Theory of Social Systems

This is my summary of Niklas Luhmann "Theory of social systems".



It's been a while since I studied it, but I internalized the basics, that I will present to you here, you will find further information yourself, if you wish.



1.) Man IS NOT part of society. But he is outside of it.

2.) There isn't one society, one System, but systems (plural).



Economics is a social system. Family is a social system. Medicine is a social system. Law is a social system. Art is a social system. Religion is a social system. Politics is a social system. And others more that fit the specific parameters Luhmann proposed. But there is not one overall system that is all dominating. Like a state or whatever else you might call it: "the" system. No such thing as that. That is a category for those that submit to Marxism. And that is the majority.


In addition to 1.): Since man isn't part of society, he is by definition free. No revolution needed, no terror, no anarchical behavior. He is free to participate in any of the social systems, as mentioned under 2.). But he does not have to. Man is basically free.


So the liberal that fought Luhmann was a man named Habermas of the famous neo-marxist Frankfurt school of thought founded by Horkheimer and Adorno (amongst others) and he asked: "But isn't that immoral? Do we not have to put man into "the" system to control him? Wouldn't he otherwise go around harming people? Like the bad Nazis did in WWII? Isn't it immoral to put man outside of society? And what about Utopia for society? If everybody is free to do what they want, how could we collectively as a society pursue any goals? Where does love and equality fit into all of this discriminating awareness?" Luhmann the brilliant mind that he was of course destroyed all these arguments from emotion, western guilt and hedonistic decay. Modern disease. So let me try to do as him. First: man, in this model first proposed by Talcott Parsons in the US and advanced by Luhmann, does not get to do whatever he wants, since some of the above mentioned systems are kept running by people who find meaning to engage in them. So if he harms someone, the law (as a social system) and its organs might catch him.


I can imagine rightwingers thinking: "There is this term "social" in it ("social systems"), so it's got to be leftist." Luhmann is an antidote, like Nietzsche, Freud and Kafka. Each one of them also carry some of their own poison. So of course one has to be careful with the dosage. He was a sociologist, that spent his life in libraries and behind books. That is a limited perspective on the world, but that's how he advanced to his theoretical mastery. His famous slip box [German: Zettelkasten], was in a very strict order and contained a huge amount of writings. That's how he wrote his books.


I also know this is hard for tradionalists, who have read Platos "The state". That's why it is called Systems THEORY. You can still pursue whatever ideal you have (like I proposed in another thread). Even a "statist" one, with a centralized unit that governs everything. But in the end, when your ideal state is ready, it will still be deconstructed by systems theorists, in its functioning parts and be looked at from the parts and not just as a whole. In praxis everything looks nicely ordered and people can use nice adjectives to classify. All nice and well. But as long as there is thinking in this world. As long as that is possible: there will be analysts like Luhmann or Jean Baudrillard or minds as such and they will deconstruct the apparent one-ness.

There might be different systems, but in civilization, the different systems are interconnected. So, if we assume man wants to take part in civilization, he need to take these systems in concern (the same way any man needs to abide to the laws of nature). This could turn into a long discussion about if you are free if you fall into a hole in the ground...

With that said, I like the idea of freeing up the mind from the kind of leviathan thinking that fuels everything from marxism to conspiracy theory. One thought that has popped in to my mind is to regard our modern states as a kind as some kind of astronomic market failures.

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There might be different systems, but in civilization, the different systems are interconnected.

It's a theory. No more, no less. What you refer to is the ideal, the Platonic ideal.
(Culture, Civilisation) That viewpoint has its advantages. For example in Oskar Spenglers historical analysis of the rise and the decline of a culture/civilisation. Also in terms of comparing different cultures that are present today.

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So, if we assume man wants to take part in civilization, he need to take these systems in concern (the same way any man needs to abide to the laws of nature).

Exactly. But he can still choose his own path. He doesn't have to submit to all of them. Care for all of them. Involve himself with all of them. Keep all of them running.

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This could turn into a long discussion about if you are free if you fall into a hole in the ground...

Here you'd just be anti-social. That's it. But it's hard to achieve in our days, because everything is occupied by man. And we are growing up very sheltered and therefor later are very needy and weak also. Hard to let that go. Dependence.

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With that said, I like the idea of freeing up the mind from the kind of leviathan thinking that fuels everything from marxism to conspiracy theory.

I'm glad you like it. There's gotta be overviews on the net and books translated. I recommend his thoughts on the topic of: communication. The thinking perspective of course starts of out of a weakness. Because you think: what social system do I need to survive? And then you pick a book by Luhmann, that describes this particular social system. But you grow more confident, as you realize that there indeed is no need for a Leviathan. At least in your thinking. It's a theory. We leave "reality" to those that apply marxist terms. We will not change that. It's the masses you know, we are the few.

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One thought that has popped in to my mind is to regard our modern states as a kind as some kind of astronomic market failures.

Economics as a social system, is a title by Luhmann of course. It is ONE of many social systems. But you start thinking in the right direction. It's the Ron Paul direction, where people at least started to take economics as a second system of importance aside from politics. Procede from there.

Nice theories. I wonder what kind of "system" those who come up with these theories would start on the very first day after a war, and how would they do it to make their country thrive.

Why is a crazy human so fucking obsessed with measuring everything?

Is it because all the time he makes some images in his head and they look so ideal, and then he wants to see the same method working outside his head?

I don't like the word 'system'. In my opinion life is not about being a part of a machine.

Whatever you want to do in your life, you have to do it your own way because it's your life, otherwise it sounds like some kind of a weakness.

Maybe if you went to a public school and are a worker this might entertain you for a while.

It sounds too idealistic. Doesn't inspire to be get better. Sameness.


For some reason it doesn't sound exciting. It does't resonate with my lifestyle. I use 'methods' which bubble for some time, but the system is always unstable.

TBH, sounds like lots of bullshit that commies use to brainwash the young, so they submit to the idea of being a part of a machine, not a king of your own world full of apes.


I'm not sure about you, guys, but this is my planet.

Man, a man, is a system.
He dominates and controls, in that incomplete way, other systems, if you wish to use that term: cells.
In essence this "man" is not "a" anything...he is a towards self and so never a singularity, never complete, never static, never whole.
What defines this sum of processes, controlled by a central nervous system, is his striving toward....his ideas and ideals, formulated into abstractions (simplified/generalized artificial absolutes), projected into a world which lacks them.

I’ve said this stuff many times before and many have grown tired of hearing them, but since some of you are newcomers I repeat once again:

To put it into my own metaphysical positions about the absence of an absolute, a “system” is an aggregate of processes, incompletely controlled by some central agency which directs it: Schopenhauer’s Will, taken up by Nietzsche.
It is an ordering in the disordering.
I think of it as a resistance to entropy.

The system is a movement towards the creation of an absolute, in other ways it is always contrary to the flow of time, as experienced by a human consciousness.
Here I do not take linear time for granted but only posit it as the only direction life can come about….or at least our kind of life.
Given that life, consciousness, knowledge (which is the basis for genetic encoding and later mimetic encoding) is a form of ordering, therefore it is only towards increasing entropy where this ordering can take place.
The movement, the towards, is never completed and so existence is on-going.
The absent absolute, because it is absent, can be projected as anything: any ideal, and image, any concept.
System is another concept denoting the same absent absolute.
These projections are never unique, as they are the taking of experience, knowledge, the past, and combining it in different ways, then projecting them forward as a symbol, a signpost, an ambiguous idea which orients the Will.
This is why imagination is so crucial and dominating; if it does not fall into the emotional trap of detaching itself from reality and becoming fantasy….delusion.

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This is why imagination is so crucial and dominating; if it does not fall into the emotional trap of detaching itself from reality and becoming fantasy….delusion.

Luhmann, as a Sociologist, didn't deal in the hard science, of course. But I think his theory in its complexity serves reality more justice than the static simplified systems the marxist theories, that dominate the sociological discourse, offer. It is an alternative anyways. And to just proclaim to be free doesn't make one so. One cannot just say: I see things from a birds-eye view, and am somehow unaffected by them and then it magically is so.

So we need tools. The tools themselves can contain poisons or make the weak addicted. They can become protheseses that prevent own thinking. Pure intellectual mind-game stuff, to show off before others. I assure you this is not the case with Luhmann. Any of his books you read, always contains a short survey of his theory in the beginning. If you're interested just in his theory itself read "Social Systems". Luhmann was a Hegelian. I don't know much Hegel myself, but admit I am impressed with anyone not falling asleep reading that stuff.

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Schopenhauer’s Will, taken up by Nietzsche.
It is an ordering in the disordering.
I think of it as a resistance to entropy.

Luhmann employed the concept of Autopoiesis by Humberto Maturana.

Yes, well here we discuss opinions.

Luhmann’s positions sound interesting, but I haven’t read him so I can’t be certain.
I tried to connect them to my own thesis, just by taking what you’ve said as my guide.
Yes, I’ve heard of Mutarana and his Autopoeisis.
I think I read the book some years ago.
Wasn’t impressed by the conclusion. If I recall correctly, it was very liberal in its slant.
I cannot use it in the manner he did.

The word autopoeisis is, for me, just another Greek word. In this case it means, in literal translation: self-creating.
In my previous posting I think I alluded to this.
Self is never created, finalized, compelted….it is always a towards, a process.

We are never Beings, always Becomings…the last comes from Heidegger.
He was a profound influence upon me.

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I tried to connect them to my own thesis, just by taking what you’ve said as my guide.

And that works well with each other, I think.

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Yes, I’ve heard of Mutarana and his Autopoeisis.
I think I read the book some years ago.
Wasn’t impressed by the conclusion. If I recall correctly, it was very liberal in its slant.
I cannot use it in the manner he did.

I recommend his book "From being to doing". He counts amongst the "radical constructivists". Along with Heinz von Foerster, Ernst von Glasersfeld, Francisco Varela, Luhmann himself, who had written on the subject and Paul Watzlawick. I wouldn't put any political label on them. Left or right. Just let their science speak for itself.

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The word autopoeisis is, for me, just another Greek word. In this case it means, in literal translation: self-creating.
In my previous posting I think I alluded to this.
Self is never created, finalized, compelted….it is always a towards, a process

From how I understand Autopoiesis, it is self creating, but emphasizes on the process of doing so and does not contradict your conclusion, that there never is an end product. I cannot speak for all the above mentioned. But with Luhmann and Heinz von Foerster it is so. On the contrary: it emphasizes, that nothing is ever complete.

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We are never Beings, always Becomings…the last comes from Heidegger.
He was a profound influence upon me.

I am still having a hard time with Heidegger. Of course I am fortunate to listen to his original voice in some lectures on youtube. I haven't gotten a feel for him yet. But he sounds interesting. That's all I can say for now.

Radical Constructivism is of course the theory, that things do not even exist, if they are not constantly created. Or self creating themselves. That's where Autopoiesis comes into play. Nothing ever exists, without a will to exist. Without an ongoing attention. Either from itself or from others.

Maturanas cognitive science in how our brain and cognitive apparatus shapes our perception is mindblowing.

I just looked: Heinz von Foersters books are out of print, so they go for well above 100 Dollars on Amazon Marketplace.

I do not see Will in this way.
I see no will in a rock…or in a cloud.
I part ways with Nietzsche, perhaps, in this area.

Will, for me, is the focus of an emergent unity’s aggregate energies upon an object/objective; it is the mental agency which focuses.
All else is blind, unconscious, (inter)action.
The only place the concept of Wilfulness has meaning is in regards to a particular form of order, a more sophisticated form, which develops an ability to guide its processes towards a direction.

That within this turmoil of (inter)activity (Flux) pockets of order emerge, to then develop, in rare occasions, into what we call life, or to remain ephemeral, processes exhibiting some order (consistent, predictability), which we call elements or energies or particles (each category being a relationship, an interpretation of the observing mind with the observed, the phenomenon), is to be considered as part of the possibility (space) of existence (activity).

If anything the world is characterized by a decline towards absolute randomness, which is the opposite of ordering.
It is the Will directed in an opposite direction, away from chaos towards a projected, previous point of superior order, which makes the Will noble and unique and valuable.
The term “will” can only be used in reference to life. It has no meaning outside of it.
To will is to desire, to be driven by a need; need/suffering, is the sensation of existence, of the Flux, of entropy; to perceive, to feel, is a product of consciousness or a rudimentary form of it, such as in the case of plants.
In lower life forms, such as plants, there is no end in sight; the consciousness, such as it may be, is not aware of a teleos, an ideal.
It is simply (re)actionary, or (inter)active.
It’s only purpose, if you can call it that, is to preserve itself within a world that tries to tear it apart.

Apart from life, the term “will” has no application.
Existence, in my view, is synonymous with activity or (inter)activity.
No will is required for a river to flow down a hill, and yet both the water and the hill exist.
Will is activity, (inter)activity, focused and given direction.
This only occurs in living emergent unities.

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I do not see Will in this way.
I see no will in a rock…or in a cloud.
I part ways with Nietzsche, perhaps, in this area.

I do agree with you there. I may have expressed myself clumsy above, when I said:
"Nothing ever exists, without a will to exist. Without an ongoing attention. Either from itself or from others." I was refering to living beings, but said: things. I am no native speaker.

I don't know N.s exact position in this regard. He had some romanticism. And I of course revealed elsewhere, that I do employ esotericism. And there they have these holistic concepts, where everything somehow is "alive", meaningful and connected. For the huna shamans a rock would be "alive" too. I know that. But even if I employ some of these systems, I wouldn't go in that direction. Hermeticism is what that's called, where everything is in a certain order. N. to my understanding was more of a mystic than an employer of hermeticism. Except of course for his concept of eternal recurrence. (That I didn't understand to be honest...Is it like rebirth? Like karma, that determines rebirth?)

Laconian wrote:

It's a theory. No more, no less. What you refer to is the ideal, the Platonic ideal.
(Culture, Civilisation) That viewpoint has its advantages. For example in Oskar Spenglers historical analysis of the rise and the decline of a culture/civilisation. Also in terms of comparing different cultures that are present today.

Oh, dear Plato, your ideal world exists in you head. It is not identical to the idealistic (aka simplified, aka necessary for any form of comprehension) world that exist in my head. There is a reason that I seek a place like this, despite Satyrs attitude towards "outsiders"

Laconian wrote:

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This could turn into a long discussion about if you are free if you fall into a hole in the ground...

Here you'd just be anti-social. That's it. But it's hard to achieve in our days, because everything is occupied by man. And we are growing up very sheltered and therefor later are very needy and weak also. Hard to let that go. Dependence.

I actually think it's a good question to help define a system of law, but evens as a libertarian/market anarchist, I think that "freedom" is an hopelessly ill defined buzzword, and that the focus on "negative rights" should be made clear to only be about resolving violent conflicts. It's an extremely simplified concept that fits to an astounding number of instances. Still, people doesn't seem to grasp it, wich only points to why they shouldn't need to worry about politics in the first place.

Laconian wrote:

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With that said, I like the idea of freeing up the mind from the kind of leviathan thinking that fuels everything from marxism to conspiracy theory.

I'm glad you like it. There's gotta be overviews on the net and books translated. I recommend his thoughts on the topic of: communication. The thinking perspective of course starts of out of a weakness. Because you think: what social system do I need to survive? And then you pick a book by Luhmann, that describes this particular social system. But you grow more confident, as you realize that there indeed is no need for a Leviathan. At least in your thinking. It's a theory. We leave "reality" to those that apply marxist terms. We will not change that. It's the masses you know, we are the few.

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One thought that has popped in to my mind is to regard our modern states as a kind as some kind of astronomic market failures.

Economics as a social system, is a title by Luhmann of course. It is ONE of many social systems. But you start thinking in the right direction. It's the Ron Paul direction, where people at least started to take economics as a second system of importance aside from politics. Procede from there.

I was a libertarian before I got to know of Ron Paul in about 2008. I got my inital "schooling" on reality in the swedish Flashback Forum, a place of the like I have seen no other place in the english language. Maybe if especially fits the inhibited and consensus seeking Swedes, since it is the place were most of the nations repressed opinions are allowed to come through.

Thank for the tips on books, maybee Ill look up the thinker and ideas on wikipedia or something I'm usually to impatient to consume anything but very distilled ideas. The details I can work out for myself, whenever I have to.

Thirsty wrote:

Why is a crazy human so fucking obsessed with measuring everything?

In order to make his tools, "the toolmaking animal" needs some kind of measurement. Otherwise the tools won't be efficient.

finally (actually wrote this first)
Systems: ideal and real
Since I am an aspiring engineer, I'll try this analogy on "mechanical thinking"...

Suppose I try to build an engine. I make a lot of calculations and make blueprint that should bahave in a certain way. But my tools and my measurement systems will alway be, in some degree, imperfect. There will also be things that I have failed to take into account. So the end product is imperfect; it will not work exactly the way I intended.

In the above example, I used my knowledge of a set of system in order to further my goals. Similarly, I have a (astronomically) smaller degree of knowledge on what to expect from social systems, so I can still make predictions about how my actions will affect the system end how the system will affect me...



(Any inconsistencies are blamed on Black Velvet)

Luhmann is merely a sociologist. A system theorist. I don't know his book on the social system: politics.

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Suppose I try to build an engine. I make a lot of calculations and make blueprint that should bahave in a certain way. But my tools and my measurement systems will alway be, in some degree, imperfect. There will also be things that I have failed to take into account. So the end product is imperfect; it will not work exactly the way I intended.

I quite like Richard Dawkins: "Climbing Mount Improbable". To explain the evolution of a in this case living system:

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The main metaphorical treatment is of a geographical landscape, upon which evolution can only ascend in a gradual way, not being able to climb cliffs (this is known as an adaptive landscape). In the book Dawkins gives ideas about a seemingly complex mechanism coming about from many gradual steps that were previously unseen.

Laconian wrote:

N. to my understanding was more of a mystic than an employer of hermeticism. Except of course for his concept of eternal recurrence. (That I didn't understand to be honest...Is it like rebirth? Like karma, that determines rebirth?)

The way I understood it was that it was a test.
To not be dismayed by the prospect of living your life over and over again would be a clear indication of your love of self, and of the world that made it possible.

Whether he intended it to be so of little importance to me.

The idea of recurrence, if we take it as some Hindu reference leads to a denouncement: to never be born again.
Hinduism shows its own underlying nihilism here.
There are no “major”, popular, religions in our time which are not nihilistic, because it is this nihilism that makes them popular.
The spirituality of the masses has always had to be one of self-recrimination and self-denouncement.

Recurrence, as an idea, is nonsensical.
Even if it were fact – though by proving it so one destroys its premise – then it is useless.
Nothing is changed and no memory is retained…so it does not matter.

But more so, when one sees that identity is a product of memory (genes being codified memory - experience, nurturing) then if recurrence remains true to itself then there is no retention of identity and so the concept “recurrence” loses its meaning.

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I'm not sure about you, guys, but this is my planet.

And I respect that!

Social systems work on the will of people. They too are autopoetic systems. That's the fun part. If you go vote, you keep the system politics "alive". If you consume, you keep the system economy going. If you stop, these systems stop too.

In Germany for example, the largest group among the population are the non-voters. If democracy is majority rule. Do we then still live in a Democracy? Other forms of regulations replace the old forms of politics. The majority doesn't want to be taken advantage of by sell out politicians anymore. So the old systems go away. They change. Even if the media still celebrates them as the only alternative.