Complexity Economics pp. 52-71
DOI:
Chapter 3: Consumers vs. Citizens: Social Inequality & Democracy in a Big-Data World
Introduction by William Tracy; Talk by Allison Stanger
Excerpt
Noting that liberal democracy optimizes human flourishing, Allison Stanger began her symposium talk by asserting that “democracy is a complex adaptive system under global siege.” The exploitation of Facebook and Google’s market-based openness by authoritarian regimes, and predictive analytics that treat individuals as consumers instead of citizens were two prime examples she cited in November 2019. Recent events have only emphasized the salience of Stanger’s warning; since the symposium, online discourse has distorted scientific insights about the spread of COVID-19, while foreign governments have used social media to manipulate opinions in advance of the 2020 US election.
Complexity science’s focus on nonlinear-interaction effects provides a useful lens for considering the ongoing impact of global technology platforms on democratic institutions. This emphasis on nonlinear interaction effects is also a hallmark of complexity economics. For example, Brian Arthur famously linked positive feedback loops to increasing returns and winner-take-most market outcomes. This phenomenon explains why a small number of technology-platform operators have amassed enormous market power. Another example is the generative mechanisms behind rugged solution landscapes; when the result of one decision is a function of other decisions, the mapping between outcomes and complete policies is rugged. Stuart Kauffman, John Miller, José Lobo, Mirta Galesic, and many other SFI researchers have explored the implications of rugged solution landscapes on economics, organizations, technology, and policy. Notably, this ruggedness makes it difficult for our institutions, laws, and norms to adapt to the new modes of communication facilitated by technology platforms.
The impact of technology platforms on liberal democracy depends not only on the platforms themselves, but also on the interactions between those platforms and the relevant institutions, laws, and social norms. In this context, institutions, laws, and social norms are often referred to as “social technologies.” The co-evolution of physical and social technologies has continued to be an active area of inquiry within the SFI community since this symposium.