I use the term "crank" affectionately. The figure below is a valiant effort by Arthur O. Dahlberg to depict the "socio-economic process" as a network of troughs, pipes and valves. Even this elaborate contraption is confined to "the movement of the major social variables."
Dahlberg believed that his chart technique communicated his analysis more effectively than words could. What the chart communicates to me, besides Dahlberg's intense commitment is "it's complicated" and "everything is connected to everything else." That's not nothing.
3 comments:
Yes, I appreciate this and reading about Dahlberg was fun so thank you for these posts and this diagram especially. Now I have to figure out a significance beyond just the fun. Say, apply this to work on ecology but that is routine now. Economic planning? I am thinking...
So what do we do with all the simple models?
Maybe I'm extra weird, but I always found Phillips' hydraulic model of the economy (MONIAC) very intuitive.
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