Contributions to anarchist-cybernetics, identifying committee directorates in Errico Malatesta's theory: content analysis using dynamic causal diagrams and viable system modelling
ISSN: 0368-492X
Article publication date: 23 March 2023
Issue publication date: 13 March 2024
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this research is to increase academic understanding of the relationship between systems' political identity and their viability, and to contribute to anarchist-cybernetics by examining the idea of organization proposed by Malatesta using Viable Systems. The research also develops the understanding of the relationship between Viable Systems and the environment.
Design/methodology/approach
The author developed a content analysis method that uses dynamic analysis, identifying how some variables affect others, and data is analysed using the Viable Systems Model. The author used Dynamic Causal Diagrams and the Viable System Model to draw conclusions and build theory. The author examined 137 documents produced by Errico Malatesta, studying in detail 39 documents containing the researched concepts.
Findings
The article identifies the literature, proposes an organizational theory for society and for cooperatives, strongly grounded in both, self-management and control. It presents a theory of self-management as a balancing effort to the control exercised by the external economic, political and societal forces of the environment. The literature also shows a form of organization that can be interpreted using the VSM framework. The ideas about self-management found in the literature, extend to economics, social theory, ethics, organizations, management and even operations management. The article finishes proposing a set of committees linked to the VSM structure, and successfully bridges anarchism and organizational cybernetics.
Originality/value
The article presents a novel method of systems analysis for the study of literature. It discovers the theory proposed by Malatesta not identified previously. Using the VSM framework, the ideas presented by the author, are translated into the organizational identity, and the operation of cooperatives. It makes an important contribution to anarchist-cybernetics.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
The author would like to thank the contribution of PhD Jon Walker to this article, by reviewing the content of this paper and orienting the adequate interpretation of the VSM, for sharing his knowledge and experience in cooperativism, and ensuring the final version of this article is of the standards of the journal. The author also thanks the blind peer reviewers who contributed voluntarily and substantially to the improvement of this paper.
Funding: This work has not received any funding.
Citation
Osejo-Bucheli, C. (2024), "Contributions to anarchist-cybernetics, identifying committee directorates in Errico Malatesta's theory: content analysis using dynamic causal diagrams and viable system modelling", Kybernetes, Vol. 53 No. 4, pp. 1567-1592. https://doi.org/10.1108/K-07-2022-0944
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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