Systems Research and Behavioral Science

Syst. Res. 23, 625^646 (2006)

& Research Paper

Exploring Public–Private Partnerships

through Knowledge Cybernetics
Maurice Yolles 1* and Paul Iles 2
1
Liverpool Business School, Liverpool John Moores University, Liverpool L3 5UZ, UK
2
Leeds Business School, Leeds Metropolitan University, Leeds, UK

Knowledge cybernetics operates as a social geometry and incorporates joint alliance

theory. Using its schema, an exploration is made of how in a globalizing economy
governments may seek to enhance their social infrastructural provision by coupling
private corporations into public services and producing public–private partnerships.
This paper will explore and explain the systemic needs of such partnerships, their
ontological and epistemological pathologies, and their ethical and ideological contradic-
tions. Despite the unlikelihood of partnerships functioning effectively to the benefit of
social provision, the persistence of the use of private provision in the delivery of social
goods may have an ideological explanation.
Keywords complex social environments; knowledge cybernetics; public–private partnerships;
ideology; ethics

INTRODUCTION so that the boundaries between domestic and

We are consistently being told that we are seeing
a changing world in which globalization is
central. More generally, however, this is part of
a process of social complexification that occurs
for instance as: social, political and economic
activities are stretched and interconnected;
phenomena like trade, finance (including invest-
ment), migration, and culture are intensified;
ideas, goods, information, capital and people are
transported or communicated with an increasing
velocity; and where distant events have an
increasingly significant impact on local societies,
* Correspondence to: Maurice Yolles, Liverpool Business School,
Liverpool John Moores University, Liverpool L3 5UZ, UK.
E-mail: m.yolles@ljmu.ac.uk
global affairs become more fluid. Such notions
are not new. They have been indicated by Lenin
(1893) who referred to them in terms of a
deepening of capitalism. Ionescu (1975) refers to
such processes as occurring in a centrifugal society.
Held et al. (1999) also refer to them as turbo-
capitalism. The three concepts are connected as
terms that refer to similar phenomenon observed
from different perspectives. The deepening of
capitalism effectively refers to the colonization
of new spheres of life in which there is an
extension of the proletariat, where labour is seen
simply as a disposable utility or commodity. A
centrifugal society occurs when social collectives
embrace greater intensification and complexity
while their political processes emerge centripe-
tally enabling corporations to accumulate power
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and make decisions that are unrepresentative of
government. Turbo-capitalism occurs when global
finance and corporate capital exercise decisive
influence over the location, distribution and
organization of economic power and wealth that
for Held et al. is directly connected with the
process of globalization.
As they experience social complexification,
governments tend to perceive that they are not
able to run their state infrastructure adequately.
This inadequacy is illustrated by Savas (1982)
who argues that the infrastructure and distri-
bution of social goods is supported by inefficient,
inflexible and irresponsible public corporations.
For Claver et al. (1999), public corporations have a
tendency for pathological ailments that inhibit
effectiveness, and these include:

authoritarian management style with a high
degree of control;

little communication;

univocal top–down management;

limited scope for individual initiative, with an
orientation towards obedience and the pro-
vision of orders;

centralized decision-making process that tends
to be repetitive;

reluctance to start innovative processes;

high degrees of conformity;

high level of resistance to change.
Such organizations are implicitly prone to
long-term failure in their attempts to create
effective delivery of their operations. If they are
to be able to improve their capacity to develop
effective operations there is a need for what
usually turns out to be difficult and expensive
cultural change.
As part of social complexification, globaliza-
tion has resulted in the internationalization of
corporate environments. Ionescu (1975) explains
that this is the result of the industrial/techno-
logical revolution that society has been passing
through. It has brought about such close
international relationships that all representative
governments find their normal policies con-
stantly being disrupted through international
developments. This affects the nation state both
internally and externally. Internally, govern-
ments are encouraged to seek ‘partnerships’,
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‘compacts’ or ‘contracts’ with corporations to
help address the disruption. In the past they have
sought social relationships with labour unions,
and today they seek industrial and financial
relationship with national and multinational
enterprise corporations. They also seek
political–administrative partnership with the
regions through their civil corporations as
progression towards constitutional devolution
develops. Ionescu refers to the process that
underpins the developmental formation of such
partnerships as a process of centripetal politics, in
which political compacts move away from the
political centre.
An illustration of this has been provided
through the UK Institute of Public Policy
Research (IPPR, 2001, p. 5) which wishes to
address the strong need to improve public
services. They advocate the formation of joint
alliances to occur between corporations in the
public and private sectors, and they refer to this
as Public–Private Partnerships (PPP) and the
political will to implement this as the Public
Finance Initiative (PFI). PPP is more than a UK
policy, however, and has been supported in other
countries around the world (Broadbent and
Laughlin, 2003).
Another manifestation is privatization (in
which governments delegate their responsibil-
ities to corporate bodies), supported for instance
by the International Monetary Fund (IMF). From
a paper for a meeting of African finance ministers
on 18–19 January 2000, Hanlon and Pettifor
(2000) note that the IMF stressed that it will
demand of all countries a more rapid privatiza-
tion process and a faster pace of trade liberal-
ization. Incidentally, these are conditions that
have been criticized by Joseph Stiglitz when he
was chief economist of the World Bank. Indeed
privatization is a concept that arises from social
neo-Darwinism, a notion that is deeply flawed in
the way it is often perceived by strategists (Yolles,
1999).
However potentially useful the partnering
process of centripetal politics might be, there
are fundamental problems with the formation
of PPP alliances as governments seek pri-
vate corporations to help them service their
infrastructural needs. These problems arise from
Syst. Res.
public corporate and private corporate ethical
and ideological incommensurability, and we
shall discuss these during the course of this
paper.
The exploration and understanding of com-
plex social phenomena that underscore processes
of centripetal politics is always potentially
improved when a schema (a pattern imposed
on complex reality or experience to assist in
explaining it, mediate perception or guide
responses) can be used. In this paper we shall
outline a schema that we refer to as knowledge
cybernetics, and in due course apply some of the
modelling aspects of this to joint alliances like
PPP.
Like PPPs, the notion of privatization enables
private corporate bodies to participate in the
provision of infrastructural services, enabling a
fundamental contradiction of egocentric as
opposed to socio-centric ethics to play itself out,
with society as the injured party. Why democratic
governments persist in this despite the likelihood
that it is beyond the perceived capacity of public
corporations to effectively run social provision may
have an indicative reason that arises from the
plutocratic nature of their societies.
THE KNOWLEDGE CYBERNETICS
SCHEMA
Knowledge cybernetics has its history in the
theory of autonomous viable systems as explored
by Beer (1959, 1985); Schwarz (1997). Just as the
system is normally seen as a metaphor, knowl-
edge cybernetics is metaphorical in that it: (a)
explores knowledge formation and its relation-
ship to information; (b) provides a critical view of
individual and social knowledge, and their
processes of communication and associated
meanings, (c) seeks to create an understanding
of the relationship between people and their
social communities for the improvement of social
collective viability, and an appreciation of the
role of knowledge in this. In a coherent autonom-
ous human activity system knowledge occurs in
structured patterns. This provides the structure
that enables the system to recognize its existence,
maintain itself, change, and develop manifes-
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tations that can be seen as being indicative of
systemic content. The notion of system, normally
attributed to Bertalanffy (1951) through his
notion of the ‘general system’, is often perceived
as a metaphor that can enables conceptual ideas
about thematic situations of attention to be
elaborated on and explored, thereby promoting
extended and logical explanations. The system
metaphor is normally used to explain beha-
vioural phenomena. Its extension into cyber-
netics derives from the work of Rosenblueth et al.
(1943), who were interested in its teleogical
properties that relate to its identity, degree of
autonomy and coherence.
Autonomous system theory was a particular
interest of Beer (1979). He recognized the
practical utility of the idea of the meta-system
explored by Whitehead and Russell (1910)
in their logical study of formal systems, and
used it as way of exploring the viability of
complex social systems through processes of self-
regulation, self-organization and control. A con-
sequence has been the emergence of a new
paradigm with its own new frame of reference
that transforms the way in which organizations
can be examined. It takes us away from the
simple input–output model of a system, in which
the system components behave in such a way
that they transform the inputs into the outputs, to
a model that explains how such behaviour is
controlled.
Beer’s paradigm effectively has two philoso-
phical dimensions: ontology and epistemology,
though his explicit interest only ever lay in the
latter. While epistemological approaches enable
the nature of knowledge to be explored, onto-
logical approaches define types of being in a way
that enables complex cybernetic relationships to
be expressed simply. This simplicity occurs
because ontology (Poli, 2001, 2005) can be
represented as geometry. To explain this,
consider that a function of ontology is to define
a frame of reference that topologically dis-
tinguishes between arbitrarily defined distinct
modes of being through the creation of a
referencing system. Within a social context, this
system then provides for the creation of a social
geometry through which component properties
and relationships can be expressed and analytically
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explored. In Beer’s work, the ontology was implicit
(Yolles, 2004) in that it analytically distinguishes
between two types of behaviour, meta-systemic,
that is connected with worldview and the capacity
to manifest controls and systemic, that is to do with
phenomenal energetic behaviour.
Making the implicit explicit enhances the
capacity to develop the analytical exploration
of social situations, and if adequately established,
can offer access to social geometry that is able to
richly explore social situations in a way that often
otherwise requires dense narrative. One such
ontological construction has been proposed by
Eric Schwarz (see Schwarz, 1994, 1997, 2001;
Yolles, 1999). Schwarz’s approach explains how
persistent viable systems are able to maintain
themselves, change and die. The approach was
developed, according to Schwarz (2004), as a
general theory of viable autonomous systems,
and its creation was stimulated during the
preparation for a course of lectures on the
‘Introduction to Systems Thinking’ at the Uni-
versity of Neuchâtel, in particular using Prigo-
gine’s dissipative structures theory, Erich
Jantsch’s Self-Organizing Universe, Maturana
and Varela’s (1979) autopoietic approach and
of course cybernetic concepts. Schwarz tried to
extract the basic common features of these
different approaches and produce a unique
meta-model that constitutes a transdisciplinary
epistemo-ontological framework, from which
other phenomenological models could be con-
structed through a combination of logical deduc-
tion and intuition. The meta-model itself has
some internal dynamics, coherence and self-
referential character, and it also had resonances
Figure 1. Elementary relationship between three types of reality
Syst. Res.
with philosophia perennis. While many (phenom-
enological) models show that the evolution of
systems go through the successive stages of
emergence, growth, stability and decay, the
interest of this meta-model is its global coherence
and its questioning of the foundations of the
usual materialistic, dualistic, realistic, reduction-
ist and mechanistic approach that, for Schwarz,
provides the basis for a language for a new
holistic paradigm. Our intention here is to
explain how a development of this meta-model,
that we refer to as Social Viable Systems (SVS),
which is part of the new paradigm of knowledge
cybernetics due to Yolles (2006), can be estab-
lished as a social geometry, noting that it is its
epistemological impact that leads to the notion of
knowledge cybernetics.
THE SOCIAL VIABLE SYSTEMS MODEL
It is not new to say that there is a relationship
between thinking and action, and this relation-
ship is conditioned by belief and knowledge.
Here, thinking affects action, while action and its
trials and tribulations are reflected in our
thinking and the images that we have and wish
to manifest in our social and physical environ-
ment. This interconnection is shown in Figure 1
and its formalization and generalization estab-
lishes a basis for understanding SVS theory.
The basis of SVS, shown in Figure 2, was
created by Schwarz (1997) and developed within
the social context by Yolles (1999, 2006), and, like
the notion of the system, it is metaphorical in
nature and recursive in facility. Its metaphorical
Syst. Res.
Figure 2. Social Viable Systems (SVS) metamodel defined in terms of three transitive domains that define and autonomous
holon with both autogenesis and autopoiesis
nature does not mean that it has no scientific
significance (Brown, 2003), and its recursive
nature means it establishes a relative theory
of contexts that results in epistemological
variety. This occurs because the knowledge that
it claims to express is relative to changing
contexts.
We regard SVS more as a holonic than a
systemic model. The term holon was proposed by
Koestler (1967) to stress that the system is a whole
and that it has associated with it a set of
constituent parts which may themselves be
sub-wholes; these sub-wholes are within their
own (recursive) context also holons. The sub-
whole ‘parts’ were normally considered to be
lateral to each other within a given ontological
space, and this is equivalent to talking about the
relationship between a system and its component
subsystems. However, this can be extended to the
concept to transitive ontological parts, as in the
relationship between a system and its meta-
system. Hence the holon may best be regarded as
a transitively extended system, constituted
through a development of Schwarz’s ontological
schema. We constitute a social holon as a three
domain model that defines distinct ontological
modes of being: measurable energetic phenomenal
behaviour, information rich images or systems of
thought, and knowledge related existence that is
expressed through patterns of meaning. The term
existential is taken directly from Schwarz’s
usage; the term noumenal is taken from the
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positivist work of Kant (e.g. see Weed, 2002), and
though we also refer to the sphere of mind and
thinking as did he, our approach is constructivist.
The term phenomenal has been adopted because
of intended consistency with the principles of
phenomenology as founded by Husserl (1950)
(deriving from his 1882 doctoral thesis; also see
Osborn, 1934) and after him Heidegger (1927).
The domains of SVS are analytically distinct
classifications of being, and they each have
epistemological properties that are expressible
as varieties of knowledge classifications. The
phenomenal domain has social interests adapted
from Habermas’s (1971) in a way explained
in Yolles and Guo (2003). The other domain
properties arise as an extension of this, are listed
in Table 1 and draw on both systemic and
cybernetic notions. There is a connection here to
Schutz and Luckmann (1974) in that the epis-
temological content of each of the three domains
can be defined in terms of relevancies. The
existential domain has thematic relevance that
determines the constituents of an experience;
the noumenal or virtual domain has interpret-
ative relevance that creates direction through the
selection of relevant aspects of a stock of know-
ledge to formulate ideate structures or a system
of thought; and the phenomenal domain is
associated with motivational relevance that
causes a local conclusion through action. While
this development is constructivist, an application
of Table 1 has been successfully developed to
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Table 1. Domain cognitive properties that determine Social Orientation (sociality)

Cognitive Sociality
Properties
Kinematics Direction (determining Possibilities/potential
(through social trajectory) (through variety
social motion) development)

Cognitive interests Technical Practical Critical Deconstraining

Phenomenal Work. This enables Interaction. This Degree of emancipation.
(conscious) people to achieve goalsrequires that people For organizational viability,
domain; and generate material as individuals and the realizing of individual
Activities well-being. It involvesgroups in a social potential is most effective
Energy technical ability to system to gain and when people: (i) liberate
undertake action develop the themselves from the
in the environment, possibilities of an constraints imposed by
and the ability to makeunderstanding of power structures (ii) learn
each others’
prediction and establish through participation in
control. subjective views. social and political
It is consistent with processes to control their
a practical interest in own destinies.
mutual understanding
that can address
disagreements, which
can be a threat to
the social form of life.
Cognitive purposes Cybernetical Rational/ Appreciative Ideological/Moral
Noumenal or Intention. Within the Formative organizing. Manner of thinking. Within
virtual governance of social Within governance governance of social
(subconscious) communities this occurs enables missions, goals, communities an intellectual
domain; through the creation and and aims to be defined framework occurs through
Organizing pursuit of goals and aims and approached through which policy makers observe
Information that may change over planning. It may and interpret reality. This has
time, and enables people involve logical, and/or an aesthetical or politically
through control and relational abilities to correct ethical positioning.
communications organize thought and It provides an image of the
processes to redirect action and thus to future that enables action
their futures. define sets of possible through politically correct
systematic,systemic and strategic policy. It gives a
behaviour possibilities. politically correct view of
It can also involve the stages of historical
(appreciative) use of tacit development, in respect of
standards by which interaction with the external
experience can be environment.
ordered and valued,
and may involve
reflection.
(Continues)
Syst. Res. RESEARCH PAPER

Table 1. (Continued)
Cognitive Sociality
Properties
Kinematics Direction (determining Possibilities/potential
(through social trajectory) (through variety
social motion) development)

Cognitive Socio Base Politico

influences
Creating cultural Formation. Enables
disposition; individuals/groups in
Existential a social community to
(unconscious) be influenced by
domain; knowledge that relates
Worldviews to its social environment.
Knowledge It affects social structures
and processes that define
the social forms that are
related to community
intentions and
behaviours.
Belief. Influences occur from
knowledge that derives
from the cognitive
organization (the set of
beliefs, attitudes, values)
of other worldviews.
It ultimately determines
how those in social
communities interact,
and it influences their
understanding of
formative organizing.
Its consequences impact
of the formation of
social norms.
Freedom. Influences occur
from knowledge that affect
social community polity,
determined in part, by how
participants think about the
constraints on group and
individual freedoms; and in
connection with this, to
organize and behave. It
ultimately has impact on
unitary and plural ideology
and morality, and the degree
of organizational emancipation.

empirically explore to how the pathologies
and coherence of an organization can be
explored (Yolles and Guo, 2003; Guo, 2006).
The use of psychological expressions in Table 1
may be thought of as unusual, and questions may
be raised as to whether terms that have been
created in a psychology paradigm intended for
the singular person with a personality are
broadly applicable to the plural group with its
sociality. Yolles and Guo (2003) and Yolles (2006)
argue that it is possible at least metaphorically to
draw out explanations of corporate behaviour.
While the notions of conscious, subconscious and
unconscious derive from Freudian psychology,
they are here more connected to the ideas of
Wollheim (1999) within a context supported by
ideas of organizational psychology, as promoted
for instance, by Kets de Vries (1991). Applying
Wolheim’s notions to a corporate context enables
us to differentiate between cultural state and
disposition. Cultural state constitutes the impulses,
tendencies and motivations that derive from the
collective power group (often the executive) or
the membership that composes it, while cultural
disposition constitutes the characteristic or
tendency of collective being, representing the
collective mental condition that embraces beliefs,
knowledge, memories, abilities, phobias and
obsessions, and that has both duration, history
and inertia.
The notions of autopoiesis and autogenesis are
of particular interest in SVS. Autopoiesis is
constituted simply as a network of processes
that enables noumenal activity to become man-
ifested phenomenally, conditioned by autogen-
esis—a network of principles that constitute a
second order form of autopoiesis that guides
autopoietic processes. Adopting a term by
Schwaninger (2001), autopoiesis may be thought
in terms of processes of operative management,
and autogenesis in terms of process of strategic
management.
The notions of Marshall (1995) have also
been applied. Her interest lay in exploring
the way military personnel made decisions in
the field. To progress her work she
abandoned the traditional way of defining
knowledge as procedural and declarative (Davis
and Olson, 1984), and instead defined a new
set of classifications, the essence of which is
provided in Table 2. Others before
her did the same, for instance Schutz and
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Table 2. Types of knowledge

Knowledge Nature of Knowledge
type

Identification Used to recognize pattern and states of being. Identification knowledge relates to situation
awareness. It is the knowledge required to recognize the nature of situations. Effective
identification involves recognizing a situation by focusing on the particular configuration of
features that are present in it. Such configurations, which tap into an individual’s knowledge,
allow decision makers to identify specific tracks of possible action, project future actions of
those tracks, and ultimately assess their likelihood of success.
Elaboration Used in the creation a system of thought or mental model about a situation or condition.
Individuals need to elaborate their understanding and interpretation of a situation. To do so,
they call on their already-existing knowledge of similar situations coupled with critical
thinking and analytic reasoning to develop a better understanding of the current situation,
often task directed and strategically related. It enables systems of thinking and mental
models of particular situations to be formulated. Effective elaboration involves applying
previous knowledge to the current situation, such that the most reliable and acceptable
hypothesis may be formulated with regard to the intent of a specific track.
Execution Used to guide implementation and performance of action. Centres on how to execute
intentions generated by system of thinking or mental models, and results from the application
of tactical thinking that include the harnessing of structural roles and processes that enable
intentions to be manifested.

Luckmann (1974) in their exploration of narra- EXPLORING ALLIANCE THEORY

tive, and by relating the two approaches (Yolles, THROUGH KNOWLEDGE CYBERNETICS
2006), these types of knowledge can be distrib-
uted across the SVS domains as shown in Since our interest lies in PPPs and how they can
Figure 3. be explored through knowledge cybernetics, we

Figure 3. Distribution of the types of knowledge across SVS

Syst. Res. RESEARCH PAPER

need to develop the theory of alliances within the
context of knowledge cybernetics.
The theory of joint alliances is usefully
described in Yolles (2000) and Iles and Yolles
(2001). When two or more autonomous agents
enter into a voluntary co-operation, they can
form what have been variously referred to as
joint alliances, ventures and partnerships (e.g.
Kelly and Parker, 1997; Fitzgerald, 2000). Joint
ventures are usually joint alliances that have been
strengthened by legal contractual agreements.
Alliances became popular over the last 20 years
because they enable organizations to more ably
deal with complex environments. This was
particularly the case with the demise of the Soviet
Union, as Countries of Central and Eastern Europe
(CCEE) found a fast track way of developing a
market economy (Jankowicz and Pettit, 1993;
Millman and Randlesome, 1993; Holden and
Cooper, 1994). When alliances fail, cultural
differences are often cited as the cause for failure
(Fedor and Werther, 1996). Managerial style, one
of its manifestations, can also jar alliances. The
failure rate for international alliances becomes
more pronounced, perhaps in proportion to the
divergence in the culture of the agents participat-
ing in the joint alliances, and needs special
attention. An illustration of this concerns the
problem of joint ventures in China with Western
UK organizations (Wilson and Brennan, 2003).
Gray and Yan’s (1997) analysis of four Sino-
American joint ventures explored the impact of
‘founding’ environmental and inter-organiz-
ational factors on the development of alliance
ownership and control structures. The institu-
tional environment, the relative bargaining
power of the alliance parents, the nature and
extent of their prior relationships and the level of
the initial success were all found to be important.
In terms of the effect of culture on the formation
of alliances, Iborra and Saorin (2001) argue that
cultural differences influence negotiation out-
comes through the behaviour adopted by nego-
tiators during the negotiation process. A
particular issue raised here is that of trust in
joint alliances, which Kelly and Parker (1997)
indicate is essential. Butler and Gill (1997, p. 6)
have also applied the concept of trust to research
on alliances, distinguishing types as represented
in Table 3. They have also identified two trust
propositions (T1 and T2) that relate to these
classifications:

T1: Trust is enhanced by high and increasing
levels of autonomy granted to the alliance, its
physical separation from its parents, its distinct
geographical and organizational identity, and its
parents’ forbearance during problems, along-
side their consistent support for the alliance.

T2: As ambiguity and interdependence
increased, there is a greater need for personal
trust, with the formal contract most useful to
alliance parents at foundation (for developing
a mutual understanding and as a background
to the venture), rather than as a focus for
continuing attention.
Joint alliances arise in order to satisfy cognitive
influences, purposes or interests (Table 1). They
develop through the establishment of a virtual
paradigm (Yolles, 1996; Yolles, 1999; Midgley,
2000) that may initially be ill formed and unstable
and may not form into a paradigm if it is
unsupported, or becomes volatile and dissolves
prematurely.
A joint alliance may have a limited cognitive
influence, purpose or interest, and be intended to

Table 3. Types of trust and their nature (Butler and Gill, 1997)
Type of Trust Nature

Personal The ‘confidence that a particular person or persons will act in a predictable
way in order to fulfil expectations’
Procedural The confidence in organizational rules, routines and bureaucracy
Institutional The confidence that can be placed in a particular organization or other established
body, involving symbolic factors, such as reputation and reliable knowledge
Parent Based on alliance performance, and develops over time through multiple
level ongoing interactions.
RESEARCH PAPER
have a limited life span and domain of action. An
example of such an alliance is the single project. It
may alternatively be an enduring general agree-
ment intended for the long term. If this occurs, it
is usually the case that an establishable paradigm
will have developed that will have associated
with it recognizable patterns of behaviour.
If a joint alliance can be seen as an autonomous
purposeful adaptive activity system that arises
through the sustained actions of two or more
parents, then it can be expressed in terms of the
SVS meta-model. This idea links in with a
classification of types of joint venture based on
Kelly and Parker (1997) that can be related
directly to the sociality properties of social
communities, and this connects directly with
Table 1. As such we can identify the following
connections (Yolles, 2006):
1. Horizontal alliances occur between competi-
tors in an industry through functional need that
contributes to the direction or the alliance.
Collaboration across specific functions can
Figure 4. A supra-system of agents forming a joint alliance, each agent represented as an autonomous system with its own
meta-system and virtual system
Syst. Res.
produce benefits, like: (a) research and devel-
opment that can reduce both costs and risks by
sharing expertise, (b) cross-licensing agree-
ments that can enables risks across inter-
national markets to be reduced.
2. A vertical alliance between organizations that
share the control of operations contributes to the
kinematics of the alliance. In so doing it utilizes
the specialist skills associated with the partner
organizations that act as joint alliance parents.
Such a distribution can aid operational effi-
ciency, as it can aid effectiveness; examples of
such partnerships occur between organizations
in the supply-delivery chain that may be com-
posed of suppliers, marketers or distributors.
3. Diagonal alliances across organizations in
different sectors of operational activity can
occur by their pooling knowledge, expertise,
resources or technology, and thus establishing
an optional set of possibilities/potential for
the alliance. Diagonal alliances represent a
form or operational convergence between
the partner organizations when, for instance,
Syst. Res.
the technologies of IT and telecommunications
come together through such a partnership.
If we think of each autonomous partner in a
potential joint alliance as an autonomous agent,
then it is essential that a cognitive interest or
purpose should exist to facilitate that alliance.
This is illustrated in Figure 4 in which some
elementary epistemological migrations are
suggested for an agent. The term epistemological
migration is not a usual one, and needs to be
understood. Following Yolles (2006) it should be
recognized as being constituted as a manifes-
tation of one type of knowledge (from a source
domain) to another (in a target domain), as occurs
for instance when a thought is manifested as
action. This association is inferred through the
formulation of epistemological connections. The
most common form of epistemological migration
is called knowledge migration, where complex
messages act as a catalyst for a message sink (a
receiver) to create local knowledge that sits on the
existing base of local knowledge. The supra-
system defines the lateral collection of agents
intending to enter the joint alliance. In a coherent
supra-system, each agent has its own image
about phenomenal reality that has formed from a
local frame of reference connected to its local
meta-system. Each agent will also have inter-
active behaviour with the others in the alliance.
Figure 5. Basic model of an autonomous agent
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An agent’s pursuit of its own individual image of
the real world situation, underpinned by cogni-
tive purpose, will result in behaviour that is
consistent with its decisions. All agents partici-
pate in a life-world process enabling semantic
communication to occur, and as a result of this to
improve the chance of a successful alliance, they
will either modify their own paradigm, or if the
alliance is a subsidiary, create a new local alliance
paradigm. This can facilitate the formation of
common interests or relatable purposes, and the
supra-system alliance now has the possibility of
behaving coherently as a whole rather that being
prone to analytical schizophrenia and chaos.
One point of interest here is that there is often a
tension between the interests of individual
agents, and rather than leading to the formation
of common supra-system interest, this can be
elaborated into conflict through the process of
marginalization. This may not happen, but if it
does the tensions may create conflicts and
common interests may emerge. Where common
interests do develop tensions may still arise
between the individual and common interests,
again resulting in marginalization. Political
processes and semantic ethical and ideological
attributes of the interaction are carried along the
positioningmigration channel shown in Figure 5. It
also carries cybernetic and rational/appreciative
attributes that enable alliance operations to
RESEARCH PAPER
develop and be maintained. According to this
model, common purposes can only form when
the alliance has been able to form its own virtual
system and meta-system that may be seen as
distinct from that of the individual agents. This
requires the formation of a proprietary or
common alliance culture.
DEVELOPING A MODEL OF JOINT
ALLIANCES THROUGH KNOWLEDGE
CYBERNETICS
The simplest representation of an autonomous
agent is provided in Figure 5. Here it is shown
that agents can be constituted as three com-
ponents: a system that undertakes action, a
virtual system that maintains images and sys-
tems of thought, and a meta-system that operates
through culture and worldview, and maintains
knowledge. However, when two such agents
come together in a joint alliance, like a public and
private corporation, the outcome can fail. When
parents maintain different cultural, ethical and
ideological positions they maintain a seperate-
ness that only permits the development of a joint
history of experiences (Figure 6) through
Figure 6. Illustration of a joint alliance between public and private corporations
Syst. Res.
phenomenal structural coupling. This is because
the parents can be structurally coupled at the
systemic level (Maturana and Varela, 1979),
permitting a (past and future) history of experi-
ences. Systemic structural coupling only enables
parent organizations to understand each other
through communication and the observation of
behaviour, both of which are prone to error in
complex situations. Where communication is
made between a message source and a sink, if the
messages are complex a distinction may develop
between the meanings assigned to a message by
the source and meanings apprehended by a sink,
and this will result in a mismatch in under-
standing. Where complex patterns of behaviour
are observed, misunderstanding may develop
because of a horizon of meanings for one partner
that another does not have access to. This may be
additionally complexified by other factors, like
the projection by one parent of fears related to the
actions of another.
A way of dealing with these types of problem is
to visualize that parent organizations create joint
alliance children, as shown in Figure 7. Here,
only one parent is indicated to reduce the
complexity of the graphic. Here we do not only
show systemic structural coupling as occurring,
Syst. Res.
Figure 7. Illustration of the development of a new autonomous alliance organization as a child formed from two parent
organizations (only one parent is illustrated to reduce complexity)
but also other forms of structural coupling
existentially and noumenally. The parent organ-
izations have come together to create a joint
alliance child and allowed it to develop both a
noumenal and existential dimension. Structural
coupling at the noumenal and existential level of
existence is possible because of the SVS model of
Figure 2 is recursive, and we can always find
noumenal and existential sub-domains that are
phenomenal. Thus for instance, in the existential
domain we might find knowledge structures,
while in the noumenal domain we might find
logical structures. Hence in the noumenal
domain a structural coupling might occur
between at least two logical structures, while in
the existential domain this might occur between
two knowledge structures (see Yolles, 2006). An
existential couple between meta-systems can
only happen if the activities undertaken by the
parents are the result of an existential connection,
often representable in terms of the relationship
RESEARCH PAPER
between two related cultures. In this case, since
culture provides a basis for knowledge and
understanding, the further away each parent is to
the other culturally the more difficult it will be for
shared understanding to develop.
In the case of a noumenal coupling, let us first
consider the case of the separate parents. Both
need to serve demands from their respective
governing stakeholders through their decision-
making processes, conditioned as they are by
their individual ideological and ethical position.
Where a parent is a public corporation, this
relates to social infrastructural need, but where it
is a private corporation, this usually relates to
profitability—the search for which often seems
to conflict with actions that serve social need.
A noumenal coupling will permit a sharing of
structured images and system of thought,
enabling the parents to develop a degree of
commonality in their ideology and ethics. This
can happen when corporations merge, but such
RESEARCH PAPER
mergers are often prone to failure because the
distinct cultures are not naturally well connected,
and not enough effort is put into this area of need.
The parents may spawn a child organization
that is allowed to develop autonomously under
guidance through the creation of a past and
future history of interaction resulting from
structural coupling. Its culture is likely to reflect
aspects of the cultures of the parents, and when
mature it will be capable of mediating between
the parents. The child does need some degree of
independence to operate successfully, given that
it maintains a set of operational constrains and a
modus operandi that have been formulated
initially by parental agreement. However, this
independence should encompass the capacity to
evolve.
At this stage, it will be useful to recognize that
all social holons, whether parental organizations
or their joint alliance offspring, are potentially
subject to pathologies that constitute organiz-
ational ill-health, and we identify types of
pathology: transverse and lateral. When we refer
to transverse pathologies we mean the capacity of
a complex autonomous systemic agent to under-
stand its own varieties of knowledge. Lateral
pathologies ultimately relate to the incapacity of
Figure 8. Transverse psychological model of the collective showing type 1 and 2 pathologies
Syst. Res.
partners in a joint alliance to develop mutual
knowledge and meaning, and to properly reflect
that in effective action.
TRANSITIVE PATHOLOGIES IN
ALLIANCE CHILDREN
We have indicated that a social holon has
distinguishable ontologically parts, and we can
now consider the pathologies that arise within them.
An illustration of these pathologies is provided in
Figure 8 and explained in Table 4. In order to explain
the nature of the pathologies that can arise here, we
shall set up SVS as a psychological metaphor,
considering any social holon that, if a joint alliance
child, is assumed to have matured and developed a
social psychological profile of its own. This gives us
a frame of reference in which the phenomenal
domain can be represented as an agent of
consciousness, with awareness attached to beha-
viour and connected with corporate ego. The
strength of the ego limits the capacity of a plural
actor to adapt when it has the need, thereby
establishing ontological pathologies that effectively
constitute interactions between phenomenal and
existential morphological conditions.
Syst. Res. RESEARCH PAPER

Table 4. Types of ontological pathology, and possible associative relationships between type combinations
Pathology Type Nature

1 (11 and 12) Can result in disassociative behaviour that has little reference to ideate images
(or the subconscious). When this occurs, behaviour may be influenced directly by
the unconscious. Type 11 relates to phenomenal image projection, while type 12 to
an ability to have a feedback affect.
2 (21 and 22) No changes in the normative coherence can develop within the cultural fabric of the
plural actor. In type 21 existing knowledge cannot have an impact on the autopoietic
loop, while in type 22 learning is not possible. This has major implication for the
way in which patterns of behaviour become manifested. An example of the type
of pathology might be when patterns of behaviour occur independently of subconscious
constraint, but responsive to the instinctive unconscious.

Associative Type Combinations

T11 T12 T21

T12 No phenomenal image
projection or feedback
resulting in direct link
to existential domain
T21 No knowledge development/
learning and no phenomenal
image projection. Feedback
cannot be responded to.
T22 No phenomenal image
projection, and no possibility
of coherence through learning
capacity.
No feedback resulting in
regeneration of ideate image,
and no learning process
development.
No regeneration of ideate No influence of knowledge
image through experience, or knowledge development
and no evaluative process (i.e., no learning or reflection).
deriving from experience. Image and phenomenal image
projection cannot develop.

The first of the types of pathology (type 11 and
12) that we shall refer to occurs when autopoiesis
is blocked, and this can result in disassociative
behaviour that has little reference to subcon-
scious images. When this occurs, behaviour may
be influenced directly by the unconscious. The
second type of pathology (including type 21 and
22) that can occur is when autogenesis is blocked,
so that normative coherence cannot develop
within the cultural fabric of the plural actor, in
part because learning is not possible. This has
major implications for the way in which patterns of
behaviour become manifested. Micro-variations
to this can occur by defining two forms of
each type of ontological pathology, as illustrated
in Table 4, as types 11, 12, 21, and 22. An example
of the type 11 problem might be when recurrent
patterns of behaviour occur independently of
subconscious constraint but responsive to the
instinctive or emotional unconscious. In the case
of social communities that have cultural instabil-
ity (where their may be a plurality of shifting
norms), this non-coherent and perhaps gratui-
tous/un-self-regulated behaviour may simply
respond to the instinctive or emotional needs of
individuals in that community. When type 1 and
2 pathologies occur together, behaviour is purely
responsive and determined from structural
capacities.
LATERAL PATHOLOGIES IN JOINT
ALLIANCES
The likelihood of joint alliance failures have
estimates that run from between 50% (Kelly and
Parker, 1997) to 70% (Mosad and Mariana, 2005),
and for international joint alliances there are
RESEARCH PAPER
higher estimates for failure still that reach 98%
(DBA, 2005). It should be said here that a failure
does not necessarily mean the demise of a joint
alliance, but may mean that the planned
performance of an alliance fails. Offspring
alliances need to be nurtured, and subject to
trust and guidance.
Joint alliance failure is often due to problems
associated with its corporate parentage. That a
corporation is in some way prone to failure
immediately suggests that it will not do so well as
a parent of a joint alliance. Corporations are
plagued with what we refer to as lateral
pathologies that make them less able to mean-
ingfully deal with the increasing complexity
environmental complexity, and as such are more
likely to be prone to failure. This failure means
that a corporation is unable to perform the tasks
that have been set. Public corporations are
supported by the State in one way or another;
any inability to perform may not be easily
recognized, and if it is little effective remedial
action may be taken. However, the perception
that people have of the failure of their own
organizations is supported by the perceived need
for a PPP in the first place. Private corporations,
however, are usually evaluated in terms of the
profitability, and so failure may mean their
inability to maintain their existence. According
to Liu and Wilson (2000) there is empirical
evidence to indicate that the rate of failure of
private corporations is showing a trend increases
with greater volatility across the business cycle.
One reason for failure may be explained by the
recognition that most corporations are hierarch-
ical, characterized by authoritarian relationships
that operate through power (rather than knowl-
edge) based leaders, and as parents they often do
not want to give up their authoritarian positions
to allow a child to develop naturally. Such
corporations often claim themselves to be
meritocracies–governance based on rule by
ability–often arising in hierarchic organizations
through a process of ranking employees based on
some quality other than force (DeVoy, 2001).
However, the criteria that determine what merit
means are often variable, as appointments to
formal role positions change, or the interests of
particular leaders change. Often appointment
Syst. Res.
bodies are dominated by a particular individual,
perhaps a chairperson, and overwhelm norma-
tive criteria. In other cases appointment bodies
may be tinged with emotional, racial or political
motivations. True meritocracies might appear in
organizations that pursue a critical knowledge
paradigm (Clegg et al., 1996), but there appear to
be few such organizations. For Foucault (1982) a
feature of hierarchical structures is that those in
power do not often involve themselves in
communication processes that seek open public
debate, exposure of issues, and processes that are
able to effect agreement. Mostly what is sought is
the compliance of subordinates to decisions that
will affect functional behaviour in social collec-
tives. The impulse for compliance is already
embedded in the structures of our organizations
that have linked to them rules that both guide
and constrain behaviour. This type of orientation
is typical of corporations that are orientated
towards steering media as opposed to participative
democratic decision making (Habermas, 1987).
Private corporate behaviour is not only guided
by an inherent commercial ethic, but also by an
implicit ideology, the endogenous impact of
which affects the way it manages itself as a social
collective, and the exogenous impact of which
affects the way it interacts with others in its social
environment. Typically, its ideology is driven by
authoritarian or even despotic principles and the
ethics that it supports reflects a desire towards
self-gain at any cost. ‘Its self-interest makes it
inherently amoral, callous and deceitful; it
breaches social and human qualities of empathy,
caring and altruism,...[and here the] embodiment
of laizzez-faire capitalism meets the diagnostic
criteria of a ‘psychopath’ (Ackbar et al., 2005, p.2).
This idea is supported by Joel Bakan (2005)
who explores the nature of private corporations,
and how they respond to situations that they
encounter in their operational environment.
Bakan’s study of the private corporation begins
with the recognition that in the mid 1800s it
emerged as a legal person, being seen to operate
with a ‘personality’ (or should we rather say
sociality?). It is also an autonomous body
pursuing amoral self-interest that enables it to
effectively operate as a self-seeking acquirer of
profit. It has overwhelmingly ignored any social
Syst. Res. RESEARCH PAPER

ethic, and as a consequence of its single minded
behaviour during the following century has
accrued significant wealth.
Reflecting on these ideas, we have already
suggested that the plural collective corporate
body can be seen as having a sociality, broadly
equivalent to the individual with its personality.
Extending this further, we can note that just as
individuals may become psychopathic, so cor-
porate bodies may become sociopathic. Kurt
Vonnegut (2006) tells us that high level leaders
have psychopathic personalities represented as
smart, personable people with no consciences.
Perhaps since they run organizations and help
direct their policies, there is an argument that
they are not psychopathic but rather sociopathic,
the distinction between them being shown in
Table 5 (based on O’Connor, 2005).
It may be the case that sociopathic corporations
are run by sociopathic leaders, whether they are
recognised to be so by society or even by
themselves. It may also be that some corporate
leaders are not implicitly sociopathic, but just get
sucked into a sociopathic executive culture. So
how can we reconcile the apparent paradox that
leaders may not be sociopathic while their
corporations may be? Normally it seems that
the individuals who compose the corporation are
socially conscious and law abiding within their
own personal spheres of life, but when they
collect together within a corporate environment
they abandon their own worldviews and join a
new corporate one that is normally quite distinct.
People have the curious ability of maintaining a
plurality of isolated worldviews with their
associated cultural bases and patterns of knowl-
edge, and they seem to have an easily facility to
switch worldviews to suite context without
contradiction. Indeed, Yolles (1999) explains that
if the worldviews can be considered as formal
systems, then this innate capacity may likely
satisfy the requirements of Gödel’s theorem of
consistency and completeness that explains
people’s apparent ability to operate in such
paradoxical and contradictory ways. By operat-
ing in this way, people are able to maintain
separate patterns of knowledge in unconnected
compartments that are each attached to a
worldview, enabling them to operate with
distinct ethical principles without apparent
contradiction, except in very special circum-
stances (such an exception has been illustrated,
for instance, in the film Jerry McGuire in which
the hero, a sports agent played by Tom Cruise,
realises that his company’s drive for profits
dehumanises and takes as a commodity those
sports persons being represented). Thus for
example, the State Executioner goes home and
would not hurt a fly. In another example by
Ackbar et al. (2005, p.2), Sir Mark Moody-Stuart,
chairman of Royal Dutch Shell, debated in
private with activists about the need to pursue
human rights, while simultaneously overseeing
his corporation Shell Nigeria in its violation of
human rights and creating one of the world’s
worst centres of pollution.

Table 5. Distinction between psychopathic and sociopathic traits that determine behaviour
Types of Behaviour Traits

Psychopathic Glib and superficial charm; grandiose sense of self-worth; need for stimulation;
pathological lying; conning and manipulativeness; lack of remorse or guilt;
shallow affect; callousness and lack of empathy; parasitic lifestyle; poor
behavioural controls; promiscuous sexual behaviour; early behaviour
problems; lack of realistic, long-term goals; impulsivity; irresponsibility;
failure to accept responsibility for own actions; many short-term marital
relationships; juvenile delinquency; revocation of conditional release;
criminal versatility.
Sociopathic Egocentricity; callousness; impulsivity; conscience defect; exaggerated
sexuality; excessive boasting; risk taking; inability to resist temptation;
antagonistic, deprecating attitude toward the opposite sex; lack of
interest in bonding with a mate.
RESEARCH PAPER
THE AMBIENT ENVIRONMENT
OF CENTRIPETAL POLITICS
It seems hardly reasonable that the sociopathic
nature of private corporations is not recognised
by democratic Western governments engaging in
centripetal politics. Yet they still delegate social
responsibility to private corporations, using such
means as privatization and the development of
PPPs. Perhaps there is an innate reason for this
that goes beyond their apparent inability to deal
with social complexification?
Central to the idea of the sociopathic corpor-
ation is the recognition that their ethical position
usually reflects their egocentric nature and the
search for profits as opposed to a sociocentric
support for effective social provision. It also
appears to be consistent with an ideology that
supports the use of steering media. Habermas
(1987) was concerned with the use of steering
media in decision making as opposed to the
development of consensus through communi-
cation. Examples of steering media are power or
money, and in hierarchical corporate (and social)
environments there tend to be local accumulation
of these commodities. The consequence is often a
marginalization of others who do not have access
to them (see for instance Yolles, 2001), including
corporate staff. An illustration of these facets is
provided by Ackbar et al. (2005, p.3), who note
that in 1934 a business-backed plot emerged in
the US to install a military dictator in the White
House since the then current government did not
serve its ethical and ideological interests. It failed
because of the intervention of General Smedley
Darlington Butler.
It is clear that corporate attitudes are the result
of ethical and ideological positioning, and that
therefore we should not be surprised by the
development of sociopathic perspectives. It
seems curious therefore that governing bodies
maintain their position of encouraging centripe-
tal politics. Perhaps one reason might be that
there is an ideological similarity that encourages
the development of privatization or PPP.
Interestingly, social compacts like these not
only emerge in the delivery of social infrastruc-
tural provision. Instance of compacts in govern-
ment foreign policy has also been seen. Thus the
Syst. Res.
US Company ITT undertook some actions in
Chile in the early 1970s to contribute to the
destabilization of its economy. This was a step
towards the overthrow of its democratically
elected Marxist president Salvador Allende by
a military junta headed by General Augusto
Pinochet Ugarte, which seized despotic power
Sept. 11, 1973. This action, it seems, was under-
taken with the collusion of the US Government
(with the instrumental use of the CIA) who
saw its own interests more closely aliened with
despotic regimes than with democratic ones.
The US, like other Western nations, is today a
harbour of corporate commerce, and if its
corporations are amoral and support steering
media decision making, one is led to question US
culture from which its corporations and their
ideological and ethical positions are born. Run as
an oligarchy, the US maintains a presidency
during a fixed period of time whose power is
only limited by the democratic process of the US
debating chambers, like the senate or the
Supreme Court. Modern democracies are often
periodic oligarchies, because power is held by the
few who are elected to office every five years as
delegates of a constituency in a social collective.
As such they take the position of making
judgements on behalf of, but not necessarily
with reference to, their constituencies. This is as
opposed to representatives who are required to
take instructions from their constituents. In
authoritarian political structures it is not too
difficult for elective processes to be corrupted,
and we have seen this in third world states.
However, we get surprised when it happens in
first world states, as has occurred for instance in
the US with the election of the incumbent
President Bush (New York Times, 2005). It is
not difficult for authoritarian regimes to shift to
the right and exercise despotic processes. Thus
for instance this can be observed in the US where
the President is using the excuse of terrorism,
after the 11th September terrorist attacks in 2001,
with the diminishing of traditional civil rights
through arbitrary unconstitutional phone tap-
ping and other practices connected with the
unconstitutional infringement of privacy that
civil rights groups are claiming constitutes State
espionage, and the unconstitutional diminution
Syst. Res.
of human rights by acts of torture to terrorist
suspects who are in any case incarcerated for
years without due legal process demanded by
law (Fresneda, 2006). Such abuses are perhaps
reminiscent of the witch hunts of the McCarthy
era. Collusion between the US and a number of
European democratic States (UK, Germany and
Spain) is suspected in the transporting of terrorist
suspects to their destination at torture venues
(Cobain, 2006), though it is still unclear if this is
the case, or whether the transporting of these
suspects was known only at lower levels of
administration from which the pathological
filtering upward of information failed, or turning
a deliberate blind eye or deaf ear.
This leads us to think about the nature of
modern democracies. Western nation sates are
sometimes referred to as plutocracies, comprised
of a government system where wealth creates a
significant basis for power. Three forms can be
identified: (i) influence of the wealthy, (ii)
oligarchy of the wealthy, and (iii) an economic
despotism. In its weaker form it may be seen as
creating a significant and undue influence of the
wealthy on the political process in contemporary
society. This influence can occur positively
through direct financial contributions (that some-
times may be construed as bribes) or indirectly by
accessing the influences held by the wealthy or
by encourage favourable legislation that might
better serve a social ethic if otherwise directed.
Another negative indirect pressure occurs when
antagonistic or non-cooperative behaviour
occurs. A stronger form of the notion of
plutocracy refers to the political control of the
state by an oligarchy of the wealthy. Indeed, in the
US it is hardly possible for political power to be
acquired without entering such an oligarchy,
constituted as political groupings that provide an
infrastructure designed to acquire and maintain
political power. Plutocracies typically operate a
governing system that is closely related to
aristocracy, with which wealth and high social
status have been closely associated throughout
history. When such plutocracies extend their
processes such that all substantive decisions that
reflect on the distribution of social goods to all its
population are determined through economic
criteria, then we are likely talking of an economic
RESEARCH PAPER
despotism, the strongest form of plutocracy. In
such governing despotisms all substantive forms
of social good, like education, health and
opportunity are conditioned by wealth, as would
appear to be the case in the US and to a lesser
extent in other Western countries. It is not
difficult to understand that there is a close
relationship between all forms of steering media
once commitment to this form of decision making
is made, since one offers direct access to the
others given opportunity and interest. For
instance money and power are often mostly
cited as steering media, and in China power
chases money while in the US it is money that
chases power. Despotisms, we note, are an
extension of authoritarian political ideologies,
and occur when political power and control
favours obedience to authority that may be
unrestricted by substantive legal or corporate
constitutional process.
CONCLUSION
Today, with the continuing drive to a global
economy, democratic governments are trying to
link more closely their public and private
corporations in an effort to make their infra-
structures more effective. This activity has been
referred to as centripetal politics that occurs with
a centrifugal (or complexifying) society. To do
this they look toward joint ventures that bind the
two types of organization together as public-
private partnerships (PPPs). This appears to
involve a tale of two cultures that requires
collaborations and the development of some
substantive degree of cultural connectivity.
However there is evidence that the ideological
and ethical differences that should extend from
such connectivity stand in the way of developing
infrastructures that can deliver the necessary
services effectively for social viability. While
some PPPs may appear to operate well, private
corporations have in general not demonstrated
that they can be totally trusted with public
projects. Before public corporations are able to
link with private corporations to service the
needs of public infrastructure, we must be totally
sure that their ethical and ideological position
RESEARCH PAPER
stands against their seemingly evidenced socio-
pathic behaviour. As a way of dealing with the
fundamental problems of PPPs, perhaps one
option is to seek social enterprises to run our
infrastructures, where their specific briefs are
informed by a public corporation parent, and
where they are unconditionally resourced by the
private corporation parent according to contract.
To give us some confidence that this is a feasible
option requires at least a strict dedication to
operational and political transparency.
This brings us to the ambient culture in which
prospective PPP partners find themselves. The
ambient culture of western democracies favours
decision making by steering media, and this is
not inconsistent with the culture of private
corporations. A manifestation of this culture is
that Western democracies tend to operate as
plutocracies, and the public corporations that
they set up to satisfy the provision of social
infrastructure tend to operate as ineffective
despotisms. Private corporations have a
tendency to operate sociopathically, this being
consistent with their ideological position and
egocentric attitudes.
An extreme form of plutocracy is economic
despotism that does nothing to assist the econ-
omically disadvantaged. Indeed any semantic
representation made by them is unlikely to have
any significant impact on executive decision
making where this is not supported by economic
interests. One of the strengths of economic
despotism appears to be its conformity to social
pragmatism: here free speech is a political process
that is publicly encouraged, while also being
ineffective where it does not coincide with
economic interest.
Given an ambient culture that commits to
steering media decision making, it seems that the
transition from one form of steering medium to
another is quite possible, given the right
conditions. It is the commitment to such decision
making process that is important, and thus
whether they occur in despotic environments
that are economic or political does not seem to be
too great a distinction, and is a function of
circumstance. In some social democracies the
shift to the use of power to make decisions is seen
to conform to an idea of ‘strong leadership’.
Syst. Res.
Such a steering media boundary shift appears
to be illustrated when, for instance, leaders take
power to make executive decisions that over-
come an inherent collective governing process.
Often such incursions into political despotism are
temporary, but they may be cemented in place
when constitutional processes can be argued to
be permanently overturned, or where consti-
tutions are altered to enable despotic processes to
be more easily supported.
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