BCSSS

International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics

2nd Edition, as published by Charles François 2004 Presented by the Bertalanffy Center for the Study of Systems Science Vienna for public access.

About

The International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics was first edited and published by the system scientist Charles François in 1997. The online version that is provided here was based on the 2nd edition in 2004. It was uploaded and gifted to the center by ASC president Michael Lissack in 2019; the BCSSS purchased the rights for the re-publication of this volume in 200?. In 2018, the original editor expressed his wish to pass on the stewardship over the maintenance and further development of the encyclopedia to the Bertalanffy Center. In the future, the BCSSS seeks to further develop the encyclopedia by open collaboration within the systems sciences. Until the center has found and been able to implement an adequate technical solution for this, the static website is made accessible for the benefit of public scholarship and education.

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W Y Z

DIMINISHING RETURNS (Law of) to scale 1)2)

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K. BOULDING, having explained the relation between growth and structuration, explains why "the size of the structure itself is limited by its inability to compensate for the non-proportional changes" which is "the basic principle which underlies the law of eventually diminishing returns to scale".

Indeed, more and more communications, regulation and control structures are needed as the system grows, in order to maintain its coherence. These functions and structures, while essential for the transportation and allotment of resources, are not directly productive. Quite the contrary, they use up resources which are diverted from the productive functions.

BOULDING concludes that: "… these structural limitations bring the growth of the organization to an end" (1956, p.66-75).

Moreover, the excess of complexity, at least in human organizations, leads to a certain internal disconnection and the appearance of subsystems which in some cases, end up in an almost parasitical situation (for example authoritarian, uncontrolable and sterilizing bureaucracies).

H. ODUM sees that the law applies in complex systems: "… where the several flows of necessary inputs have a multiplicative action on the input flow. As any one factor is increased, it gradually passes through its limiting range to a plateau as other members of the flow become limiting" (1971, p.187).

As an example, D. PIMENTEL applied the concept to energy subsidized agriculture (not always direct, clearly visible, nor perceived) and shown its final limits (1977).

Categories

  • 1) General information
  • 2) Methodology or model
  • 3) Epistemology, ontology and semantics
  • 4) Human sciences
  • 5) Discipline oriented

Publisher

Bertalanffy Center for the Study of Systems Science(2020).

To cite this page, please use the following information:

Bertalanffy Center for the Study of Systems Science (2020). Title of the entry. In Charles François (Ed.), International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics (2). Retrieved from www.systemspedia.org/[full/url]

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