο που χρειάζεται είναι ένα απλό νομοσχέδιο πού να ορίσει το πλαίσιο εφαρμογής ενός τέτοιου μέτρου απαξιώνοντας εν μέρει έτσι τα διλήμματα που ανακύπτουν από την έλλειψη εμπιστοσύνης μεταξύ κομμάτων και λαού.

·Η φοροδιαφυγή από εθνικό σπορ έχει μετατραπεί συνειδησιακά σε κατάπτυστο κοινωνικό αδίκημα και λύσεις για την παντελή απάλειψη της έχουν ήδη προταθεί και είναι εύκολο να εφαρμοστούν http://bit.ly/vFhAEv

·Η Ελλάδα λόγω του προβλήματος έχει αναφερθεί στα διεθνή μίντια σε βαθμό που επηρέασε το αίσθημα της συμπάθειας από όλους τους λαούς γεγονός που μπορούμε να εκμεταλλευτούμε εμπορικά και όχι μόνο

·Οι Έλληνες του εξωτερικού ανέκτησαν εκ νέου ενδιαφέρον στα Ελληνικά δρώμενα μετά την απογοήτευση δεκαετιών γεγονός που μόνο θετικά αποτελέσματα μπορεί να έχει (ευελπιστώ ότι η ύπαρξη και μόνο αυτού του κειμένου μπορεί να εκληφθεί ως ένδειξης).

·Οι Έλληνες του εσωτερικού από την πλευρά τους για πρώτη ίσως φορά μετά την μεταπολίτευση ανακάλυψαν πάλι την αξία του πολιτικού διαλόγου και νέες πολιτικές ιδέες είδαν το φώς της δημοσιότητας προσφέροντας εναλλακτικές

·Έχει αρχίσει ήδη να εμφανίζεται μεταστροφή της αστυφιλίας και νέοι άνθρωποι, μορφωμένοι ως επί το πλείστον, εγκαταλείπουν τις πόλεις με ανείπωτο μακροχρόνιο όφελος για την Ελληνική κοινωνία και τις επόμενες γενιές

·Η ανεργία και η φτώχεια επανεκκίνησε την χαμένη δημιουργικότητα των Ελλήνων μια δημιουργικότητα που είχε ατονίσει για δεκαετίες ενώ σαν επιπλέον όφελος επανεμφάνισε την ανθρωπιά προς τον συνάνθρωπό μας που κινδύνευε να με εξαφάνιση από την υιοθέτηση της παράλογης ατομικότητας

·Νέες ξεχασμένες αξίες βρήκαν ξανά το δρόμο προς την επιφάνεια με τις έννοιες της συμπολίτευσης και του Εθνικού οφέλους να κερδίσουν συνεχώς έδαφος

Κύριοι όλα τα προαναφερόμενα δεν υπήρχαν ένα χρόνο πριν και είναι εχέγγυα μιας νέας αρχής που βασισμένη σε μια μίξη πατροπαράδοτων θεσμών με την σύγχρονη επιστήμη έχει όλα τα χαρακτηριστικά που απαιτούνται για υγιή αναδημιουργία.

Παρά τα όσα απαισιόδοξα μηνύματα ακούγονται εγώ θα επιμείνω, εάν μου επιτρέπεται, να ισχυρίζομαι ότι το 2012 θα είναι ένα καλύτερο έτος για την Ελλάδα και ότι για πρώτη φορά στα τελευταία 2000 χρόνια μας ξαναδίνεται η δυνατότητα να αντιστρέψουμε την θεσμική μας ένδεια σε εξαγώγιμο πλεόνασμα.

Καλή χρονιά σε όλους

Σωτήρης Μελιούμης Αναλυτής Οργανισμών, Ηνωμένο Βασίλειο

 

The Economy and the Societal Needs (Part 1)

Ask anyone what the economy means to him or her and you will receive a different answer. Economy is a discourse for quite a while now.  For the North Korean farmer economy finds its meaning in securing the survival of his family and he is organising his life accordingly. For the foreign exchange trader in the City of London economy is a profit exploitation framework satisfying through it his prosperity needs. Putting the extremes aside though, until now none to our knowledge, has ever explored how humanity utilises the economy and what are the needs it tries to cover.

If you are a regular visitor of our blog, you may immediately understand the potential benefits deriving from such an analysis, for the newcomer though it makes sense to put the horse before the car and explain what the problem was, the solution of which is our research.

Politics, you see, is a discourse on its own right, which by the way we are in the process of deconstructing as we did with the economy. Defining it loosely, it was until today, the art of “explaining” to the masses, using normally a political in conjunction with an economic theory, the degree of accuracy in interpreting the nation’s needs and a “justification” for the strategies used.

However, until a month or so ago, neither hierarchy of societal needs nor an actual deconstruction of the economy existed rendering all the explaining and the justification anything between an inaccurate “science” to a plain fiction,  if you were a cynic. That was simply the problem and our hope is to contribute towards transforming the art into actual science.

Of course, we are still a few months away from the point whereby we would be able to analyse specific countries but the power of Synthetic Institutionalism (http://bit.ly/s0Q4hK) in conjunction with our constantly increasing mental-association analysis toolkit provide us with plenty of optimism.

For the time being, we are pleased to be able to offer you an initial mapping of the Economy substructures against the pyramid of societal needs (http://bit.ly/upeNTq) we presented at an earlier stage. Enjoy!

The Institution of Christmas… courtesy of Synthetic Institutionalism and Gaianomy

I read an article almost a month ago from a fellow blogger in which she was questioning the way our society treats this yearly event. Her main complain was focusing on the consumerist(ic) personality of Santa. We were too busy back then but today, I found at last the opportunity to do the analysis and I present, for the first time ever (thanks to synthetic institutionalism and a bit of complex maths),  a rough deconstruction of the institution of Christmas.

I have to admit I was surprised from several perspectives.

To start with, Christmas as an institution is indeed massive. Within it now, the substructures the constituting institutions are very few compared with other global institutions, (i.e. Economy).

From these Food and Children are going head to head with a mere 50.000 (out of 1.4 Bn) of mental associations, on all accessible written texts, separating the two. Consumerism and Presents (or the Santa spirit if you wish) is fighting in our minds for the next two positions with these four accounting to a staggering 51% of the overall number of associations!

We seem to give (still?) Hope enough with almost 9% of the overall and all the rest are trailing including the “poor” Love, which in theory is the essence of Christianity.

Just in case what is included in Other to the dismay of most faiths associated with Christmas, Judaism, Catholicism and  Christianity as well as the biggest surprise of all Drinking (the usual suspect nations are excluded).

I leave the rest of the interpretations over to you. As usually, all kind of comments welcomed.

Merry Christmas to all on behalf of the Gaianomy Think-tank

Synthetic Institutionalism (in under 3 min) A guest blog from one of our Gaianomy members

When it comes to institutional analysis, there are three schools of thought, sociological institutionalism, rational-choice institutionalism, and historical institutionalism. (J. Mahoney and K.  Thelen 2010 & Hall and Taylor 1996), all of which “compete” in academic literature trying to explain institutional evolution and change.

I went through all of them over the last five years while developing my theory and to my amazement; they turn at the end all to be right to a large degree, despite the discourse.

The part that was missing, I believe, thus far was the use of the right type of maths (and not statistics).  The approach I used adds this component. However, this is only half of the story because, in order for all three to be simultaneously right, they should be interrelated pieces of a bigger puzzle (my theory). Consequently allowing myself a dose of arrogance, I will claim that I managed to unify the three theories into one. Provided I am not, just another mislead arrogant but the actual founder of this theory, (knowledge of all published papers globally is practically impossible) I would like to call it Synthetic.

Now to the point…institutions are social structures. By being a part of the overall social system, they obey its rules. That means that behaviourally wise, they can be analysed using the complex adaptive systems theories.  To my knowledge, this is the first attempt to follow this profound otherwise thought-path.

Practically all of them (the institutions) evolved in the beginning under the influence of primeval instincts. Over time, the most resilient of these institutions, evolved into “axiomatic” sub-structures or institutional components, while all other combinations dissolve.

The fashion according to which this happened can, simplistically, be presented as:

At the same time we know that social structures according to the complex systems theory ought to be synthesised by smaller components (hence the complex). In this case, the components are none else but the axiomatic sub-structures connected together in various ways and over several generations of evolutionary synthesis to, eventually, create the complex institutions we recognise today.

In addition we know as well that these components the sub-structures, genealogically speaking, are themselves institutions as they affect behaviour. The way they synthesise, across all their evolutionary stages, obeys the complex adaptive systems rules with the links between them being of variable strength.

Based on the two above principals we can easily conclude that: simpler institutions assemble into complex ones by linking between them in fractal ways and this is the founding principal behind synthetic institutionalism.

Interestingly, due their social origin, the links that hold the sub-structures together can be nothing else but institutionalised mental associations (Occam’s razor). It goes beyond saying that the stronger these associations are the more resilient the construct, which by the way offers an answer to the “structure and agency” perceived complex relation uncertainty of the current theories.

Change (evolution or devolution) of these structures (the centre point of the discourse so far),  occurs in three different ways: (a) by adding one more institution (sub-structure) in an already existing one (i.e. “googling” an addition to “research”) and which by the way explains emergence, (b) by changing the nature of one of the constituting sub-structures (i.e. post-digital “photography”) or (c) by eliminating one of sub-structures all together (i.e. hunter-gathering from “economy”). For this last one of course to happen, the link(s) holding it in place should be weak enough, at that moment in time.

So, there you have it. Instincts make institutions, which drive behaviours, which create more institutions, which synthesise by means on mental associations (of the actors) into new  more complex ones,  the constant (gradual or radical) change of which contributed in us all having an interesting life… and from now on, the mathematicians and institutional analysts happiness.

My Apologies to two of my favourite scholars, Colin Hay and Daniel Wincott that so passionately thus far argued the case against synthetic institutionalism.

Next time if your problem is Unemployment or Corruption or the Markets or even Economy and you want to change it forget the politicians and call one of us …. to be continued.

Sotiris Melioumis Organisational Analyst