This is a common understanding of self-regulation, but really it's doublespeak. A system is self-regulating if and only if it possesses the capacity to control its state in entirety. I contend that, as an extension to Ashby's law, a system can only self-regulate if its regulatory overhead is zero. Ashby's law roughly states that only variety consumes variety, or, in order to control a system with a certain amount of variety, the control system must have at least as much variety. For system X to control system Y, V(X) >= V(Y). However, this reading is somewhat naïve, as the system X actually "spends" some of its variety on regulating system Y. We can call this the "regulatory overhead", and it is roughly equal to V(Y) in the trivial case: Unless the regulation of a system is the intent of the system, its purpose will be less well served by the regulation. So, it stands to reason that if a system X is self-regulating, then one of these will follow: - X's sole purpose is self-regulation (i.e., it's a trivial self-regulating system) - X does not manage to capture its entire variety, meaning that it is only partially self-regulating. - X's regulatory overhead is zero. What does it mean, when the regulatory overhead is zero, then? It means that either V(X) = 0, or, that all of the regulatory work produces beneficial byproducts. i.e., the system, by virtue of self-regulation, achieves other goals as well. Whether this is possible, I do not know. I have not yet seen a self-regulating system. The universe expands and cools, the human body whithers and dies. However, a town can be governed by a state, which can be governed by the laws of physics. There is sufficient variety in the Universe that it cools slowly - its velocity of deregulation is low. Self-regulating markets then either have accomplished zero regulatory overhead, or, they yield no nontrivial results (zero surprisal; 0 bits of information output), or, they are leaking variety, in the sense that they are not actually stable, but are deregulating at some rate. d(R(X))/dX > 0 Just thinking out loud... - Smári On 06/20/2011 07:31 PM, Apostolis Xekoukoulotakis wrote:
I think by self-regulated he means that the government doesnt regulate the markets. He goes on to show that self-regulation is in fact regulation by few corporations, thus the free market is only a myth. He then goes to explain why free market proponents have promoted the idea that the state job is only that of 'punishing' those who do not abide by the rules, and have withheld the true nature of the economy. That is what i understood by reading the synopsis.
2011/6/20 Samuel Rose <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>>
On Mon, Jun 20, 2011 at 3:18 AM, Michel Bauwens <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: > a recent book on the myth of free self-regulating markets, from the > University of Chicago of all places: > > basic thesis: self-regulation is always done for the benefit of the few ... > > but the larger question is: have their ever been, apart from illegal > markets, self-regulated markets? nearly all market activities are incredibly > embedded in institutional regulations, norms, etc .. > > if indeed self-regulated markets are few and far between, then the question > is more: what kind of regulations, and who produces and controls the > regulations and the regulators, >
Can you talk some more about what you mean exactly by "self-regulating"? How do I identify a "self-regulated" market?
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