SYSTEMS HAVE never really had a good press. They seem to suggest
that there is more order and reason in the world than any of us is ready
to admit and able to account for. The idea of systems in itself seems to
favour those in the world who seek ways to control and methods to monitor
it. Many people think that hidden links must exist between the notion of
system on the one hand and the notion of organization on the other, and not
just any organization, but a peculiarly bureaucratic and Tayloristic one. The
reason for this is that systems are supposed to organize things in a way that
is alien to these things and that they are moreover able to achieve that
organization by an awkward, both Hegelian and Darwinian combination of
reason and natural selection.
