Overtime Episode 42 - Cybernetics and Labor - Finale (Patreon)

For our eighth and final episode (for now) in our series on the basics of Cybernetics and how it relates to the labor movement, we finally explore the details of Stafford Beer's Viable Systems Model (VSM). John walks us through the various subsystems of Beer's model for analyzing organizations, and we discuss examples of how the model would apply to an individual human being, a labor union, and even an entire nation. We discuss the various key features of organization this form of analysis reveals, like the importance of devolving at least some management functions to the lowest level parts of the system, or in the case of a union, democratically empowering each and every member.

Reference List: https://docs.google.com/document/d/137zcJZfHd5GUgY0b5KS34iGBWqULm1K6nZ46DzxWKUQ/edit?usp=sharing