Revolution and Complex SystemsSession 2:

Smash the System

Course outline

Revolution and Complex Systems

Session 1: Introduction to Complex SystemsSession 2: Smash the System – creating and harnessing chaosSession 3: Erode the System – building the new world in the shell of the oldSession 4: Escape the System – affect and surviving oppression Session 5: Tame the System – reforms without reformismSession 6: Bringing it All Together – a trajectory for revolution

Recap

Revolution and Complex Systems

Complex

● Multiple diverse parts● non-linear● Emergence

Living Systems

● Throughput of energy● Maintains boundary and internal organisation● Internal processes

Networks

● Nodes and links● Embeddedness ● Diffusion

Recap

Revolution and Complex Systems

Themes to discuss

● Global warming / climate change ● Housing industry (developers, landlords etc.)● Gentrification (change in local demography, available services, activities etc.)

Complex

● Multiple diverse parts● non-linear● Emergence

Living Systems

● Throughput of energy● Maintains boundary and internal organisation● Internal processes

Networks

● Nodes and links● Embeddedness ● Diffusion

Revolution and Complex Systems

Smashingthe System

Revolution and Complex Systems

Revolution and Complex Systems

Chaos

Revolution and Complex Systems

velocity

position

Revolution and Complex Systems

State space / Phase space

Attractor

Trajectory PHASE PORTRAIT

Revolution and Complex Systems

Basin of attraction

Revolution and Complex Systems

February Revolution 1917

Revolution and Complex Systems

Tsar Nicholas II Revolutionaries Provisional government Soviets

Revolution and Complex Systems

Bifurcation point – 'points in the system's evolution where a fork suddenly appears and the system branches off in a new direction'

Symmetry breaking - small fluctuations determine which branch of a bifurcation is taken.

Revolution and Complex Systems

"At the most chaotic juncture in Iraq’s civil war, a new law is unveiled that would allow Shell and BP to claim the country’s vast oil reserves…. Immediately following September 11, the Bush Administration quietly out-sources the running of the “War on Terror” to the Halliburton and Blackwater corporations…. After a tsunami wipes out the coasts of Southeast Asia, the pristine beaches are auctioned off to tourist resorts.... New Orleans’s residents, scattered from Hurricane Katrina, discover that their public housing, hospitals and schools will never be reopened… These events are examples of “the shock doctrine”: using the public’s disorientation following massive collective shocks – wars, terrorist attacks, or natural disasters -- to achieve control by imposing economic shock therapy.’

“In one of his most influential essays, Friedman articulated contemporary capitalism's core tactical nostrum. He observed that "only a crisis - actual or perceived - produces real change". When that crisis occurs, the actions taken depend on the ideas that are lying around. Some people stockpile canned goods and water in preparation for major disasters; Friedmanites stockpile free-market ideas. And once a crisis has struck, the University of Chicago professor was convinced that it was crucial to act swiftly, to impose rapid and irreversible change before the crisis-racked society slipped back into the "tyranny of the status quo".”

Shock Doctrine – Naomi Klein

Revolution and Complex Systems

Feedback Loops

Revolution and Complex Systems

"Capra “a feedback loop is a circular arrangement of causally connected elements, in which an initial cause propagates around the links of the loop, so that each element has an effect on the next, until the last one 'feeds back' the effect into the first element of the cycle””

Revolution and Complex Systems

● Energy● Resources● Information

● Functions● Products● Waste

INPUT OUTPUT

Maintain boundary and inner organisation

PROCESSES

Revolution and Complex Systems

ThermostatAudio feedback

POSITIVE (self-amplifying)

NEGATIVE (self-regulating)

Revolution and Complex Systems

Rebel Cities – David Harvey – quote I

“...there is a seamless connection between those who mine the iron ore that goes into the steel that goes into the construction of the bridges across which the trucks carrying commodities travel to their final destinations of factories and homes for consumption … And if maintenance, repairs, and replacements are also part of this stream, then the vast army of workers involved in these activities in our cities is also contributing. In New York City thousands of workers are engaged in erecting scaffolding and taking it down again. If, furthermore, we consider the flow of commodities from place of origin to final destination, then we also have to consider the workers who are employed on the food chain that links rural producers to urban consumers.”

Revolution and Complex Systems

Mine ore Make steel Construct bridges

Trucks transport commodities

Commodities arrive at factories / homes

Mine ore Make steel Construct bridges

Trucks transport commodities

Commodities arrive at factories / homes

Workers Workers Workers Workers Workers

Go to work

Receive payment

Household utilities, appliances, food etc

Wife cleans, cooks, looks after children, provides emotional support

Revolution and Complex Systems

Rebel Cities – David Harvey – quote II

“...Thousands of delivery trucks clog the streets of New York City every day. Organized, those workers would have the power to strangle the metabolism of the city. Strikes of transport workers (as, for example, in France over the last twenty years, and now in Shanghai) are extremely effective political weapons . The Bus Riders Union in Los Angeles, and the organization of taxi drivers in New York and LA, are examples of organizing across these dimensions. When the rebellious population of El Alto [in Bolivia] cut the main supply lines into La Paz, forcing the bourgeoisie to live on scraps, they soon gained their political objective. It is in fact in the cities that the wealthy classes are most vulnerable, not necessarily as persons but in terms of the value of the assets they control. It is for this reason that the capitalist state is gearing up for militarized urban struggles as the front line of class struggle in years to come.

Revolution and Complex Systems

Network failure

Revolution and Complex Systems

Regular Random Complex

Revolution and Complex Systems

Scale-free network

US highway system

US airport system

Revolution and Complex Systems

Small-world network

Revolution and Complex Systems

● Resilient to random failure

● Vulnerable to intentional attacks

● Vulnerable to epidemics / virality

● Cascading failure

Revolution and Complex Systems

SummaryChaos Feedback Network Failure

● State space● Attractors● Bifurcation

● Positive (self-amplifying)● Negative (self-regulating)

● Scale-free ● Small-world