Comment Swarm Theory and Free Market Economics. (Score 1) 213
>So I agree that swarms are unlike authoritarian communism. They're unlike authoritarian anything,
>simply because swarms are anti-authoritarian and non-hierarchial - any structure involving a boss
>or a "chain of command" cannot function as a swarm. However, they're definitely not behaving the
>way a free market does, either....
Actualy they are very much more like a free market.
Communism is a tightly hierarchical system in which all decisions are made at the top and everyone has to do what they are told by the chain of command. In a free market system everyone can choose what they do, which means that on the one hand I can work in a team/part/company or other group if I decide that's best, or I can choose to split off and for my own group (political party, company, etc) if I see an opportunity. That is much more like the behaviour of colony insects because each insect makes it's own decisions. It doesn't make decisions just based on arbitrary desires, but then neither do we. Human beings in a free market make decisions based on the information we get from our interactions with others in society, and is self-optimizing in the same way colony insects are.
Communist societies are not self-optimizing at the micro-level and so are inflexible and inefficient.
Simon Hibbs
>simply because swarms are anti-authoritarian and non-hierarchial - any structure involving a boss
>or a "chain of command" cannot function as a swarm. However, they're definitely not behaving the
>way a free market does, either....
Actualy they are very much more like a free market.
Communism is a tightly hierarchical system in which all decisions are made at the top and everyone has to do what they are told by the chain of command. In a free market system everyone can choose what they do, which means that on the one hand I can work in a team/part/company or other group if I decide that's best, or I can choose to split off and for my own group (political party, company, etc) if I see an opportunity. That is much more like the behaviour of colony insects because each insect makes it's own decisions. It doesn't make decisions just based on arbitrary desires, but then neither do we. Human beings in a free market make decisions based on the information we get from our interactions with others in society, and is self-optimizing in the same way colony insects are.
Communist societies are not self-optimizing at the micro-level and so are inflexible and inefficient.
Simon Hibbs
