Systems Research and Behavioral Science

Syst. Res. 32, 522–533 (2015)

Published online in Wiley Online Library
(wileyonlinelibrary.com) DOI: 10.1002/sres.2354

■ Research Paper

General Systems Theory: Its Present and

Potential†
David Rousseau1,2,3,4,5*
1
Centre for Systems Philosophy, Surrey, UK
2
Centre for Systems Studies, Business School, University of Hull, Hull, East Yorkshire, UK
3
Bertalanffy Center for the Study of Systems Science, Vienna, Austria
4
Centre for Spirituality Studies, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, University of Hull, Hull, East Yorkshire, UK
5
Religious Experience Research Centre, School of Theology, Religious Studies and Islamic Studies, University of
Wales Trinity Saint David, Lampeter, Ceredigion, UK

In the first part of this paper, I present a brief overview of contemporary research address-
ing key questions about General Systems Theory (GST), such as what it is, what form it
might take, whether developing it is a realistic prospect, how close we are to having it
and what practical activities could help us develop it further. In the second part, I consider
the early general systemists’ ambition to leverage GST to build a ‘better world’, and
address the question of what could be meant by this, from a systems perspective. I argue
that GST should have a key role in working towards such a world. Copyright © 2015 John
Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Keywords general system theory; GST*; General Systems Worldview; Maslow’s hierarchy of
needs; transdisciplinarity

INTRODUCTION a ‘better world’, has always been at the core of

The Original Vision for a General Systems
Transdiscipline
The ambition to develop a ‘general systems the-
ory’ (GST), and the vision to leverage it to build
* Correspondence to: David Rousseau, Centre for Systems Philosophy,
30 Leigh Close, Addlestone, Surrey, KT15 1EL, UK.
E-mail: david.rousseau@systemsphilosophy.org
†
The Ludwig von Bertalanffy Memorial Lecture delivered at the an-
nual conference of the International Society for the Systems Sciences,
Washington, DC, July 2014, was presented as twinned presentations
by Peter Caws and David Rousseau, under the joint title ‘General Sys-
tems Theory: Past, Present and Potential’. This paper represents David
Rousseau’s contribution reflecting on the present and potential of Gen-
eral Systems Theory.
the International Society for the Systems Sciences
(ISSS). The ISSS originated in 1954 as the Society
for the Advancement of General Systems Theory
and was incorporated in 1956 as the Society for
General Systems Research (SGSR). The founders
of the general systems movement believed
that a GST could be developed and used to
support interdisciplinary communication and
cooperation, facilitate scientific discoveries in
disciplines that lack exact theories, promote
the unity of knowledge and help to bridge the
divide between the object-oriented and the
subject-oriented disciplines (von Bertalanffy,
1972, pp. 413,423–424; Laszlo, 1974, pp. 15–16,

Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Syst. Res.
19; Rapoport, 1976; Hammond, 2003, p. 247).
This involved an ambition to establish a sys-
tems discipline that would be scientific, would
advance science as a whole and would help
make scientific research more effective and
more efficient. However, their motivation in this
was not a value-free pursuit of knowledge but
instead was driven by very deep ethical consid-
erations: they believed that our civilization was
at risk due to looming human, social and envi-
ronmental crises and saw the development and
application of GST as a strategy and action plan
for averting such disasters and for opening up
a pathway towards a ‘better world’ (von
Bertalanffy, 1964, pp. 496–498; Laszlo, 1972a;
Rapoport, 1974, p. 247; Hofkirchner, 2005, p. 1;
Hofkirchner and Schafranek, 2011, p. 192;
Pouvreau, 2014, p. 180).
GENERAL SYSTEMS RESEARCH TODAY
The challenges facing general systems research
The crises anticipated by the founders are now
upon us, but a powerful and integrating systems
transdiscipline remains elusive (Dubrovsky,
2004; Francois, 2007; Adams et al., 2014). Since
the 1950s, systems researchers have developed
dozens of theories centered on specific aspects
of systemic behaviours and structures and
hundreds of methods informed by the systems
paradigm. However, these developments have
fragmented the systems community into a diver-
sity of specializations, traditions and domains of
discourse (Flood and Robinson, 1989, p. 63;
Midgley, 2003, p. xvii; Francois, 2004, p. 248;
Troncale, 2009, p. 553).
The ongoing fragmentation of the systems
community, and the historical lack of progress to-
wards establishing a GST, casts a long shadow
over the vision of discovering and developing a
unifying general systems transdiscipline that
can efficiently and effectively support the build-
ing of a ‘better world’. It is fair now to question
just what is meant by ‘GST’, whether developing
it is a realistic prospect, how close we are to
having it, what practical activities could help us
develop it further, whether it really has the
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General Systems Theory
RESEARCH PAPER
potential foreseen for it and what is meant, in
the context of this potential, by a ‘better’ world.
These are hard questions, but happily recent
times have seen a renewal of interest in the devel-
opment of a GST; an upsurge in efforts to bring
GST to bear on a range of different academic
inquiries; and a revival of discussions about the
nature, scope and potential of GST. Overviews
of these efforts can be found in Drack and
Schwarz (2010) and Rousseau and Wilby (2014).
In this section, I will briefly review current work
towards answering the ‘hard questions’ about
the nature, possibility, developmental prospects
and overall potential of GST.
What is ‘GST’?
Significant work has recently been carried out to
disambiguate the meaning of the term ‘GST’,
and this has cast new light on ways to develop
it further. The term ‘GST’ was ambiguous from
the outset, having about two dozen different
interpretations even in the works of von
Bertalanffy himself, including a foundational
theory about universal systems principles (von
Bertalanffy, 1956, p. 37), a discipline aiming to
formulate that theory (von Bertalanffy, 1969,
p. 32) and a disciplinary field encompassing the
sciences, applications and worldviews informed
by that foundational theory (von Bertalanffy,
1969, pp. xix–xxiii). A recent discussion of the
problems this ambiguity presents, and proposed
solutions to it, can be found in Wilby et al.
(2015) and Rousseau et al. (2015). For present pur-
poses, it is sufficient to focus on von Bertalanffy’s
original proposal of a foundational theory of
‘universal principles applying to systems in
general’ that represents principles underlying
systemic structures and behaviours that recur iso-
morphically across different specialized disci-
plines (‘isomorphies’). My colleagues and I have
proposed calling this theory GST* (pronounced
as ‘g-s-t-star’) to distinguish it from other uses of
the term ‘GST’ (Rousseau et al., 2015).
GST* lies at the core of the ambitions of the
general systems movement, but what form
would it take? This has been very unclear right
from the start (Troncale, 1984, p. 7; Flood and
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Robinson, 1989, p. 63; Francois, 2007; Adams
et al., 2014, p. 112). Kenneth Boulding’s classic pa-
per ‘General Systems Theory, the Skeleton of
Science’ (Boulding, 1956a) proposed two possi-
bilities. First, a ‘low ambition, high confidence’
strategy merely aimed for the set of theories
and models pertaining to recurring systemic
structures or behaviours. These theories model
what von Bertalanffy called ‘isomorphies’ and
as a set represent what we now call ‘the Sys-
temics’. Systems philosopher Mario Bunge is a
strong advocate of the view that this is all ‘GST’
could ever amount to (Bunge, 1979, p. 1, 2014,
p. 8). Second, Boulding proposed a ‘high ambi-
tion, low confidence’ strategy, which aimed at a
‘spectrum’ of systems theories forming a ‘gestalt’
for wider theory construction, in the same way
that the periodic table of elements served the
field of Chemistry (Boulding, 1956a, p. 198). If
such a theory existed, it would be very powerful,
serving as a unifying theory for the systems field,
in the same way that that the theories of
Mendeleev, Darwin, Newton and Lyell unified
previously disparate disciplines under a common
conceptual and explanatory framework and
rapidly opened up new routes to scientific dis-
covery. This vision has inspired recent research
by Julie Billingham that has helpfully sharpened
our ideas of what such a GST* would involve
(Billingham, 2014a, 2014b, 2015).
Billingham suggests that Boulding’s analogy
with Chemistry was apt but that he did not de-
velop it far enough and misjudged some of its
implications. She argues that the unifying theory
of Chemistry consists of three components,
namely, a general model of the ‘architecture’ of
an atom, principles regarding the instantiation
of real atoms (e.g. the sequence in which orbitals
are populated with electrons) and finally, the
periodic table of chemical elements that results
from applying such rules to the general model.
By analogy, we should expect GST* to consist of
a general model of a system, universal rules
governing the instantiation of ‘elemental sys-
tems’ and then a ‘gestalt’ that shows how the
‘elemental systems’ (which Billingham calls
‘elemental system archetypes’) relate to each
other. A key observation is that the ‘elemental
system archetypes’ represent kinds of systemic
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behaviours, and hence relate to the Systemics,
rather than kinds of systems in a complexity
hierarchy, as Boulding seems to suggest. The dis-
tinction between ‘elemental systems archetypes’
and ‘kinds of systems’ is similar to the distinction
between chemical elements (of which there
are relatively few) and kinds of chemical sub-
stances (of which there is a vast array). From this
refined analogy, she is now able to suggest ways
forward with developing GST* in a systematic
way and proposes that this will lead to a princi-
pled foundation for discovering new Systemics
representing novel kinds of system structures
and system behaviours, just as the discovery of
the first partial periodic table suggested the
existence of previously unsuspected chemical
elements (Billingham, 2015).
Billingham, however, also points out a key
limitation of the ‘chemical’ metaphor, in that
it relates to a purely physical system, whereas
the kinds of systems for which we have to
find a general model and general principles
can exhibit many properties that are mysteri-
ous from the perspective of physical science,
in particular the subjective or intentional
kinds of properties illustrated in Figure 1. In-
tentionality (also called ‘aboutness’) is the
property of being directed at or about some-
thing else—and mental states are typically
like this, for example, a wish is for something,
anger is about something and belief is that
something is the case. It is the intentionality
of ideas that give them the capability of being
true or false about the nature of the world.
The subjectivity and intentionality of some
Figure 1 Kinds of properties systems can exhibit
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David Rousseau
Syst. Res.
mental states appear to be inexplicable in
terms of the properties of physical matter,
which are objective and reflexive.
A GST* is anticipated to bridge the divide be-
tween the object-oriented and subject-oriented
disciplines, but a purely physical analogy such
as Boulding’s provides no confidence that this
can be carried out in practice or any idea of what
form it might take.
Can a GST* exist in principle?
The lack of progress in general systems research,
and doubts and concerns raised by researchers
such as Bunge and Billingham, fairly raises ques-
tions about whether a GST* can exist in principle.
Recent studies have developed arguments for
the in principle existence of a GST* (e.g. Wilby
et al., 2015), but this argument hinges on the
validity of the metaphysical tenets adopted by
the early general systemists. These tenets are
discussed in Hofkirchner and Rousseau (2015)
and Wilby et al. (2015). The philosophical frame-
work of the ‘Bertalanffy Circle’ was scientific,
naturalistic and realistic but also moderate (crit-
ical) and not physicalistic (see succeeding text
for an explanation). Such views have been
unpopular in mainstream Social Sciences and
Humanities both then and since, but they are
starting to emerge as credible views in main-
stream academic thinking across the academic
spectrum (Psillos, 1999; Ellis, 2002; Glennan,
2010; Hooker, 2011; Illari et al., 2011; Archer,
2013; Craver and Darden, 2013; Mingers, 2014).
This provides some confidence that the
‘Bertalanffy project’ aimed at developing a GST*
is feasible after all.
Briefly, the philosophical position of the early
general systemists can be summarized in a sim-
plified way in terms of seven tenets. These tenets
are here stated in contemporary philosophical
terms, but they have precursors scattered across
the early systemists’ publications as follows:
T1. Moderate epistemological realism. We can
progressively gain more and more complete
knowledge of the real world (von Bertalanffy,
1955, pp. 258–259; Bunge, 1973, p. 28).
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General Systems Theory
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T2. Moderate ontological realism. A real concrete
world underlies some of our experiences (but
experiences can also be distorted, constructed
or hallucinated) (Bunge, 1977, p. 16 (M1)).
T3. Broad naturalism. All changes have propor-
tionate causes, but concrete phenomena
cannot all be reduced to Physics (von
Bertalanffy, 1955, pp. 261–262).
T4. Moderate systemic realism. The concrete
world is inherently systemic (but we can also
project systemicity onto our experienced
world) (Bunge, 1973, pp. 30–31).
T5. Systemic universalism. Every concrete thing
(i.e. everything that has causal powers) is
always a real system or part of one (Bunge,
1979, p. 44,245).
T6. Moderate axiological realism. Values are
largely constructed via cultural processes,
but natural systemic principles also influ-
ence them (Boulding, 1956b; Rapoport,
1973, p. 247).
T7. Moderate praxeological realism. We have the
capacity and freedom for uncoerced choices
and actions, but our choices and actions can
also be conditioned by natural and cultural
factors (Rapoport, 1953; von Bertalanffy,
1967, p. 114).
These tenets jointly support the view that, in
principle, a GST* can be developed, in the follow-
ing way. If we assume that a real concrete world
exists (T2), that we can have a scientific model of
it (T1 and T3) and that there are real systems in
the concrete world (T4), then by implication, there
can be a scientific theory that can model the sys-
temic aspects of the concrete world. Granted this,
if we assume that all concrete properties are
conditioned by systemic processes (T5), it follows
that there could be a scientific theory about
systemicity that could apply everywhere and al-
ways. Hence, a GST* can exist (Wilby et al., 2015).
This argument goes beyond a mere ‘possibility
of existence’ claim, because if GST* is to be a the-
ory involving principles that can be applied
everywhere and always, then it would have the
same ubiquity and utility as general ‘Laws of Na-
ture’ such as the Conservation of Energy and the
General Theory of Relativity. Discovering and
developing a GST* could thus be of profound
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significance for science. Not only that, but under
these tenets, GST* would also have implications
that go beyond those usually associated with
Laws of Nature, just as the early general
systemists proposed. First, if values are systemi-
cally conditioned in a naturalistic way (T6), then
GST* would be relevant in both naturalistic and
humanistic contexts. Second, if we have agency
and free will (T7), then we can use our knowledge
and our values to make a difference to how things
turn out, so we can in practice use the insights pro-
vided by GST* to change how the world evolves.
The tenets on which these arguments depend
are historically controversial but increasingly less
so, suggesting that the vision for developing a
GST* may have been ahead of its time at the
founding of the SGSR, but its time may now be
at hand.
How could a GST* be discovered?
Believing that a GST* could, in principle, exist does
not tell us how to discover one. Unfortunately, von
Bertalanffy and his ‘circle’ had limited practical
ideas about how to go about discovering it
(Troncale, 1984, p. 7; Checkland, 1999, p. 93;
Dubrovsky, 2004, p. 110; Pouvreau, 2014, p. 180),
and little progress has been made since their
day. The most well-developed work towards de-
veloping a GST* is probably that of Len Troncale,
but this is focused on identifying isomorphies and
working out the relationships between them
(Troncale, 1978; Friendshuh and Troncale, 2012),
so it is still some way away from working out
the principles behind the isomorphies and the
gestalt of the elemental systems archetypes they
predicate.
However, I have recently been working with
colleagues to revisit and expand an argument
originally from Ervin Laszlo about the relation-
ship between GST* and the General Systems
Worldview (GSW) (Laszlo, 1972b), and this ex-
poses a significant opportunity to make progress
with GST* as a by-product of a very doable pro-
ject aimed at articulating the GSW (this is work
is in progress). Laszlo’s (1972b) insight, which
provided the foundation of his systems philoso-
phy, is summarized in Figure 2 (GST* and the
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526
Syst. Res.
GSW are indicated in red in the online version
of this paper).
As Laszlo explains, the existence of special-
ized disciplines (Physics, Chemistry, Genetics,
Sociology, etc.) shows that the concrete
world is organized into intelligible domains.
The Systemics, by revealing patterns of sys-
temic structure or systemic behaviour that
recur isomorphically across these domains,
cumulatively show that the concrete world is
intelligibly organized as a whole. This global
organization is reflected in the principles and
models of GST*. The existence of global orga-
nizing principles entails that the concrete
world’s special domains (as characterized by
the specialized disciplines) are contingent ex-
pressions or arrangements or projections of a
unified underlying intelligibly ordered reality
(Laszlo, 1972a, p. 19). In this way, Laszlo
argued that the possible existence (in principle)
of GST* implies that there is an intrinsically
ordered, and hence unified, reality underlying
Nature (designated here by the ‘General Systems
Ontology (GSO)’ in Figure 2).
On the basis of this important inference, we
can now go further and point out that the content
of GST* would provide an abstract model of the
systemic nature of this concrete underlying real-
ity (designated here by the ‘General Systems
Metaphysics’ (GSM) in Figure 2).
In this light, the metaphysical nature of the
underlying reality provides the conditions for
the manifestation of systemic structures and
behaviours encountered in the specialized disci-
plines, because their phenomena are all grounded
in a unified reality that is systemic in nature. This
does not entail that the specialized disciplines
will in due course be subsumed under an all-
embracing systems science and systems philoso-
phy, but only that the systemic aspects of what
each discipline studies can be understood in a
consistent way.
An interesting further implication of this
inference is that the worldviews of the special-
ized disciplines will, as science advances, move
towards consilience with respect to their
ontological and metaphysical commitments.
Of course, worldviews involve more than
ontology and metaphysics and also encompass
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Figure 2 The relationship between GST* and the General Systems Worldview
epistemology, cosmology, axiology and praxeol-
ogy. The requirement that worldviews be
internally consistent entails that these other
worldview components will also evolve in ways
that bring them into consilience with the GSO
and GSM. In this way, we can expect to see the
emergence of a set of consilient foundational com-
mitments in each of these areas. Taken together,
these assumptions and models then constitute
the GSW.
In this light, the specialized disciplines will
have GST* and the GSW in common as involving
principles and tenets that they can all in principle
agree to but continue to have scientific and philo-
sophical models that reflect the unique contin-
gencies of their specializations.
These conclusions carry important implica-
tions for the development of GST* and its associ-
ated transdiscipline. First, if we had such a GST*
and a GSW, their respective discourse domains
would contribute significantly to the transdisci-
plinary language envisaged by the founders of
the SGSR, because they would capture concepts
and principles of universal utility. This linguistic
and conceptual framework would support the
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making of new discoveries across the disciplines,
because it applies equally to the physical, social
and human disciplines.
Second, although the route to discovering
GST* in a direct way remains obscure, this is
not the case for GSW, because such a project
has the foundational discoveries of all the
specialized disciplines to draw on. However,
given the correlation between GST* and GSW,
we can expect that work towards distilling a
GSW from the findings of the specialized disci-
plines will expose principles belonging to GST*,
because we would encounter their consequences
in all the specialized disciplines. In fact, such
discoveries have already emerged from my
own research, although they have not been pub-
lished yet.
THE POTENTIAL OF GST*
The contemporary work towards a GST*
discussed so far gives some cause for optimism
that significant progress towards a GST* is now
possible. But what would the value of this be?
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What would GST* contribute to human knowl-
edge and human welfare that could not be
achieved by just pushing ahead with doing scien-
tific research in the traditional way?
The founders believed that GST* would sig-
nificantly contribute to the competence and
scope of science by inaugurating an era of sys-
temic innovation that could be leveraged to
build a ‘better world’. In this context, it is in-
structive to reflect on the history of systemic
innovation so far, and on what could be meant,
from a systems perspective, by the notion of a
‘better world’. I will propose an argument sug-
gesting that developing GST* (and its concrete
correlate the GSW) is crucial to the develop-
ment of systemic innovations needed to
support the building of a systemically healthy
world.
Advances in systems science, thinking and
practice
Even without a well-developed GST*, many im-
portant systemic innovations have been devel-
oped (Midgley, 2000, pp. 187–211; Reynolds and
Holwell, 2010, pp. 10–11), and systems science,
thinking and practice (SSTP) has made very pos-
itive contributions to many areas of human con-
cern (Hammond, 2005, p. 20). As Midgley (2000,
2003) explains, these innovations can be charac-
terized in terms of the following three waves
of SSTP,
• The ‘hard systems’ wave that originated in the
1950s. It addresses technical problems and is
earmarked by a perceived unity of purpose.
• The ‘soft systems’ wave that originated in the
1970s. It deals with social and organizational
problems and is earmarked by issues around
perspectives on people and their perspectives
on issues.
• The ‘critical systems’ wave that originated in
the 1980s. It deals with human problems
such as emancipation and is focused on
how power relations affect how problems
are perceived and addressed. This wave also
brought together methods from the first two
waves to create a more pluralist, flexible
and responsive SSTP.
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Examples of theories and methods associated
with each wave are given in Figure 3.
Three things stand out when considering this
list. First, these innovations were not driven by
General Systems Research but by independent
work in other areas. This is of course unsurpris-
ing given the nascent state of the general systems
discipline, but it does raise the question of how
things might be different in the future if strong
progress towards a GST* could be made. Second,
no new waves have originated since the 1980s, a
third of a century ago. While the popularity of
complexity science in the 1990s could conceivably
be seen as a fourth wave, there are good argu-
ments against this view: complexity science has
origins in first wave writings (e.g. Weaver, 1948)
and has since expanded to encompass very simi-
lar ideas to the three waves mentioned earlier,
suggesting that the paradigm breaks that took
decades to reach fruition in the systems
sciences have simply been reinvented within
the discourse of complexity science, but in a
shorter period of time (Midgley and Richardson,
2007). Could progress with a GST* help to initi-
ate new waves of SSTP? Third, there is no
established framework for what spurred on the
past waves and hence what might inspire new
ones. This raises again the question of whether
there can be systematic criteria for the ‘better
world’ anticipated by the early systemists, and
how GST* might help us transition towards it.
Proposal for a systems model of a ‘better world’
I have suggested earlier that GST* is not only a
viable prospect but also that contemporary work
is likely to make significant progress with it in the
near future. I would now like to propose a model
giving criteria for the notion of a ‘better world’
and discuss how GST* can support the emer-
gence of such a ‘better world’.
The founders worked towards various kinds of
social goods, such as human dignity, meaningful
lives, international co-operation and environ-
mental stewardship, but these sentiments were
never articulated in terms of a systemic vision.
In recent times, these loose ideas have been re-
placed by a more integrated vision expressed
via ISSS conference themes advocating work
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Figure 3 Waves of Systems Science, Thinking and Practice, after Midgley (2000)
towards enabling global thrivability, but here too,
there remains a need for a comprehensive vision
of what this specifically entails and how this
can be achieved by developing and leveraging
the systems sciences.
Many organizations operating on multi-national
scales have expressed goals that can be taken as
specific desiderata relevant to the progress of
human civilization. Examples are as follows.
(1) The United Nations’ 1948 Universal Declara-
tion of Human Rights includes rights to life,
liberty, security, own property, freedom, dig-
nity, justice, a nationality, marriage, have a
family, social participation, personality devel-
opment, education, quality of life, enjoy art,
culture and scientific progress.
(2) The 2004 Preamble of the European Constitution
lists commitments to prosperity, security, de-
mocracy, solidarity, justice, freedom, equality,
learning, culture, peace and social progress.
(3) The International Council on Systems Engi-
neering’s 2014 document, Systems Engineering
Vision 2025, lists the human and societal
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needs that give rise to engineering challenges
as needs for food and shelter, clean water,
healthy physical environment, access to
health care, access to information, communi-
cation and education, transportation and
mobility, economic security and equity, and
security and safety (INCOSE, 2014, pp. 2–3).
These lists all seem to target broadly similar
considerations, but do not rank them or say any-
thing about their interdependencies. I would like
to suggest that the ‘hierarchy of needs’ devel-
oped by Abraham Maslow could be adapted for
this purpose. Maslow proposed that people
strive to fulfill their needs in a particular se-
quence, prioritizing lower ones over higher ones.
A version of this, based especially on his 1954
book, Motivation and Personality, is given in
Figure 4.
Maslow’s ‘hierarchy of needs’ was intended as
a model of individual personal needs, and it did
not say anything about the notion of a ‘better
world’. Also, it can be challenged as a universally
applicable model due to its sample bias and the
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Figure 4 Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs (adapted from
Maslow, 1954)
small study population (Wahba and Bridwell,
1976; Soper et al., 1995). However, if used with
care, it can be employed to represent a scale of
values of more general validity. Examples are as
follows.
(1) The ‘individual’ whose needs are being
modeled can be determined contextually, so
that ‘individuals’ can be families, villages,
communities, tribes or nations, as well as indi-
vidual citizens, and these boundaries can shift
contextually (Hofstede, 1984; Pinzón and
Midgley, 2000; Tang et al., 2002; Gambrel and
Cianci, 2003).
(2) The satisfaction criteria can be weighted differ-
ently for different individuals within a commu-
nity, for example, based on age and profession
(Goebel and Brown, 1981; Tutor, 1986).
By taking care to not interpret Maslow’s model
too rigidly, we can use it, at least provisionally,
to set criteria for a better world, by proposing
that the world is ‘better’ if more ‘individuals’
(broadly construed) have opportunities to
move up the hierarchy of needs. Under such a
Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
530
Syst. Res.
perspective, we can then treat these criteria as
values for how the global community provides
for the needs of ‘individuals’. Interestingly, we
can then identify an alignment between these in-
dividual needs and international value schemes
such as those mentioned earlier. An example
mapping is given in Figure 5. The advantage of
this structuring is that it provides for ranking
and relating ‘better world’ criteria in a systematic
and systemic way.
The ‘Maslow Framework’ appears to present
us with a relatively comprehensive list of
criteria, as well as priorities and dependencies,
and provides a schema that can reconcile a vari-
ety of established social value systems into a
‘Global Values Hierarchy’. This generalization
of Maslow’s model therefore provides us with
a well-structured basis for discussions on the
subject of building a ‘better world’.
GST* as a keystone for systemic innovation
towards a ‘better world’
With this value scale in hand, it is now possible to
reflect on the ways in which systems theories and
methods can be used to support an integrated
and balanced response to the need for a ‘better
world’. As I discussed earlier, such an integrated
response is not possible at the moment, because
the systems community has become fragmented
into a diversity of specializations, traditions and
domains of discourse, and systemic innovation
has slowed down, such that we have had no
new waves of SSTP since the 1990s, despite a
great proliferation of systemic challenges. In my
view, this fragmentation and slow pace of inno-
vation can be ascribed to the lack of a general
systems theory. Historically, the discovery and
development of a discipline’s general theory rep-
resented a key stage in its maturation, because a
general theory integrates the special theories of
the disciplinary field under a unified explanatory
framework, provides a common ontology and
terminology for the field and forms a basis for
principled exploratory science that rapidly opens
up new routes to fundamental discoveries. The
general theories initiated by Newton, Mendeleev,
Darwin and Lyell provide clear examples of how
Syst. Res. 32, 522–533 (2015)
DOI: 10.1002/sres.2354
David Rousseau
Syst. Res.
Figure 5 A Model of ‘Better World’ Criteria Mapped to Organizational Value Systems
the introduction of a general theory unifies,
invigorates and empowers the field it bears on.
GST* would be that general theory for the sys-
tems field, and if a GST* can be developed, the
systems field could be likewise transformed.
GST* would not only enable novel developments
in systems science and practice but could also,
under the guidance of the Global Values Hierar-
chy described earlier, support the development
of an integrated, balanced and effective response
to the urgent challenges facing our world.
CONCLUSION
Contemporary work in General Systems Re-
search suggests that the development of GST* is
a realistic prospect and that without it (and its
correlated GSW), we would not attain the Gen-
eral Systems Transdiscipline through which we
could deliver on the founding objectives of the
SGSR/ISSS, namely, (as mentioned earlier) to
support interdisciplinary communication and co-
operation, facilitate scientific discoveries in disci-
plines that lack exact theories, promote the unity
of knowledge, help to bridge the divide between
the object-oriented and the subject-oriented disci-
plines and provide a disciplined way to build a
Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
General Systems Theory
RESEARCH PAPER
systemically healthy world. The philosophical
climate in academia is shifting towards at least
tolerance of the philosophical tenets of the early
systemists, and this creates a hopeful context for
further General Systems Research. If the ISSS re-
news its commitment to its founding principles,
and sets projects in motion to actively work to-
wards establishing GST* and the GSW, we may
soon gain the leverage our founders desired and
anticipated.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to acknowledge the influence of
ongoing collaborations with Julie Billingham,
Jennifer Wilby and Stefan Blachfellner on the
ideas presented in this paper. I would also like
to thank Gerald Midgley for his helpful com-
ments on a previous version of this paper.
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