CKSW: A Folk-Sociological Meta-Model for
Agent-Based Modelling
Martin
K. Purvis, Maryam A. Purvis, & Christopher Frantz
Information
Science Department, University of Otago, Dunedin, NZ
Abstract. The paper describes the CKSW
(Commander-Knowledge-Skills-Worker) meta-model, developed for the purpose of
representing arbitrary social systems across various levels of social
organisation. It affords opportunities for modellers who want to move beyond
folk-psychological models to the level of folk sociology. A key feature of this
model is the distinction between knowledge and skills, to offer more refined
capabilities of explaining economic and social development in primitive and
modern societies as well as in organisations. We present the motivation for
this model, followed by a description of its structure. The model’s suitability
to retrace social and institutional phenomena on an abstract level is explored using
historical and contemporary scenarios.
Keywords: meta-model, agent-based modelling,
institutional modelling, economic modelling, skills, knowledge, organisations,
society, multi-level modelling, folk sociology, CKSW
1. Introduction
Modelling complex systems by means of multi-agent system modelling
offers several advantages to the analyst. For example it offers a way of
decomposing a problem into simpler components, since the agent components of
the complex system can be considered to be relatively autonomous and equipped
with their own goals and capabilities.
In addition, seeing the world as made up of a collection of
goal-oriented agents is a natural cognitive attitude for us. We often have a tendency to see complex
phenomena, such as violent weather patterns, as if they have agent-like
autonomy. In addition, when we are
faced with the task of engineering and deploying a system to carry out a
complicated set of tasks in a dynamic environment, it can be useful to
structure such a system by employing multiagent-based concepts. The reason is that multiagent systems are
often scalable, modifiable, and relatively robust in the presence of changing
environmental circumstances. In this connection we tend to use folk-psychological
models of agents as our building blocks. The agents are considered to have a
simple set of goals, beliefs, and capabilities that has come to be described
loosely as a BDI [5] (belief-desire-intention) model of agency. G. E. P. Box
once remarked that "essentially, all models are wrong, but some are
useful", [2], and in this case, although we know that the BDI model of
agency is not a precise characterization of human cognition, this
folk-psychological characterization has proven to be useful to the multiagent
system modelling community.
Nevertheless, in this paper we present an expanded view of multiagent
systems that incorporates higher-level social modelling constructs based on
“folk sociology”.
To go further in our complex modelling capabilities, we believe that
there are lessons to be learned from the consideration of natural biological
evolution on earth, which we can view as the evolution of natural collections
of multiagent biological systems. In the
early stages of this evolution some 2-3 billion years ago, single-celled organisms
spread across the earth and apparently comprised a complex community of
bacterial interaction [7,22]. But in
these early stages of evolution, there was only one level of agency – the
bacteria. Later on, more complex forms
of life successfully evolved into multicellular organisms that formed and
engaged in multiple levels of interaction.
Today we observe that many of the higher forms of life manage to succeed
or not on the basis of whether their social organizations are successful in
their eco-environments.
Til now, multiagent system modelling community has largely concentrated
on the single agent level, corresponding to the bacterial level of natural
evolution, and its mostly one-to-one interactions with other agents. To make further advancements, we need to
expand our understanding of multiagent systems that are operating on the social
and organizational levels. In fact given
the increasing degree to which information and communication technology is
embedded into the real-world processes of human activity, we believe that it is
necessary to focus our modelling interests on complex systems made up of
multi-levels of agents that may have complexities at the human level. Thus although the BDI agent model has proven
useful for the development of interaction mechanisms among agents – including
interaction protocols, norms, policies, and institutional rules, we believe
that there can be benefits to expand on this folk psychology model and
incorporate “folk sociological” models based on human sociology that can guide
the construction of multiagent systems operating in more multi-levelled complex
societies. To this end we will present
our CKSW meta-model for social organizations in Section 3. But prior to that, we will in the next
section briefly invoke an additional modelling metaphor that may prove useful
for consideration of social organization evolution.
2. The Social “Selfish Gene”
While one could attempt to
model the appearance of social organizational structures purely in terms of
naturally emerging structures (as in the case of biological evolution), we
think it is useful to recognize that a great many social organizations have
been artificially constructed, full-blown, by their human creators. In that case we can think of agents creating
organizations whose roles and institutional mechanisms can be regarded as
constituting their essential structures.
The success of organizations that succeed and prosper may, in the long
run, be due not so much to the individual attributes of particular group members
but more due to the features or their general role structures. In this respect
we can invoke the metaphor of the “selfish gene” – the evolutionary survival of
social “organisms” is determined by their gene structure, as measured by their
general social role structures.
With respect to this evolutionary perspective, we can then imagine
agents creating organizations, whose roles and institutional mechanisms
represent the organizations’ genetic structures. In this realm, it is the evolutionary success
of the social organization that matters, and that is determined by the degree
to which its “genes” contribute to its survival. The roles that most contribute to
organizational success will be recognized as successful elements by
organizational creators and propagated into future organizations. These roles, by the way, need not be
characterized by BDI rationality; they may be merely outlined by characteristic
instincts, heuristics, and habits.
To outline a structural framework within which we can cast this genetic
structure, we now turn to our CKSW meta-role model of organizational structure,
which was initially introduced by Purvis and Purvis in the referential context
of service-dominant logic [32].
3. The
CKSW Organizational Meta-Role Model
From the earliest periods, humans have worked together in groupings
whose activities have been enhanced by shared, coordinated arrangements. Generic characterizations of these
arrangements, i.e. institutions, are represented as systems of beliefs, rules,
goals, narrative, norms, and organizational structures [16]. Although the original human group formation
was the clan and based primarily on kinship, the advent of structured
institutions extended the possibilities of human social organization, thereby
affording opportunities offered by specialization, complementary cooperation,
and trade. Thus although it is customary
to attribute group success to the capabilities of the leaders and commanders,
we also much acknowledge that a crucial aspect of successful operation of these extended
organizations has been their exploitation of “intelligence”, i.e. the degree to
which they have been able to acquire, and exploit, and sustain knowledge and
skills.
Commanders.
All societies are characterized by some form of leader or commander (C),
whether as an individual or a select group of decision-makers. The core feature of the commander sector of a
society is its monopolization of authority and coercive control on the societal
activities.
Knowledge. A
second social pillar is that associated with knowledge (K). It is characterized
by managing the development, storage, and sharing of knowledge. Knowledge is represented in the form of
knowledge structures, such as organizational rules, procedures, and legal
constraints – as long as they can be expressed in written words or verbally
communicated. Depending on the size of
the social system, knowledge can take various forms. On a macro-level encompassing an entire
society, the knowledge component entails the institutional structures governing
the society, along with the moralistic and ideological narratives upon which
those structures build. Examples include
religious leaders, guardians of the legal framework (such as the high courts),
and academic institutions. In addition,
the media are important factors in connection with how the knowledge is
disseminated and shared.
Skills.
The third cornerstone is represented by the skill (S) sector, which is
distinct from the knowledge sector (see the discussion in the next
subsection). The definition of a skill
must essentially reference the practitioner’s embodied frame of reference, and
in various contexts may encompass physical dexterity, socially coordinated
action (plays in team sports such as basketball), improvisation (such as performed
by dancers and musicians), and social skills (the intuitive ability to interact
concurrently with a collection of individual personalities).
Worker.
The worker sector, usually representing the bulk of the population, is
involved in the performance of (often coordinated) established and mundane
routines devoted to the sustenance of the society of which they are a
part. Although individual workers may
have individual, personal skills, they are not skill specialists and are not
members of the skill sector of the society.
Note that a fundamental aspect of the CKSW
formulation is the distinction between skills and knowledge, and this is
further discussed in the next subsection.
3.1 How Skills Differ from Knowledge
There are numerous, various
descriptions across a number of academic and technical communities concerning
what constitutes knowledge and skill (known since early Greek philosophy,
respectively, as epistêmê and technê).
For our purposes here, we simply identify knowledge with the commonly
held understanding that knowledge represents what is believed to be
“true”. In other words, our knowledge
represents a mental model of an objective aspect of the world around us. As such knowledge is characterized by passive
conceptual structures that can be accessed mentally. This passivity of knowledge structures is to
be distinguished from the active capabilities we employ in our interactive,
situated contexts. These latter active
and operative capabilities we call “skills”.
Thus, for example, we might have knowledge of the names of the fifty
states in the United States, whereas we have the physical capability of riding
a bicycle, we would call a skill, not knowledge.
A key aspect of knowledge is that it can be
passed on and communicated to and confirmed by others. This means that
knowledge must be expressible in form of linguistic representation and that it
can be submitted to some form of logical manipulation. This is the power of knowledge: it can be
represented in language and communicated rapidly across the globe in the form
of text via books, newspapers, and now via telecommunications.
Skills, on the other hand, are
associated with an ability to interact meaningfully and successfully in one’s
environment. The skill capability is
intimately connected with the embodied interactions that gave rise to it and
typically does not entail an easily communicated mental model. Skills are usually communicated via a
master-pupil instructional relationship, whereby the master guides the pupil to
interactively operate in the desired skillful manner. A convenient way to express the distinction
between knowledge and skill is to say that knowledge represents “know what”
and skill represents “know how”.
Note that because knowledge
inherently means something that can be expressible in language, it has given
rise to what Preston has called the “sentential assumption” [31], which assumes
that humans have the capacity to represent knowledge in their minds by using
internal “mentalese” lexical knowledge structures. Thus all
mental processes inside the brain are assumed to be quasi-linguistic in
nature [31]. From the perspective of
those hold the sentential assumption (which includes a large proportion of cognitive
scientists and computational science academics), all intelligence is
represented inside the brain as knowledge.
The skill-oriented intelligence which is so hard to communicate to
others is still presumed by these people to be represented somewhere in the
brain as lexically-oriented mentalese knowledge, but it is assumed that we
merely have difficulty accessing it and expressing it to others. In other words, the intelligence is still
there in lexical format, but it is just below the radar of our own intellectual
reflective capabilities. This has led
Polanyi and others to refer to this supposedly existent but unavailable for
articulation knowledge as “tacit knowledge” [3,4,29,30]. In line with this
thinking, the agenda of the artificial intelligence community from the 1980s
has been directed towards building a knowledge-based representation of human
mental content [9].
Irrespective of whether you
hold to the sentential assumption (we do not) and believe that this
impossible-to-articulate lexical knowledge is stored in the brain in lexical
format, the difference in transmission/transfer capabilities between the two
forms of intelligence (knowledge and skills) gives practical grounds for
placing them into two separate organizational categories. We restrict our use of the term “knowledge”
to that which can be explicitly articulated in lexical form.
In fact phenomenologist
philosophers have always made a point of highlighting the distinction between
knowledge and skill, although they have tended to use different
terminology. For example, Heidegger
alluded to this distinction when he distinguished between two modes of
encounter things in the world – either as “ready-to-hand” or “present-at-hand”
[21]. According to his scheme, we can
look at an artefact such as a hammer according to two dispositions: in
ready-to-hand terms it is a tool used for pounding, while in present-at-hand
terms it is a physical object with objective properties independent of its
potential use. Thus a hammer in
Heidegger’s account would be associated in its ready-to-hand context with know-how, while in its present-at-hand
context a hammer would be encountered as an object of knowledge (know-what). And for Heidegger, the know-how of
readiness-to-hand was primordial, while the know-what of presence-at-hand was
derivative.
In analogous fashion,
Merleau-Ponty refers to the primordial nature of skill-based interactions when
he writes about the “intentional arc” [27].
Merleau-Ponty sees us as invariably embodied agents, and the “intentional
arc” refers to the manner in which we have a tight feedback-based engagement
with the environment. Intuitively,
according to Merleau-Ponty’s account, the agent seeks to maintain a “maximal
grip” with what it encounters by continually reconfiguring itself by means of
small physical adjustments in order to maintain an optimal interaction. Thus when one rides a bicycle, one is
continually maintaining a maximal grip in order maintain the proper balance and
direction of the bicycle. This is not
based on any acquisition of or references to stored knowledge, but is instead
an operational disposition by means of the intentional arc.
Of course, knowledge can be
used in connection with skillful operation, and in this context it can serve as
a tool or a scaffolding resource, just as a bicycle is used as a tool to assist
locomotion. Another phenomenologist, Dreyfus, specified various stages that
could assist one in the acquisition of a basic skill [12]. According to his scheme, there are five basic
stages of human skill acquisition:
- Novice – the
practitioner faithfully follows a basic rule set of what to do in basic
situations.
- Advanced Beginner –
there is a limited degree of situational perception that is not recorded or
characterized by written information and that can be used to supplement the
rules.
- Competence – the
practitioner develops a more hierarchical rule and plan set such that
particular sections of it can be applied immediately to perceived situations.
- Proficient – the
performer’s rule-and-principle-based theory of what to do is gradually replaced
by “situational discriminations accompanied by associated responses . . . and
intuitive behaviour replaces reasoned responses.” [12]. Intuitive recognitions are prominent here,
but rational decision-making is still involved.
- Expertise – the
performer not only intuitively sees the problem, but also intuitively sees what
needs to be done to solve it. Thus, for
example, the expert driver not only feels when slowing down is required, but
also knows how to perform the proper action without calculation or comparing
alternative options.
Thus Dreyfus sees that within
an individual’s mind varying forms of fruitful interaction between a person’s
skill (S) and knowledge (K) take place, depending on how much skill the person
has. Also, like Heidegger and
Merleau-Ponty, Dreyfus feels that knowing-how (S) is more fundamental than
knowing-what (K).
3.2 CKSW at the Organizational Level
So far we have discussed the
differences between knowledge and skill at the personal level. In fact we can think of the CKSW scheme as
applying at a number of levels. At the
personal level, the Commander mode of thinking is associated with decision-making;
the Knowledge mode is associated with rational reflection; the Skill mode is
associated with skillful action; and the Worker mode is associated with routine
embodied actions. So at the personal
level, everyone has CKSW modes of action.
In fact even a robot can manifest the CKSW modes. From the perspective Rodney Brooks’ subsumption
architecture [6], one can think of robotic subsumption levels encompassing the
CKSW roles, with decision-making (C) at the top, below which are a
knowledge-management (K) level and a skill (S) level (e.g. avoiding walls),
with a bottom-layer worker (W) level representing basic actions such as
locomotion.
But our focus in this paper is
at the societal level, and there the CKSW meta-roles refer to people who
primarily operate in the society or organization with these capacities. A schematic outline of this scheme is
presented in Table 1.
The elemental nature of these
meta-roles can be seen by their original presence as the four basic varnas
(primordial castes) in the late Rigveda period of traditional Hinduism some
3,000 years ago: Kshatryas (C), Brahmins (K), Vaishyas (S), and Shudras (W) [14].
Over the course of history, these meta-roles have continued to play significant
roles in the operations of societies.
Traditionally however, histories, often directly commissioned by the
Commander elements, have placed their main focus on how the leaders and rulers
affect societal outcomes. Of course, the
Knowledge sector has also been understood to play an important role, since that
group maintains and transmits the institutional norms, narratives, and belief
systems that provide an underlying social scaffolding and help sustain a
society’s progress. In recognition of
this importance, rulers (C) have traditionally sought to influence and control
the dominant social beliefs (K) and how they are expressed and transmitted in
their realms. For example the earlier
Chinese emperors have long attempted to associate an officially approved
Confucianism in order to maintain a social glue across their domains [23].
More recently, economic
historians have placed a greater emphasis on the importance of the skills and
trading sector for the success of a society [16,17,24,25]. Initially long-distance trade was undertaken
by placing good and an armed contingent on a commissioned ship bound for a
foreign port. Upon arrival, the goods
were sold under the protection of the soldiers on board. But this cumbersome arrangement was
eventually replaced by merchant-trader coalitions in various locations who
established institutional mechanisms in order to guarantee the secure exchange
of goods and payments. This was achieved
by a gradual evolution from the employment of informal norms to the
establishment of formal sets of rules to lock out cheaters and free-riders.
Thus the first distributed, open-access institutions with well-defined
contracts and rules arose, bottom-up, out of the skilled trading community (S),
rather than top-down from the Commander and Knowledge (C & K) sectors [16,18].
In light of these more recent
studies concerning the importance of the skilled sector, one may be tempted to
consider that perhaps too much credit for the rise of modernism and its crucial
institutional mechanisms has been given to the Scientific Revolution (the K
sector of society). Surely the Scientific Revolution was important, but the
contributions of the skill/trading sectors of society were likely at least as
important for these fruitful developments. In particular it is the tight
interplay between the K and S sectors of a society or organization that is
crucial to success.
3.3 CKSW across different Social Levels
As alluded to above in
connection with Knowledge (K), the CKSW meta-model can be applied on different
social levels: the society level, the group level, and even the individual
level. Thus each individual can be
understood to have various and context dependent CKSW capacities within itself.
And then that individual can play different CKSW roles within the various
groups of which it may be a member. For
example, an individual may be responsible for the performance of routine tasks
(W) at its workplace, act as a leader (C) in connection with its local sports
team, and participate in a musical orchestra (S) at other social events.
Likewise the K of a society (or
any other role for that matter) can be decomposed into sub-groups or
individuals, which observe the overall objective of K but operate in vastly
distributed roles within the social systems that constitute K. Let us take the
press as an example, which is constructed of individuals that bear the creative
process, i.e. S (e.g. illustrators); individuals that perform the knowledge
distribution, i.e. K (e.g. writers); individuals that operate the actual
printing press in a routinized manner (W); and finally administrators, such as
editors, that oversee the entire operation (C).
Note that as one moves upward
into higher levels of social organization, the CKSW roles become more
specialized and entrenched. While
individuals can perform situational shifts at a local level, their allocation
in an organizational or societal context is less fluid. The multi-layer nature is schematically
depicted in Figure 1.
Figure 1. Schematic
Visualization of the CKSW Multi-level Structure
A social system of interest can
thus be abstractly defined as a social organism that embodies the CKSW roles as
structural elements, which is equally applicable for individuals as well as
social systems individuals are members of. In contrast to individuals, however,
social systems can consist of further nested subsystems, while individuals
represent the atomic social entity in a society. Figure 2 provides a semi-formal
representation of the CKSW meta-model in conjunction with the social organisms
it affects.
Figure 2. CKSW Meta-model
4. Relationships and Governance Mechanisms within the CKSW
Framework
Beyond describing the basic structure of a
society, the meta-model also specifies the relationships among its
entities. In this regard we believe that
instead of proffering a fixed specification of interrelations (which will
inevitably be challenged by the inherent complexity of social systems and their
multiple levels), it is better to offer a range of examples that explore some
of the possibilities of those social roles in different contexts.
In a first instance, we can instantiate the
CKSW model in the context of primitive hunter/gatherer societies, such as the
Polynesian and Native American societies described by Diamond [8], that
initially build on stratification into C, K and W – with C represented as the tribal leader, K
represented as the spiritual leader (or “medicine man”), and W represented as
the ordinary villager. While C makes operational decisions such as resource
distribution and maintains control over power, K takes on the role of knowledge
bearer. K is authoritative with respect
to behavioral norms, in-group conflict resolution, health, and in the wider
sense, and general cultural authority (e.g. privileged spiritual connections to
ancestors). In this sphere, K has an advisor role with influence on C’s
decision-making.
In the developmental progression of such a
society, one might observe small acts of experience-driven innovation, such as
the improvement of hunting weaponry. Individuals or sub-groups (often initially
sourced from W but leading to the establishment of S) may develop novel skills
that impact the overall society, such as the development of agricultural
principles and the domestication of animals.
Such innovations can not only change the social work structure, but also
perhaps alter the rights and obligations of C to govern such resources and of K
to maintain developed factual knowledge.
Thus skilled members (S) generate innovations that expand know-how by
combining existing K with new practices.
In the hunter-gatherer example, new skills
(S) might emerge spontaneously, but historically the role of C on social
development has been a major focus of attention. For example, central to thesis of Acemoglu
and Robinson [1] concerning social economic development is the necessity of
transitioning from what they call extractive
institutions to inclusive
institutions. Extractive institutions
extract wealth from the populace and the commons in order to maximize tributes
to the sovereign, a commonly observed pattern for colonized societies; whereas inclusive institutions are those in
which the sovereign redistributes and shares his power. By having C shift from
a selfish maximizer to a social mediator, the increasing autonomy and
self-determination inclines individuals to pursue their goals and foster
innovation – and to return to the CKSW metaphor: to allow S to flourish.
The leaders and commanders (C) commonly
exploit the K sector in order to achieve their goals. These operations are often expressed in the
appropriation of control over media to suppress dissent, as commonly observed
in coercive regimes. C naturally relies on the existence and functioning of K
as both an infrastructure for information transmission, but also a source of
stability and socio-social identity. K, in contrast, underlies the C’s coercive
control, but may also exert indirect power over the government or ruler by
influencing opinions of the society at large. A historical example of C’s
attempt to control K was the Elizabethan Settlement [26] in England that united
the diverse socially disruptive and conflicting strands of Christianity under a
common roof, the Church of England, by redefining the associated institutions
and appointing the representative sovereign as its leader.
Such C-K power relations are dynamic and
may be disrupted by the activities of S.
For example, S can likewise be source of innovation and change with
influence beyond an individual society’s boundaries. This is exemplified by the degree to which
C’s ability to control K is challenged by the increasing internationalization
of K based on the development and wide-spread availability of new communication
technologies (the printing press in previous centuries and ICT, such as social
media, today). Thus new ICT, offering individuals a wider source of
information, has had potentially disruptive consequences on C and K, as
observed in the recent Arab Spring revolutions.
This has led to countermeasures such as Turkey’s recent ban of Twitter
usage prior to local elections [35]. Figure 3 schematically depicts the dynamics
described in connection with these foregoing examples.
Figure 3. Power and Influence relationships expressed using CKSW
However, as much as the change of the
institutional landscape is often initiated by social rulers, the creation of
beneficial inclusive institutions is a process that can be driven by forces
that act on the level of the governed. An important example displaying the
interrelation of this dynamic is the development of the lex mercatoria, or law merchant, which is nowadays considered a
foundation of international law and which emerged from the practices of
long-distance trade [28]. Trading across territorial boundaries at the
beginning of the second millennium was a highly profitable but likewise risky
endeavour, promising travelling merchants significant gains for shipping
demanded goods across medieval Europe, such as skins and wool from Northern
Europe to the South, in exchange for perfumes and spice, which were a rarity in
Northern Europe. However, traders could not assume enforcement of contractual
obligations, property rights, and safety of travel once outside their domestic
boundaries in which they had citizen’s rights. Realising the benefits that
could be gained both from making demanded foreign goods accessible (as well as
the fiscal benefit of taxation) led local rulers and warlords (C) to offer
(implicitly multilateral) commitments guaranteeing the safety of foreign
traders within their territorial boundaries. This led to competition to develop
international market places based on the implicit effect of standardizing the
institutional environment with respect to trade. In this case the benefit
offered by an initially small number of trade innovators (S) – the provision of desired foreign goods along with
the economic benefit from taxation – afforded a bottom-up establishment of institutions
in which trade practices fertilized and nourished the rule formation processes
on the part of C and K.
Thus in the instance cited above, C
opportunistically nurtured a bottom-up development on the part of S that led to
long-term social benefits. In general,
though different roles have their specific obligations, they have
multi-directional dependencies. This often involves rulers (C) paving the
fundamental institutional landscape, with K maintaining it, but also with
influence from W and S in particular, who develop social practices that
stimulate their manifestation as explicated institutions, such as norms and
rules along with societal values.
As one further example of the formative
role of S in the context of institutional development, let us again refer to a
historical scenario from the area of long-distance trade, but under
significantly different institutional circumstances. Between the 10th
and 13th century there existed a trader collective known as the
‘Maghribis’, who operated in long-distance sea-trade along the Northern African
coast [16]. Those traders shared a similar history and were a subset of local
Jewish communities that had settled the Islamic Fatimid Empire that governed
the Southern Mediterranean at that time. In contrast to the contemporaneous
European traders of the Northern Mediterranean that operated in a heterogeneous
and role-specialized institutional context, the Maghribis largely operated
within an institutionally homogeneous environment sheltered by an Islamic legal
framework that tolerated the coexistence of Jewish courts for the settlement of
disputes among Jewish litigants. Given the relative tolerance of the rulers
towards the Maghribis, they developed an intricate trade network that spanned
the Northern African coast from Sicily to the Indian Ocean. Doing so, they
inherently relied on reciprocity relationships to assure the mutual handling of
goods and used multilateral monitoring and enforcement mechanisms to assure
cooperation among each other.
But these arrangements were not simply a
matter of informal reciprocity, and the Maghribis had formal institutional
instruments that were equivalent if not more refined than the contemporary
European contracts, such as the commenda. So in this context it is of interest to look
at the institutional innovations the Maghribis had to offer. They were trade
specialists and relied on prompt delivery, flexible assignment and sending of
goods, a multitude of relationships, and shifting priorities with respect to
the remote market places they served. The multitude of relationships made formal contracts inefficient as they
were specified on a per-venture basis and thus afforded higher transaction
costs (while informal relationships were in principle open-ended with fixed rituals
for initiation and termination). The fixed profits distribution and
specification of obligations of either party further made formal instruments
inflexible with respect to changing market conditions. In these circumstances
the skilled nature of those trade specialists led them to employ institutional
mechanisms that were only in part legally enforceable, but they preceded the
existing legal system (maintained by K) with informal variants that one can
interpret as labour contracts, a concept that was neither known to Islamic nor
Jewish law. We see this as another example of the formative and bottom-up role
S can play with respect to the development of institutions that are not backed
by K, but whose existence is tolerated by C. History supports this C-S-K
interplay perspective: in the 13th century the rulers (C) forced the
Maghribis (S) to cede their trade operations and to reintegrate into the local
Jewish communities. Figure 4 offers a schematic visualization of this process,
in which the comparatively tolerant rulers, along with a largely compatible
religious and normative systems
(K), enabled initially local traders (S) to develop institutional instruments
that met the coordinative requirements of long-distance trade (S), which then
found wide-ranging adoption in Northern African trader societies and, despite
limited legal enforceability, found introduction into the overall institutional
framework capturing both formal and informal institutions (represented as K).
Figure 4. Two-Way Causation of Institutional Formation Processes
The examples briefly outlined here show
variety of different social scenarios, all of which show the applicability of
the CKSW meta-model. More so, the model offers a blueprint to analyse their interrelations
systematically, with the level of detail at the modeller’s discretion.
5. Discussion
In this paper we have presented
the CKSW meta-model for social organizations in greater depth, offering a more
explicit representation of the model and including a discussion of the
interrelationships that constitute the model. We further applied the model to
historic economic scenarios in order to demonstrate its explanatory power and
generic nature. It is
sufficiently precise, yet abstract enough to model the essential structure and
interrelationships existent in any social system, ranging from primitive societies
to modern civilisations, while accommodating different social levels. The model
is informed by a range of theoretical underpinnings from the area of philosophy
and economics (see Section 3).
The CKSW modelling framework offers
flexibility with respect to the conceptual abstractions that may be “plugged
in” at the conceptual and implementation level.
This may include, for example (a) opinion dynamics models [20] to
represent W’s and S’s attitudes towards a C (and thus their propensity to seek
its overthrow) or (b) the complexity of K-maintained institutions – whether
concentrating on selected institution types (such as norms and a simplistic
representation) or covering the wider institutional spectrum (such as is
possible with nADICO [13], an extension of Crawford and Ostrom’s institutional
grammar).
Moreover, independent of whatever modelling
metaphors may be chosen, we note that in view of the inherent
context-dependence and subjectivity in which an individual acts, the employment
of fuzzy representations can offer good approximations of the subjective and
relative way in which individuals think and reason about their social environment
[37,38]. (For example, imagine the contextually adjusted social identity [34]
based on shifting group assignments.) So
we believe that a systematic incorporation of fuzzy logic technology into a
CKSW-based frame offers promising opportunities, and we will be exploring this
direction in future work.
With respect to the larger social
perspective for which the CKSW meta-model is intended, we generally observe
that wherever we turn we encounter a world characterized by a complex web of
myriads of interlinked dependencies.
These include individual motivations, such as drives for
self-fulfilment, power and status, that are further obscured by social and
cultural backgrounds – influences of possibly even greater complexity. As
modellers we are constantly challenged to represent such complex social
behaviour for which we do not have a precise understanding. On a more local
basis and for the representation of the selfish individual, the
folk-psychological BDI agent metaphor has gained wide-ranging popularity.
However, as much as we may be satisfied with this folk-psychological
abstraction, we are still missing the comprehensive ‘folk sociological’ counterpart that emphasises the possibly greater
impact of social interactions on and by groups and the society at large. In the
light of this modelling complexity and the different levels of observation, and
more significantly, in light of the multi-disciplinary nature of social
science, itself, the prospects of arriving at a single unified solution appears
unrealistic. Instead, we can conceive ‘folk sociology’ more generally as a
systematic collection of modelling approaches that offer abstractions suitable
for the domains of interest, along with the theories (whether
social-psychological, sociological, philosophical or economical, etc.)
supporting those. We see the CKSW meta-model as a prototype of such nature,
with possible applications in the area of economic and institutional modelling
as well as peace-and-conflict research.
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Lama/Saints [1]. The film covers the early, sorcery period of Milarepa’s life, prior to his conversion to Buddhism. 
Thopaga’s mother, Kargyen, joyfully and triumphantly celebrates her revenge. For her, long-sought justice has finally prevailed. But Thopaga is disturbed when he sees all the suffering he has wrought. Nevertheless, when his uncle discovers Thopaga’s whereabouts on the mountainside and leads another group of surviving villagers to capture him, Thopaga uses more magic powers to launch a massive rockslide that devastates his attackers.
This is a response to the visceral feelings of resentment and revenge that can affect most people. And this is what Yongten Trogyal’s powers were used for in the story – to harm one’s enemies, who are supposedly guilty in some way. Indeed Yongten Trogyal ruefully laments at one point in the film that his powers cannot be used to save people; they are only used to exert harm.
This multimedia presentation, Milarepa: Murderer and Saint, is available on Youtube as nine linked chapters [8]. It has a contemplative mood, and it emphasizes the value and virtues of serious meditation as a path towards enlightenment and universal compassion. So I recommend it to those who are interested in this subject.
This multimedia presentation, Milarepa: Murderer and Saint, is available on Youtube as nine linked chapters [8]. It has a contemplative mood, and it emphasizes the value and virtues of serious meditation as a path towards enlightenment and universal compassion. So I recommend it to those who are interested in this subject.
