Re: Limits to Growth

At 09:59 PM 04/24/2000 -0400, H. Mark Johnson wrote:

>> I have been working with and thinking about world systems since the 70s.
 I 
>> seek information: has anyone updated the computer scenarios featured in 
>> Dennis Meadows' and the Club of Rome's, Limits to Growth?  I have found
this 
>> a provocative book to use with students, but they are now pointing out
that 
>> the information is out of date. Please advise me as to updates or other 
>> sources which I might find useful in trying to understand global systems
and 
>> the future.
>> 

Here are some resources of interest to those studying global modeling
generally.

The Globus model : computer simulation of worldwide political and economic
developments / Stuart A. Bremer, editor; with a foreword by Karl W. Deutsch
Frankfurt am Main : Campus ; Boulder : Westview Press, 1987

Disarmament and development : a design for the future? / Stuart A. Bremer,
Barry B. Hughes.  Englewood Cliffs, N.J. : Prentice Hall, 1990.

World modeling : the Mesarovic-Pestel world model in the context of its
contemporaries / Barry B. Hughes.  Lexington, Mass. : Lexington Books, c1980

Growing artificial societies : social science from the bottom up / Joshua
M. Epstein, Robert Axtell.  Washington, D.C. : Brookings Institution Press,
c1996

Groping in the dark : the first decade of global modelling / Donella
Meadows, John Richardson, Gerhart Bruckmann.  Chichester [West Sussex] ;
New York : Wiley, 1982.

Tetworld Global Game and Peace Through Developent Project Web page at
http://members.tripod.com/~Tetworld/+index.html
(Inspired by the work of R. Buckminster Fuller).

Utopia or oblivion: the prospects for humanity [by] R. Buckminster Fuller
Toronto, New York, Bantam Books, 1969.

Santa Fe Institute Web page at http://www.santafe.edu/


I agree with Warren Wagar that much of the work in this area indicates a
general indifference to or naivete about politics.  Engineers who design
global models can be almost as annoying in their technocratic
fundamentalism as professional economists who design structural adjustment
programs : )  When the engineers and the economists butt heads, watch
out--there's nothing like an argument between two groups of people both of
whom think they are the only rational people on the planet! : )

There are, however, exceptions to this generalization.  The Globus model,
described in some of the work mentioned above, is one of the few attempts
to build politics into a simulation of the global economy.

Good luck.
--
Jeffrey L. Beatty
Doctoral Student
Department of Political Science
The Ohio State University
2140 Derby Hall
154 North Oval Mall
Columbus, Ohio 43210

(o) 614/292-2880
(h) 614/688-0567

Email:  Beatty.4@osu.edu
______________________________________________________   
'_Sapere aude_'--'have courage to use your own reason'
--this is the motto of Enlightenment--Immanuel Kant,
"What Is Enlightenment?"