Diversity of complementary functions: ordering requisite variety

Comprehension of Appropriateness (Part #8)

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The traffic metaphor offers some insights into how the relationships between such contrasting approaches and policies might be regulated, in a largely self-organizing manner. It does not help to understand how such a diversity of functions is necessary to constitute a viable socio-economic organization. 

If, as suggested above, the complex of socio-economic functions required to further appropriate human development is such that only portions of that complex are comprehensible or meaningful to any one group, it is to be expected that each such group would build on that feature of the complex which it finds comprehensible. Such clustering of 'comprehensions' could well be partially determined by cultural, historical and related factors, themselves possibly engendered by the necessary dynamics of the functional complex. 

As an indication of the difficulty of understanding the requisite diversity in such circumstances, the simplest case is that in which a group understands one 'half' of the functional complex and builds on that understanding. The other 'half' would then necessarily be perceived as incomprehensible or irrelevant, or rejected on some other basis, possibly as dangerously misguided and a threat to that portion accepted as meaningful. There are many examples of policies and systems of organization polarized in this way: centralization vs decentralization, right vs left, industry vs environment, communism vs capitalism, etc. But although such polarized cases appear simple, they clearly arouse such violent dynamics in any situation that it it not possible to expect any creative resolution between them. Their relationship defies comprehension and automatically calls for the elimination of one or the other. 

A more complex case, might be one in which four groups each understand a 'quarter' of the functional complex and each build systems of socio-economic organization on that understanding. But in this case it is probable that anyone of the groups, although unable to enter into full understanding of the three other perspectives, would at least be sensitive to the functional advantages of certain features of them. They are not rejected so completely or so automatically as in the case of simple polarization. Nuances emerge as is evident in countries with a diversity of political parties. It remains true however that there is no 'meta-perspective' through which the complementarity between these different perspectives can be comprehended. From any one perspective it is not fully apparent what functions the others serve. 

It is in this context that it is useful to view the results of Geert Hofstede's multicultural survey of work-related values discussed in Annex 1 and interpreted in Annex 3 (see especially Figures 5 and 6). Each of his four major clusters constitutes an alternative way of viewing socio-economic organization. From any one of them it is possible to generate indicators showing how the others are unsatisfactory on some important dimension. A typical example of this is the Anglo-Saxon/American perception of the inefficiency of 'latin' approaches to organization or the utter chaos and incomprehensibility of Asian or African systems of organization. In the light of such a perspective, there would be many to recommend the replacement of such other systems of organization by the so obviously successful American/Anglo-Saxon system. The recent success of such alternative modes of organization as that of the Japanese, makes this case much less credible. Nevertheless any such cluster perceives its own preferred mode of organization as performing functions in a manner superior to that of others --although that superiority may not be measurable in terms of efficiency. 

This raises the question as to whether the alternative cultural perspectives indicated by Hofstede are not necessary to embody the necessary functional diversity for the healthy functioning of the global village. It is not, as is frequently assumed, that there are other, often quaint, modes of socio-economic organization which are simply part of the 'rich pattern of life on the planet'. In some as yet poorly understood way, it would seem probable that each such perspective has some distinctive, essential functional role to play within the functional complex as a whole. It remains unclear how these functional contributions are to be recognized, especially when decisions have to be made to continue or to terminate certain possibilities. As in the maintenance of an ecosystem, when does the culling or elimination of a species significantly reduce the ability of the ecosystem to survive and develop? 

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