INDEP online Talk with Kyle Thompson and James Macumber – Lessons of Cybernetics for Democratic Economic Planning

This event is part of the INDEPxMetaphorum Online Talk Series for Stafford Beer’s Centennial.

This event will take place in English.

The polycrisis of economic inequality, climate change, and widespread political instability has lead to many looking for new and viable alternatives. The current political and economic order of capitalism has shown itself to be incapable of addressing these existential threats to our society. The field of DEP argues that important decisions over production, reproduction, consumption, distribution, investment – and, indeed, about our lives in general – should be determined consciously and collectively via democratic processes rather than by state authorities or market forces.

The rapid growth in interest in democratic economic planning (DEP) over the past two years has given birth to a diversity of publications, policies, and initiatives. However, the discourse across continents has still remained isolated to a degree, preventing like-minded members of the DEP community from learning from each other and from the different approaches in development. Among the avenues of investigation which has not received an in-depth treatment are the fields of cybernetics and systems theory. This talk from Kyle Thompson (General Intellect Unit) and James Macumber will present the fundamentals of cybernetics in the context of economics with reference to modern examples and contemporary research. This talks’ aim is to demonstrate cybernetics’ continued relevance for DEP.

In order to participate, please register here.