A history of real-time information technlology, war, politics, commerce and the rise of the idea of organisational cybernetics.

Project Cybersyn was a Chilean project from 1971--1973 (during the government of President Salvador Allende) aimed at constructing a distributed decision support system to aid in the management of the national economy.

Project Cybersyn was based on Viable system model theory and a neural network approach to organizational design, and featured innovative technology for its time: it included a network of telex machines (Cybernet) in state-run enterprises that would transmit and receive information with the government in Santiago. Information from the field would be fed into statistical modeling software (Cyberstride) that would monitor production indicators (such as raw material supplies or high rates of worker absenteeism) in real time, and alert the workers in the first case, and in unnormal situations also the central government, if those parameters fell outside acceptable ranges.

In July 1971, Stafford Beer was contacted by Fernando Flores, then a high-level employee of the Chilean Production Development Corporation (CORFO), for advice on incorporating Beer's theories of cybernetics into the management of the newly nationalized sector of Chile's economy. Beer saw this as a unique opportunity to implement his ideas of cybernetic management on a national scale, and also sympathized with the stated ideals of Chilean socialism, which aimed to maintain Chile's democratic system and the autonomy of workers instead of imposing a Soviet-style system of top-down command and control. More than just offering advice, Beer stepped aside from most of his other consulting business and devoted a great deal of time to what became Project Cybersyn, [...] However, after the military coup on September 11, 1973, Cybersyn was abandoned and the operations room was destroyed.

Sources "IU professor analyzes Chile's 'Project Cybersyn'". UI News Room. Retrieved 27 May 2013. Project Cybersyn | varnelis.net Eden Medina (2011). Cybernetic Revolutionaries: Technology and Politics in Allende's Chile, 1st edn. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press. ISBN 978-0-262-01649-0. section 4, p. 121 Eden Medina (2006). "Designing Freedom, Regulating a Nation: Socialist Cybernetics in Allende's Chile". J. Lat. Amer. Stud. (Cambridge University Press) (38): 571--606. doi:10.1017/S0022216X06001179.

www.rootandthorn.soup.io

80 min. Root and Thorn - Realease-year unknown. By Ganix Naston, Zoe Pavlovitch, Harun Krasna

Interview with workers from worker owned company Loomio that makes decision making software used by organizations, unions, collectives etc. from what I get based around direct democracy.

Although I'm not a big fan of software solutions to social problems, I liked this podcast because it talks about organizing and managing software production and applying VSM(viable system model). And in general, General Intellect Unit has interesting podcast episodes.

This is a Manual. Its objectives are: firstly, to provide you with a set of tools which will enable you to deal with any problems concerning your organisational structure, and secondly, to show you how to use these tools. It offers an alternative to the usual approach which depends upon hierarchy, authority and obedience, and is of particular interest to enterprises which are looking for ways of becoming more efficient and of encouraging participation and democratic work practices. As the manual unfolds, you will gradually acquire a new vocabulary. This new language is the basis of the Viable Systems Model approach: it will enable you to think about your organisation in a fundamentally different way. The methods described will enable you to Diagnose your own organisation. Prescribe ways of dealing with inadequacies. Design a healthy organisation from scratch.

Mathematics to plan an economy Introduction to cyber-socialist calculus

This small book is nice to give some introduction on economics planing. So far I read it's mostly central planing, but it should provide good intro if you wanna study economic planing and make it decentralized/distributed.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/37176575

Anyone studying anarchist cybernetics ? Or like some form of anarchist economics/planning ?

I general how would market be abolished in anarchist society, and what steps can be taken now to go towards that goal ?