‘Thinking in Systems: A Primer’ by Donella H. Meadows (Chelsea Green, 2008): Review by Robert M. Ellis

Systems theory is a thoroughly cross-disciplinary way of thinking: one whose central lines need to be made clear in their own right without being necessarily attached to any one of the specific disciplines it can be used in. I have previously reviewed ‘The Tree of Knowledge’ by Maturana and Varela, which tackles systems theory very much from a biological direction (although it does also develop in cross-disciplinary ways), and also ‘The Systems View of Life’ by Capra and Luisi, which takes quite a comprehensive view of how systems theory can be applied across a range of disciplines. Both of these books, however, are far surpassed by this one in the ability to focus with relative simplicity on what is most important and distinctive about systems theory. I very highly recommend it, especially if you have not really investigated systems theory before and want to find out what it is all about.

Donella Meadows, who died in 2001, was closely involved in the earliest attempts to pull together a planetary view of what was happening to the world’s ecosystems in the 1970’s, and contributed to ‘The Limits to Growth’ published by the Club of Rome that first sounded warnings about them. She actually finished writing this ‘primer’ in 1993, but never published it, and it was only brought out posthumously in 2008. For that reason many of the examples in the book refer to the 1970’s and 1980’s rather than recent decades, but are none the less relevant for that. The book is obviously the distillation of a lifetime’s immersion in systems, and thus consists of a series of insightful explanations followed by examples, rather than a heavily referenced scientific case. However, the value of the book consists not in proving certain causal patternings to be the case, but rather in showing how much more helpful it would be to think of all the ones around us that we already think we know about in a new way. Although it does not call itself such, in my view this is philosophy in the best sense. The problem does not lie in the extent to which we understand the universe, but the way we choose to format our understanding.

Meadows’ chapter on ‘the basics’ in systems theory concentrates on a simple model of input, stock, and output, that could be applied to anything from the water entering and leaving a bath, to a population of rabbits or the physics of a star. Of course, we also have to see these models as simplified parts of much larger structures of hierarchised and interdependent systems. The crucial ideas of reinforcing (or closed, or positive) feedback loops and balancing (or open, or negative) feedback loops are then introduced as ways that the level of a stock can be maintained through adjustments to input and/or output. For example, when our energy levels fall we feel hungry and seek food to raise them again (input), or we stop moving so much (output). As long as we can keep adjusting these inputs and outputs flexibly, these feedback loops can be balancing ones, but if they become rigidified so that we keep in shovelling in excessive food out of habit (or obsession, or anxiety), and become obese, they have become reinforcing.

I have been using what I long called positive and negative feedback loops as a key concept in Middle Way Philosophy for a long while, but have never seen them so elegantly and universally explained as in this book. Of course, more people have probably heard of reinforcing (positive) feedback loops than ever before now, due to their role in the climate crisis: for example, the loop caused by melting arctic ice reducing the albedo effect that reflects the sun’s radiation, thus warming the water and accelerating further melting of the ice. This loop threatens to interact with many others, and lead to the kind of uncontrolled and self-destructive process that reinforcing feedback loops often create.

The self-organisation of an organism consists crucially of the ability to regulate itself by using these feedback loops, responding to changes in its environment with changes in behaviour that adapt to them. The big problem for us, as I see it, is that the reinforcing feedback loop of absolutisation (in which obsession and fear feed fixed beliefs, that in turn create more obsession and fear), which worked as a short cut in some contexts of earlier human civilisation for ensuring social co-operation, is frequently out of control and prevents us from responding effectively to new conditions such as the climate crisis. If we can step back and view our psychology in the light of systems theory, it becomes obvious that it is not ‘religion’, or a lack of ‘rationality’, or any other specific example of reinforcing feedback loops that is the problem, but those loops in general.

Although, of course, Meadows does not explicitly discuss the Middle Way as a human attempt to move towards equilibrium in systems, she does talk about oscillation, which is a feature of systems that occurs when a reinforcing feedback loop shoots so far beyond equilibrium that the system can only be saved through the emergency application of a reinforcing feedback loop in the opposite direction.  This is what happens, for instance, in a manic-depressive cycle, or a left-right political cycle. Given that one form of absolutisation tends to produce its opposite after a while, the Middle Way is most important for slowing down or stopping the oscillation in human systems.

Meadows discusses many other properties of systems, such as the basis of their resilience or otherwise, and the reasons why our ‘fixes’ that attempt to rebalance them often fail. This is primarily because we constantly underestimate the complexity of systems, and think in linear rather than non-linear ways, ignoring the complexity of the processes involved. One great example she gives is that of the spruce budworm, a big threat to the timber economy of North America, that foresters have continually tried to ‘fix’ by spraying pesticides. This actually makes the budworm outbreaks worse, because it also kills all the predators of the budworm, bringing on the naturally self-limiting outbreaks of budworm infestation prematurely so the population can grow more rapidly, feeding freely on the commercially planted spruce trees. Unless we understand the system behind the problem, we often make it worse though linear absolute thinking.

However, the most striking chapter of all is the penultimate: ‘twelve leverage points to intervene in a system’. Here the focus is on practice: what we can do to change a system. Meadows list offers a superb and rich reference point for understanding how practices of all kinds can help us to face up to and engage with the complexity of systems, and can help us adapt them helpfully. The most effective ways to change a system are also the most difficult: to change the paradigm according to which it operates, or to change its overall rules and self-organisation. These can be at most long-term aspirations. However, next on the list is information flows: you can achieve quite a lot just by making people aware of things they previously ignored. Then there is encouraging balancing feedback loops and slowing down reinforcing ones, which is where practices such as meditation and critical thinking could be found. Changing the relationships, stocks, inputs and outputs of systems is often the least effective way to intervene, because the processes of the interlocking systems already in place tend to automatically reset them back to the previous condition. This chapter is a wonderful resource for reflecting on practice and what makes it effective or ineffective.

What I find missing in this, as in all other books about systems theory that I have investigated so far, is sufficient attention to epistemology and psychology. Epistemology in the sense of recognising that uncertainty is our position in regard to the complexity of systems, not just briefly and in theory, but in a way that follows through the full implications of that uncertainty. More application to psychology us also needed, in applying systems theory to meaning and belief, which I think are the crucial elements for understanding why we get stuck in reinforcing feedback loops – from personal to planetary level.

However, in what it does, based largely in ecology and the social sciences, this book is superb as a primer. It does not directly provide answers to anything, but much more valuably it provides us with crucial tools for thinking effectively about a very wide range of issues.