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But governments have improved, and improved radically over the years. And the advantages of small groups over individuals are so comprehensive they have been a

But governments have improved, and improved radically over the years. And the advantages of small groups over individuals are so comprehensive they have been a primary source of evolutionary progress in humans. I'm not sure Friedman knew what he was talking about.

PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago
> But governments have improved, and improved radically over the years. In the 1960s and early 1970s, there was a sizable research field devoted to trying to help make human organizations function better (it was most of what used to be called "operations research", but went far beyond the for-profit corporation version of this concept). For reasons I don't understand, that project appeared to almost completely shutdown by the 1980s, and it's hard to find much evidence that it ever existed today.
- dredmorbius 5y ago
  OR does survive, largely as a study of technical operations, far less social, organisational, or political ones. The other major similar school was Norbert Wiener's cybernetics, and also systems theory (Jay Forrester/MIT). These took a far broader approach, and were even considered for integration into (and ultimately redefinition of) the social sciences. A fascinating book I have is Alfred Kuhn's The Study of Society: A Unified Approach (1963), which tackles political science, sociology, and economics head on. Wiener butted heads with the military establishment, in which he'd worked during WWII. Systems Research was closely associated with the Limits to Growth team and Stanford Beer's Project Cybersyn, enacted in Salvador Allende's Chile, and lost when Pinichet (advised by University of Chicago economists) overthrew the government in a coup and assassinated Allende. Complexity research also was (and sometimes still is) criticised for being vague and nonpredictive. Not entirely without merits. That said there's been something of a resurgence, notably through the Santa Fe Institute. But the anti-military, Malthusian, and socialist branding has somewhat stuck, and made the approaches if not precisely taboo, highly unpopular at least within mainstream US academia. OR itself however is a fairly vibrant study and practice, largely by virtue of having avoided the social and political areas. My view is that this has stunted its application even if it's permitted the development and continuation of the field.
  - PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago
    Thanks for those insights.

PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago

> But governments have improved, and improved radically over the years. In the 1960s and early 1970s, there was a sizable research field devoted to trying to help make human organizations function better (it was most of what used to be called "operations research", but went far beyond the for-profit corporation version of this concept). For reasons I don't understand, that project appeared to almost completely shutdown by the 1980s, and it's hard to find much evidence that it ever existed today.

dredmorbius 5y ago
OR does survive, largely as a study of technical operations, far less social, organisational, or political ones. The other major similar school was Norbert Wiener's cybernetics, and also systems theory (Jay Forrester/MIT). These took a far broader approach, and were even considered for integration into (and ultimately redefinition of) the social sciences. A fascinating book I have is Alfred Kuhn's The Study of Society: A Unified Approach (1963), which tackles political science, sociology, and economics head on. Wiener butted heads with the military establishment, in which he'd worked during WWII. Systems Research was closely associated with the Limits to Growth team and Stanford Beer's Project Cybersyn, enacted in Salvador Allende's Chile, and lost when Pinichet (advised by University of Chicago economists) overthrew the government in a coup and assassinated Allende. Complexity research also was (and sometimes still is) criticised for being vague and nonpredictive. Not entirely without merits. That said there's been something of a resurgence, notably through the Santa Fe Institute. But the anti-military, Malthusian, and socialist branding has somewhat stuck, and made the approaches if not precisely taboo, highly unpopular at least within mainstream US academia. OR itself however is a fairly vibrant study and practice, largely by virtue of having avoided the social and political areas. My view is that this has stunted its application even if it's permitted the development and continuation of the field.
- PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago
  Thanks for those insights.